sources
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In reply to:
Re: DNA Testing
Lois Johnson 6/25/05
Lois,
Looking over the sources you quoted concerning the Celtic connection etc, it dawned on me that these materials looked very familiar. In fact, they come from Dale Lupish's "Rutherfords of Canada" web page and from an article I posted here years ago.
Unfortunately, Dale's site is no longer up. It was a real gem. The site you found our materials on simply "reorganized" the data to suit the 'author'. They left out 90% of the article and focused on the "myths". It came from Gary Rutherford Harding - "The Rutherfords of Roxburghshire" Seattle, Washington - 5th edition
== == ==
Here's the article:
The surname Rutherford is one of the most ancient of Scotland. The earliest accounts of the name Rutherford come from the 12th century. There is no information to identify the first man who bore the name of Rutherford in Scotland. Robert Dominus de Rodyforde is the first mentioned in 1140. There were also other Rutherford noblemen who lived in Roxburghshire at about that same time; Hugh of Ruwerfort, William of Rwyirford [priest], Gregory of Rutherfurd and Richard of Rutherford.
The theory of the Rutherford emigration to England and Scotland following the invasion of William the Conqueror in 1066 is the working theory upon which this ethnography is based. A preponderance of the evidence points to both a Flemish ethnic and etymological origin to the name Rutherford. The works of Mrs. Beryl Platts have been central to the idea that the Rutherford family, like their near relatives the Douglas, Bruce, Stewart, Lindsay, Hay, Bethune, Lyle, Erskine and Crawford families came to Scotland from Flanders in the era directly following the conquest of Britain by William the Conqueror.
The village of Ruddervoorde is located today in Western Flanders in the country of Belgium. A new and interesting area of research has begun concerning the possible Flemish roots of the Rutherford family. Here is the ethnological groundwork which has been laid so far as provided by Ruddervoorde town historian Paul Vanwallen:
1 - Ruddervoorde's coat of arms (1842) is the coat of arms of Sieur Jan van Ruddervoorde (seal of 1356), with a mounted knight running to the right (now to the left). In the coat of arms before 1356 there was no knight in the first quarter. The question is, who is this mounted knight?
2 - The coat of arms of Oostkamp, West Flanders is charged with white martlets [3 x 3 ] on a red shield with a white cross-beam. Oostkamp, West Flanders is Ruddervoorde's neighbouring village with which it merged in 1970.
3 - NorbertThe square red brick tower of the guildhall of the crossbowmen of St. George and St. Denis in the Ecole Normale and that of the archers of St. Sebastian in the rue des Carmes in Bruges, Belgium still stands.
4 - Sir Gerard de Ridefort, 10th Grand Master of the Knights Templars, probably followed Thierry of Alsace, count of Flanders on his 4thcrusade to Outremer in 1164. Gerard entered the service of King Amaury I of Jerusalem.
5 - The Seigniory of the Court of Ruddervoorde has record of these events:
1008 - Lambinus de Rudeford is mentioned
1110 - the parish of Rudeford was founded
1128 - Lambert de Ridefort as a witness to count Thierry dí Alsace
1127 and 1154 - more mentions of the name Lambertus de Ridefort
1132 - Lambertus de Ridefort had 2 sons: Haket and Gerard (not the Templar)
1154 - Lambert de Ridefort and his brother Eustachius were witnesses to bishop Gerald of Tournai and count Thierry dí Alsace.
1230 - The seigniory of the court of Ruddervoorde is inherited by Lamkin de Riderford after the death of his father Knight Haket who received it from the Dean of St. Donatian church in Bruges.
The standard works on Scottish heraldry offer only two coats of arms with an "orle gules"; those of Sir Walter de Lindsay and Sir Alexander de Balliol of Cavers.Sir Walter de Lindsay is an ancestor of the Rutherfurds of Edgerston and the Rutherfords of Hunthill. The Balliol holdings at the town of Cavers are quite near Jedburgh, Roxburghshire. Not surprisingly, Sir Walter de Lindsay and Sir Alexander de Balliol had strong connections with the Cistercian monastic order. Kenneth Davis Rutherford in his "The Rutherfords of Britain - a history and guide" theorizes that the Rutherford orle came from the Balliol family, who also had strong connections with the Cistercian order. By the way, borrowing arms is simply impossible. KRD is dead wrong on this point. In any case, only the Balliol orle of Sir Alexander de Balliol is red, as the traditional Balliol charge is argent [white]. The Balliol family also came to England and later Scotland with William the Conqueror. They also fought under the flag of the Counts of Boulogne [Boulonnais]. Their heraldric charge is the reversed tinctures of the de Wavrin family [The Wavrin is identical to the Rutherfords] which was effected following the marriage of Baildwin of Bailleul, castellan of Ypres to Agnes de Wavrin sometime in the 1130s.
