Spanish Wrecks on Aberdeenshire Coast

[Skoosh]

Cordiner = shoemaker!

Skoosh.

[Forfarian]

Cordiner = shoemaker!

Spot on. The detailed origin of the word is interesting.

Cordiner is from an older word, cordwainer.  A cordwainer worked specifically with soft, fine, high-quality leather, known as Cordovan leather because that was where it was produced.

In Scotland a cordwainer wasn't just a common-or-garden shoemaker. His products were considered to be a cut above everyday boots or brogues.

In 1722 the cordiners of Hawick petitioned the council to be incorporated and separated from the shoe-makers ‘or those who make single-soled shoes'. In Edinburgh, the cordiners were erected into a fraternity in 1349.

However the word is documented in Scotland almost 100 years before the Armada, and there is a record of its use as a surname as early as 1422, when Thomas Cordonar was admitted a burgess of Aberdeen. A Radulph Cordwan was a tenant in Perth in about 1330 though this may just indicate that he was a native or Cordoba rather than actually using it as a surname.

[Munro84]

I know there is a separate discussion for this, but does anyone in this one know anything about the tradition that the village of Avoch on the Black Isle was founded by the survivors of a wreck from the Spanish Armada ? I am looking for historic references to this tradition but can only find modern books that mention it.

I believe that I have traced my direct male ancestry back to an Alexr Munro born in the parish of Avoch in 1739. Further to this, having taken part in Y-DNA testing with FTDNA, of my 7 closest DNA matches in the direct male line, (who are all at the 23/25 marker level for anyone who knows about that), one of these matches has the Spanish surname of Bustamante. Three others have the French surname Runyon, two the Scottish surname Munro and one the Scottish/Irish surname McBride. They should all be people related within the last 700 years at least.

The rest of my 1000+ Y-DNA matches are all at the 12 marker level and so can pretty much be disregarded as useful for genealogy purposes, as not being related within the last 1000 years or even related at all.

[hdw]

According to the Wikipedia article, a Munro actually owned the village at one time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoch

If Spaniards had founded it they wouldn't have given it a Gaelic name. The Armada was in 1588 but Avoch obviously existed in some form long before that.

My wife and I had a holiday there back in 1973, shortly after we got married. I had never heard of the place before. I had just started a new job, one of my new colleagues had planned a holiday in Avoch with an old friend and his wife but at the last minute this couple couldn't go, so my wife and I got the offer to go instead. Having been brought up in the East Neuk of Fife in a family without a car, it was my introduction to the Highlands as we visited Culloden and Torridon and other places I would never have seen otherwise.

Harry

[Skoosh]

I've heard this Spanish stuff before in Easter Ross anent anybody who is a bit swarthy, as if Scotland was a nation of blue-eyed blondes, like masel. Mebbes I'm Swedish? 

The Vass's of course are Spanish, everybody knows that!

Skoosh.

[Munro84]

According to the Wikipedia article, a Munro actually owned the village at one time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoch

If Spaniards had founded it they wouldn't have given it a Gaelic name. The Armada was in 1588 but Avoch obviously existed in some form long before that.

That shows that a Munro held the nearby Ormond Castle that later became known as Avoch Castle, but does not say anything about the village of Avoch itself at the time.