The Bowes-Lyons

After the 1715 revolution, Are any Lyons known to have come to America?

My surname is Lyon and we like to think we are related to the aristocratic Lyons!

The original royal link is indeed through Robert II. His chamberlain (finance minister in Scotland), Sir John Lyon, married the king's eldest daughter, Jean Stewart, in 1372 as her second husband. They produced one son, another John, from whom the Lyons of Glamis are descended. Sir John Lyon's origins are unclear. He seems to have been the first of the name. However, www.baronage.co.uk has made the interesting suggestion on the basis of his coat of arms (argent, a lion rampart azure, overall a riband gules) that in an age when surnames were fluid he was a Bruce who changed his name. The arms of the English branch of the Bruces were argent, a lion rampant azure, and, it is argued, no one in those days would adopt a coat of arms to which he was not entitled by blood, particularly when a Bruce occupied the throne (David II 1329-71). A later Lyon duly became Lord Glamis, and in due course his descendants became successively Earls of Kinghorn and then Strathmore.

Where my rather modest Liverpudlian ancestors fit in I don't know!

Ann

Ann, that is fascinating.

My family have certainly been persons of modest means in Liverpool since the end of the 18th century. Whether we have any connection with the aristocratic Lyons I don't know, but someone researching Y-chromosome DNA used people called Sykes as his experimental group, and concluded that they were all descended from a common males ancestor living in the 13th century. Sykes is about as common a surname as Lyon, so who know?

Ann Elizabeth Lyon

I am not so interested in DNA tests.

I was just thinking, if the Lyons went broke and became Bowes-Lyons in 1715, Maybe a younger son or cousin might have been ordered to America for the free land?  Or, fled for his life?  If so, there should be historical records.

In any even, an entire century seperates my family's Lyons from this magic date of 1715, and it is highly unlikely we will ever be able to recross the Atlantic in our researches.

I hope your research works out for you (I hear almost all Lyons are related and form a Clan.)