These are photos from the personal archive of
Maribeth Montgomery Kasik
who inherited them from her mother Esther McCambridge Montgomery.
Motto
of the
McCambridge Family
Esse Ouam Videri
|
McCambridge
The furthest I can go on this line is to my great grandfather, James McCambridge of Northern Ireland who was married to Eliza Lowery. I do not have dates of birth, marriage or death. I believe they are buried somewhere in County Antrim. One of their children was my grandfather Alexander McCambridge who was born March 03, 1880 in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. He died on February 02, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois. He was married on August 06, 1903 to Esther Aiken who was born April 16, 1879 in Ballyvaddy, Glenarm, County Antrim, Northern Ireland and died in June 1952 in Chicago, Illinois.
Complete information on this line can be downloaded from my GED.COM file.
The below information is a quotation from research completed by the: History of Names Inc which is contained on a document that I purchased in 1989 at the Illinois St. Andrew Highland Games. I have the original document in my archives. Copies can probably still be purchased from the original source. They are suitable for framing. I had mine framed and hanging in my home prior to my house fire.
"The Saxon Chronicle is a manuscript which was painstakingly researched by monks of The 10th century and now dwells in the British Museum. Emerging through the Chronicles of history is one of the oldest family names, MacCambridge and the distinguished history of this surname is interwoven into the tapestry of the history of England.
Historical analysts have used many sources in the preparation of your history such as the Doomsday
Book, the Ragman Rolls (1291-1296), the Curia Regis Rolls, The Pipe Rolls, the Hearth Rolls, parish
registers, baptismals, tax records and other ancient documents and found the first record of the name
MacCambridge, in Yorkshire where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the
Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D.
Your name, MacCambridge, was found in the archives, the name was sometimes revealed as Cambridge, Cambrigge, Cambrigg. McCambridge, and these changes in spelling occurred even between father and son. It was not uncommon, for example, for a person to be born with one spelling variation, married with another, and for yet another to appear on his gravestone. Scribes spelt the name the way it sounded as it was told to them. From century to century spellings changed.
The family name MacCambridge was found to be descended from the Saxon race. The Saxons were a fair skinned people led by the brothers General/Commanders Hengist and Horsa, who settled in England from about the year 400 A.D. They settled firstly on the south east coast, caning from the Rhine Valley. They spread north and westward from Kent and during the next four hundred years forced the Ancient Britons back into Wales and Cornwall to the west, Cumbria and Scotland to the north. The Angles held the eastern coastline, the south folk in Suffolk, the north folk in Norfolk. Under Anglo/Saxon five century rule the nation divided into five separate kingdoms, a high king being elected as supreme ruler. Alfred the Great emerged in the 9th century as the Saxon leader to dispel the Danish invasion.
England, by 1066, was ably led by Harold, King of the Saxons and was enjoying reasonable peace and prosperity. The Norman invasion from France under Duke William of Normandy, and their victory at the Battle of Hastings, found Saxon land owners to be forfeited their land. William, with an army of 40,000, drove north, wasting the northern counties. Both rebellious Norman nobles and Saxons fled over the border into Scotland. Those Saxons who remained were restive under Norman rule, and many moved northward to the midlands, Lancashire and Yorkshire where Norman influence prevailed less.
The family name MacCambridge emerged as a notable English family name in the county of Yorkshire where they were recorded as a family of great antiquity seated with manor and estates in that shire. It is likely that this unknown Saxon arrived in Yorkshire acquired lands and called himself as being of Cambridge', Richard de Cantridae. By the end of the 12th century the name had branched to Gloucestershire when Adam Cambridge held estates in that county. By the 16th century the family had further expanded to Dorset where they held Blocksworth House, and Skellington 1 inqton in Leicestershire. Notable amongst the family at this time was The Earl of Athlone.
The next two or three centuries found the surname MacCambridge flourishing and contributing greatly to the culture of the nation. During the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries England was ravaged by religious conflict. Protestantism, the newly found political fervor of Cromwellianism and the remnants of the Roman Church rejected all but the nest ardent followers. As each group gained power during these turbulent times many were burnt at the stake but many sore were banished from the land, losing their titles, estates and status. Many families were freely encouraged' to migrate to Ireland, or to the `colonies'. Some were rewarded with grants of lands; others were indentured as servants for as long as ten years.
In Ireland they became known as the `Adventurers for land in Ireland'. They were government sponsored Protestant settlers who `undertook' to keep their faith, being granted lands previously owned by the Catholic Irish for only nominal payment. They were also known as the `Undertakers'. In Ireland they settled in the counties of Derry and Armagh, where their name was frequently changed to MacCambridge.
These unsettling times were disturbing and the New World beckoned the adventurous. They migrated some voluntarily from Ireland, some by Army service, but mostly directly from England, their home territories. Some also moved to the European continent. Members of the family name MacCambridge sailed aboard the armada of small sailing ships known as the `White Sails' which plied the stormy Atlantic. These overcrowded ships were pestilence ridden, sometimes 30% to 40% of the passenger list never reaching their destination, their numbers decimated by sickness and the elements. Many were buried at sea.
Included amongst the first migrants who settled in North America which could be considered a kinsman of the surname MacCambridge, or a variable spelling of that family name was Moll Cambridge who settled in Jamaica and the Barbados in 1694; Nicholas Cambridge settled in New England in 1664.
The east coast ports were crowded. From the port of entry many settlers trekked their way west, joining the wagon trains to the prairies or to the West Coast. During the American War of Independence, many loyalists made their way north to Canada about 1790, and became known as the United Empire Loyalists.
They were granted equivalent lands along the banks of the St. Lawrence River and in the Niagara Peninsula Contemporary notables of this surname, MacCambridge, include many distinguished contributors Marquees of Cambridge, Earl of Altham I Viscount Allerton; Lord Cambridge; Sydney John Guy Cambridge, Diplomat, Head of Financial Relations Dept. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, England; Mercedes MacCambridge, rum actress.
During the course of our research we also determined the many Coat of Arms granted to different branches of the family name.
The most ancient grant of a Coat of Arms. found was;Blue with a cross between four silver swans.
The Crest is;
A lion peasant.
The ancient family motto for this distinguished name is;
"Esse Ouam Videri"."
|