I received an interesting message from Jessica McDonald in Canada a couple of weeks ago, detailing an analysis she and her mother Wendy Cromar Mathers had performed on the List of Pollable Persons Within the Shire of Aberdeen 1696, presented in Volume 1 and Volume 2. This important record is available free of charge at Google Books as a set of downloadable PDF documents, and the second volume is also at the Internet Archive. While the original purpose for the record — to list the population subject to an unpopular poll tax — was as dry as day-old toast, the data collected therein is a rich tapestry of interest to historians, social scientists, and, of course, genealogical researchers.

One Alexander Bonner (variant of Bonar or Bonnar, as the casual orthography of of the day renders this surname), listed at the very top of this page in the List of Pollable Persons Within the Shire of Aberdeen 1696, Volume Second

Rethinking Janet

I’m embarrassed to admit now that I have been long aware of the record, but somehow failed to effectively utilize it as a resource of note. Given the year of its creation, you’d think I would have pounced on this primary source like a lion. To their credit and my undying admiration, my Canadian cousins have done so, and the research they shared with me was intriguing enough to reopen the case of Janet Bonar, the documented wife of Peter Cromar 1690 and my sixth great-grandmother. Readers of this journal remember the hypothesis I developed, based strictly on circumstantial evidence, that she may have had origins in Kildrummy.

Before I share their findings, I thought it interesting to note that the etymology of the surname Bonar reveals variants such as Bonner, Bonnar, Boner, and so on. This is helpful when reading the Poll Book, because orthography was not a settled affair at the time. The spellings of names and words vary greatly, even on the same folio page in the record!

Etymology

I also thought it personally interesting that Bonar has origins as a name referencing the occupation of midwifery, as my wife is herself a midwife by profession. So, as we did with the name Cromar, and without further ado, we learn the following:

BONAR Scottish: variant of Bonner . Irish (Donegal): Scottish name adopted as a translation of Gaelic Ó Cnáimhsighe ‘descendant of Cnáimhseach’ a byname meaning ‘midwife’. This word seems to be a derivative of cnámh ‘bone’ (with the feminine ending -seach) but if so the reason for this is not clear. Polish: from German Bohner or Boner ‘bean grower’.

BONNER English: from Middle English boner(e) bonour ‘gentle courteous’ (Old French bonnaire shortened from debonnaire). This surname is also common in Ireland where it was adopted for Ó Cnáimhsighe see Bonar Welsh: Anglicized form of Welsh ap Ynyr ‘son of Ynyr’ a common medieval personal name derived from Latin Honorius with fused patronymic marker (a)p normally voiced before a vowel. German (also Bönner): from a short form of the ancient Germanic personal name Bonhard formed with the element bon ‘request petition’ (compare Latin bonus). This surname is also found in Sweden. German: habitational name for someone from Bonn on the Rhine.

BONNAR Scottish and northern Irish (Donegal): variant of Bonner .

BONER Scottish English Welsh and Irish (Donegal): variant of Bonner or Bonar . German: occupational name for a grower of beans from Middle High German bōne ‘bean’ + the agent suffix -er. Compare Bohner . Swedish (Bonér): ornamental name from bo ‘farm dwelling’ + the suffix -nér.

Patrick Hanks, Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition

Bonar and variants in the Poll Book

Armed with the orthographic variations in the etymology, Jessica and Wendy have discovered the following in both editions of the Poll Book:

Poll Book Entries, Volume 1

Page	Location	Name	Notes
408	Muire, Alford	Boner, Alexander	Tenant, and Jean Tough, his wife
439	Ley, Cushney	Bonner, Alexander	Tenant and wife
450	Walkmilne, Forbes	Bonner, James	Tenant
452	Scotsmilne, Forbes	Bonner, Adam	Cottar, no trade, and his wife, Margaret Cruikshank
460, 461	Newtoune, Keige	Bonner, William	and his wife, Christian Leslie
476, 478	Bulquharne, Tillinessell	Bonnar, George	Tenant, widow (assume widower?), children Alexander and Marjorie
480	Fulford, Tillinessell	Bonnar, William	Grassman, and wife Jannet Patton
502	Mackerhaugh, Kildrumey	Bonner, Elspet	Wife of James Couper, Cottar

