From FRASER of Knock, Ayrshire to FRAZER of Ardcarne, Co.
Roscommon – Fact or Myth?
Introduction
When we were children, in the 1940s and 1950s, our parents (RF-A and NGB)
told us that we were descended from the Lovat Frasers. My sisters (SFF-A and
JMF-A) had Fraser kilts and I had a Fraser tie. My father, when we were living
in the Argentine during the Second World War, used the nom-de-plume Simon
Lovat when he wrote pro-British letters to the English language newspapers.
In 1991 I developed a great interest in genealogy and I set myself the task of
researching my ancestors. I quickly discovered that there was a paucity of
information on my father’s side, a situation which was not helped by the fact that
he had decided by then to claim that he was Scottish rather than Irish. So I
searched long and hard for the Scottish birth certificate for my paternal
grandmother . Eventually I applied to Dublin to discover that she had been
born in Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim!
During the next two or three years I was able to compile a reasonably complete
family tree for my paternal grandmother’s family tracing her ALLEN father’s and
her FRAZER mother’s families back to the early part of the 19th century. I was
still a long way from any Scottish FRASER link, Lovat or otherwise.
In 1988 I met up, for the second time, with an ex Kenya FRAZER 2nd cousin,
who stayed with us in Johannesburg and then in 1992 my New Zealand 2nd
cousin came to stay with us in Northamptonshire. Both of them had grown up
with the Lovat Fraser story.
In January 2011 I was contacted by a 2nd cousin who, up until then, had been
but a name on the family tree. She very kindly introduced me to three more 2nd
cousins whom I had never met before. It quickly became obvious that they had
all grown up with the Lovat Fraser connection.
However none of my 2nd cousins knew that they were descended from the
FRAZERs of Ardcarne or the FRASERs of Knock.
(In my case I only
discovered that I was descended from the FRAZERs of Ardcarne in 1993 and I
did not become aware of the FRASER of Knock connection until Feb 2011.)
So we can only conclude that the Lovat Fraser descent ‘story’ became a very
strong belief which was passed down from generation to generation for many
many years. Which bears out the entry in ‘A Dictionary of Surnames’ (1) ,
namely;
FRASER
Scots : of uncertain origin
Variations: FRAZER (chiefly Northern Irish) FRAZIER (chiefly United States)
Most if not all bearers of this common Scots surname are ultimately connected
with the Scottish family who hold the title Baron Lovat. Their origins are
uncertain, the relevant records having been destroyed or lost in various stormy
episodes in medieval Scottish history.
Then last week I had the immense good fortune to meet up with a FRAZER 4th
cousin once removed who had not only grown up with that story but, much more
importantly, was able to provide me with a wealth of very valuable information.
Much research and many years later, we now find that we have some, but alas
not all, the answers.
Background
It would seem that during the last quarter of the 19th century many families
decided to compile their family trees. Many other people, particularly those
living in rural areas continued to record their births, marriages and death in the
fly sheets of their family bible. Unfortunately we have not been able to come
across any such records for the FRAZERs of Ardcarne..
Early in 2011 I had discovered from the internet that there were three more
people who had an interest in the origins of the FRAZERs of Ardcarne.
Eventually I was able to track them all down and early in October 2011 I met up
with Doug Vaugh, who turned out to be my 4th cousin once removed.
Sometime towards the end of 1950 Mabel Frances Isoble FRAZER (19071970), armed with her family history notes, went to stay with her cousin Cecil
George VAUGH (1925-1966)’s wife Frances Wilhelmina NOBEL (1899-1977) to
seek her help with researching the earlier FRAZERs so as to be able to provide
the necessary details for her brother (Edward Haslett FRAZER (b. 22 Jul
1900))’s application for the grant of arms. Wilhelmina had a car and farm
petrol, which was quite a consideration in those days.
They set off on a
research tour round Co. Roscommon. Each night Wilhelmina diligently copied
her cousin’s notes so that by the end of the trip they were both able to produce
very similar, but not identical, family trees. (Arms were duly granted by Lord
Lyon King of Arms to Edward Haslett FRAZER on 11 March 1952.)
