The History of the Ryburns   -:  STEPPING STONES TO THE PAST  :-

Home

Variations

Ayrshire

Kintyre

Ireland

Americas

Au & NZ

Sources

Links

DNA

A very early but dubious reference to the name Ryburn comes from Bewcastle in Cumbria, England, just north of Hadrians Wall.  In the church grounds is a famous cross dating from the late 7th century.  On the north side is an inscription in Anglo-Saxon runes.  In 1685, when the inscription was presumably less eroded than now, Bishop Nicholson ventured one translation as "Ryeburn, Cemeterium, or Cadaverum Sepulchrum". In 1251, a Norman-sounding "'William de Ryeburne" was fined by the abbot of the huge Byland Abbey, apropos an alder wood at Scackleton in North Yorkshire.  His name probably relates to the nearby River Rye.  The name persists as "Ryeburn of Helmsley", an icecream restaurant at Helmsley on the River Rye, not far from Scackleton.  There is also the well-known Ryburn Valley in West Yorkshire, but no Ryburns are known to have originated from there. The first Ryburns I know with a fair degree of certainty to have been my ancestors lived in Scotland in medieval times.  Some time after 1312, when the Knights Templar were disbanded, they acquired land formerly owned by the Templars near Dunlop Village in Ayrshire.  The property was known as 'Temple Ryburn'.  The earliest reference to an Ayrshire Ryburn was in 1496, when a Robert Ryburn witnessed an 'Instrument of Sasine given by a noble knight, Sir Adam Mure, of Caldwell'.  Did you know that a John Ryburn, 1530, is in 'Foxe's Book of Martyrs', or that two other John Ryburns 'of that ilk' were involved in two separate feuding murders in Ayrshire in the late 1500s?  The second victim was the Earl of Eglinton!  John the elder, Laird of Ryburn, was himself murdered in 1571.  In 1603 a 'Johne Ryburne' was outlawed on what looks like a trumped-up charge of adultery and child murder.  He fled to Ireland.  The old Ryburn Manor and lands near Dunlop were sold by Neil Ryburn in 1638, and in the 1650s another John Ryburn, probably Neil's son, moved  to the Kintyre Peninsula, near Campbeltown, to join the First Marquis of Argyll's 'Plantation' Scheme. There followed many generations of Kintyre Ryburns. Since those times, the Ryburns have spread far, first to other parts of Scotland, England and Ireland, to North America and the Caribbean, to New Zealand, the abode of my immediate forebears, and Australia, where I and most of my family now live.  Only a few Ryburns remain in the British Isles.  The majority are in the USA. My favorite explanation of the name Ryburn, told to me as a boy, is that a 'rye' was a river crossing made from stepping stones.  In Robbie Burns' song, "Comin Thro' the Rye" a girl meets a boy crossing a rye - not a field of grain.  She cannot avoid being kissed without getting her petticoats wet.  Of course, a 'burn' is a stream.  There is a 'Rye Water', or 'Ryeburn', at Dalry, not far from Dunlop. The name Ryburn has endured many spelling variations, but I have discovered that the name 'Raeburn' seems to have a separate origin from near Gretna Green.  The ancestors of Sir Henry Raeburn, the famous Scottish portrait painter, came from there.  A pity about that! My main contributions to this Web site are two articles as PDF files, Stewart & Donald Ryburn's list of Campbel- town births, a Kintyre tree as a PDF file, and a ZIP file of Kityre Ryburns that can be imported into most family tree programs (e.g. Personal Ancestral File) after unzipping.  The Reyburn Tree is from David Reyburn's Ayrshire-NZ tree. Early Ayrshire Ryburns  PDF  - 468 KB         7 Feb 2013 Kintyre Ryburns           PDF  - 960 KB       28 Nov 2015 Kintyre Births              PDF  - 2.5   Mbyte  ~1973 Mathew Ryburn's Tree  PDF  - 17    Kbyte   7 Apr  2009 Kintyre Ryburn Tree     ZIP   - 87    Kbyte  29 Aug 2014 Reyburn Tree              PDF  - 16    Kbyte  22 Aug 2014 These files are works in progress and will be updated as new information comes to light.  The Kintyre tree is hypothetical in parts, but is extensively annotated. This Web site is dedicated to furthering knowledge about the origins and history of the Ryburns.  Like the Ryburns, this site has humble beginnings, but it should expand and improve over time. You can email me at  rryburn@netspeed.com.au I will try to include all relevant information you care to send me, and I would love to hear the sagas of North American Ryburns.  Plenty of room for more PDF files! Roderick James Ryburn, Canberra, Australia, 29/06/2008 PS:  The 1886 photo in the heading (click photo to enlarge) is the family of my great grandfather, Robert McNair Ryburn, who migrated to New Zealand from Cambeltown, Scotland, in 1859.  Last updated 1 October, 2013

The four sides of the base of the Bewcastle Cross.   Inset is the runic inscription "Ryeburn, Cemeterium". The location of Dunlop & Campbeltown. . Hapland Farmhouse, near Dunlop, Ayrshire, 2007. Called 'Ryeburn' on the 1858 Ordindance Survey Map. Stepping stones across the River Ryburn near Triangle Village, Ryburn Valley, West Yorkshire. Ford across the Rye Water, or 'Rye Burn', near Dalry, Ayrshire.  Photo by Roger Griffith, 2008. Drumlemble Village, on the 'Laggan' plain, Kintyre. Several generations of Ryburns lived near there.