The search for our ultimate ancestors

A growing network of researchers is attempting to trace the ancestry of all known individuals bearing the surname Cree and its variants. This Cree One-Name Study web site has effectively become the clearing-house for publishing the results of this research. As the family trees stretch further back in time, links between them are found, so reducing the number of separate unrelated groups.

It appears that Cree lines in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand result from numerous separate migrations of Cree individuals and families from Britain and Ireland. We cannot trace the actual links for all such migrations, but we are hopeful that further genealogical research will help to make specific links between the migrant groups and the separate trees that have been established of British and Irish Crees. DNA testing is one tool that may help in this task.

Within Britain and Ireland the ancestral lines show strong convergence as we delve further back in time. As a result we can be fairly certain that most Cree lines can be placed into less than half a dozen separate unrelated groups. In theory therefore, most Crees derive their surname from just four or so individuals, one Scottish, one English, one French (Huguenot) and one Irish. The main English Cree progenitor can be identified as James Cree of Bolsover, born 1644; the Irish one is John Cree of Ennis, County Clare probably born before 1700; the Huguenot is Pierre Jacob Carré, born 1706 ; the Scottish one probably lived too long ago ever to be identified!

Summaries of the lines that have been researched can be found by clicking on sub-menu items under Family History on the left. We are now also starting to present detailed, indexed genealogies of those Cree lines that have been researched. Several such genealogies are already available in the Search Database section.

Origins of the Cree surname

The name CREE does not have one single origin; it came into existence in several different ways in different places. Its origins are partly obscured by the mists of time, but we have made good progress in dispelling the mysteries. There appear to be three separate, major origins of the surname Cree, and some minor origins also.

In brief, the surname Cree first appears in Scottish records in something like its modern form in the 1450s. There is evidence that it derives from a place name, probably either Creich in Fife or Crieff in Perthshire. An indigenous Irish Cree line, we believe, arose in around 1690 from the well-known Irish name Creagh. In England the Derbyshire Cree line originates from a name change from Mackree to Cree first recorded in 1678.

There are earlier occurrences in London, some though not all named after a church, St Catherine Creechurch. A version appeared in Kent, England, as a variant of the French Carré in the 18th Century. Cree and its variants also occur as surnames, apparently independently, in the Isle of Man, France, Germany and, rarely, as a surname of indigenous people in the USA. See the Family History sub-menu on the left for more details of these occurrences.

Cree migrants

Cree families in County Down, Ireland, are descended from one or more Scottish Cree individuals who migrated to Ireland in the Seventeenth Century. Many lines in the USA originated in turn from migrations of Crees of the County Down line, while others originate from England or Scotland.

Extensive migration has also occurred from Scotland and Ireland to England - and occasionally in the opposite direction. Cree lines in the north-east of England are thought mainly to have come from Scotland although one line is definitely from Ireland.

The name Cree occurs in many other English-speaking countries. In almost all cases it has arisen there through migration of members of one of the above groups of Cree lines. Almost all the Cree lines in England, Scotland and Ireland have contributed to migration to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

For details of the migrant lines, see the sub-menu of this Family History section on the left. For information on the distribution of the surname Cree in Great Britain, the USA and France see the Distribution section.