| A glance at the sidebar of this family history reveals one of the most remarkable aspects of this line of the Murray-Priors: the tradition of naming the eldest son Thomas. It started with the Prior family, with the first known Thomas Prior living in the early 1300s, as described in [[priors_in_england|]]. Some 300 years later, another Thomas Prior moved to Ireland and, with his son Thomas, established the family there - see [[priors_in_ireland_1636-c.1803]]. The most famous in the family, another [[thomas_prior_m-p_family_founder|Thomas (Tom) Prior ]], left a will which ensured the surname became Murray Prior/Murray-Prior. After that, there was a John and an Andrew Murray-Prior, then Thomas Murray-Prior, born in 1773. Since then, there has been an unbroken line of elder sons called Thomas. Perhaps as remarkable, given the past's high infant mortality, is that all those Thomases survived to reach adulthood and become a parent (though we know of one first-born son not named Thomas as he died shortly after birth.) It is a tradition that has resulted in the third Thomas Lodge M-P, and nine generations of an unbroken line of Thomas Murray-Priors. \\ | A glance at the sidebar of this family history reveals one of the most remarkable aspects of this line of the Murray-Priors: the tradition of naming the eldest son Thomas. It started with the Prior family, with the first known Thomas Prior living in the early 1300s, as described in [[priors_in_england|]]. Some 300 years later, another Thomas Prior moved to Ireland and, with his son Thomas, established the family there - see [[priors_in_ireland_1636-c.1803]]. The most famous in the family, another [[thomas_prior_m-p_family_founder|Thomas (Tom) Prior ]], left a will which ensured the surname became Murray Prior/Murray-Prior. After that, there was a John and an Andrew Murray-Prior, then Thomas Murray-Prior, born in 1773. \\ |