Spanish Wrecks on Aberdeenshire Coast

[Hanwell_A]

Dear Forfarian,
..... Yes, you are right. Whilst I know my history, all my Genealogy research post-dates the Union of Crowns, so this fact had not entered my head. From what I have read, many Armada survivors were slaughtered when they reached Scottish shores, so I had not given it sufficient thought. Thanks for bring this to my attention. I do tend to use modern terms when referring to land areas, rather that period terms, so I did intend to use the term British Isles, meaning England, Scotland and Ireland.
..... Regards, Adrian.

[Forfarian]

Quite right, but the Union of the Crowns was 1603, not 1630.

Harry

Correct. That was a typo - I know perfectly well that it was 1603. 

[Skoosh]

Where's the evidence for Spanish sailors being slaughtered in Scotland? they were slaughtered by English troops in Ireland. The Tobermory galleon was sunk up when its magazine exploded but not quite the same thing!

The same story about Spanish sailors occurs on Fair Isle where the knitting pattern supposedly comes from that source, who knows?

Skoosh.

[hdw]

I suppose the Jimmy Perez stories by Ann Cleeves which are now being televised will lend credence to stories of Armada sailors staying on in Scotland. An author must be allowed to use his/her imagination, but a grumpy old pedant like me will always find fault!

Harry

[hurworth]

I have matches with entirely Norwegian born people in the tree - I guess a family of sailors from North East Scotland have connections in many ports.

Same here.  We have direct ancestors from Dundee who were sailors in the 18th century and from  Peterhead who were sailors in the 19th century, plus brothers, uncles and cousins from those eras who were sailors or had an interest in ships from Dundee, Peterhead and Fife.  One document relating to an ancestor which a relative has found was witnessed by a Scotsman in Stockholm in the early 1700s.

Very few of the Scandinavian matches we're getting are very close though.  The shared segments are usually fairly small.   

[gypsyspirit]

I like that the history of my family is so much more complex than my childhood history books would suggest.  I also like that there are other family historians who can see beyond the census data to understand the family members in their place.  In school in Australia we learned little of this - thinking of our family heritage as mono cultural.  My Peterhead families have ended up all over he world, and this is not surprising given their long association with trading and the ancient sea routes, and the cultures that shaped them.  SO how does a Scottish lassie in Peterhead get to have a name like Sophia Cordiner? Surely there is some truth in those romantic rumours.  I am currently reading an excellent book - The Edge of the World: How the North Sea made us what we are, author Michael Pye. When you think of the world as a sea with little bits of land in it rather than the other way around, it changes your perspective on what was possible over time. 

[hdw]

I don't want to rain on your parade, but Cordiner is an occupational surname like Taylor, Mason, Fisher, Baker/Baxter and so on, and Sophia was by no means an unusual name in the fishing ports. In my native East Neuk of Fife the women in the fishing communities weren't all Jessies and Jeanies, they might be called Sophia, Rachel, Amelia, Penelope, Charlotte, all kinds of names we might now consider "posh". There was nothing posh about Penelope Barclay in my native Cellardyke who one night when she was drunk threw a dinner plate at her husband Alexander Smith, severing an artery in his temple and nearly killing him. She was tried at Cupar sheriff court and sentenced to several weeks in jail.

Harry

[Forfarian]

The surname Cordiner is from the occupation of cordwainer, which was someone who worked with soft (Cordoban style) leather. A maker of soft shoes as opposed to one who made boots or shoes of heavier leather.

[gypsyspirit]

To the previous posters, you are correct. I am not offended by confirmation of the occupational names. However, none of that confirms or excludes the possibility of the arrival in Peterhead of seamen of Iberian extraction to add to the long term families there. My % of genetic heritage from Iberian peninuslar has to come from some kind of interaction across the waters. Our Cordiners in Peterhead were leather shoe makers and also fishermen, and they originated in the fishing village Boddam.  In Scottish tradition there is a naming pattern that keeps names revolving through families across the generations.  It is helpful when doing genealogy research because once you know the given name of the first daughter you also can reliably guess the name of the maternal grandmother.Sophia is a very unusual name for families in Peterhead, and as far as I can see reserved only for the fishing families.