Note that the tinctures [colors] of the coats of arms mentioned above are all "gules and argent" white and red. The earliest of Flemish coats of arms were centered more on tincture than on the images [charges] displayed on the shield. These colors were/are indications of ethnic and regional origins in Flanders. The Rutherford cadets of Hunthill and Hundalee still carry coats of arms in the "gules and or" [red and gold] of the noble family of Boulonnais. The Counts of Boulogne [Boulonnais] were the feudal overlords of the seigniory of the Court of Ruddervoorde. The most famous member of this family was Count Eustace II of Boulogne, companion and in-law of William the Conqueror.
Martlets were/are used as signs of cadency or birth order for male descendants. Today these symbols are used by all families in a uniform way, but they were born in Flanders and again more precisely with the Boulonnais family. The martlet was used in the 12th century only by the Boulonnais family as an indication of birth order, i.e. the forth son of the Count of Boulogne. At the time of the Flemish introduction into Roxburghshire the bearer of that sign was Ernisius de Seaton [Seton] crossbowman to King Henry I of England. William I used archers and crossbowmen at Senlac, depicted on the Bayeux tapestry which shows Eustace, count of Boulogne and members of the Flemish families of Senlis, St. Pol, Hesdin and Alost being led by an archer probably a crossbowman of Lens. The square red brick tower of the guildhall of the crossbowmen of St. George and St. Denis in the Ecole Normale and that of the archers of St. Sebastian in the rue des Carmes in Bruges, Belgium still stands.
There are many different myths that suggest how the Rutherford name originated. Many legends regarding the origin of the Rutherford name have been handed down through the centuries.
The Rutherford Myths:
1. A man named Ruther guided an ancient king of Scots over a little known ford in the River Tweed, giving him a victory against the Northumberlands. He was rewarded with a grant of land thereafter, named after the crossing which had brought him such good fortune.
2. A second variation on this story relates that during an insurrection in Scotland, King Ruther had to flee for safety. Being unable to cross the River Tweed, his life was saved by a young man of Teviotsdale who aided him in crossing at the ford. The spot was henceforth known as Ruther’s Ford, and the land contiguous to the spot was later given to the family of his benefactor by Ruther as a token of his appreciation. The family thus became known as Rutherford when surnames were adopted. ["The History and Antiquities of Roxburghshire - 1857" by Alexander Jeffrey]
“It should be noted that a portrait of the semi-historic Rutherus was found among the portraits of Scottish kings in Holyrood House. The date of the reign of Rutherus, was put as 231 B. C. King Ruther was known as "Ruther the Liberal". His name is also the root of the Scottish surname of Carruthers. The name "caer ruther" [Carruthers] can be translated from Celtic to mean "the fort of Ruther".”
King Ruther aka Ryderch Hael (the Generous) is identified with the supporter of Saint Kentigern the ancestral Saint of the Rutherford family who was also the great ally of Saint Kentigern's ageing grandfather. Ryderch had already been converted to Christianity and made Saint Kentigern the first Bishop of Strathclyde. Glasgow Cathedral was the traditonal superior to Jedburgh Abbey, burial place of the Rutherford Clan. Obviously, the chronology does not support the notion that Rutherus of 231 BC and Ryderch Hael of the 7th century were the same man.
Another variation on the same theme describes an English army which foolishly abandoned a strong position on heights above the Tweed to attack a Scottish force on the opposite bank. The English attempted to force a crossing of the river and were soundly defeated. The victorious Scots are said to have named the place "Rue the Ford", to commemorate the disaster which befell the English at that spot. A further romantic variation of the story relates that this incident occurred before the time of Wallace. The tradition is that an English invading force was allowed to cross the river at the ford, and after they had done so, the Scots fought and defeated them, and drove them back across the ford making the English “rue the ford.” It should be noted that the name Rutherford was in common usage at least a full century before the birth of Sir William Wallace in 1274.
Yet, another more creditable story suggests that the name Rutherford meant "red ford". An explanation given by Jeffrey in his history of Roxburghshire explained that "ruther" means red in Celtic and was not the name of the historic King. This also jibes with the more common translation of the previously mentioned surname of Carruthers as "the red fort".
Lastly, Kenneth Rutherford Davis in his excellent book, "The Rutherfords in Britain, a history and guide" offers yet another etymology. "Rutherford is a place name derived from the Old English "hryther" meaning "ox or cattle" and "ford" meaning a river crossing. Hence, Rutherford could mean Oxford?
