The surname Melros was first found in Roxburghshire in Melrose, a market-town and parish, and anciently a burgh of barony where "in the common speech of the district the place name is pronounced Meeros or Meuwress." 1
"This place derived its ancient name, Mullross, of which its present is only a slight modification, from the Gaelic words Mull or Moel, bare, and Ross, a promontory, descriptive of its position on a peninsula formed by the river Tweed, and which at that remote period was literally a barren and rugged rock. In the beginning of the 7th century, a society of Culdees established themselves here from Iona, and a monastery was founded on a commodious site, which is now, in contradistinction to the present town, called Old Melrose." 2
In Melrose Abbey "according to the best historians, was deposited the heart of the great king Robert Bruce, after an unsuccessful attempt to carry it to the Holy Land; the body having been interred in the abbey of Dunfermline." 2
Some of the early records of the family include: "William Melros, a native of Scotland, [who] had licence to enjoy any benefice in England under the dignity of a deanery in 1468. David Melros held a land in Edinburgh in 1531." 1
George Melrose was the last surviving son of John Melrose of Balerno, Scotland who both left Scotland aboard the Palmyra in the 19th century. George married Euphemia Thomson (1829-1887), daughter of John Thomson originally of Kirkaldy, Scotland in 1847 and their six children were the progenitors of the famous Australian Melrose family.
