Category: Family History

  • The Cromar-Robb line I: progress and methods

    The Cromar-Robb line I: progress and methods

    And to think this is still a work in progress as of this writing: the Cromar-Robb Hypothesis tree under construction. With 7 out of 9 generations finished, it may only be about 50% complete. Note the impossibly dense parent-child linkages in a tree of this magnitude, as well as the consistent generational growth pattern seen…

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  • Ann Meston (1802-1883): providing further insight into families allied with the Cromars

    Ann Meston (1802-1883): providing further insight into families allied with the Cromars

    It’s been over two months since I promised here and here to take a deeper look at Ann Meston, one of the farming wives of the Cromar men along my patrilineal line. I feel a bit guilty, as I had been on quite a roll, working back up the time ladder from Janet Bonar, wife…

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  • Ron Cromar and me

    Ron Cromar and me

    I’m hazarding a guess that Ron Cromar passed away around 2016 or not long thereafter, based on the dates of internet accounts and chatroom activity that I’ve run across in my research. In the 2012 article accompanying the picture above, it mentions that he was living and working in Banchory, well east of Aboyne but…

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  • Ann Cromar redux — or reconsidered?

    Ann Cromar redux — or reconsidered?

    A surprise revision It has been nearly a month since the post where I promised to continue my exploration of the wives of the Cromar men, moving forward in time up my direct patrilineal line. The next ancestor promised was to be Ann Cromar, wife of John Cromar, who had been briefly and abstractly discussed…

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  • Cromars in the Scottish Postal Directories

    Cromars in the Scottish Postal Directories

    “Improvements” changing livelihoods In our exploration of the Jacobite period and its aftermath, we’ve run across many historical descriptions of life in rural Scotland and the nature of farm life. Many sources describe the hardships of subsistence agriculture, which as recounted are hard enough without any other encumbrances. But imagine that life overlaid with an…

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  • Jannet, Margaret, and Isobel untangle the post-Jacobite Roberts

    Jannet, Margaret, and Isobel untangle the post-Jacobite Roberts

    In our post Jannet Dun or Janet Dunn or Janet Dune, c. 1720-1770?, we discovered previously unknown sources that provide potential new insights as to the makeup of the Cromar’s family and origins, and I promised a post that would revisit the thorny problem of the many Roberts that we have never conclusively solved. Not…

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