In 1982 Dough VAUGH’s Aunt Lilian (Frances Lilian May VAUGH) gave him
photocopies of the two family trees and a number of papers which had been
written by the two cousins back in 1950. Sadly the said documentation did not
include any source details.
Sometime later Doug VAUGH set up his extensive web site (2) on which he was
able to publish some of his FRAZER material. In due course he was contacted
by Joel M Hartley from the United States who made a trip to Co. Roscommon
and subsequently published, in January 2004, his epic work ‘Some
Descendants
of
Frazers
from
North
Roscommon,
Ireland’
(jmhartley/Frazer/fraze001). Most of the early history of the Frazers of Ardcarne
came from the material which had been supplied to him by Dough Vaugh.
Later he was contacted by Jean M Fraser, from Colorado, who used the same
material to draw up her pedigree which can be found on the internet( ).
Mabel FRAZER’s family tree, entitled ‘FRAZER of Boyle LOVAT and Knock’ is
an amazing document, which in longhand on four sheets of foolscap paper
charts her descent, over 24 generations, from Simon FRASER of Keith (116090).
From our point of view, perhaps the most fascinating section takes us from
James FRASER, the 9th Laird of Knock, Ayrshire to the first of the FRAZERs in
Co. Roscommon.
This is a transcript of the relevant section:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|
JAMES FRAZER 9th Laird of Knock
The Rebel Laird an ardent Royalist and Episcopalian Refused to go to
IRVINE Church for the the second signing of the Covenant and quarreled with
the ministers Refused to relinquish the loyalty to the Stewart Cause & was
persecuted by the Presbyterian Kirk in Ayrshire, impoverished and hunted for
three years he fled to Ireland in the Spring of 1650 Probably he and his three
younger brothers are buried in Kilronan.
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|
|
|
James FRISSELL
|
Edward
Hugh
ADAM
the younger
| believed ancestor
|
|
== MARY Ramsay | of Boyle Frazers
Blakefield
Pack
|
House
| THESE THREE
| were granted lands near Boyle about 1666 by
| Charles II They were officers in the Scots Guards
--------------------------------------------------------------------and served ‘the’ King for ten years in France before
settling in Co Leitrim near Ballyfarnon
--------------------------ardent Royalists
ALEXANDER
last and 10th
= JEAN CRAWFORD
Laird of Knock
Eldest son of James
the Rebel
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Four daughters
The end of the direct line of Knock
In 1696
FRAZERS of BOYLE
Lieut – Colonel
Cathel
Lieut – Col.
EDWARD FRAZER
Hugh
Adam FRIZELL
-------------ancestor
or FRAZER
Believed | ancestor of
believed of
ourselves | and Park
Frazers of
Frazers | in kings Co
Blakefield
(extinct | branch)
|
Officers in Scots Guards fought for King Charles I against Cromwell in Ireland
until the execution of the King they followed Charles II on the Continent for 10
years, and at the Restoration were granted lands in Co Leitrim
|
younger brothers of James 9th Laird of Knock
|
Archibald b. circa
1690 near Drumdoe
a son or grandson of above
Edward
Owned Aughniginegan and Cleragh
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Comment: Whilst long on narrative it is sadly very short on dates. Furthermore
it contains many inaccuracies, namely:
a. James FRASER, the 9th Laird of Knock, married Marie RAMSAY, dau. of
Rev. Andrew RAMSAY, sometime Minister of the Old Kirk in Edinburgh,
on 16 Feb 1628. So he would have been born around 1603. His father
was John FRASER, the 8th Laird of Knock, who may well have been
born in 1571. Mabel FRAZER has inserted an extra generation (Robert
FRAZER) in between the father and the son. (James FRASER would
have been in his late forties when he fled to Ireland in 1650.)
b. Alexander FRASER, who married Jean CRAWFURD, was James
FRASER’s younger brother and not his eldest son.
