People

John and Janet Hamilton Crichton

John and Janet Hamilton Crichton were Scottish immigrants who came to Dundee, Illinois in the 1830s and 1840s, founding a family whose descendants are documented across dozens of branches in a 1966 family genealogy compiled by descendant Fred R. Crichton. (Source: The Descendants of John and Janet Hamilton Crichton, 1966)

![1873 township plat map showing Crichton family landholdings, from the 1966 Crichton family genealogy](placeholder — pending photo upload)

Known Activities

Origins in Scotland

John Crichton was born April 21, 1787 near Glasgow, Scotland; Janet Hamilton was born November 13, 1786, also near Glasgow. At the time of their marriage, John Crichton's occupation was recorded as weaver, of Bridgetown, in the Barony of Glasgow. The two were married June 6, 1806 — a date independently verified by descendant Fred R. Crichton directly against the Old Monkland Parish and Barony of Glasgow marriage records at the General Registry Office in Edinburgh: "1806 May 18 John Crichton weaver Bridgetown and Janet Hamilton in the Parish of Old Monkland and Married 6th of June by the Rev Matthew Graham." (Source: 1966 Crichton family genealogy, citing 1930 research by Lois Genevieve Wilson Burns Draeger and Fred R. Crichton's own 1966 Edinburgh records check)

Emigration to Dundee, Illinois

The family came to Dundee, Illinois in the 1830s and 1840s, per the genealogy's own framing — an exact arrival year is not given in the pages transcribed so far. An 1873 township plat map accompanying the genealogy shows named Crichton family landholdings, anchoring the family to specific parcels by that date. (Source: 1966 Crichton family genealogy)

Descendants

The genealogy traces at least six named children of John and Janet Hamilton Crichton and their families, including:

  • Jane Crichton, m. Daniel McNeil
  • Elizabeth Crichton — m. Robert Aird Griffith at Carluke, Scotland, August 27, 1841, before emigrating to America in 1846
  • Robert Crichton, m. Grace McKendrick
  • William Robert Crichton, m. Grace Todd
  • Janet Crichton, m. David Clarkson
  • Grace Crichton, m. Robert Todd
A later branch, "The Children of Robert and Mary Schroeder Crichton" (Family No. 26-3), includes Fred R. Crichton himself, the genealogy's 1966 compiler.

Note: the full descendant chart (dozens of numbered names across two family-line numbering systems) has period OCR/typewriter artifacts and hasn't been fully transcribed into individual Person pages yet. This page covers the immigrant couple only; individual descendant pages can be split out later if warranted.

Likely connection to the existing John Crichton page

The genealogy's grandchildren list includes, as entry #17, "Margaret Crichton Ervin." This wiki already has a stub page for a different John Crichton (built from the 1904 Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Kane County) whose daughter Margaret Crichton married William H. Ervin in 1878, settling 3.5 miles northwest of Dundee. The name, generation, and geography all line up — this is very likely the same Margaret, which would make the existing "John Crichton" stub a grandchild's-generation descendant of John and Janet Hamilton Crichton, not a separate unrelated pioneer. Flagging as a probable match, not a confirmed one — the 1904 encyclopedia doesn't name Margaret's mother, and the 1966 genealogy's grandchildren list doesn't give birth/marriage dates for entry #17 in the pages transcribed so far. Worth a dedicated check before merging the two pages outright.

Sources

  • 1966-01-01_physical-archive_crichton-family-genealogy — "The Descendants of John and Janet Hamilton Crichton, who came to Dundee, Illinois in the 1830s and 1840s," compiled and mimeographed by Fred R. Crichton, January 1, 1966. Original digitized by the Fox River Valley Public Library District. Collected by a resident, sourced from FRVPL, 2026-08-18.