Genealogy Chat

I've checked my info quite a few times and it seems that i am. Is anyone quite expert at geneology that could check through my trees? It just seems a bit too good to be true. It's on my maternal grandmothers side which ar ein USA but have traced back to England and Wales and back to Henry II of England (Plantagenet line). I can send Gedcom files if needed. Thanks in advance Jess x

I don't want to criticise you at all, but. We see many trees from customers that contain Royalty. If the customer says that's their family line then so be it but as a genealogist of many years I have to ask the question, are your sources checked and verified 100%. A lot of family historians latch on to someone else's tree that links into theirs and assume it's gospel. I personally do not enter anybody into my tree until I know the information is checked and verified and is 100% accurate. Now I'm not saying that this may be the case with you or your tree. We had a chap talking to us at a family history fair recently, he admired the 9 x 3 foot tree that we display behind our stall, that's a big tree he said, how many people are on that and how far does that go back, when I told him that it contained 850 people and went back to 1560 his reply was that he had more people than that. I thought here we go, so I asked him how long he had been researching his family. About a year he said :0))))))) I replied how did you get all those people and get that far back in a year, easy he said, I got them all of the internet. Now if someone adds his tree to their tree ?????? See what I mean. Ron www*genealogyprinters*com

Ron's right and I'm not a professional researcher, I never accept it till I've the evidence from the registars office myself, others take things too much on trust and if someone has made a mistake it impacts on the rest of your tree - everything further back is wrong Helena

Of course, lots of people ARE descended from Royalty! However, as the Royal in question is so far back, you really do need to do some PRIMARY research for yourself, which means you will need to go to records offices yourself and carefully check each step backwards. This could take you years! You simply cannot rely on anything you have found on the internet, even if it is historical fact - you have to prove YOUR link into the 'historical fact'. This means finding the primary record of each birth marriage and death in your line. This information will run out prior to 1556-ish, then you need to look at Wills and so on, and there is a black hole of records in the 1400s. Sorry to sound so negative, but as other posters have said, it only takes one 'fact' to be wrong, and the whole thing is rubbish. But of course - you may BE a descendant of Royalty - they had plenty of descendants. OC

If anyone thinks they have found a link back to nobility then they do need to double check everything against well researched sites and original documents where possible. There is a medieval genealogy group and you can search their archives at http://listsearches(.)rootsweb(.)com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl?list=GEN-MEDIEVAL remove brackets. This genealogy site is one which is very well researched and trustworthy http://www.genealogics(.)org/index(.)php Watch out for any trees you may find online with no sources quoted. There are a lot of enormous trees on the Internet which have been created by people with a lot of time and enthusiasm but some are great works of fiction! It isn't often understood that a lot more Americans can trace their ancestry back to the Middle Ages than modern Europeans. This is because a lot of Americans do know some of their ancestry back to a few of the first settlers. The very early ones were often the younger sons and daughters of nobility and are known as Gateway Ancestors because they are the link back to early genealogies. On the other hand the majority of people still in the UK are unable to get back beyond the beginning of Parish records. To find a medieval link in the UK you need to find an ancestor whose genealogy was documented back into the Middle Ages and that was normally only true of those of noble and royal birth. So go carefully.........double check everything and enjoy discovering the new ancestors when proven to be yours. This is when history and family history become very much the same. Sue

I was very interested to see the programme on TV last night about the Tudor Banquet at Haddon Hall, because I 'think' I can see a line back to the Vernon family in my own ancestry. I don't actually expect to have the time and opportunity to check that out in detail until I have retired - about 20 years - but it can wait: they're all dead, and are not going anywhere!

Jessica It has taken me 30+years to get my family tree back to 1633, with about 700 to 800 names all verified, and that has been relatively easy in a few small villages in the same county. I am not sure how long it would take me to verify your tree back to the 1400's, but I do not think I have enough years left to be of any help to you. Certainly once you get beyond 1538 you are in extremely grey territory indeed, unless you are on a Royal Tree somewhere! If you are not on their main line tree, well yes maybe your ancestor link to royalty was born on the wrong side of the blankets, if you understand my meaning. There are many of those around but even they have difficulty proving a link! I presume you have done the checking yourself, with the medieaval knowledge required to get this far back? I know that trying to research some books myself, dating back to the 1500's in the British Library was very hard work with the Latin and Olde English as well as the French. It was very interesting, but a real baptism of fire! If this tree has been done purely on the internet in about a year, then my advice would be to have a real hard look at your tree and try again, making sure that you cross reference all the data you obtain as you go along, and that takes a lot of time and effort. But, if you do it this way, you will not need anybody else's advice and will be comfortable with the tree that you have. One of my husband's ancestors by the name of O'Sullivan went down with the Lusitania according to family legend, but detailed research has shown us that the O'Sullivan who did drown on the Lusitania was not the same O'Sullivan belonging to his family. Janet

