Creus-anisy

Thanks to the help of Andrew Millard, the location of the place name Creus-anisy mentioned in my last post has now been identified as Anisy which is just north of Caen in Normandy.

We've now located a further reference to Creus-anisy in the book British Family Names – Their Origin and Meaning with Lists of Scandinavian, Frisian, Anglo-Saxon and Norman Names by Rev. Henry Barber, published by E Stock, London, 1903. The entry for the surname Cruse is as follows:

CRUSE. From Creusanisy. Norm. N.Fr. De Creus; a p.n.

De Crus in Rot. Obl. Et Fin., Devon, 1199.

In  Reaney and Wilson's A Dictionary of English Surnames (3rd rev. edn. Routledge, 2005, p119) Cruys-Straete in the départemente of Nord, midway between Dunkirk and Lille in Northern France, was suggested as a possible origin of the surname.

It is clear from the large number of genetic groups in the DNA project that the surname Cruse has multiple origins. In contrast, all the Cruwyses tested to date (apart from one known illegitimate line) fall into two distinct genetic branches, each with deep roots in North Devon. It therefore seems plausible to think that the surname Cruwys has a single origin, and that the link between the surname and the Y-chromosome was broken in one of the Devon lines. It remains to be seen whether the surname Cruwys or any of the Cruse branches originated in Cruys-Straete or Creus-Anisy. In the long run I hope that more people from France will participate in DNA testing so that we might eventually know the answer.

© Debbie Kennett 2010

More early Cruwys references

A researcher in Australia has kindly sent me some interesting early references to the surname Cruwys and variants which he found in the book The Norman people and their existing descendants in the British dominions and the United States of America published by Henry S. King & Co. in 1874. The references are as follows:

Crewe, a branch of DE LA MARE or Montalt, whose arms it bore, with a slight difference (Ormerod, Cheshire, iii. 165). Crewe was in the barony of Malbanc, and was possessed c. 1150 by Henry de Criwa, who attested a charter of Hugh Malbanc. Sire Thomas de Crue was living after 1241. Hence the Lords Crewe of Stene, maternally represented by the Lords Crewe.

Crews or Crewys. Hugh de Creus and Richard de Creos were of Normandy 1198 (Mag. Rot. Scac.). Creus-Anisy was in Normandy (Ib.). Richard de Crues also occurs in Devon 1199; and the family has remained there ever since.

The abbreviation Mag. Rot. Scac. is explained as Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniae sub Regibus Angliae in Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de la Normandie which is translated elsewhere as "Great Roll of the Norman Exchequer under the English Kings". These were the Norman Pipe Rolls of 1183-1184. I've not as yet been able to discover the modern spelling of Creus-Anisy in Normandy or its location. Does anyone have any suggestions?

© Debbie Kennett 2010

Domesday descendants

A friend in Devon has very kindly sent me a photocopy of a page containing the Cruse entries from the Katherine Keats-Rohan book Domesday Descendants. Keats-Rohan is a fellow of Linacre College, Oxford, and has pioneered the use of prosopography in historical research. If you are not familiar with the term prosopography it is explained in this Wikipedia article. Keats-Rohan has written two very important books which are very useful for anyone with a genealogical interest in medieval history:

 - K.S.B. Keats-Rohan.  Domesday People: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166. Volume  I: Domesday Book.  Boydell Press, 1999, 572pp.

-  K.B.S. Keats-Rohan. Domesday Descendants: A Prosopography of People Occurring in English Documents 1066-1166. Volume  II Pipe Rolls to Cartae Baronum. Boydell Press, 2002, 1179pp.

The entries of interest to me were found in the second volume on Domesday Descendants. I have copied the details below:

de Cruce, Rainald
Attested several of the charters of Roger earl of Hertford (d.1173), from whom he held half a fee de novo in 1166. Perhaps the same as the earl's steward Rainald. Geoffrey de Cruce held half a fee of Clare in Walton, Surrey, in 1242 (Fees, 685).

Harper-Bill and Mortimer, Stoke by Clare Cartulary, nos 28, 30-31, 36; Hart, Cartularium Monasterii de Rameseia, no. CXCIII; Red Book of the Exchequer, ed. Hall (1897), pp. 403-7; Stenton, Documents illustrative of Danelaw (1920), no. 333.

de Cruce, Ricardus
Mentioned in charters of Ranulf I of Chester as having given land at Mostyn to St Werburga when he became a monk. Father of Norman.

Barraclough, Charters of Anglo-Norman Earls of Chester, nos 13, 28, 49.

de Crues, Ottuel
Attested Colne charters of c.1160. Held half a fee de novo from Oliver de Tracy of Barnstaple in 1166, at Cruwys Morchard, Devon. This was held for one fee by the heirs of Alexander de Crues in 1242 (Fees, 748). In 1242 Richard de Crues held one fee of Barnstaple in 'Nytheresse' (Fees, 773).

