Tangled Mind

Approximately 1100 AD, but only 1600 AD with certainty (paternal line)

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I'm impressed! Where, what, who?

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Spain, specifically the Canary Islands. Will see if I can get a copy of the family tree and book off my Dad

Grandparents were lucky enough to win the Spanish lottery to the tune off £35k (they'd moved back over there for a time) and hired a Fleet Street reporter/researcher to find out everything

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tea-cantata.livejournal.com

There's a family tree around somewhere of my paternal grandmother's side going back to 16-something, I think. My mother's side could probably trace quite far back if they wanted, being a Samurai family, but I haven't really looked into it. Nothing so glamorous as pre-Norman Conquest, though.

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avirr.livejournal.com

With me, it's four generations, to about 1880. Not a lot of documentary evidence for Jews in Russia/Poland/Ukraine before that :-(

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akicif.livejournal.com

Family tradition connects the family on my mother's side [not named becausae who'd have thought that "mother's maiden name" would ever be a security question?] with the de Courcy family that came over about half a generation after the conquest, and went to Ireland in the twelfth century.

Also on that side, my maternal grandmother was a niece of Oswald Mosley - the members of the family who care about such things would have far rather kept this one quiet, except for the awfully slim Mitford Connection (Thinks: never mind six handshakes from Hitler, I'm six kisses from the man!)

On my father's side, there's descent from a Captain Blackwood who was active in Nelson's time (the person my brother based his character on in the Regency House), and I think that's about it.

But tracing the whole thiong back, not just particular lines? I have, somewhere, dates for my eight great-grandparents, and that's it. Deracinated, really.

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If one is of British descent it's really very easy to trace families back to 1837, when the registration of births, marriages and deaths was enacted. Previous to that it becomes increasingly hard, although if one happens to be a scion of the landed gentry that helps a lot. Tracing descent into the pre-Conquest period is hard indeed unless one's ancestors were very very elevated personages.

Have you tried playing with the National Archives' 1901 census online (http://www.1901census.nationalarchives.gov.uk/)?

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Aha, but the Glasgow Records Office (allegedly) burned down in 1861, taking huge chunks of ~~dark and dirty~~ family history with it -- or so my aunt assured me.

And 2 problems with the census online:(a) my father's side of the family weren't in England, (b) I don't have much info about my mother's side of the family -- e.g. surname. (She used her mother's: I have no idea what her father's full name was.)

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Ouch, yes, the record office burning down is a big problem. There'll still be some centrally-held records, but not extending back very far beyond 1861. It's not insuperable, but you'd be dependent upon luck.

Your mother's birth certificate shouldn't be impossible to trace: that would have details of her father. But, naturally, it all depends on how much info you have.

There's a vast amount on the PRO/National Archives website about this sort of thing. Or try the Family Records Centre in Clerkenwell.

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Presumably you've seen http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/ (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/)

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damned-colonial.livejournal.com

Well, documentably back to 1770 or so on the convict side of my family. Somewhat apocryphally back to 1600ish on the other side, who came to Australia from the Channel Islands but according to family tradition and rather fuzzy genealogy were Huguenot refugees some time before that.

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nwhyte

My paternal line goes back to the Norman Invasion - of Ireland, that is, in 1169. But we reckon that the first 300 years of it are faked, and it's only reliable from the 15th century. There's still enough data there to make some interesting if questionable genealogical connections.

My great-aunt married the head of the MacDermot clan, whose pedigree goes back to the 5th century. (Again, how much of it is true is a matter for debate.)

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I have to admit, though I have just claimed my mother's clan as my family history, the concept of clan in Scotland was sufficiently inclusive that I have no idea if I have any tenuous genetic connection to the Flemish merchants who came over in the 12th century, and hooked up with Irish nobles who came over in the 6th century.

Practically speaking, however, over eight hundred years (about 30-35 generations) any genetic relationship with one of the several million of my ancestors from that time is no greater than the genetic relationship I share with my next-door neighbour.

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nwhyte

Probably your genetic connection with your next door neighbour is closer!

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my next door neighbour is Chinese. Will this make a difference? <g>

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nwhyte

800 years ago, some of your ancestors may well have been Chinese!

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I'm 1/8 Japanese, and presumably there was a certain amount of contact ...

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nwhyte

It did cross my mind!

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flickgc.livejournal.com

I can't, but Adam-who-owns-half-of-Scotland can!

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My mother's family history (http://clanmurray.org/murrayhi.html) I know about back to the 12th century.

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direct line or cousins etc?

