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Janet Bonar, c. 1695-1789?
AUTHOR’S NOTE: New information and research has invalidated conclusions about Janet’s origins detailed in the following post. You may read about this development at Bonars in the 1696 Poll Book: a deeper understanding of Janet’s origins? Because this journal is about the real-time process of researching and developing a family history hypothesis, and not the hypothesis itself, I have…
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The Janets, Dun and Bonar: on wives of the Jacobite period and gender bias in genealogy
I’ve mentioned how the family historian Martin Robb has inspired this journal. He and I have corresponded about the possible association we may have as cousins-X-times-removed through my patrilineal great-grandmother Christiana Berry Robb, and I can only hope my writing is a fraction as insightful as his in my investigations in future posts. Using family…
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Happy Birthday, Dad!
This blog has been about my patrilineal ancestry, but I haven’t written much about my grandfather or father. Perhaps because I know them firsthand, and all the other people I’ve written about have been almost like fictional characters I’ve had to develop a world and backstory for. I don’t know if I’ve done good research…
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Peter Cromar — or MacDonald of Glencoe?
A divided nation At this moment of turbulence in 2021, we Americans think of ourselves as a divided nation. For us, divisive tendencies date back to debates about slavery that animated fateful compromises in our founding documents two and a quarter centuries ago. But frankly, we are absolute amateurs at this: we’ve got nothing on…
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Robert vs. Robert vs. Robert Cromar and Jannet Dun: turmoil in Scotland
AUTHOR’S NOTE: New information and research has invalidated certain conclusions about the identity of John Cromar in this post. You may read about this development at Ann Cromar redux — or reconsidered? and at Ron Cromar and me. Because this journal is about the real-time process of researching and developing a family history hypothesis, and not the hypothesis itself, I have decided to…
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All the Johns and Anns: the case for the parents of George Cromar 1792-1871
AUTHOR’S NOTE: New information and research has invalidated many of the conclusions detailed in the following post. You may read about this development at Ann Cromar redux — or reconsidered? and at Ron Cromar and me. Because this journal is about the real-time process of researching and developing a family history hypothesis, and not the hypothesis itself,…
