Tour Scotland Video Lieutenant Colonel Robert Oswald Gravestone Old Kirk Graveyard Kirkcaldy Fife

Tour Scotland video of the Lieutenant Colonel Robert Oswald gravestone in the Old Kirk cemetery on ancestry visit to Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. Legend says that the founder of the Oswald family was the Earl or petty king of Northumberland of those early days, who had three sons, one a soldier, the second a sailor, who founded a family in life, and the third a merchant, the ancestor of the Oswalds of Ayr. From the soldier sprang the Oswalds of Dunnikier and the Oswalds of Auchencruive, families of distinction. Robert Oswald was a Major in the 35th Foot Regiment and was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in Greek Light Infantry on 18 May 1813. He served in Egypt 1807; ADC to Sir John Stuart; served in Mediterranean 1810-1811, wounded in capture of Ionian Islands. Retired: 1827, Died: 1854.

This ancient name, found chiefly in Northern England and Scotland, is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century male personal name " Osweald ", composed of the elements " os ", a god, and " weald ", power. The given name is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as " Osuuald, Osuuold " and " Osuuol ", and by the early medieval period in England the native English name had fallen together with the less common Old Norse form, " Asvaldr ". St. Oswald born 605, died 642, King of Northumbria, and St. Oswald, died 992, Archbishop of York, helped to establish the popularity of the personal name in England, and also in Germany, where Celtic Missionaries reported the fame of the Northumbrian king and saint. The given name has never gone out of use, in common with most other Anglo-Saxon names with " Os " as the first element, such as Oscar and Osmond. The surname forms generated from Oswald include Osswald, Oswill and Oswell. One John Oswald is listed in the Sussex Subsidy Rolls of 1327, and in Scotland, James Oswald was recorded as a notary in Coldstream in 1665.

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