Poll Book Entries, Volume 2

Page	Location	Name	Notes
132	Wastertoun of Auchleuchries, Cruden	Bonner, Alexander	Subtenant and tailor, and his wife, Marjorie Craik
241	Watertown, Ellon	Bonner, James	Subtenant
254	Ardlethen, Ellon	Bonner, Elizabeth
254	Ardlethen, Ellon	Boner, Issobell
258	Turnerhalls, Ellon	Boner, John	Tenant
548	Broombray, Newmachar	Bonner, James	and his wife and daughters
630	Toune and Freedom of Aberdeen	Bonner, Jean	Servant to Alexander Strachans

As a list it’s useful, but I’m a visual person and I always think patterns reveal themselves with more clarity on a map. So with the assistance of historical maps at Genuki and the National Library of Scotland, I was able to recover place names that have been obscured by time and provide an accurate mapping of the data above:

Among the interesting patterns found, it seems evident that Volume 1 focuses on the west of the shire, while Volume 2 describes the east. But more pertinent to the analysis of Bonar, it’s pretty clear these cluster in communities, one centered on Alford north of Aboyne and the Howe of Cromar, and another in Aberdeen and north, particularly Ellon.

So, what can this tell us about Janet? By itself, this data has little new insight to offer: she is nowhere to be found, and may not have even been born yet, for all we know. But if we rub this up against other data, such as the Old Parish Records (OPR), we might find something really interesting.

Testing the Adame Bonner hypothesis

In the post Janet Bonar, c. 1695-1789?, we claimed a hypothetical lineage for Janet Bonar that places her in or near Kildrummy as a possible daughter to Adame Bonner and Margret Thomson born about 1695, an unsubstantiated date offered at FamilySearch. Ron Cromar, in his descendancy study, had claimed (with no documentation I’m aware of) a date of 1696 in Kincardine O’Neil, and no parentage listed. So does a hypothesis of Adame and Margret hold water?

Certainly, it’s a better hypothesis than many researchers who have made claims based on isolated OPR birth records for Janets documented in Dunfermline, Clackmannan, Gretna, or Dumbarton. In particular, the geographically unlikely claim of Laurence Bonnar as father of Janet Bonnar, born 21 Jun 1696 in Forgandenny, Perthshire, persists like a bad penny as an Ancestry hint for our Janet. While we’re at it, let’s add hypothetical parental marriage records in Clackmannan and Torryburn or death records in Edinburgh to that list of of suspicious, isolated clues.

Comparing OPR data

Skepticism aside, the systematic listing of all Bonars that my Canadian cousins did for the Poll Book suggests that we can do the same for the OPR, to obtain a like-kind pattern in a map. Perhaps, if within both sets of data we found instances of Adam or Adame, married to Margret or Margaret, and in turn found those to be geographically plausible, we could affirm or debunk the Adame Bonner hypothesis.

So, I spent a tedious amount of time doing exactly that kind of data collection at ScotlandsPeople’s OPR lists.

My methodology

• Identify potential parent identities for Janet by birth record (1630-1680), marriage record (1650-1700), and death record (1695-1780). Those start and end dates are extreme outliers for each category for sure.
• For the purposes of plausibility, segregate these records by historical shire, assuming Aberdeenshire to be the most likely; adjacent shires of Angus, Kincardine, Perth, Banff, Inverness, Moray, and Nairn, along with cities of Aberdeen and Dundee, to be less likely but plausible; farther out to north and west Argyll, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness, Orkney, Shetland as less likely; same for those to the south such as Fife, Stirling, Lanark, Midlothian, Kinross, Clackmannan, Dunbarton, Renfrew, West Lothian, and, East Lothian, including cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, being less likely; and shires toward the border including Berwick, Roxburgh, Selkirk, Peebles, Dumfries, Ayr, Kircudbright, and Wigtown as improbable.
• Instead of pinpointing individual records with icons on the map, which would have led to less legibility, I took the “center of gravity” between all instances of a record within one shire and placed an icon thusly. It’s a lower resolution result, but adequate for this study. For example, in Aberdeenshire, if I had an instance of a record in Ellon and another in Kincardine O’Neil, I placed an icon between those sites.

