Kinnear

The lands named Kinnear are near Wormit in the kingdom of Fife. Black lists Symon, son of Michael, giving land from his holdings at Cathelai to the church of St Andrews. This grant was apparently confirmed by Malcolm IV prior to 1164. Descendants of Simon adopted the name from the lands. Sir John de Kyner appears in the Ragman Roll as submitting to Edward I of England in 1296. Numerous early charters have references to this name, and Henry Kinneir of Kinneir was appointed commendator of Balmarino Abbey in 1574, while John Kinneir of that Ilk was subsequently appointed its baillie. George Kinnear was a banker in Edinburgh at the end of the eighteenth century and his son and heir, James, was a lawyer of some distinction. James Kinnear’s descendants continued a legal tradition into the twentieth century, and they bear the family arms differenced with a gold bordure.