c. Whoever Edward and Adam were they could not have been LieutColonels. There was no standing army in those days and the only
people who reached that rank were aristocrats. (The first standing army
was created by James II in 1685.) I rather fear that Mabel was carried
away by the fact that one of her uncles was a Lt Col in the Grenadier
Guards at the time when she was compiling her family tree.
d. Edward, Hugh and Adam could not have been officers in the Scots
Guards because the regiment was not created until 1870. They could
not have fought for Charles I against Cromwell in Ireland because
Charles I never went to Ireland and Cromwell did not go to Ireland until a
few months after the King had been executed.
e. During his exile on the Continent after his defeat at the Battle of
Worcester, Charles II (King of Scotland but not of England at that time)
did not have a large retinue. His funds were limited! It does not seem
very likely that Edward, Hugh and Adam were with him.
After his
restoration Charles II was very limited in the number of land grants which
he was able to make to Royalist officers because Parliament controlled
his ourse strings. (The only list of such land grants made after the
Restoration in the Province of Connaught, which I have seen to date,
does not include any officers named FRASER or its alternatives.)
FRASER of Knock
Making use of a wide variety of sources, I have been able to compile a family
tree for the FRASERs of Knock from about 1400 to around 1650. (3)
Unfortunately I have failed to discover whether James FRASER had any
siblings apart from his older brother Robert and his younger brother Alexander.
I have also been unable to establish any details of children born to James
FRASER and his wife Marie Ramsay (dau. of the Rev. Andrew Ramsay of
Edinburgh) apart from James the Younger. They were married in Edinburgh on
16 Feb 1628.
There is clear evidence (4) that a James Fraser, the 9th Laird of Knock (in the
Parish of Largs to the north of Irvine in North Ayrshire), fled from Ayrshire to
Ireland in 1650.
According to the Presbytery of Irvine records for March 13,
1649: it was reported on this day to the Presbytery that “upon the day of
tendering the Covenant, the laird of Knock, because it was told him that he wald
not admitted to the Covenant, absented himself from the kirk in the afternoon”.
For “his scandalouslie absenting himself fra the kirk the day of swearing the
covenant”, the Session of Largs were ordered not only to proceed in the
process against the laird, but in that this latter offence should be taken into the
process. Paterson states ‘that in 1650 the process still continued against him,
though meantime he had fled to Ireland to escape the persecution to which he
and others were subjected’.
In Mabel’s account James Fraser is described as an ardent Royalist and
Episcopalian (5) who was known as the ‘Rebel Laird’ because of his refusal to
sign the second Covenant (6). There are conflicting reports as to how many of
his younger brothers and/or sons emigrated to Ireland with him. It is not clear
whether his wife, went to Ireland with him. One must presume that initially she
remained at Knock to run the estate. She died on 30 Dec 1659.
By a disposition granted on 18 Jun 1652 James Fraser granted the lands of
Knock to his younger brother Alexander and his sister-in-law Jean Crawford (7).
Alexander thus became the 10th Laird and also the last one as he and Jean only
had four daughters, Jean, Grissel, Agnes and Janet. Alexander Fraser died in
Sep 1657. Jean Crawford died in Oct 1667.
The Three ‘Soldiers of Fortune’
So who were Edward, Hugh and Adam?
In 1641 the native Irish rose in rebellion. Irish Catholics attacked the plantations
all around the country but especially in Ulster. Charles I determined to rectify
the situation and to that end he raised ten regiments of foot made up principally
of Scottish soldiers. Their task was to protect the settlers, most of who were of
Scottish ancestry, and put down the rebellion. His initial plan was to command
the army in person so in August 1642 he asked Archibald, the 1st Marquess of
Argyll, to provide him with a Royal Guard. Argyll promptly converted his own
Argyll Regiment and they sailed for Ireland within the month. The King then
changed his mind and remained in England.
Argyll’s Regiment, as it was
known, spent the next six years in Ireland. Conditions for all the army in Ireland
were dire. They were poorly paid and for much of the time they were forced to
live off the land.
