The Cruit Genealogy Site
The Cruit Genealogy Site
Almost all people named Cruit, Cruitt, Cruet,
Cruett, Cruite,
Cruitte, Cruete, Cruette, Crewit, Crewitt, Crewite, Crewitte, Crewet,
Crewett,
Crewete, Crewette (you get the idea) are related.
DNA TESTING FOR
CRUITS IS HERE! The greatest genealogy advance is DNA
testing. I had mine tested, now we need other male Cruits to do it.
I especially hope that male Cruits of Irish descent will have the test
so we can find if the Irish and English Cruits are indeed related. And
if you want, online databases will alert you each time another match to
your DNA is found, so you may discover people you are related to all
over the globe. You lady Cruits are not left out, because you
know that the male Cruits will do this only if you prod them; then they
will thank you.
You order a DNA kit online or by phone. You suck out your blood and...
no, just kidding, it's just a little swabber that you rub in your
mouth. No pain. This is the DNA site:
familytreedna.com
Order this test kit: Y-DNA37. The once high price
has dropped to $169. If you have questions,
please email me at my address at the bottom of this page.
I am Ron Cruit. I have traced our Cruit ancestry for 40 years. This site lets me share our ancestry--and beg for info you have.
I have found what I believe is the most likely source of the Cruit name. Until the 1200s, few people had a surname (last name). Most British people did not have an inherited surname until the late 1300s. Most surnames had literal meanings. If you were a carpenter your family name may have become Carpenter. If you were John's son your name may have become Johnson. It took me 25 years to find a probable origin of our name.
Cruit is a Gaelic word meaning harp. Gaelic was spoken by the early inhabitants of Ireland and Scotland. In those days a harp was a popular instrument no bigger than a guitar. Musicians playing it were called cruitiers. So our family name may have begun with a minstrel who played the harp for a living or from a person who made harps or from someone who simply played the harp for fun.
OR: (There is always an "or" in genealogy. They should call it geneorogy.) There is an island on the northwest coast of Ireland named Cruit Island. Maybe the first Cruits lived near Cruit Island?
Kassandra Cruit, from Minnesota and descended from the Irish Cruits, has studied Gaelic and also learned to play the harp. She says that the word cruit refers not just to the harp but more specifically to the arched section at the top of the instrument. So Cruit Bridge may have been given that name because it has an arch shape.
Kassandra's uncle, Jim Cruit, wrote: "I visited Cruit island some years ago and had a nice visit with a retired priest who lives there. He considers himself an amateur historian and he told me that the island was named Cruit because it is shaped like a harp and, therefore, had nothing to do with anyone's name... The old priest was convinced that no one named Cruit ever lived around there."
FROM IRISH/ENGLISH DICTIONARY:
hump - cruit
humpbacked - cruiteach
hunchback - cruiteach
And from a history of Irish customs: "King Edward I
of England orchestrated a massacre of the bards and harpists of Wales,
Scotland, and Ireland in 1283 and much of the music was lost. The harp
was further set back when it became an expression of rebellion and
Queen Elizabeth ordered her enforcers to “hang the harpers wheverever
found.” during Rennaisance times."
The only other word close to our name is "cruet", a container for wine or salad dressing. It seems less likely that the first Cruit would have been named after a container. If he was a craftsman who made glass or pottery, he would have made other items too, not just cruets.
Even though cruit was a Gaelic word and Gaelic was not spoken in England, the harp was also called a cruit in early England. This raises a mystery: are the English and Irish Cruits related? Or could unrelated families have taken the same name? I prefer to think that we are related, but that mystery remains to be solved. Cruits live in Ireland, but I have been unable to contact them. They often spell the name Cruite. If anyone has any information on the Irish Cruits that I don't, it would help solve this mystery.
My direct ancestor, Gilbert M. Cruit, first of the Alabama Cruits, was born in England in 1815 and came to the U.S. as a child or young man. He may have lived in Washington, D.C., then he became a stage coach driver in Alabama when much of it was still unsettled. He fell in love with the daughter of a stage stop owner, married her and settled there.
If you have information, please e-mail me at: [email protected]
BUT, remove the zz from my address. That is to stop spammers.
Click the following links for tons of Cruit info:
This Page Last Updated 5/16/12.