Glen,
What do you know of the heritage of the Shirers in
Scotland? Most of us Shirers are descended from Swiss/Alsations or Germans. In researching some of the variations on the name though, have seen that some of the original Palitinates were brought to
England before the bulk of them were shipped to
America. Some lived around
London until the locals started complaining about losing jobs to them. The queen then sent them to Ireland and
Scotland partly to get rid of the problem in
London but also to provide a buffer against the Catholics as most of these immigrants were Lutheran or Reformed and the
English government had had problems with the Catholics for a long time so seeding the area with more Protestants seemed like a good idea.
Many of these families stayed in Great
Britain and intermarried with the
Irish and Scots. There were supposed to be some Scheurers or Scherers among them and these were the original spellings of many of the
Shirer lines. I'm just wondering if the Shirers there might be from this group. There are also
English Shires and Shearers that had been in Great
Britain for eons, probably descended from one of the earlier
Saxon invasions.