Many of the officers continued to serve in Ireland on the
understanding that they would be given land in lieu of pay once the war was
over. Unfortunately their King was executed and later in 1649 Cromwell arrived
in Ireland determined to punish the Irish for their treachery.
Prior to Cromwell’s arrival in Ireland those Royalist officers who had spent all
those years suppressing the 1641 Rebellion put in a claim for compensation.
This became known as the List of the ‘Forty-Nine Officers’. The request was for
Adjudications – Arrears of the Commissioned Officers who served Charles II or
Charles I in the Wars of Ireland before 5 June 1649. At last I have managed to
find a complete list, in the Library of the Society of Genealogist in London. The
List contains the following entries:
Frizell
Lieut Adam
Edward
Fresell Cornet Hugh
(No rank shown – presumably Lieut)
So where does that leave us?
Were they all FRASERs of Knock? If so why,
as ardent Royalists, did they not call themselves FRASER? As junior officers
in the 1640s they would have been aged in their twenties. Cornet Hugh could
have been in his late teens. They would have been too young to have been
younger brothers of James the Rebel, as suggested by Mabel. Indeed, were
they all brothers? The different surname spellings would suggest otherwise.
Perhaps Adam and Edward were brothers and Hugh was their cousin. Adam
and Edward were too old to have been sons of James. However, they could
have been sons of Robert, James’s elder brother. Hugh could have been a
younger brother to James the Younger.
The early settlement in Ireland
Further research on the internet established that in the 18th Century there were a
great many Frazers farming around Lough Key in the north of Co. Roscommon.
Their family church and their family burial ground were at Ardcarne, which is on
the eastern side of Boyle. John Frazer and Isabella Frazer, from whom we are
descended, were married there on 14 Feb 1827.
There is plenty of evidence (8) that the Fraser immigrants from Ayrshire were
the Frazers who farmed around the shores of Lough Key, which lies to the
south-east of Boyle in the north of Co. Roscommon. (Ardcarne is between
Boyle and the Lough.) We are descended from some of those Frazers and I
now have the names, but not much else, of our great-grandmother Isabella’s
eight siblings. That at least accounts for what John and Isabella Frazer were up
to between their marriage in 1827 and our great-grandmother’s birth in 1840/1!
Alas there are insufficient details available for us to be able to trace our ancestry
back to the earliest Frazers of Ardcarne with any degree of accuracy.
Conclusions
We now know quite a lot about the FRASERs of Knock, who were able to trace
their ancestry back to the 14th century with some degree of accuracy. However
we still do not know who, if anybody, accompanied James FRASER, the 9th
Laird of Knock when he fled to Ireland in 1650. Nor do we know for certain
where he went to in Ireland or who his immediate descendants were there.
Sadly we know nothing about a possible link between James FRASER, and any
sons, nephews or cousins who might have accompanied him, and Archibald
FRAZER and James FRAZER, both of Ardcarne, who are detailed in the 1749
Elphin Diocese census.
Indeed we have no firm evidence regarding the
subsequent two or three generations.
So, in summary, we can claim a possible descent from some Lovat Fraser of
more than 400 years ago, if we so wish, along with countless other people who
bear the various varieties of the Fraser surname.
That I suppose accounts for our Irish family’s little ‘myth’ about the Lovat
Frasers. I am not sure what I would have made of all this information had I
gained it many years ago?
Michael Fraser-Allen
21 October 2011
Notes:
1. A Dictionary of Surnames by Patrick Hanks & Flavia Hodges – Oxford
University Press 1988
2. The Vaugh Papers – vaugh.co.uk
3. FRASER of Knock – Compiled by Michael Fraser-Allen from 1 February
to 19 October 2011.
4. Paterson, James: History of the County of Ayr, Vol. II, p. 309
5. The Episcopalian Church = The Church of England in Scotland
6. The Presbyterian Covenant was first drawn up in 1641 for the
preservation of the reformed religion in Scotland (the Kirk).
7. Knock Writs, Eglinton Muniment (NAS), GD3/7/306
8. Some Descendants of Frazers from North Roscommon, Ireland – J M
Hartley – Internet paper dated Jan 2004