Yesterday was a very rainy day and I wrote this after an hour or so of solid rain when the garden was sodden with rain water and the wind meant that it was too cold to be out………..
There are a few things that really annoy me. Cold calling, speculative e-mail shots and 'drip pricing' all really upset and irritate me. I also dislike emails that tell me that the Bank of this and that is sending me a lot of money if only I will give them my credit card details. Yes, you get them as well.
In terms of genealogy, one of the things that really annoys me are those websites whereby people claimed descent from this and that personality right back to Adam and Eve with very little evidence or even an attempt to claim ‘evidence’ for their claim. Whilst this sort of assertion may be truly mediaeval in origin and quite mediaeval in spirit it doesn't really push back the boundaries of credible genealogy. From reading my last blog you will understand that I been looking at the gateway ancestor and trying to find somebody that will take us back even a little and I have been giving this matter some thought. So, whilst I dislike ‘strange’ web sites that make bold and unsustainable claims, I also recognise that they can be fun.
I have speculated in an earlier blog about the possible connections with the Finch family in Standish and Wigan being linked with the Earls of Aylesbury. This is purely speculative on my part, with no evidence whatsoever and ‘just for fun’ as they say. For the readers of this blog I want to confirm that I am quite able to make a distinction between fact and fantasy. The idea that the Finch family with which I am connected is also part of the noble family of Finch is fun but my daily life does not rely on this possibility. My life will not be ruined if I am not part of the noble family and it will not change anything immeasurably in my life. My Finch tree starts in 1806 and anything before that is speculative.
Still, I decided to test out the possibility that 80% of the population of Western Europe can claim a link to the Emperor Charlemagne. Now, that seems a very strange statistic and one may wonder how 80% of Western Europe can claim descent from one person or from an Emperor. However, it seems to be generally accepted that Charlemagne is the progenitor of Western Europe and that he is the progenitor of 70% of Eastern Europe. I suppose the difference between the Eastern and Western parts of Europe used to be the problem of travel in previous ages. The idea that so many people descend from Charlemagne is on the one hand exciting and invigorating and also unifying. Isn't it magnificent that we will descend (or most of us descend) from one person even if that person is so long dead?
Some years ago I went to the great city of Aachen which is now in Western Germany and I went to the Church where Charlemagne's remains are to be found. Amidst the tourists, the crush of humanity and the splendour, I truly felt connected with Charlemagne in an historical sense. I am not making any claims about ‘spooky’ mystical connections here and certainly Charlemagne did not speak to me in a personal sense. If Charlemagne did speak to me would that speech have been in mediaeval German or would Charlemagne have by some amazing power learnt modern English? No, Charlemagne did not speak to me in any mystical sense but I did, nevertheless, feel connected with him as the father of western Europe. Charlemagne is one of those great figures who, although sometimes quite genocidal in nature, is also one of the great figures in European history. However, did 80% of Western Europe descend from him? I decided to give this one a go and see whether or not I could prove some sort of descent from Charlemagne. If 80% of the population of Europe descends from the Emperor, then there is a fair chance that I can show this to be the case for the Finch family of Standish and Wigan.
Strange and mystical genealogies on the internet abound and it is clear that when people copy and paste Standish based genealogies they often click the link on Ancestry.com that places Standish in Gloucestershire rather than Lancashire. It is evidence of a lack-lustre piece of research when that mistake is not noticed in the onward ‘copying’ of the link. Mistakes such as this often test the credulity of individuals and despite such a style of research, I decided to look at my ancestors in the 18th century and see which of them I could take back any further. Which of them would prove revealing to a ‘copy and paste’ and ‘just for fun’ way of doing things. Interesting?
I decided to set aside the normal rules of genealogy and behave like one of the mediaeval heralds who set about writing genealogies that pleased their political master rather than relied on proven records. In the desire to connect myself to Charlemagne I used the International Genealogical Index freely and also used it widely. I want to talk about this in some detail so that you understand how I tried to connect myself in the 21st century to my 34th generation ancestor. The International Genealogical Index is a wonderful tool and I have used it for some years. It has confirmed all sorts of suppositions and it has led to some wonderful openings being made into the past that have subsequently been cross examined or cross referenced by other sources. Certainly, the International Genealogical Index has become more of a tool in the last few years then it was when I started to research my family tree. To find Charlemagne, I had to use the International Genealogical Index a little more freely, widely and with a little less respect.
I started by testing out any of the ancestors. How many of them could I take back a little further? I found that there was one particular line 'Smith' that was more yielding to research than I had imagined. Using the International Genealogical Index I was able to look at the marriage of individuals and then to go back 20 years or so to look to their birth and so on and so forth. Using this rather free method I was able to find a reasonable line. I wasn't completely cavalier in my attitude to this research and I looked for multiple people of the same name in a relatively short time period . If there were several men by the name of ‘John’ then I decided it was impossible to make a determination of which person of this name was the true ancestor and I set aside the project . However, for 'Smith' in Wigan I found that there were several wonderful people with no other similar names in the same time period. Equally, I could not believe my luck when I found that at one period of time a family actually married into a Finch line for a few generations before that, again, became untraceable in the International Genealogical Index.
The gateway ancestor finally emerged in the name 'Prescott' and I suspect that for many in the North-West this name is particularly useful as a gateway ancestor as it leads the family back into the line that is ‘Standish’ and Standish Hall. Well, when I found that I had managed to break my way through the gateway and found the noble family of Standish I became quite excited. Rather than my usual selection of ‘real people’, I was beginning to find people who were not so much members off the local workforce as members of the local aristocracy. There are people by the name of ‘Molineux’ etc and that is quite exciting in itself. ‘Beaumont’ is always exciting when found in a family tree as is ‘De Clare’. In effect, I have managed to push back to a point where, instead of family trees, we had national history. Eventually I came across an illegitimate link to Henry Plantagenet, King of England. With royalty one always finds a descent to Charlemagne and sure enough we can rely not so much upon this one Plantagenet but on the other aristocracy to find links to Charlemagne.
What does this tell us about genealogy on the Internet? Well, genealogy on the Internet is enormous fun and passes many a pleasant hour when it is raining outside and we cannot go out. Genealogy on the Internet is solidly entertaining and it can be similarly speculative. Sure, the International Genealogical Index had evidenced and witnessed all of the assertions, or assumptions, that I made but at any one spot, at any one juncture and at any one point the progress to the past could be faulty and in error. In effect, this great long and apparently unbroken golden line to the past could be a mistake. Don't misunderstand me, I'd love the idea that the Finch family in Wigan descends, however remotely, from the Emperor Charlemagne. That we descend from Henry Plantagenet is truly exciting. But that it might also be a mistake is also amazingly apparent.
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