Cromarbaile is the successor site to Cromarville, founded in May 2021 to document travel and research activities into the origins of my family in Scotland. We “emigrated” from our old website in May 2023.
If you’re new in town, visit About, then visit the Directory to peruse posts in three categories: Family History + Genealogy, Data Visualization, or Travel + Study Abroad.
If you’ve been here before, welcome back! Search for particular people or topics at Search Cromarbaile in the footer.
Why did we emigrate to Cromarbaile?
If you’ve ever moved a website or rebranded something, you know it can be perilous — like emigrating to a new land! You need some compelling reasons to do so, and I had plenty:
- My uni is shutting down a server and domain that I use to host a lot of content, including the gigantic Cromar-Robb database. Like the Clearances forcing my ancestors to vacate their land, this was forced upon us without our advice or consent. There’s a big agricultural college there, so I suppose they need someplace to graze the sheep.
- Just as the Industrial Revolution forced my ancestors into new occupations, so too are advances in technology making my old scattered-to-the-winds web presence ineffective. So I’ve moved everything to one host under one domain for better control. I’m a front-end HTML/CSS/JS coder, so this forced me to make my peace with PHP, MySQL and other back-end management tools.
- The limited opportunities of the Long Depression held my ancestors back, and in like manner, the limited capabilities of a WordPress.com site was holding the old site back. Among other things, I hated: the cranky media embeds, a lack of plug-in capacity, and those annoying ads! Since the uni is forcing me to pay for a server, I may as well take advantage.
- Just as my forebears honored their roots, I wanted the site name to better reflect my heritage. The Scots Gaelic suffix -baile (pronounced bil-luh) replaces the old -ville in my branding. I had naively chosen Cromarville before I understood the power of etymology. So, welcome to Cromarbaile now!
- And just as they hoped for a new beginning and better opportunity, I’m hoping the cleaner design, better navigation, richer support for multimedia, and absence of advertising will make this emigration worthwhile, both for my research and for my readers.
Looking back at the old country
Cromarville was a great learning experience for me as a web developer, and it succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Which is why we are here now! But with something new comes loss, and what I feared was the loss of data documenting the use of Cromarville for the 2 years it was active. So for the record, here’s Cromarville by the numbers:
All-time statistics
| Views | 2,293 |
| Visitors | 760 |
| Posts | 61 |
| Comments | 20 |
| Best day | Sunday: 24% of views |
| Best hour | 5:00 PM: 9% of views |
Not bad for a little boutique blog!
All-time annual insights
| Year | Total posts | Total comments | Avg comments per post | Total likes | Avg likes per post | Total words | Avg words per post |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 25 | 2 | 0.1 | 75 | 3.0 | 61,410 | 2,456 |
| 2022 | 24 | 10 | 0.4 | 32 | 1.3 | 46,635 | 1,943 |
| 2023 | 12 | 1 | 0.1 | 11 | 0.9 | 33,361 | 2,780 |
So just for the record, I wrote 141,406 words at Cromarville. This is the equivalent of a 471 page book, assuming about 300 words per page!
