cyncad.com

Welcome, Kinkeads & family

This is the family's home on the web — a quiet front door to the people, projects, and stories we're building. Some of what lives here is public; some is private and shared by invitation.

Ceann Cad · at the front of the battle

About the name

cyncad.com isn't a random handle. Cyncad is one of the oldest recorded forms of our own family name — the line that runs from Gaelic Scotland through Ulster to Kentucky and becomes Kinkead.

Its roots are Gaelic: Ceann (head, chief, commander) joined with cad (battle) — “the front, or chief, of the battle.” An 1857 reference, An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names (William Arthur), defines Cyncad with exactly that meaning. And in Our Kentucky Pioneer Ancestry (June Lee Mefford Kinkead, Gateway Press, 1992), our family historian traces the name back to a 1238 Gaelic form, Ceann Cad.

The line, by the record

  1. 1238 Ceann Cad The Gaelic root form — recorded in Our Kentucky Pioneer Ancestry.
  2. c. 1250 Kincaith / Kincathe A place name in Stirlingshire, Scotland.
  3. 1450 Kyncade First recorded as a surname — Robert de Kyncade, Edinburgh.
  4. 1857 Cyncad Documented in An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names.
  5. 1992 The book June Lee Mefford Kinkead publishes the history that ties the line together.
  6. 2026 cyncad.com The name comes home — online, and back at the front of the battle.

Projects

Live · the main event

Aetheria

A fantasy world and the tools that run it — lore, characters, and a dungeon-master web app for the Aetheria campaign. The largest thing we're building right now.

aetheria.cyncad.com →
In development

More on the way

Additional sites and tools are in progress and will appear here as they come online — including Erica Kinkead's work and a set of private family apps. Details to follow.