Hi Jill, thanks for your reply. I've been concentrating on the Stronners for way too long to be honest! Around 1000 people in my tree but these ones are the people I seem to keep coming back to.
I've found a few new people (spouses, children etc) just very recently, so I'm back on their trail again. I've not tied mine to the branch from outside of the Arbroath area just yet, but I'm hoping I can. I'll try to get their details posted here soon in the hope that we can possibly tie them together.
Vikki
I do have an urge to keep going back to my branch. It's still a relatively uncommon name today from what I can find. It's my next project so to speak. May see what I can find later.
Out of interest how far back have you got with your Stronners? I do notice there were a few in Dundee, but can't establish a link yet.
I wonder if anyone has access to George F. Black's book 'The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History'. I've found some interesting info about a surname in my tree (Cloudsley) from a snippet I found online from this book.
I have a (rather batteredand rapidly disintergrating) copy. It says nothing about Stron(n)er but Black says that Strono may be a version of Stronach, an Aberdeenshire surname which is probably from the Gaelic 'sron', meaning 'nose', which is often anglicised as 'strone'.
I see that Black thinks that Cloudsley is of English origin, from Cloudesley in Sussex.
Ah that's helpful, many thanks. It could stem from that. It could well be a corruption of Stronach/Strone in the area. From what I am aware, Gaelic wasn't spoken much in this area (Inverkeilor) around 1780 onwards? I may be wrong though.
I have seen that reference from Black's book re: Cloudsley before (online). I do agree that it appears English. From my own research of the name, they appear to stem from Montrose initially around 1600. On searching SP for baptisms (bearing in mind most records will be missing from this time and/or damaged) and there are about 3 different Cloudsley men in the area having children in the early 1600s. My feeling is that they are related, perhaps brothers who came to the area for work in imports/exports (I think there is mention of this online and in Black's book) from probably England.
I have seen another reference to the name being from Cloudsley Farm in Warwickshire, could be either.
There is also a Charity in London named after a Richard Cloudsley. Here is some brief background.
http://www.cloudesley.org.uk/500-years/history/I have seen quite a lot of Cloudsleys in the London area in various sources online.
