{"id":3587,"date":"2022-05-25T20:40:56","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T20:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cromarville.wordpress.com\/?p=3587"},"modified":"2023-06-17T05:57:36","modified_gmt":"2023-06-17T09:57:36","slug":"peter-cromar-1690-descendancy-study-is-complete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamcromar.com\/cromarbaile\/2022\/05\/25\/peter-cromar-1690-descendancy-study-is-complete\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Cromar 1690 descendancy study is complete!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The rear inscription on Stone 38, Kirkton of Aboyne Burial Ground | Image by GariochGraver<\/a>, 19 Mar 2019<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Six months<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Six months to the day<\/em> after I received Ron Cromar’s notes from Paul Smillie, I finalized the descendancy study for our progenitor Peter Cromar. If you wish to cut right to the chase and see the results, you’ll notice a new link in the menu above: Database<\/a><\/strong>. As of this writing, the compilation lives in a plain vanilla website with all deceased persons and their relationships, places, and events, organized by individual, by surname, and by family group. This particular expression of the data was built using Gramps<\/strong><\/a>, a free (as in speech) open source software project. I’ll discuss my admittedly limited experience with Gramps thus far in more detail below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although my original intention was to create the database and share it as a GEDCOM file, I decided the website was better for two important reasons. Firstly, there are a lot of living<\/em> people in the database. Not only is it just impolite to publish a living person’s data<\/a>, but it can also quite rightly get you into legal disputes<\/a>. Gramps contains a handy algorithm that allows you to keep living person’s data unseen on the website. Secondly, the website can use the power of hyperlinks to reveal a rich web of relationships, which a raw database can’t do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mysteries solved, mysteries created<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To accomplish this feat in six months is blindingly fast, and I have the Internet, a massive cultural interest in genealogy, some family-history-obsessed LDS distant cousins, and my own obsessive-compulsiveness to thank for it. In that time, what did I learn?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I certainly haven’t been able to fulfill the founding purpose of this blog by solving the mystery of Peter’s origins. I haven’t given up on that quest \u2014 it famously took Mark Humphrys 35 years to solve the big mystery in his family tree<\/a>, whereas I’ve only been at this in earnest for about a year. Having said that, I have<\/em> been able to do the next best thing and figure out where Peter Cromar’s legacy went<\/em>: from Aberdeenshire to the four corners of the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A family of the Scottish Diaspora<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Most of the places where his direct-line descendants landed are along the well-known pathways of the Scottish Diaspora: North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. However, some are surprising: a presence in India and pre-revolutionary Russia, for starters. And some of the reasons why<\/em> migration happened are entirely unexpected: the largest swath of descendants derive from a branch of the family that emigrated to Utah under the thrall of Mormonism and married into the direct line of Brigham Young (which, no offense, seems like it would be hard not<\/em> to do in Utah<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprising also is the large cohort who ended up in Michigan and demonstrate the very porous boundary between that state and Canada, evidenced by place patterns of marriage, child-bearing, and death. It’s a bit humbling, but East Coast Cromars like me are bit players in this drama, which may explain why Paul and his relations back in Scotland were largely unaware of Theodore James Cromar and his offspring until I began working with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ron Cromar’s passing discovered<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Along the way, I unexpectedly solved a few mysteries. Ron Cromar’s passing<\/a>, it turns out, was in 2019. This broke my heart, of course. We had last traveled to Scotland in 2018! Had I started this work just a few years earlier, I could have rebuilt the bridge to Ron, shaken his hand, and carried forward some knowledge he took with him to the great genealogy chart in the sky. Given his passion for connecting with family, I’m sure this would have pleased him greatly. Another mystery is explained by the large branch that ended up in the orbit of Dundee, which means that I have many more cousins in that area than Louise Rankin<\/a>, who I hope to meet up with this November. Others will no doubt reveal themselves as I parse the data and transform it from raw information into real story-telling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the numbers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But heavens, what a set of data to parse! The six months it took to compile may pale in comparison to the work it will take to analyze. As we dive deeper, we’ll be able to tell stories of various direct-descent branches \u2014 the Cromars of Utah and California, the Donals and Van Alstines of Michigan, the Milnes of Vermont, the Buckners of Massachusetts, the Durwards and McHardys of Dundee, the Taylors of Oregon and Washington, the Whytes of Australia, and more Cromars in South Africa and New Zealand. Until I can write with any eloquence about these stories, we’ll settle for some first round broad strokes, by the numbers as parsed using Gramps software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we do so, it bears noting that these numbers account for only those folks that are in the record. There are many descendants who will remain lost to history. There are still others who, being alive today and not showing up in public documents such as obituaries, can’t be accounted for. So even though I was able discover nearly 5000 descendants, associates, and allies in the Peter Cromar line, there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, that are not present in the database. So with that caveat, here are the broad numbers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summary of big data<\/h6>\n\n\n\n