Cracroft to Cracraft

Where did we come from?  The history of our surname begins in Lincolnshire in the eastern part of England. Archeological evidence shows people have been living in the area for 12,000 years. Various tribes settled and moved around for a long time. The Romans came to conquer around 43 AD and soon built estates, public baths, roads and government buildings. They continued to live and build in the area until 400 AD and some of their fabrications can still be seen today. Much of them were torn down to make other buildings. Some Romans no doubt married locals over the years and stayed.  The next invasion came 400 years later from the east when the seafaring Vikings made shore. Some were raiders, most who came to Lincolnshire were traders. Romans made Lincoln a military post with roads spreading out in all directions, so it was a natural place for the Scandinavians to set up shop.  Looking at a modern-day map of the county one would see many names of towns and villages with Norse influence.  Examples are those ending in by (meaning farm) and thrope (meaning hamlet). Again, these people stayed and intermingled with the locals. The next invasion came from the French Duke of Normandy, otherwise known as William the Conqueror soon after 1066.

The island of England was not united at this time.  People all over the island had different languages and customs. There were many small villages that established their own egalitarian processes of living, some had Christian clergy as the so-called authority. Other areas had military support of a ruler of a defined area who provided “protection” to the farmers, craftsmen and merchants who had to pay for this so-called protection. Over time ruler’s territory grew or was reduced as alliances were established and treaties were made. Laws regarding land ownership changed often over time. Eventually nobility titles and ranks were established until there was one King who had the loyalty of dukes, earls, and barons mostly by relation.

William, Duke of Normandy, was the nephew of King Edward the Confessor of England and Harold Godwine was Edward’s brother-in-law. Harold lived in England near King Edward and was often at Windsor Castle while William lived in France.  Having no heirs of his own, King Edward directed in his will that William was to inherit the English throne and it was a well-known fact. When Edward was dying and delirious Harold brought 16 witnesses to his bedroom and asked Edward if he could be crowned King. Edward said yes, died soon after, and the next day Harold was coronated King of England. 

William was not happy and called to arms of every man in Normandy and surrounding areas to help him conquer England. With so many second, third, and fourth born sons who could not inherit the family estate, this was a great opportunity for these knights to take English estates, become rich quick and establish a new peerage. William and his troops invaded England and fought Harold at Hastings in 1066.

The Battle of Hastings is well known. William defeated and killed Harold and became King of England.  What may not be common knowledge is all the changes he made to secure and unite the country. William was an experienced ruler. Anyone who crossed him was killed, including the whole families, the English estate was loaned to a loyal French knight. He built forts, military castles and churches all over the country. One still standing today is in the town of Lincoln in Lincolnshire. With the blessing of the Pope, he replaced English clergy with loyal French clergy. French became the noble language of England; Latin was used for legal documents and in church records until 1700’s. English was spoken by the common folk. This continued for almost 400 years.

From day one, King William established his own laws and prior laws were supplanted. The King declared he owned all the land in his kingdom.  William granted land to his loyal tenant in chiefs. These were the highest ranking (barons or bishops) of the feudal pyramid. These men had significant responsibilities to the king such as supplying men for his military. They in turn granted land to their knights by their military service including under tenants who leased land under them and so the feudal hierarchy went down to the lowest serf.

In 1086 William set out to survey England and record the annual value of every piece of land and asset in order to be taxed. The names of the lords were compiled in a book that still exists today called the Doomsday Book.  It is here were we find the first record of our oldest ancestor, Ragemar.

RAGEMAR, Lord of Welle, Claxby, and Withern, in the County of Lincoln; recorded in the Doomsday Book as holding his lands in 1086 by knight service from Gilbert de Ghent I, Lord of Folkingham and Bridlington. King William gave Gilbert titles to 172 English manors in and around Lincolnshire. This particular area of land in Claxby belonging to Gilbert de Ghent contained six households, 860 woodland acres, 1.5 ploughlands, 2 lord’s plough teams and 1 men’s plough team. A ploughland is cultivated farmland. The annual value was eight pounds.  The tenant in chief was Gilbert de Ghent and his lord was Ragemar.[i] There were two other tenant in chief’s in Claxby at this time.