Davis' etymology brings us full circle back to Flanders. The name Ruddervoorde with its various permutations; Ridervorda [961], Redravorda [1089] and Ruddervoorde [1242] all are translated from the Flemish as follows:
ridra-vorda: a ford for mounted knights (ridders, ruiters)
hrinpiz-fjurdu: a ford for cattle (runderen)(see: oxford, koevoorde)
rithre (ruhr)-forda (rithe, rive, river): a river-crossing
Even though it's hardly unanimous what the origin/etymology of Rutherford is, the development for many Scottish surnames can be much more confusing. The Rutherfords are a large extended family or in the true meaning of the Celtic word, "a clan" or group of "near kin" or "children". Our great fortune as Rutherfords is that we have such an old and relatively well documented family history. The Rutherford name has been in written use now for about 800 years. On the other hand few general records were left behind by common folk. Deeds, marriage settlements, contracts, wills, etc are almost an impossibility to trace for rural inhabitants of Scotland much before 1600. The concept of a family surname dates from about 1350, when landowners and the nobility established a family name passed on through successive male descendants. That custom gradually spilled over into the general population, but slowly, at first. In Scotland, with Parish registrations, the use of surnames has existed since the mid-1400's escalating so that by 1650 a family name was provided for all. These "family names" were often the names of the local clan or landlord not the actual family. Only the well-to-do had memorial inscriptions in local churches as the Rutherfords do in Jedburgh Abbey. Unfortunately, most Scots can forget going back too far in their family line unless an ancestor was at least an Earl with a family seat, such as the Rutherfords. A good case in point is in Ireland where President John F. Kennedy could not locate the name of his maternal grandfather, let alone a family line, in spite of intense professional research. This is precisely the reason that our Rutherford ancestory begins with noble landed families in Roxburghshire. They were the only ones for whom we have records. Of course, there were a few poor Rutherfords along the way, but keep in mind that we are an extended family with several ancient Rutherford lordships that have perpetuated the family name in documented form. All Scottish Rutherfords are indeed cousins. This is not the case, however in larger Scottish clans where the name was simply taken without blood relationship, and for the most part, only for political or military reasons.
Scottish surnames were beginning to be regulated by about 1600 to cope with the demands of Parish registrations. People without a surname had to come up with one. The inspiration for many Scots surnames came from several improvised sources. Some names were taken from occupations, hence Joiner, Painter, Tanner. Others from geographical birthplaces such as William Esk, meaning William who resided near the Esk River. Most Scottish names did not have a Mac, Mc or M' prefix, by the way. Interestingly, over 82% of all Scots then shared one of about only 18 Christian names. That's why there are so many Robert and John Rutherfords!? There was a growing tendency to insure baptismal records were kept by every parish church, such as at Maxton and Jedburgh. Later this was extended to include marriages and memorials, i.e. deaths. These new rolls required a Christian name as well as a surname that was passed on from father to son. No one resisted this trend.
The Rutherfords were among the few who already had a surname at this point. Most Scots were chosing a surname from a variety of sources; occupation, locale or the local landlord's surname. Scotland was about 70% literate by 1700 compared with less than 2% in Ireland. The expectations of the Scots Presbyterian leaders were that all persons should be able to read the bible without priestly interventions. This means that family names quickly stabilized. Spelling did muddy the issue a bit. The Rutherford family has set some kind of record for spelling variations of its surname. Rutherford and Rutherfurd being the two most common. In his book, "The Rutherfords of Britian, a history and guide" Kenneth Rutherford Davis lists over 300 spelling variations for the name Rutherford. Anyone who has read historic documents knows how "creative" the spelling could be. Given the fact that even William Shakespeare's name is spelled in over 37 different varieties in contemporary documents, one should expect a few Rutherford permutations, as well. [GRH]
We've discussed this subject before. Please see:
http://genforum.genealogy.com/rutherford/messages/5245.htmlhttp://genforum.genealogy.com/rutherford/messages/5245.html
http://genforum.genealogy.com/rutherford/messages/5141.htmlhttp://genforum.genealogy.com/rutherford/messages/5141.html
Gary
== == ==
Paul Vandewalle
"Gerard de Ridefort"
Ruddervoorde, Belgium: Heemkundige Kring, 1998
Paul Vandewalle
"Van Ruddervoorde naar Rutherford"
Ruddervoorde, Belgium: Heemkundige Kring, 2003
Kenneth Rutherford Davis
"The Rutherfords in Britain: a history and guide"
Alan Sutton Publishing
Gloucester, England 1987
Gary Rutherford Harding
"The Rutherfords of Roxburghshire"
Seattle, Washington
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