Although the voyages were expensive, crowded, and difficult, those families that arrived often found greater opportunities and freedoms than they could have experienced at home. To escape the unstable social climate in England of this time, many families boarded ships for the New World with the hope of finding land, opportunity, and greater religious and political freedom.

' įor centuries the township of Lartington in the North Riding of Yorkshire belonged to the Maire family until the 16th century when it was passed by marriage to the Lawsons, of Brough. The name is spelt, in ancient deeds, de Mere, de Mare, but the more recent orthography is Mayer. Stafford, and are also found resident at Norton, in the Moors.

At an early period, the family possessed the manor of Maer, co. Edward II., and in the next reign, Peter de la Mere filled the Speaker's chair in the House of Commons. William de Mere occurs as High Sheriff of that county, temp. 'The descendants of this Norman knight occupied a prominent position in Staffordshire, in the time of the early Plantagenets. The family was listed in the Roll of Battle Abbey as companions to William the Conqueror. to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, to build and fortify a castle on his manor of Mere, and the manor has ever since been attached to the duchy of Cornwall. In 1253, permission was given by Henry III. In this case, 'the name of this place is derived from the Saxon word Mæra, signifying bounds or limits, and indicates its situation on the borders of the counties of Wilts, Somerset, and Dorset. This parish was listed in the Domesday Book, but with the current spelling of Mere. Literally, the place name means '(place at) the pool or lake,' from the Old English word 'mere.' Alternatively, the surname could have originated at Mere in Wiltshire, a market-town and parish, and the head of a union, in the hundred of Mere. The place name dates back to the Domesday Book of 1086 where it was first listed as Mera. The surname Meir was first found in Cheshire at Mere, a township, in the parish of Rosthern, union of Altrincham, hundred of Bucklow.

My life meir autobiography