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Click the link and find out. My mother is not my cousin.

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Can't see any reference in it to anyone who might be your mother; what I was asking should have been phrased as 'where does your mother fit into the chain of dukedoms etc'?

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'where does your mother fit into the chain of dukedoms etc'?

That's her clan. The "Duke of Atholl" business is a later interpolation from 1703.

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rich-r.livejournal.com

My mum's traced her side (the Cornish side of my family) back to the Norman Conquest fairly easily (helps that my gran's maiden name was Prideaux, which is a fairly old, insular family name in Cornwall, and owned most of the Duchy at one time or another, and others have done plenty of research in the past) - and she's made a little progress beyond, into some murky depths of Norman/Viking kind of records, but it gets so vague she's given up around 950AD.

My dad's side peters out in Scotland around 1600 though, as one 'Douglas MacDouglas son of Douglas' is fairly indistinguishable from another in the records...

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950AD?!?! Am fascinated ...

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rich-r.livejournal.com

I think it's that 'part of a wealthy land-owning family class' thing that means there are records, usually of the type 'John Prideaux donated four acres of land to the monastory which was gratefully received on this day'.

Unfortuantely the register lists something odd happening in about 1750 - it goes from Lords, Captains, Merchants, Overseers to Paupers, Labourers and Dockworkers. So although it would appear to have been a very well off family for several hundred years, it was all lost in a couple of generations in the 18th Century...

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WRT your priests, I do like the fact that the Head of the Church of England, i.e. the Queen, holds her position at least to some degree as a result of her supposed descent from the West Saxon royal house, the Cerdicingas, and, via them, from the god Woden

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... and look what happened to the rest of Woden's lot. Set to long, dull music by that German bloke -- the ultimate indignity -- after all sorts of soap-opera behaviour.

That's an excellent point, and it explains a great deal. (Though not Prince Philip.)

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easterbunny.livejournal.com

I can trace (or rather people in my family have traced and told me about it) my family back 400 years on my dad's side (I'm eligible for Daughters of the Mayflower in the US) and about 300 years on my mother's side - only particular branches of the family, though. My dad's side of the family is also supposed to be some long lost descendant line from the Welsh King Whats-it that lived in the castle in Cardiff, but I don't know which king exactly (and I've never actually seen the traced line).

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moral-vacuum.livejournal.com

I'm vaguely related maternally to some of the bunch that went across from Westward Ho. Not that I know much more than that. But I did have some relatives in Charleston during the civil war who'd been there for a long time - the Edmondston-Alston house is some sort of historical monument now. Also on the maternal side the Shetland branch of the family can be traced back to something like 1590-odd, but with any real accuracy from about 1700.

My father's paternal side goes back a long way in Alsace, but I've never tracked it down myself.

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Daughters of the Mayflower?

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easterbunny.livejournal.com

A society for women who can claim ancestry from a passenger on the Mayflower. Rather irritatingly, I can't find a website, but it's kind of like Daughters of the American Revolution (http://www.dar.org/default.cfm) - part charity, part society.

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Rather cool and slightly vicarage tea :)

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camies.livejournal.com

About 1851 when a Thomas Amies was a hairdresser in Marylebone. My dad used to say his ancestors were French Protestants from a town called Exmes. I've for some reason never been that interested.

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madcatwoman.livejournal.com

My late father said that some uncle or other had traced us back at least to the Mayflower and that one ancestor was a cabin boy etc. etc. Not that I can in any way substantiate this claim because crew records are (AFAIK) pretty incomplete.
There was also (apparently) some other chap hanged for stealing lead off Bolton Abbey Church roof...

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ajshepherd.livejournal.com

The family story is that we are related to the notorious Jack Sheppard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sheppard), hung at Tyburn in 1724.

It's highly apocryphal and probably complete bollocks, but too good a story to check.

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cool! I was just reading about him. (And Neal Stephenson's been reading about him too, I'd say.)

Any evidence whatsoever?

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sbisson.livejournal.com

1030-something.

A Guy de Buisson in Caen, who had something to do with the Knights Templar.

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Coo! Will there be a Bisson Millennium Celebration?

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marypcb.livejournal.com

don't forget whichever bit of the family emigrated and related you to rowanf!

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suaveswede.livejournal.com

Am quite pleased the a guy did his doctorate thesis on my family and traced us back to Tord i Byn ;Tord the Villager. He lived at the court of King Erik the Victorious. Close to the Convent of Sko in Upppland. His grandson was the first to wear the family name of Bure.

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