Gilbert was a relative of William the Conqueror’s wife; de Ghent means of or from Ghent. Ghent was an area at the time in Flanders, now a city in Belgium. The English name is Gilbert of Gant. Surnames were not used as yet. Most people had one name. Pious parents named their children after people in the Bible. Others named them by looks or temperament. The name Ragemar can be found in Scandinavian countries. Perhaps he had a bad temper? Most likely, Ragemar came to be in the service of Gilbert as a young boy of a noble family serving as a page, then squire and finally a knight.

Ragemar was married and had one son Walter Fitz Ragemar or Walter son of Ragemar. He was lord of Welle, Claxby and Withern living around the year 1115. Walter had two sons, William Fitzwalter and Humphry Fitzwalter. Humphry married Alice, daughter of Robert de Lekeburne, “Keeper of the King’s Forests in the County of Leicester” and founder of Lekeburne Priory circa 1150. They had four sons, Walter de Cracroft, Richard Fitzhumphrey, Thomas Fitzhumphrey and Harold de Withern. Surnames did not become widely used in England until William started keeping records and it took a while before the tradition of the same surname being passed to each heir, sometimes they are interchangeable.

Finally, we have record of the name Cracroft. According to the Oxford English Dictionary Cra is Old English for crow as in the big black bird. Croft means field. Put the two words together and you get crow field. Walter de Cracroft is Walter from Cracroft, an area called crow’s field. 2/3 of all English surnames are place names.

Walter was the Lord of the Manor of Cracroft in the parish of Hogsthorpe in Lincolnshire. This sentence tells us that Walter owned a large house on a landed estate with tenants (and crows 😊).  The church in Hogsthorpe was built in the 12th century and the church is still being used. Hogsthorpe is a Scandinavian name meaning a hamlet where people raised hogs. Walter likely inherited this manor from his mother, Alice. It became known as Cracroft Hall. Hogsthrope is on the east coast several miles north of Skegness and due west of St. Leonard’s Chapel.  There is a street sign called Crawcroft Lane north of Hogsthrope which may have some connection to our family. A local historian believes Cracroft Hall may have been located at Slackholme End but nothing is certain.

Over many years, the Cracrofts acquired land in and around East Lindsey in Lincolnshire. The most common method of acquiring estates was through marriage. The ownership of the estates was passed down to the first-born son or second if the first did not reach adulthood.  The Cracrofts were members of a new class called Landed Gentry, living mostly off of rents. Records show they had estates in Hogsthrope, Ingoldmells (Norse meaning sand dunes) and Burgh de Marsh, Boston, Skegness, Alford and Louth which are all just a few miles from the North Sea on the east coast of England.  

The 1600’s in England were a time of change including the Cracroft family. The branch that lived at Cracroft Hall in Hogsthrope sold the property in 1604.  Other branches lived in Alford, Spilsby, Burgh le Marsh and Skegness. Hackthorn Hall became the main family seat in 1619 and remains in the family today. Hackthorn is a few miles north of Lincoln.

 With the settlement of Jamestown across the ocean the King of England realized the opportunity for wealth. At the same time the Church of England was becoming more and more powerful and the people who favored Roman Catholicism, the religion of their forefathers, were being discriminated against. In 1633 King Charles of England issued a huge land grant in the New World to Cecilius Calvert, a Catholic.  He named the area Maryland, after the wife of King Charles I and it became a haven for secret Catholics from England.

In February of 1664 John and Ann Craycroft arrived in Baltimore and leased a 600-acre plantation called Plymhimmon in Talbot County.  The going was not easy but soon John began purchasing tracts of land. He named one home Hackthorn Heath and named a little stream on his property St. Leonards Creek, after a small place in Lincolnshire near Hogsthrope.  He had a reputation of being a man of good manners and fairness. In 1679 he was appointed Gentleman Justice. It was a position to preserve peace in the county. Then in 1685 he was Coroner of Calvert County. He was an educated man and most all of his legal documents he added the Y in spelling of his last name to distinguish from his family across the ocean. Other references list John as being a cooper and joiner.