Fisher, Cartularium Prioratus de Colne, nos 36, 65; Pipe Roll 9 Henry II, 24-e/ht; Red Book of the Exchequer, ed. Hall (1897), p. 255.

I've come across early references to the surname de Cruce when searching the online Patents Rolls database. As far as I can establish there is no connection with the Cruwys family from Cruwys Morchard. It is however possible that the de Cruces are the ancestors of some of the present-day Cruse lines, which clearly have multiple origins.

Keats-Rohan makes no mention of two early references to the Cruwys surname which were quoted by Margaret Cruwys in her book A Cruwys Morchard Notebook: 1066-1874 (James Townsend and Sons, Exeter, 1939):

c. 1175 Robert de Cruwys, mentioned in a Pipe Roll of 1175, and Robert Cruwys, an undertenant of Henry Pomeroy, 1198, probably father and son.

Unfortunately Margaret Cruwys does not provide any sources for these references. The Pipe Rolls have been transcribed and published and are available at my local record office. I hope to check them out at some point. It seems strange that Keats-Rohan did not discover these other two early references.

The earliest references to the surname in the family collection of papers held at Cruwys Morchard House in Devon are found in the Tracy Deed which probably dates from the early 1200s. The names of Richard de Cruwes and Alexander de Cruwes appear as witnesses to this deed. I have made a transcription of the Tracy Deed available online on Genuki Devon which can be read here. The Tracys were a powerful baronial family. A William Tracy or William de Tracy was one of the four barons who assassinated Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury, in Canterbury Cathedral on 29th December 1170. There is an unsubstantiated story that a member of the Cruwys family was present at this event.

The pedigree of the Cruwys family, as recorded at the College of Arms, is believed to commence with the Richard de Cruwes mentioned in the Tracy Deed. I have not seen any document confirming the relationship between Richard de Cruwes and Alexander de Cruwes. Richard appears in numerous documents around this time as he was a justice of the assize for the county of Devon. The earliest reference dates from 1200 when, according to Margaret Cruwys,  he was  “taken into custody being accused of the death of Jordan de la Cell on Exmoor" though again rather frustratingly the source is not given. The most recent reference I have found is in the Patent Rolls when Richard de Crues was appointed a justice for the assizes of novel disseisin at Exeter in the twenty seventh year of the reign of King Henry the Third [1242/3]. Alexander de Cruwys was probably either the brother or son of Richard de Cruwys. He is mentioned in an Assize Roll dating from 1238 which is summarised in The Cruwys Morchard Notebook. Clearly much more work remains to be done to unravel this early part of the Cruwys family tree.

© Debbie Kennett 2010

An intriguing marriage at St George's Hanover Square

Guild member Sian Plant has found another marriage for me in the registers of St George's Hanover Square which has led me on an interesting search through the censuses. Frederick Thomas Cruse married Catherine Harriet Frances Pringle on 6th June 1853 at St George's Hanover Square. Frederick was a bachelor of full age living at Charlotte Street, Pimlico. His occupation was given as "Bank of England". He was the son of Thomas Cruse, a land surveyor. Catherine was a spinster of full age living at Bentinck Street, St Marylebone. She was the daughter of William Henry Pringle, a lieutenant colonel. I didn't have any record of Frederick Thomas Cruse in my database but I've now located him and his wife Catherine in the 1861 census living in Greenwich. Frederick is now known as "Fred". He is a clerk at the Bank of England and obviously a man of some substance as he has sufficient means to employ a live-in cook and housemaid. Fred and Catherine have a six-year-old daughter Harriet Margaret Cruse. Harriet's forenames are mistranscribed as "Hartwig" which is understandable when you look at the census image as both names are abbreviated and are quite difficult to read. I wonder if the transcriber had been reading too much Harry Potter and was subconsciously thinking of Harry's owl Hedwig! Frederick was born about 1818 in Somerset. I've not been able to decipher his place of birth. If anyone can read it do let me know. The census image can be viewed here if you have an Ancestry subscription. The transcriber had similar difficulties and transcribed the place as "Kateth". I cannot check the place of birth in any subsequent censuses as Fred sadly died in 1864. In 1851 he was lodging in St Pancras but only gave the county of Somerset for his place of birth. I've been unable to find a suitable match in the 1841 census. It seems likely that Frederick is in some way related to the Cruses of Rode in Somerset.  Jeremiah Cruse (1758-1819) of Rode was a well-known land surveyor, but without a baptism for Fred or the 1841 census entry I am unable to link him into the tree. I don't have any record of a Thomas Cruse of the right age working as a land surveyor.

© Debbie Kennett 2010