Moon genealogy; Moon Guard (UK: Royal Family security guard?)

I am looking for information on the providers, both current and historic
but especially between 1500 and 1810, of security for the British Royal
Family. My wife's ancestors include a Joseph Moon (b 1812/[Manea?],
Cambridgeshire, UK, d 1893/Wisconsin, USA), his wife Sarah Richards (b
1815 [no birthplace data], d 1880/Wisconsin), and their son William (b
1820/[Manea?], Cambridgeshire, UK, d [no date available at
present]/Wisconsin, USA). What we have on Joseph's parents is pretty

caroline.bradford...

I think you may have your dates wrong here. There is no way that the son
could have been born when the parents were aged c. 8 and 5 years old. There
is a family in the 1851 census which looks like yours, with a son born c.
1843 (much more like it).

sketchy at best (!!): we think that he was born and died in
Cambridgeshire, possibly in or near the town of Manea, but we have
nothing more.

We are told that his ancestors include a member of a guard unit charged
with the security of the Royal Family; this unit, supposedly, was named
the Moon Guard and personnel assigned to it may have been resruited

CWatters...

No results for "Moon Guard" at the National Archive or Access 2 Archives.

abroad, possibly in either Denmark or Norway, maybe even Sweden. Upon
retirement, he may have been given a parcel of land in the vicinity of
Manea as part of his pension.

caroline.bradford...

I'm afraid that there is no such thing as the "Moon Guard", nor any regiment
which matches this description. The detachment of the British Army
specifically charged with the personal protection of the monarch is known as
the Household Division. It is made up of the Life Guards, the Blues and
Royals and five regiments of foot guards. The Life Guards oldest of these
regiments and was originally formed in Bruges (Belgium) in 1658 as His
Majesty's Own Troop of Horse Guards. The "Majesty" in question was the man
who became King Charles II in 1660. In 1658 he was still in exile and the
Troop was a small contingent of (mainly) English gentlemen loyal to the
monarchy.

I fear you have fallen prey to what should be described more as a "family
joke" than a family legend (and even family legends should be taken with a
large pinch of salt in most cases). If you really want to find out about
this family, then you need to do your research in a straight line. Start
with what you actually know, and can verify with documented sources. Move
backwards one generation at a time, finding out as much background as you
can on each individual. Assume nothing and rely only on original sources
(i.e. not indexes or other people's research). Such a project will take
many years (especially at a distance) and will prove costly in time, money
and effort, but the results will be worthwhile because they will be the
truth.

Best wishes

Caroline

roy...

Not just odd but downright hilarious! Whoever foisted this
piece of family folklore on the OP must have been at the moonshine or
invented it under the influence of the full moon.

CWatters...

Moon Guard = Night watch?

Roy Stockdill

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,
and that is not being talked about."

Oscar Wilde

Eve McLaughlin...

Sounds rather odd. The ceremonial guard for various royal palaces were
sprovided mainly by the various Guards' regiments. Although there were
a number of German recruits in the Army (after all, the monarchs came
from Hanover not so far back), Scandinavians seem highly unlikely. The
was the King's German Legion, but they did not normally do guard duty.
It also sounds very unlikely that a detachment of the Guard would be
named after a person and certainly not an ordinary solider or even an
ordinary officer. 'The Moon Guard' sounds like someone's invention.
The Guards regts, which must appear in web-search, should be under
The Life Guards Royal Horse Guards The Scots Guards. Irish Guards,
Welch Guards or under the general 'Brigade of Guards'.

What I would like to find is information on the history of this Royal
guard. I have looked at the British Monarchy's website and that of the
Royal Archive, but either there is nothing at euther site on this
subject or it is not accessible to the novice that I am and would take
someone who knows the intricacies of these particular websites far
better than I do to find the information for which I am searching. If
anyone has any hints on searching them or on where or how I should
search, these leads would be deeply appreciated. Is the information
even on either of these sites to begin with or is it somewhere else? I
should also note that a web search resulted in so many hits on
fantasy fiction and magic (instead of hard data on the Moon Guard) that
I gave up on the idea of using web-search to find what I want.

Thank you all for whatever hints and leads you feel comfortable sharing.

Pierre A Plauzoles
sphinxangelorum@uclalumni.net

The Purple Monster...

Many of the records for the area are available for purchase and are not
very expensive (follow the links from the genuki page).

There's also a great little history of Manea at

I also think someone is perhaps "misguided" over the Moon Guard - I have
a number of bits of wishful thinking in my family tree (eg a ladies maid
who unfortunately keeps being described as a "lady in waiting" - sigh)
and I think these get even worse when a family has migrated and the
context becomes lost - sort of like an
multigenerational/cross-continental game of Chinese Whispers!

I suspect that Jeff might be right and that somewhere along the way
there was some connection with the Walloons and this has been translated
into Moon by someone for whom the Walloons had no meaning and/or
context. This translation made sense to them because it linked to their
own name.