Andreas Murray was born in Memel in the Duchy of Prussia, on 9 August 1695.
[1]The Swedish patent of nobility granted to his son Gustaf Murray in 1810 acknowledged the family's descent from the Scottish House of Atholl which probably fled to Prussia for political and religious reasons during the English Civil War.
He became an associate professor in Kiel and a preacher in Haddeby (Busdorf) in Schleswig.
From his second marriage, Johann Andreas Murray (1740–1791) became a professor of Medicine and Botany at the University of Göttingen who is considered to be one of the founders of modern Pharmacology, while Gustaf Murray (1747–1825) became bishop of Västerås in 1811.
His youngest son, Adolph Murray (1751–1803) was a pupil of Carl Linnaeus and became professor of anatomy and surgery at Uppsala University.