Mapping the data

The data that supports the resulting map is listed as a footnote to this post:

The results are super-interesting. The bias for the surname is toward Scotland’s Central Belt, lending a bit more credence to a southern hypothesis. But there is a strong showing in Aberdeen and environs, with a pattern that’s nearly a straight shot from Glasgow heading upward north and east to the area around Ellon. There are NO instances of Bonar or variants in the Northwest Highlands, nor along the Scottish Borders. It is a very geographically compact surname (though I hasten to caution this could be a false pattern, the result of selective record-keeping and/or loss of records from the time).

Having done all that, I’m still convinced that an Aberdeenshire origin for Janet is still the most likely. There is a large cohort in and around Aberdeen and nearby shires that supports this hypothesis. What is disappointing, though, is my discovery that the instances of Adams and variants are 1) not plentiful enough to capture a sense of a migratory pattern for this potential family, and 2) not supportive of Margret or variants as a consistent spousal identity. All the Adams are all over the place, with a gaggle of different spouses where they can be identified.

Adam(e) vs Alexander

So, we’ll look for other kinds of patterns in comparing these datasets. I won’t detail every investigation I performed, but I will focus on one that I found to be quite intriguing.

In the OPR Death and Burial records, I came across this listing:

BONAR

ALEXANDER

—–



M

04/03/1716

209

10 / 449

KINCARDINE O’NEIL

Could we find his birth? OPR offers only this unlikely breadcrumb far to the north and east:

BONAR

ALEXANDER

JON. BONAR/

M

30/06/1645

192

10 / 50

ELLON

Marriages? There are marriages in Falkirk, Edinburgh, Logie, and Dumfries — all geographically unlikely, and none that would plausibly lead to a 90’s birth for Janet.

Nevertheless, look again at that birth record. Sharp readers will recall that in 1716 at Kincardine O’Neil, Janet Bonar is documented marrying Peter Cromar. So is this simply a coincidence, or can a familial relationship be posited between Janet and this Alexander? We’ll want to look at other records to see if that can be substantiated at all.

In the Poll Book, several Alexanders are found in 1696 residing to the north of Kincardine O’Neil. One Alexander lives with an unnamed wife in Ley, Cushnie, while another, under the variant Boner, is found with wife Jean Tough in Muire, Alford. A third Alexander is found farther north in Westerton, Auchleuchries, Cruden, with wife Marjorie Craik. If proximity matters, Alford and Cushnie are both better bets. So, with only the Alford Alexander showing a spouse, let’s explore that relationship in the OPR.

A coincidence?

To my amazement, a Jean Tough is seen passing away on 15 Feb 1719 in Kincardine O’Neil. Could Alexander Bonar and Jean Tough passing away in Kinker be a pair, the same one found in 1696 near Alford? Unfortunately, no marriage record anywhere in the OPR leaves a breadcrumb. But how many Alexander Bonar/Jean Tough pairings by geographic circumstance are likely to occur?

Conclusion

I believe this provides enough evidence to create a new and more certain hypothesis for the origin of Janet Bonar:

• It is less certain that Adame Bonner and Margret Thomsen of Kildrummy are parents to Janet.
• It is more likely that Alexander Boner/Bonar and Jean Tough are parents to Janet Bonar.
• It is also possible this pair are grandparents to Janet, given her marriage date and their death dates, leaving the parents still unknown.
• Was Janet born in 1696 as asserted by Ron Cromar? If yes, it’s possible she’s born in Muire, Alford. If afterward, she’s possibly born in Kincardine O’Neil.

Am I confident enough to encode this in the descendancy study? Well, let’s just say I think it throws enough doubt on my previous hypothesis to jettison it in favor of this new one. More research, as the old saying goes, may be needed.

