{"id":2188,"date":"2021-09-23T14:35:59","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T14:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cromarville.wordpress.com\/?p=2188"},"modified":"2023-05-11T19:27:52","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T23:27:52","slug":"all-the-johns-and-anns-the-case-for-the-parents-of-george-cromar-1792-1871","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamcromar.com\/cromarbaile\/2021\/09\/23\/all-the-johns-and-anns-the-case-for-the-parents-of-george-cromar-1792-1871\/","title":{"rendered":"All the Johns and Anns: the case for the parents of George Cromar 1792-1871"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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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 \u2014 or\u00a0reconsidered?<\/strong><\/a> and at Ron Cromar and\u00a0me<\/strong><\/a>. Because this journal is about the real-time<\/strong> process<\/strong> of researching and developing a family history hypothesis, and not the hypothesis itself, I have decided to keep the contents unaltered, save for this caveat. I hope in doing so to illustrate how the process can lead to reasonable yet flawed conclusions, and how one can avoid the pitfalls of confirmation bias by keeping an open mind when presented with new evidence. The bottom line: both the John and Ann concluded here are incorrect, but as you’ll see in the posts linked above, I am fortunate this does not invalidate the overall bloodline being established.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Travel and courtship<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We’ve looked at a lot of maps in and around the Howe of Cromar, and it’s remarkable to see how durable the patterns of settlement have been over the centuries. While the political, religious, and economic turmoil that has characterized Scotland’s history played itself out, the layout of fields, villages, and roads seem oblivious to the winds of changes whirling about them. A rural Aberdeenshire time traveler from the 18th century would have little trouble finding their way around using a map they carried with them on their unlikely journey to the 21st. However, the change in infrastructure along many familiar paths would be quite stunning to them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enduring patterns<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Trains and automobiles superimposed themselves on the old land use patterns in Aberdeenshire in a manner that did surprisingly little to disrupt them, given how fundamentally they changed the way we use time and space. Lumphanan, a home to my ancestors, remains a village surrounded by farming, though it’s true that the identity of such communities has shifted toward an exurban commuter-driven subordination to urban centers \u2014 according to GPS data, a good road can get one from Lumphanan to downtown Aberdeen in 45 minutes, assuming no jams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our hypothetical time traveler might feel right at home on some of today’s bumpy dirt roads that hearken back to state-of-the-art road-building in post-Jacobite Scotland. However, they’d be flabbergasted by the material presence of the main arteries connecting village to village. To allow fast and sometimes heavy-duty vehicular traffic, the modern road we take for granted is actually an engineering marvel, even in a rural landscape like Aberdeenshire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Left | On the road from Cutttieshillock to Tarland, a contemporary road view that an 18th century Cromar would recognize. | Screen-capture, Google Map Street View<\/a>
Right | The A980 from Lumphanan toward Torphins, built on the path of the old turnpike road, which in turn was probably built on a path much like the one at left. | Screen-capture, Google Map Street View<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Evolution in road technology<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The evolution of road-building technology owes quite a bit to Scottish history and ingenuity. In the 18th century, main roads might be enhanced with stone or gravel, but heavy loads were not feasible<\/a>; horses and carts were the most common means of moving goods, and this limited the scope and scale of what could be carried. Whatever attention roads received from engineers was motivated more by political rather than economic concerns. After the 1745 Rebellion, the “pacification” of the Highlands \u2014 some characterize it as outright genocide \u2014 led to road-building that facilitated movement of occupying troops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was not until the late 1780s that J. L. McAdam<\/a> developed a clever and cost-effective way to pave long stretches of connecting highway using the “macadamized” road surfacing technique he invented. Roads in rural areas like Aberdeenshire remained relatively unimproved for quite some time thereafter. By the mid-1800s there were improvements seen on some main roads, especially turnpike roads like the one we learned about in our post on John Cromar and Ann George<\/a>, who lived on Turnpike Road in Kincardine O’Neil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geographical limits<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So getting around was certainly nothing to take for granted in those days. On today’s surfaced roads, the 8.4 mile automobile trip from Tarland to Lumphanan is an afterthought. On a road that could only handle walking, a pack-horse, or (on the best routes) a horse-drawn sledge, that same trip took 11 times as long or longer! The trek from Tarland to Lumphanan was nearly a 3 hour trek one way<\/em>, and one simply had to plan an entire day around a round trip journey that could use up the lion’s share of otherwise productive daylight time. Given Scotland’s famously fickle weather, this could quickly turn a simple walk into a mud-soaked misadventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, it was a deliberate and time-consuming act to socialize or indulge in courtship, accordingly limited by geography and technology in a manner that privileged first-worlders have a hard time comprehending. Scan the map below, and you can see how some of the villages and ferm-touns we’ve encountered before relate to each other by walking time. Various settlements here are linked to Lumphanan, a historical center of Cromar family activity:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Using Lumphanan as a center, distances and walking times for various settlements in and around the Howe of Cromar:<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Settlement<\/th>Distance<\/th>walking time<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Peel of Lumphanan<\/td>0.8 miles<\/td>16 minutes<\/td><\/tr>
Milton of Auchlossan<\/td>1.7 miles<\/td>35 minutes<\/td><\/tr>
Milton of Auchinhove<\/td>2.4 miles<\/td>48 minutes<\/td><\/tr>
Torphins<\/td>3.3 miles<\/td>1 hour 6 minutes<\/td><\/tr>
Cragievar<\/td>5.1 miles<\/td>1 hour 40 minutes*<\/td><\/tr>
Kincardine O’Neil<\/td>5.1 miles<\/td>1 hour 43 minutes*<\/td><\/tr>
Leochel-Cushnie<\/td>6.3 miles<\/td>2 hours 2 minutes<\/td><\/tr>
Aboyne<\/td>6.6 miles<\/td>2 hours 10 minutes*<\/td><\/tr>
Muir of Fowlis<\/td>6.5 miles<\/td>2 hours 11 minutes*<\/td><\/tr>
Coull<\/td>7.5 miles<\/td>2 hours 29 minutes<\/td><\/tr>
Tarland<\/td>8.4 miles<\/td>2 hours 47 minutes<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

* These anomalous time-and-distance relationships reveal the role that rough terrain can also play!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The implications for genealogy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This is much more than an interesting cultural digression. It has strong implications for genealogy. When we seek to confirm relationships through contemporaneous records, we must factor place<\/em> ever more deliberately as we go back in time. Our ancestors courted, worshipped, traded, and socialized in a very small world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This aids the quest for the identity of my fourth paternal great-grandparents, the mysterious mother and father of George Cromar. You’ll recall in exploring the stones at Kirkton of Aboyne burial ground<\/a> that we were left holding the bag on the identity of a John Cromar as George’s father, as well as the identity of the mother and sister inscribed on George’s memorial stone. We deduced a possibility that John and the others had passed away by the date of that stone’s erection, estimated to be sometime in the later 1850s. We know factually from birth records that a John Cromar is on the birth record as father for George in Lumphanan in the year 1792. Knowing that, we’ll include the limiting factor of geography and travel to help narrow down these identities. This leads to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HYPOTHESIS 1: John Cromar and family live within the social sphere of Lumphanan, and probably do so for their whole lives.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Names, but not identities<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our business in the old Aboyne graveyard did not supply names, but may help us link names we discover in the record to actual identities. We know the father, for example, is John Cromar, but which John<\/em>? Let’s list what we uncovered:<\/p>\n\n\n\n