Musgrave family

The Musgrave family was a prominent Anglo-Scottish Border family with many descendants in the United States of America, Australia and the United Kingdom a so-called Riding or Reiver clan of Cumberland and Westmorland. The earliest record of the Musgraves is Gamel, Lord of Musgrave, noted as being "of the county of Westmorland and divers manors in county Cumberland, living in the time of King Edward the Confessor (1042-1065) predating the Norman Conquest." The Musgraves though often Wardens of the West March during the times of the Reivers and among the fourteen most notorious of the reiving clans were known locally as de’ils (devils) dozen and consisted of the following families: Armstrong, Bell, Carleton, Dacre, Elliot, Graham, Johnstone, Kerr, Maxwell, Musgrave, Nixon, Routledge,Storey and Scott.

Whether the family origin is Anglo-Saxon, Norman, or Strathclyde Briton is unclear. The family name may be derived from several etymological possibility's. The name is presumed to have been derived from Musgrave or Mewsgrave,or Musgreave "the keeper of the king's hawks, or the king's equerry." ref Possibly Hareleain Society. another possibility is Anglo Saxon Mus for mouse and Grav for mossy plain. The historian William Camden said that they gained their name from the village of Great Musgrave, where they settled, but Arthur Collins suggested that the name was a variation of the title margrave, meaning march-warden. The name is presumed to have been derived from Musgrave or Mewsgrave, "the keeper of the king's hawks, or the king's equerry." ref Possibly Hareleain Society.Yet another possibility is the Anglo Saxon Mus for mouse and Grav for mossy plain.

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