John and Ann had one son, Ignatius, who followed his father’s footsteps, acquiring land and was an attorney or a gentleman justice. A section of one homestead is now part of Patuxent Park in Prince Georges County, Maryland. Archeologist have found artifacts that date from the 1680’s that may have belonged to his family, including a buckle with the initials IC.  The land stayed in the family until the late 1800’s.  Ignatius had nine children who lived to be adults. This family eventually moved west to Kentucky and on to California. It is well documented in a book titled Craycrofts of Maryland and Kentucky Kin by Sister Louise Donnelly.

Great Britian’s rise to a world dominate power bloomed in the 18th century.  The Cracroft’s took part in the colonialism of India, Australia and New Zealand. The number of Cracroft’s living in England decreased. The Craycraft name appears in records in Kent, England. One Cracraft came to America.

The Cracraft/Craycraft line in America begins with Joseph and Nancy Ann Stanton who earliest known record is of them living in Frederick County, Maryland by 1754.[i]  They most likely lived there by 1738 when their first child was born. As of this writing no known primary records which list Joseph as an immigrant to this country. In an interview with Lyman Draper, a historian, William Cracraft, grandson of Joseph and Nancy, stated his grandfather immigrated from Lincolnshire, England to Frederick City, Maryland in the spring of 1720. If this is true, Joseph was either a young boy when he arrived or an older man when he married Nancy. Joseph and Nancy had five sons and one daughter and it is from this family that most of the Cracrafts in America descend. The search for Joseph’s parents continues.

Sometime in 1998 a group of Cracrafts, Craycrafts and Craycrofts in the United States began sharing research and stories about their family through chats and emails. They started a webpage to share their information and the interest grew with many people participating. It was a fantastic collaboration of many different family lines. We soon learned that the spelling of the name did not matter. Deeds from various places, written by the county clerk, spelled the name two or three different ways in the same document. It wasn’t until the 20th century that a certain line learned to spell it consistently one way when more people became literate. Genealogy DNA was in its infancy and we wanted to see if our research matched with gene results. We had at least two male descendants from each of Joe and Nancy line, a couple from the Craycroft line as well as one from Lincolnshire, England who agreed to share their DNA. The results were exciting. Most of the men from Joseph’s line had close ties with each other; meaning they descended from one common ancestor within the last few hundred years. The one that did not we found the mother was a Craycraft and the father was not. The ones from Joseph’s line also matched with the one in Lincolnshire but they shared an ancestor with in the last 800 years.  The Craycroft line shared a closer timeline with the Lincolnshire one and more distant from the Craycraft line.  Again, one Craycroft line they did not share an ancestor and research determined where the mother was a Craycroft and the father was not.  From this study we know that going back enough in time we all descend from the same family from Lincolnshire, England.

When looking at early records in England, our surname is usually spelled Cracroft. The first family to come to Maryland, John, added the Y. Most of the Craycrofts in America descend from him. The second family to immigrate was Joseph Cracraft. As of 2024, researchers have not found exactly where or when he arrived. His descendants quicky moved to the frontiers and the spelling of the name was interchangeable with and without the Y until the 20th century.

There is a family line from Pennsylvania who spell their name Creacraft or Crecraft. More research is needed to find how they are connected with the rest of us.

            Please note that the association of Ragemar being our oldest known ancestor comes from Patrick Cracroft-Brennon, a well-known British genealogist who published Cracroft’s Peerage.  More research and stories of our family are to come.  Dianne 2025.

[i] Peter Coldham, “Settlers of Maryland 1751-1765,” (Genealogical Publishing Co.., Inc., Baltimore 1996)

[i] Online translation of Doomsday book https://opendomesday.org/place/TF4571/claxby-st-andrew/