{"id":5685,"date":"2023-03-26T19:54:40","date_gmt":"2023-03-26T19:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cromarville.wordpress.com\/?p=5685"},"modified":"2023-12-30T06:47:32","modified_gmt":"2023-12-30T11:47:32","slug":"kirkton-of-aboyne-and-environs-in-1696-a-new-old-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamcromar.com\/cromarbaile\/2023\/03\/26\/kirkton-of-aboyne-and-environs-in-1696-a-new-old-map\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirkton of Aboyne and Environs in 1696: a new old map"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Time is the Space that may not be seen. \u2014 William Emerson<\/p>\nFrom Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon<\/strong>, p. 326 <\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of my last post, Mapping 1696: Cromars and Robbs in the Poll Book<\/a><\/strong>, I imagined what an incredible map could be produced by synthesizing historical map information and place-name orthographic study with the now-searchable database<\/a> in the List of Pollable Persons Within the Shire of Aberdeen<\/a><\/strong>. My absence from this journal for the past 3 weeks is a testament to the enormity of the task, but it’s finally complete. Without further ado, I present Kirkton of Aboyne & Environs, Being an artist’s conception pertinent to the origins of the Cromar Sept of Clan Farquharson<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For those who wish to view a printable resolution image of this large-scale map \u2014 16 inches is equal to 1 statute mile! \u2014 you can find it at these links below. Nota bene: these are HUGE files and not mobile-device friendly, and Google Drive will warn you it cannot create a preview or scan for viruses, but don’t worry:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image 36″ x 48″ at 300 ppi | 160 MB<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PDF with printer’s marks | 1.57 GB<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re a nerd like me, you’ll want to dig deep into the wonky bits. How did I make this and why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Methodology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Concept<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The concept was to create a map that accurately<\/em> depicts the Kirkton of Aboyne and other locations within the parish of Aboyne in which my ancestors were recorded in the Poll Book, a time when our progenitor, Peter Cromar, was a small child. I chose to include every settlement in which Cromars could be found in the parish of Aboyne in 1696, which determined the extent, and therefore the scale and size, of the map. Whether Peter could be found in Kirktoun or, as I conjectured in my previous post, in a place such as Drumgask, I wanted to make sure I was able to capture the place where he was raised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stress accuracy over precision in the project. While much of what is particular<\/em> in the map is unknowable or unprovable, research into the general<\/em> living conditions of Scotland in the late 17th century yields an artist’s interpretation which reasonably illustrates a probable reality. How’s that for a heap of hedging language?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But really, such hedging should be applied to any map, even one based on satellite imagery. All maps contain the biases of the maker, abstractions based on the purpose, or limitations of resolution and scale. Therefore, no map contains an absolute truth: as Alfred Korzybski<\/a> succinctly notes, the map is not the territory<\/a>. And while some maps are used to lie and distort reality<\/a>, a map like this one intends to reveal a probability of truth, through research and synthesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In the fifty-odd posts in this journal, there are myriad sources \u2014 books, libraries, websites, museums, site visits \u2014 that inform my own mental map of what life in this corner of Aberdeenshire at this time must have been like. If I’m being academically rigorous, I’m listing all of them here… but this is not an academic publication, and I have a life outside of the blog! So I’ll invite the reader to peruse pertinent posts (which are nearly all of them) to learn about some of the more obscure historical facts that inform decision-making here. Having said that, aside from the obvious data in the Poll Book cited above, there are a few primary resources that have been used to craft the map, including but not limited to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n