Note: Originally produced in early 2020, this map was updated in January 2023 to reflect the most current state of my research on these direct lines.

Place and time

Genealogy is as much about place as it is about time. Finding correlations among these facts dramatically increases the validity of one’s theories concerning family history. Howe of Cromar | Aberdeenshire Cromars and Robbs is a Google Map showing the life events of persons along my direct blood line who lived in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The map is constructed using data found in ScotlandsPeople, Family Search birth, census, marriage, and death documents. This is cross-correlated with rare or granular place names using historical maps found at Genuki.

The paternal line

The people in this map include the generation starting with great-grandparents on my father’s paternal line, who are the singularly Scottish line in my tree. Parents of Cromars and Robbs only are included to keep things simple. It should be noted that three people on this map emigrated to America: Theodore James Cromar, his mother Ann George, and Christiana Berry Robb, his bride-to-be in Boston. Only their life events in Scotland will be found on this map. You won’t find Theodore and Christiana’s marriage, their children, or their deaths, nor the death of Ann.

What this map reveals, among other things, is how tied to place our ancestors were in a pre-auto, pre-flight era! Only Ann George seems to indulge in wanderlust while still in Scotland. She can only do so because of the large extended family present to care for Theodore back in the Howe. While powered trains and ships encouraged mobility in her time, before the early 1800’s it was strictly horse, carriage, or foot traffic.

Historical layers

The only liability this Google Map has is the inability to display historical map layers. At Genuki, map overlays include Open Street Maps, Ordinance Survey, and ESRI Street and Satellite views for contemporary maps. It also includes historical maps for 1843-82, 1890-1910, 1886-1900, 1945-47, 1937-61, and 1955-61. Here are the different ways these maps display the Howe of Cromar, with each map centered on the town of Tarland:

I should mention that my grandfather, Charles Sr., was obsessive about maps, a trait he handed down to me. What would he have thought of Google Maps, Google Earth, and all of the other digital systems that make our time a golden age of mapping?