History of the Sept of Carr
On May 13, 1607, three English ships, Discovery, Constant, and Godspeed, under the command of Captain Christopher Newport landed on the east coast of North America with 104 passengers. This group of early English settlers having landed on the shores of the continent known as America for the purpose of establishing a settlement in the new world.
Thus, Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World, was established. It was named Jamestown or “King James, His Town”, after James I King of England. The initial voyage and landing in the New World brought only men for establishing this first settlement. The women joined the men a year later. There were no Carrs’ among these early settlers of Jamestown. However, as indicated, this was an English settlement. Immigrants from Scotland and Ireland would come later.
Although the original inhabitants of Jamestown, Virginia did not include anyone with the surname Carr, and the settlement failed, a number of families with the surname Carr would settle in Virginia in the eighteenth century. The presence of families with the name Carr has been documented in the Gloucester-Middlesex-Mathews Peninsula area of Virginia. Carrs were also present in Alexandria and Northern Virginia, Central Virginia and Southwestern Virginia prior to the Revolutionary War. Among the Carr that settled in Virginia in the 1700’s were the predecessors of George Miller Carr (1822 Alabama). It is believed that George’s parents were born in Virginia around 1773 or 1774. Thus, most likely George’s grandfather that originally stepped off the boat that brought him across the Atlantic.
The name CARR is Scottish. Not Irish or English, although it is possible that some of our ancestors migrated from Ireland or England on their passage to America. The name ‘Carr’ is derived from the name KERR with ancestry from the Scottish Lowlands, and as such, those with the name Kerr or Carr are a family and not a clan. Some other spellings of the original name include Kerr, Karre, Carr and Carre. There is no Gaelic spelling for the lowland Kerrs, as these Kerr/Carrs were not Gaelic speakers.
It is believed that our Kerr/Carr ancestors were of Norman descent, having arrived with William the Conqueror. Being of Norman origin would mean that our ancestors came from Scandinavia (“Norman” means “north man” and Normandy was settled by Vikings).
The Kerrs originally settled in the Scottish Borders in the fourteenth century. Kerr is Scottish in origin, describing a person who lived near overgrown marshland. The Kerrs were among the notorious Border Reivers that raided on both sides of the Northern English border region. The Kerrs were also among those whose enforced migration in the seventeenth century brought them to Ireland and in particular to Ulster in Northern Ireland. The name Kerr was anglicized to Carr after their migration to Ireland.
In Colonial times, the term Scots-Irish was used to describe someone of Scottish descent that came to America from Ireland. Essentially, this means that someone of Scottish descent migrated from Scotland to Ireland and then migrated to America. It may also mean that the original Scottish immigrant in Ireland was several generations earlier than the generation that migrated to America. None-the-less, they were of Scottish origin.
Although some of the Kerr/Carr ancestors were Catholics, the vast majority was Protestant and comprised a portion of the Protestant faction in Northern Ireland. It is not known when the ancestors of George Miller Carr crossed the Atlantic or where they landed. But, George indicated that his father and mother were born in Virginia.
Unfortunately, George left behind no information about his parentage other than the fact that his parents were born in Virginia (census records). The name of George’s father and grandfather are not known to us making the location of reliable information near Impossible. Some researchers of this line believe that George’s mother was named Martha Miller Carr, born in Virginia in 1774. George’s middle name was Miller and it was common practice for offspring to bear their mother’s maiden name. But, there is no proof that Martha Carr’s maiden name is Miller. This may be pure speculation. There is some scant evidence that would support this contention, but, in it has been opined that Martha Carr is more likely to have been his grandmother. His mother is more likely to have been born in the 1790’s or early 1800’s. Besides, knowing his mother’s name adds little to mystery of who his father was. And, the father’s name is the key to tracing the line back farther in time.
The original immigrant Carr was most likely Scottish. He and his family, if he had one may have migrated from Ireland and would be in that class of people referred to in Colonial times as Scots-Irish. Passenger list for all ships arriving in Virginia from Scotland or Ireland need to be searched for all possible candidates and then these likely candidates need to be traced to determine their movements and the movements of their offspring. The difficulty is in the scarcity of records and the difficulty in accessing the records that are available.
From what is known, George Miller Carr’s parents appear to have left Virginia, moving first into North Carolina (possibly around 1807) and then on to the Mississippi Territory (Alabama). It is not known for sure when the Carr family moved into what would become the state of Alabama, but it wasn’t until 1805 that Indian cessions opened up the territory to white settlement. If they were in the Mississippi Territory as early as 1813 or 1814, they would have been witness to the Creek Indian War which brought Creek Warriors, fighting to regain the autonomy they had enjoyed prior to the arrival of European Americans who were seeking to open the western lands to settlement. The Indians surrendered their forces in the Treaty of Fort Jackson on August 9, 1814. The treaty opened up the Mississippi Territory for settlement and if the Carr family was in the Mississippi Territory by the year 1817, they would have witnessed the division of the Mississippi Territory which created the Alabama Territory and made the western portion of the Mississippi Territory a state; the state of Mississippi. Two years later, December 1819, Alabama became the twenty-second state in the Union of States. Perhaps statehood is what brought the Carrs’ to Alabama. The earliest we can place the family in Alabama is with the birth of George Miller Carr in 1822.