This week's Surname Saturday post is highlighting the Crain surname from my family tree. According to the House of Names website, "an ancient Scottish tribe called the Boernicians were the ancestors of the first people to use the surname Crain. It is a name for a person whose was tall, and had long legs. This nickname derived from the Old English words cranuc, and cornuc, which mean crane." They also say that the name, Crain was first found in Suffolk, England, before it made its way to Scotland. I've also read that variants of the name Crain can be found in Ireland.
In my family tree, working my way from me backwards, the first instance of the name Crain is my paternal 2nd great grandmother, Mary Ellen Crain. Mary Ellen was born October 24, 1867 in Illinois.
Mary Ellen Crain was the daughter of John Hatch Crain (1840-1911) and Nancy Jane Simmons (1844-1915). They moved from Illinois to Kansas within a few years of Mary Ellen's birth.
Mary Ellen married Aaron Bigham in Labette County, Kansas on May 25, 1884. Mary Ellen was just sixteen years old at the time. They had eight children together, including my great grandfather, Turence Stanley Bigham. Mary Ellen (Crain) Bigham died November 25, 1959 in Labette County, Kansas, where she had lived for most of her life.
So far, I have the Crains traced back to the 18th Century in my tree. There is more than one line of Crains in my tree too, so some connections are a bit tangled or confusing. Crain is also sometimes spelled Crane, so that only adds to the confusion. There are Crains in my tree that reach back to Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. I have lots more research to do on the Crains and Cranes in my family tree! Hopefully I'll get all the roots untangled at some point.
