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Contents;

A 900 year history of the Abercrombie/Crombie family 1125-2000.

Family Trees: The Main Trunk Banff/Aberdeenshire; The Fife Line; The Monymusk Line; Three lines in Northern Ireland 1600-c.1800 (Cromey/Cromie); The Glassaugh Line; The Tullibody Line; The Fetternear Line; The Colony of Massachusetts line from Northern Ireland c.1720; One major line of the Abercrombies who went to Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia et al; and eventually to about 34 of the United States to settle; Canada and Australia.

How we are descendents of the Templar Knights.

Our French Connection.

The Crombie/Abercrombie Crests and their meanings.

Crombie Castle/Kinnairdy House.

The Monymusk Reliquary and our connection.

My critique of the way the Innes family over 500 years muddied the historical records so that we could not find our real roots.

Bios of many past members of the family.

To see inside any of the contents just click on the title and it will open up for you.

Knights Templar

In c.1125CE King David I of Scotland invited members of the Knights Templar to come to his newly united Scotland to help in setting up a new system similar to the one set up by William of Normandy in England sixty years before. 

One of those Knights was Seogneur de Cromey from Burgundy.  He came from a family whose surname was MORIN, Cromey was a Title held by the first of that family to come to Scotland and it is from this that our surname was formed.

Geoffroy Morin, French Templar Knight Twelfth Century

Geoffroy Morin was Marshal of the Knights Templar during the mastership of Gerard of Ridefort, the tenth Grand Master of the Knights Templar (1185 – 1189). The date of his departure for the Holy Land and his entry into the Order of the Temple are unknown. From 1187 he was appointed as Commander of the Order in Tyre; he was appointed Marshal of the Order by Gerard of Ridefort in 1188 and was taken prisoner by the Muslims during the Battle of Hattin.

In 1189 he took part in the Siege of Acre where he died alongside Gerard of Ridefort and eighteen other Templars. According to a contemporary poem, Morin died carrying the Baucent.  Baucent (bauceant, baussant, etc.) was the name of the war flag (vexillum belli) used by the Knights Templar in the 12th and 13th centuries.

You can find the full story if you click onto the Family Crest.  This has other very intresting information about the family, including out connection with the Monymusk reliquary and much more.

 

900 YEARS OF ABERCROMBY/CROMBIE FAMILY HISTORY

by Carmel Margaret (Crombie) Dahl  MMXXII

Family Member

Crombie Castle/Kinnairdy House, Banff

Updated: Jun 10


Originally Crombie Castle, now called Kinnairdy House.


Crombie Castle is now known as Kinnairdy House:

Built in mediaeval times, c.1140, it was the feudal stronghold of the Thanes of Aberchirder, the first of whom was Seigneur de Cromey who arrived in Scotland from Burgundy, France in about 1125. His line was the beginning of the Abercromby/Crombie family in Banff and Fife: Nine hundred years later his descendents continue to live in Aberdeenshire and Fife as well as across Scotland and Northern Ireland. In fact they have spread out into most of the English speaking countries of the world.

In about 1400 after John de Aberchirder the last of the thanes had died, his granddaughter Dame Janet de Abercromby married Sir David Innes and she took into the marriage ‘Old Crombie’ which included Crombie Castle. The estate became known as the Barony of Aberchirder.

Originally it was a typical Norman motte and bailey castle—round tower surrounded by a curtain wall, with a smaller tower and an arched doorway in the north-western corner.

A stone keep now surrounds the motte and the curtain wall which would have surrounded the keep is now encased within the walls of the tower which was built in the 1420’s by Sir Walter Innes, son of Dame Janet. Sometime around 1530 the house was extended by the addition of a wing to the east and, around 1725, the top two storeys of the tower were removed which made it into what is there today.

The Gregory family bought Crombie Castle in the 17th century and renamed it Kinnairdy House. The Gregorys were a family of remarkable 17th century mathematicians who produced no less than 12 academic professors, including David Gregory the inventor of, among other things, the barometer.

Crombie Castle/Kinnairdy House was continuously inhabited from the twelfth century until the late twentieth century. Early in the twentieth century Sir Thomas Innes rebought the building and so now it is again owned by the Innes Family who have turned it into a musem.

The castle/house stands two miles south-west of the village of Aberchirder, where the Auchintoul Burn meets the River Deveron. Just upstream from Kinnairdy House is a spot which is marked on the Old Moray Historical Map as William Wallace’s Camp. Symon, who was the Thane of Aberchirder at the end of the thirteenth century, refused to pay homage to King Edward I of England in 1296 and had his land Charter taken by the English king. Perhaps this is why!

Old Moray Historical Map

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The Main Trunk and its Branches in Scotland and Northern Ireland: This is the Main Trunk began in Banffshire in c.1125 and then went to...

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greeneyes3470
Aug 21, 2022

Are you on Geni genealogy site? It shows Janet Aberchirder is my 17th he grandmother.

Janet Aberchirder is your 17th great grandmother. You → Nancy Haley your mother → Alma Jaunita Haley her mother → W.B. Wiiliam Abercrombie her father → Hiram V. Abercrombie his father → Young David Abercrombie his father → James Abercrombie his father → Dr. John Joseph Abercrombie his father → Sir James Alexander Abercrombie his father → Sir James Alexander Abercrombie his father → Elizabeth Baird, of Auchmedden his mother → Sir James Baird, 5th of Auchmedden, Kt. her father → George Baird, 4th of Auchmedden his father → Lillias Baird, Heiress of Ordinhivas his mother → Walter Baird of Ordinhivas her father → George Baird, Sherriff of Aberdeen his father → Janet Maitland his mother → Margaret Innes her mother → Si…

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greeneyes3470
Aug 21, 2022

Have you had a DNA test done? My grandmother was an Abercrombie. My DNA comes up with the names attached to this Abercrombie.

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