A Scottish collaborator

I have a new collaborator in Scotland: a cousin whose relation to me stems from George Cromar 1735, son of Peter Cromar 1690 and younger brother to Robert 1717. She sent me an image of a map of Kirkton of Aboyne which I can say is supremely helpful for our upcoming visit to the kirkyard.

Using image editing software, I cleaned up the keystoning in the image and straightened it up for legibility. As a schematic plan, it abstracts the shape of the enclosure wall into a square. However, the adjacencies between stones appear to be quite proportionally accurate. In the plan, we see slabs as longer rectangles, vertical markers as squares, and the occasional shield-shaped marker as, well, shield shapes.

The numbers on the map are keyed to a surname distribution as follows:

A comparison with my map

Of course, my immediate reflex was to compare this map to the sleuthing I did in Kirkton of Aboyne burial ground: a Rosetta Stone for Cromar mysteries. To make my map, I had memorial images found at Find A Grave, aerial images from Canmore and Apple Maps, and a numerical list found at the Aberdeen and North-East Scotland Family History Society website. It was really an exercise in triangulation and guesswork!

So, side by side, a comparison, with my map oriented to my cousin’s image:

Save for one stone, my armchair-archaeology map mostly got it right. The outline of the old church vault can be used to orient the two maps to one another.

It turns out I’m a pretty good detective! The proportions between adjacencies are less accurate in my map, but I managed to find the dozen Cromar memorials listed on her map. There is only ONE memorial, Stone 24, that I placed incorrectly along one axis: correct column, but wrong row, we might say. Ironically, that happens to be the stone of Peter Cromar 1690.

Peter’s stone position

In my defense, I had almost no context for Peter’s flat stone. I assumed a more orderly stacking of numbers, and being certain of the placement of Stone 27 for Catherine 1791 and Stone 29 for Janet 1753, I deduced a location for Stone 24 that would have placed it more or less in latitudinal alignment with the grouping of Stones 9-11. The spacing, it turns out, is quite more idiosyncratic than that, and we find Peter’s stone latitudinally aligned with the space between Stone 37 and Stone 38, the tall Cromar stone that also mentions Peter (logically enough). In hindsight, this makes a great deal more sense. It’s a relief to know that I won’t be baffled by the ONE incorrectly deduced stone when we visit!

There are other dots we can connect here that we should have connected before. For example, we can see the numbers are not in order of burial, but in a vertical zig-zag, sometimes moving up, sometimes down, and we move from column to column. This is significant because the graves that occupy the footprint of the former kirk probably would not have been placed until after the building had been decommissioned. Because Stone 29, belonging to Janet 1753-1846, is among the earliest found within the confines of the old foundation, this would support a theory that the Aboyne and Dinnet Parish Church, built 1842, was the one that replaced the old Saint Adamnan’s Kirk. It likely was not the South United Free Church built in 1859.

Associates and allies in the burial ground

A final note of interest pertains to the relations among associate and allied families found in the kirk-yard. It should be noted that, among the dozens of families represented in memorials here, the Cromars are the most numerous, with a dozen stones memorializing over 3 dozen individuals. Following the Cromars, we find the Milne family represented by 10 stones, the Ogg family by 9, and the Gordons and Walkers with 6 each. We know the Milnes to be strong associates of the Cromars, second only to the Robbs in my direct ancestry. Other major associates and allies found in the kirk-yard include Archibald, Birse, Cameron, Christie, Gordon, Law, McCondach, McPherson, Merchant, Taylor, and Wilson — all within the top 30 associate/ally families numerically.

But with a few exceptions — only the Abel, Aitken, Arbuthnott, Burgess, Caddell, Chapman, Edward, Frain, Gauld, Jessieman, Knox, Lyal, Machray, Mason, Neil, Welsh, and Williss families never appear my database — every name in the Kirkton of Aboyne, nearly 60 families, are related by marriage or blood to a Cromar. Roughly speaking, my line is related to about 80% of the denizens of the burial ground.

This comparison suggests future study. When I visit in November, I will take some contextual photographs to help orient the stones to one another. I’m also interested in digging for the relationships that can be ascertained among all the associates and allies! And from an archaeological perspective, I’d love to create a simple animation, a time-lapse that reveals the pattern of burial over time, including the dismantling of the old kirk and the occupation of the foundation by newer graves. Perhaps even the growth of trees can be guesstimated in this as well!

Illegible stones

But the most enticing mystery of all can be found at Stone 43, which is the only rectangular slab indicated by a dashed line. In the notes that accompanied the other images from my cousin (and which in the interest of time I have not published here, yet), it states the following: “Flat stone which we uncovered but there was nothing visible.”

This stone is near Stone 39, belonging to Robert 1826 and Farquharson 1856. so it lies reasonably within the Cromar precinct of the burial ground. I cannot help but speculate, even if the stone will never reveal such a mystery: could this be a marker for an unknown Cromar, perhaps even for John, the missing father of my great-grandfather Theodore James? Or could it be a different John, father of George 1792, inferred but not directly named in George’s enigmatic inscription at Stone 36? These two Johns, respectively my second and fourth great-grandfathers, have simply haunted me by virtue of their absence from this ancestral burial ground.