Category: Scotland

  • 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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  • The once and future trip

    The once and future trip

    Last January, the end was in sight. Vaccines were coming. Covid would leave. We started planning a trip in earnest that had already been postponed once due to the rise of the pandemic. Surely, we thought, in 11 months everyone will be vaccinated and we can put this nonsense behind us. Alba, here we come!…

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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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  • Jannet Dun or Janet Dunn or Janet Dune, c. 1720-1770?

    Jannet Dun or Janet Dunn or Janet Dune, c. 1720-1770?

    Cromars in the Jacobite era By the time Robert Cromar and Jannet Dun had settled down and started raising a typically large rural Scottish family, the Second Jacobite Rising may have been quelled, but the thirst for a Jacobite revolution had not been quenched, and a third revolt was to culminate in “the Forty-Five” with…

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  • The Janets, Dun and Bonar: on wives of the Jacobite period and gender bias in genealogy

    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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