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SWEYNSSON Thor (Thorlongus)
Birth:          BEF 1067 Ednam, Berwickshire, Scotland
Death:          AFT 1127 Crawford, Lanarkshire, Scotland

Notes
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jweber&id=I08044
Thor; probably identical with the nobleman Thor Sweyn's Son (possibly of 
Northumbrian origin) who witnessed charters of David I 1127-1150 and was overlord of 
the great mountainous district of Crawford in Clydesdale; granted the church fo 
Tranent to the monks of Holyrood. [Burke's Peerage]

----------------------

Note: I believe that Burke's would have Thor living through 1150, but in order to 
accomodate information from several websites on the Crawfords, I have interpreted 
the above to be through 1127, with him born 1067 or earlier, according to the 
following information from a Crawford family website, 
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~bianco/Resources/Crawford.html:

Origin of the Crawfurds

This surname is known to be local, and assumed from the barony of Craufurd, or 
Craufuirde, (supposed to be of Celtic etymology, and meaning Cattle-passage,) in the 
upper ward of Clydesdale. But the origin of the family, instead of being native to 
Scotland, as was generally thought, is now found to be of Danish extraction, or rather 
from those Anglo-Danes, who, for a long period previous to the Normans conquest 
possessed that part of England from the river Humber northwards, known in those 
early times by the name of Northumberland, - a territory of much greater extent, than 
the modern county of that name, as it included, also, the shires of Durham and of 
York.

According to that accurate genealogist, George Crawfurd, author of the Scottish 
Peerage, and the History of Renfrewshire, and of the House of Stewart, both 
published more than 100 years ago, the Craufurds are derived from Thor-Longus, an 
Anglo-Danish chief, who, being expelled from Northumberland by William the 
Conqueror, found an asylum in Scotland, and in particular had a grant of land in the 
Merse, from Edgar, King of Scots, whose reign is included betwixt the year 1097 and 
the 8th Jan. 1106-7.

This appears from Crawfurd's M.S. history of the Craufurds, in the Advocates Library, 
Edinburgh, and is corroborated by Anderson, in his Diplomata, compiled at the desire 
of the Scots Parliament, who has this notice of Thor-Longus. "Hic vir nobilis, et 
Anglus genere, faisse, videtur ac forte idem qui Thor in libro, vulgo dicto, Doomsday 
Book, saepius memoratius, amplissimis suis praediis in borealibus Angliae partibus sitis 
a Gullielmo Conquisitore erat exutus."

At what particular time his expulsion took place, does not precisely appear; but it 
seems probable, that it must have been betwixt the year 1069 and 1074, when, from 
the unsubmissive spirit of the Northumbrians, they brought down on their own heads 
the most direful wrath of the conqueror, who was so provoked with them for joining 
their original countrymen, the Danes, who had at that time invaded England, (and 
whom, for all his prowess, he was fain to buy off,) that "he swore, by the splendour of 
God, that he would not leave a soul alive. -And so soon as he found it in his power 
(the foreigners being now gone,) to be avenged of them, he ravaged their country in 
so merciless a manner, that for 60 miles together, he did not leave a single house 
standing." See Rapin, V.i.p.172.

All this took place betwixt the years as above stated; and as they were quite subdued 
by the last of these dates (1074), and as there appears to have been no more 
exterminating spoliation of this part of the country afterwards, during William's reign, it 
seems to be a fair conclusion, that this Anglo-Danish chief had found it necessary to 
fly, and make his escape to Scotland, during the interim mentioned. The era of the 
Doomsday Book itself (1079,) in which Thor is mentioned to have been, before that 
time, deprived of his possessions, should be a concluding evidence of the fact.

That he obtained lands in Scotland during the reign of King Edgar, appears distinctly 
from the following writs copied from the M. S. of Crawfurd, and which also are to be 
found in the archives of the cathedral of Durham.

CHARTA THORLONGI

Omnibus sanctae matris Ecclesiae filiis Thor-Longus in Domino salutem. Sciatis quod 
Edgarus Dominus meus, Rex Scottorum dedit mihi AEdnaham desertam, quam ego, suo 
auxilio et mea propria pecunia, inhabitavi, et ecclesiam in honorem sancti Cuthberti 
fabricavi, quam ecclesiam cum una earrucata terrae, Deo et sancto Cuthberto et 
monachis ejus in perpetuum possidendam dedi; hanc igitur donationem feci pro anima 
domini mer Regis Edgari et pro animabus patris et matris illius et pro redemptione 
Lefwini patris mei dilectissimi, et pro meimet ipsius tam corporis quam animae salute, et 
siquis hanc meam donationem sancto predicto et monachis sibi servientibus aliqua vi 
vel ingenio auferre presumserit, auferat ab eo Deus omnipotens vitam Rengi celestis, 
et cum diabolo et angelis ejus poenas sustineat eternas. Amen.

EJUSDEM

Domino suo charissimo David Comiti, Thor. omnibusque suis salutem, scias domine mi, 
quod Edgarus Rex frater vester dedit mihi Ednaham desertam quam ego suo auxilio et 
mea pecunia inhavitavi, et ecclesiam a fundamentis fabric??? quam frater vester Rex 
in honorem sancti Cuthberti fecit, dedicavit, et uno carrucata terrae cam dotavit. Hanc 
eandem ecclesiam pro anima ejusdem domini mei Regis Edgari et patris et matris vestri 
et pro salute vostra et Regis Alexandri et Mathildis Reginae, sancto predicto et 
monachis ejus dedi, unde vos precor sicut dominum meum charissimum, ut pro 
animabus parentum vestrorum et pro salute vivorum hanc donationem sancto 
Cuthberto, et monachi sibi in perpetuam servituris concedatis.

This historiam deduces the Crawfurds from the above Thorlongus in the following order 
of succession.

1. Thorlongus, who has charters, as above, in the reign of King Edgar, (inter 1097 et 
1107), and whose seal in the first is quite entire, (see a fac-simile of it in the annexed 
genealogical tree,) had two sons; 1. Swame; 2. William, whose name appears in a 
charter by William de vetere-ponte, in the archives of Durham.
2. Swane, son of Thorlongus, whose name appears in several charters of the same 
age, as in one by King Edgar, to the monastery of Coldingham, of the land of Swinton, 
also in one in the reign of David I. as possessing the Fishery at Fiswick near Berwick; 
and others in the archives.

Note: The above website had a descent from Sweyn/Swane that did not agree with 
other sources, so I used the descent from another Crawford family website, 
www.stirnet.com/HTML/genie/british/cc4rz/crawford01.htm, for the descent from 
Swane.

Parents
OF NORTHUMBRIA Sweyn (ABT 1035 - )
----- ----- ()

Siblings
SWEYNSSON Thor (Thorlongus) (BEF 1067 - AFT 1127)

Marriage To ----- ----- () m. Notes Children by ----- -----
THORSSON Sweyn (Swane) (ABT 1105 - AFT 1189)
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