---

Appendix: Data for Bonars of Scotland

To make the map for Bonars of Scotland above, I used this analysis of Old Parish Record data as found at ScotlandsPeople website. All the relevant Bonars and variants are listed using the methodology described above:

Births and Baptisms 1630-1680

• Aberdeenshire: 4: 1641-52 Aberdeen, Ellon
• Aberdeen City: 1: 1652
• Angus: 12: 1639-71 Dundee, Montrose
• Kincardine: 5: 1675-79 Nigg (south of Aberdeen)
• Perthshire: 11: 1642-80 Dunbarney, Kinnoul, Perth
• Dundee City: 3: 1648-54
• Banff, Inverness, Moray, Nairn: 0

Farther out, to north and west:

• Argyll, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness, Orkney, Shetland : 0

Farther out, to south and central belt:

• Fife: 12: 1631-74 Ceres, Dunfermline, Elie, Kinghorn, St Andrews, Torryburn
• Stirling: 1: 1669 Falkirk
• Glasgow City: 1: 1660
• Lanark: 3: 1653-60: Hamilton, Glasgow
• Midlothian: 16: 1631-79: Edinburgh, Inveresk, Leith South, Newton, St Cuthbert’s
• Edinburgh City: 14: 1637-78
• Kinross, Clackmannan, Dunbarton, Renfrew, West Lothian, East Lothian: 0

Farthest south and borders:

• Berwick, Roxburgh, Selkirk, Peebles, Dumfries, Ayr, Kircudbright, Wigtown: 0

Banns and Marriages 1650-1700

• Aberdeenshire: 6: 1654-87 Ellon, Kildrummy (this includes Adame Bonner and Margret Thomson)
• Angus: 3: 1650-99 Dundee, Montrose
• Kincardine: 2: 1696-99 Fordoun, Banchory/Ternan
• Perthshire: 16: 1654-98 Auchterarder, Culross, Dunbarney, Dunblane, Errol, Fowlis Wester, Kinnoul, Logie, Perth, Scone
• Dundee City: 1 1650
• Aberdeen City, Banff, Inverness, Moray, Nairn: 0

Farther out, to north and west:

• Argyll, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness, Orkney, Shetland : 0

Farther out, to south and central belt:

• Fife: 18: 1650-99 Colessie, Dunfermline, Elie, Kilconquhar, Monimal, St Andrews, Torryburn, Wemyss
• Stirling: 2 : 1658-76 Falkirk
• Lanark: 2: 1653-60 Lanark, Hamilton
• Midlothian: 14: 1653-91 Edinburgh, Canongate, Duddingston (Edinburgh City is counted here)
• Glasgow City, Kinross, Clackmannan, Dunbarton, Renfrew, West Lothian, East Lothian: 0

Farthest south and borders:

• Berwick, Roxburgh, Selkirk, Peebles, Dumfries, Ayr, Kircudbright, Wigtown: 0

Deaths and Burials 1695-1780

• Aberdeenshire: 25: 1709-1779 Cruden, Ellon, Kincardine O’Neil, Methlick, Old Deer, Old Machar, Strichen (includes Aberdeen City)
• Angus: 1: 1697 Glamis
• Perthshire: 6: 1700-69 Aberdalgie, Arngask, Logie
• Kincardine, Dundee City, Banff, Inverness, Moray, Nairn: 0

Farther out, to north and west:

• Argyll, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness, Orkney, Shetland : 0

Farther out, to south and central belt:

• Fife: 39: 1697-1774 Ceres, Cupar, Dalgetty, Dunfermline, Dunino, Dysart, Leslie, Monimal, St Andrews, Strathmiglo, Torryburn, Tulliallan, Wemyss
• Stirling: 3: 1745-64 Alva, Stirling
• Lanark: 29: 1718-71 Glasgow (includes Glasgow City)
• Midlothian: 117: 1695-1779 Edinburgh, Canongate, Carrington, Cockpen, Colinton, Dalkeith, Leith South, Liberton (includes Edinburgh City)
• West Lothian: 4: 1703-72 Bo’ness, Linlithgow
• Kinross, Clackmannan, Dunbarton, Renfrew, East Lothian: 0

Farthest south and borders:

• Berwick: 11: 1711-57 Coldingham
• Roxburgh: 2: 1769-70 Ancrum, Hawick
• Dumfries: 2: 1719-24 Dumfries
• Selkirk, Peebles, Ayr, Kircudbright, Wigtown: 0