My earliest proven FAIRBAIRN ancestors are Archibald FAIRBAIRN & Alison CROSSER. He's a mysterious chap supposedly from Swinton & Simprin, Berwickshire, where his son Walter was baptised. Said son appears to have had an aversion of the Established Church of Scotland. How else to explain the children who occasionally pop out of the woodwork with no baptism found?

My Fairbairns

  • FAIRBAIRN Descendants of Archibald FAIRBAIRN and Alison CROSSER: Other surnames - SCOTT, DAVIDSON, ROBERTSON (or ROBISON), FORSYTH, HERD

DNA matched Fairbairns

The following two families have been dna matched with "my" Archibald above. Although I have now incorporated them all into the one tree, I'm leaving the separate lines here for easy access.
  • The other Archibald FAIRBAIRN Descendants of Archibald FAIRBAIRN and Mary GRIERSON/GIESSEN
    A descendant of this family has a DNA match with a descendant of Archibald FAIRBAIRN and Alison CROSSER, 64 out of 67 markers. My assumption is that the two Archibald's share a grandfather (given Martin is 8 generations down).
  • The Quebec Connection Descendants of the Quebec brothers, William & David FAIRBAIRN.
    Newly (Mar 2008) found to be a 37/37 match with a descendant of Archibald FAIRBAIRN & Mary GRIERSON and 36/37 with a descendant of Archibald FAIRBAIRN and Alison CROSSER.
    Apr 2008 update: the matches are now 67/67 and 64/67 respectively.
  • The Quebec Cousins "Cousins" to the Quebec connection above
  • The top part of the Fairbairn tree Descendants of the likely shared grandfather of the two Archibald FAIRBAIRNs.
  • The neverending story The tale of an 11 year Fairbairn mystery that dna testing has "solved" - well the immediate questions possibly, but there's always one more ...

Potentially related families

It would be great to find male FAIRBAIRN surnamed descendants of the following families to join the FAIRBAIRN DNA project.
  • John & Elizabeth (MILLER) FAIRBAIRN This John's father is known to be a Walter of Roxburghshire, Scotland. Mine is of an age and there is at least one Archibald in John's family, and at least one carpenter. Very inconclusive evidence however
    NB the dates provided by descendants don't always match those shown in census & SSDI records, I can only show 1 date in this format
  • Walter and Agnes (RENTON) FAIRBAIRN This Walter's son Walter may be a contender for the father of the above John in New York. Both the son Walter, and my Walter were supposedly born Swinton, and about 3 years apart. To date, DNA will not help (as the only known descendants still bearing the surname FAIRBAIRN descend from an illegitimate son of the daughter Elizabeth).
    The elder Walter is of an age to be a brother to one of the Archibalds above - more conjecture!
  • James & Mabel (THOMSON) FAIRBAIRN Another researcher has placed this James as a son of Archibald & Alison (CROSSER) FAIRBAIRN, which I doubted as there was a better candidate in Selkirk in 1841. But with a son Robert, and in this area, it is highly likely he connects in somewhere.
    And as of Jun 2008, James the son of Archibald and Alison has indeed been identified as the one in Selkirk, whose children mostly emigrated to America, as did James' brother David.

Assorted external links that may be of interest

  • Fairbairn surname DNA project male FAIRBAIRN descendants would be most welcome to join this group to aid the investigation of possible linkages between the identified lines. Check the Patriarchs page for what I hope will be a growing list of submitted identified family lines. All FAIRBAIRNs welcome, the project isn't just for me to prove my pet theories, although, if perchance your research overlaps with mine I'd particularly love to hear from you.
    Included on the patriarchs page is a brief tree as per Reby (JOHNSTON) DODDS's "Who's Which" (1970), the early portion of which is currently looking in need of revision, given the DNA results in for a descendant of William & Jean (WANLESS) FAIRBAIRN.
  • GenForum Fairbairn Message Board
 
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