Overall visits May 2021 – April 2023
| Home (postings) | 973 |
| About | 184 |
| Research | 162 |
| Kirkton of Aboyne burial ground: a Rosetta Stone for Cromar mysteries | 143 |
| Post Directory | 74 |
| Charles Robb Cromar, Jr. | 10-22-37 — 10-23-22 | 54 |
| Home | 46 |
| Mystery in the Howe of Cromar | 34 |
| Symbology | 33 |
| Competing theories on the “How of Cromar” | 31 |
| Mapping | 29 |
| Peter Cromar — or MacDonald of Glencoe? | 23 |
| A deeper Cromar dive: the path from John to Peter | 23 |
| More on Thuddie and Teenie: Insights from my Father | 20 |
| Theodore James Cromar 1868-1930 | 19 |
| Etymology | 17 |
| “New information on Kirkton of Aboyne” | 17 |
| John Cromar and Ann George: rebels who broke free | 15 |
| The Backstory | 13 |
| Bonars in the 1696 Poll Book: a deeper understanding of Janet’s origins? | 13 |
| Robert vs. Robert vs. Robert Cromar and Jannet Dun: turmoil in Scotland | 12 |
| Ron Cromar and me | 10 |
| Peter Cromar 1690: parallel universes | 10 |
| Scotland: Day 8: Stirlingshire and the Trossachs | 10 |
| The Janets, Dun and Bonar: on wives of the Jacobite period and gender bias in genealogy | 10 |
| Migrations II: first forays out from Aboyne | 9 |
| Janet Bonar, c. 1695-1789? | 9 |
| George Cromar and Ann Meston: tragedies and mysteries | 9 |
| Cromars in the Scottish Postal Directories | 8 |
| Thuddie and Teenie in the New World | 8 |
| From Glencoe to Aboyne III: a virtual 17th century migration | 8 |
| Did the Cromars and Georges almost kill Tomnaverie Stone Circle? | 8 |
| Scotland: Day 5: Dundee: Debut at Being Human Festival | 8 |
| Scotland: Day 4: Dundee: Dreich disasters still can’t spoil a good time | 7 |
| Jannet, Margaret, and Isobel untangle the post-Jacobite Roberts | 7 |
| Digitizing data from the 1696 Aberdeenshire Poll Book | 6 |
| Scotland: Day 6: Aberdeenshire: Miracles by the Dee | 6 |
| Welcome to Cromarville! | 6 |
| Peter Cromar 1690 descendancy study is complete! | 6 |
| Christiana Berry Robb 1867-1960 | 6 |
| Kirkton of Aboyne and Environs in 1696: a new old map | 6 |
| From Glencoe to Aboyne II: surviving the 17th century Highlands | 5 |
| Scotland: Day 1 and 2: Dundee: Delay… | 5 |
| Mapping 1696: Cromars and Robbs in the Poll Book | 5 |
| Refining the itinerary for Aberdeenshire | 5 |
| Off to Scotland | 4 |
| Genealogical data and visual design I: metaphors in visualization | 4 |
| Jannet Dun or Janet Dunn or Janet Dune, c. 1720-1770? | 4 |
| Happy Birthday, Dad! | 4 |
| All the Johns and Anns: the case for the parents of George Cromar 1792-1871 | 4 |
| The pros and cons of the “one big tree” | 3 |
| From Glencoe to Aboyne I: reversing the riddle | 3 |
| Scotland: Day 9 and 10: Edinburgh: Beannachd leat Alba | 3 |
| Scotland: Day 7: Edinburgh: A Royal Mile Immersion | 3 |
| Genealogical data and visual design II: mixing metaphors | 3 |
| Ann Cromar redux — or reconsidered? | 3 |
| We are Emigrating! | 2 |
| The Cromar-Robb line III: toponymies, diminutives and one-name studies | 2 |
| The Cromar-Robb line I: progress and methods | 2 |
| The Cromar-Robb line IV: allies and associates in the Scottish Diaspora | 2 |
| Ann Meston (1802-1883): providing further insight into families allied with the Cromars | 2 |
| Anniversaries, outreach, and progress | 1 |
| Scotland: Day 3: Dundee: Dreich but delightful | 1 |
| Migrations I: from Aboyne to the four corners of the earth | 1 |
| On returning to Scotland (again and again) | 1 |
Visitors by country
| United States | 1331 |
| United Kingdom | 742 |
| Canada | 88 |
| Australia | 56 |
| Ecuador | 14 |
| Ireland | 13 |
| New Zealand | 6 |
| France | 6 |
| Spain | 5 |
| Finland | 4 |
| South Africa | 4 |
| Sweden | 3 |
| American Samoa | 3 |
| Montenegro | 3 |
| Singapore | 2 |
| Belgium | 2 |
| India | 2 |
| Brazil | 2 |
| Germany | 2 |
| Philippines | 1 |
| Jersey | 1 |
| Isle of Man | 1 |
| Slovenia | 1 |
| Japan | 1 |
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