If you have the information from the IGI then be very doubtful. I found my family on there back to William the Conqueror. The line was correct back to a lady called Ann Mason in the early 1800s. On the IGI alone there were hundreds of Ann Mason's who could have been the one who was the mother of my ancestor. How did the person submitting the information identify the correct one? I, and a number of other distant family members have tried without success. Most of us don't believe the link, others who have sent the same information to me go strangely quiet when I ask to see the proof of the identity of Ann Mason.

Susan Whilst I accept that many Americans have Gateway Ancestors, there are many more who THINK they do, but don't, on examination. It is a miracle that the Mayflower didnt sink before it left Port, judging by the number of people supposedly on it. A tree containing Holdens is bandied around Ancestry and the LDS site - all descendants of a Justinian Holden, who was on the Mayflower. He married and all Holdens in America can 'prove' a descendency from him. FACT - no one called Holden sailed on the Mayflower. FACT- the only Justinian Holden I can find being baptised anywhere within 100 years of the Mayflower, was actually a GIRL, and the name reads Iustinia, not Justinaian. OC

Too true OC It's a bit like those sites that offer to sell you copies of 'your' family crest or certificates giving surname meanings. Quite a lot of those are very suspect and the people selling crests neglect to explain that not everyone with the same name has a right to use a crest! I read the messages on the Soc Gen Medieval forum because occasionally one has relevance to my own research but a lot of members on there are American and professional genealogists. From 'listening in' to their discussions it looks as if there are genealogists who have done an enormous amount of work on Gateway Ancestors. I hadn't come across the term before so was interested in reading a bit about the idea. I couldn't say offhand what percentage of Americans can genuinely trace their ancestry back to one of the earliest settlers (not necessarily the Pilgrim fathers) but it is true that many of those settlers have well documented ancestry and descendants. This is what was said earlier this year on that forum about the idea.......you might find the latter part of this posting and the links attached interesting (remove brackets) http://listsearches(.)rootsweb(.)com/cgi-bin/ifetch2?/u1/textindices/G/GEN-MEDIEVAL+2006+531111049770+F Best wishes Sue

That is a very interesting site, Susan, thankyou for that. Yes, I can accept that many Amercans CAN isolate their English ancestors, simply because of the 'signpost' that immigration provides - as he says on his Site, English people cannot do this in the same way because there has never really been any mass immigration INTO Britain, which has been documented in the same way (although there are exceptions of course). I do still think though, that it is generally as difficult for Americans to prove their ascent from royalty, as it would be for me. They are not party to any more historical information than we are, once you get back into British records, and there is that huge hole in the 1400s to contend with, unless you are extremely lucky. The point I made earlier in this thread about having to check even historical 'facts' is a good one, I think. A lone researcher discovered documents which virtually prove that Edward Longshanks was illegitimate and therefore not the rightful heir to the English throne. It would appear that no other researcher in the last 800 years had bothered to do the sums and work out that his royal 'father' had been absent overseas in battle for 13 months, and no-one had thought to look for his baptismal record either. His baptismal record records no father and there is no mention of him being of royal blood - an absolutely unheard of thing in any royal family. Of course, if you can hook into a more recent royal than Henry11, it could be a lot easier to prove. OC

LOL That could mess up a lot of people's descent from early royalty OC! Fortunately King John had a lot of children by numerous women and most of those with proven medieval links can get back to him several different ways. Then there are people out there (with I reckon rather too much time on their hands!) who seem to compete against each other to find how many different routes they can find back to William the Conqueror from various given notable personages. When done by some of the professionals those can be useful lines to explore. Best wishes Sue

Susan I can get the Holdens back to 1179, because by sheer luck all the Manorial documents have survived, apart from about 50 years worth in the 1400s. Even that gap can be (rather shakily) bridged by a fortuitous Will, which names Grandfather, father and son. My Great Grandfather, along with many other Victorians, paid to have a family tree drawn up. This goes back seamlessly to William the Conqueror, and the Holdens are descended from a MONK (pmsl) called Haldane, who came over with Willy. Except - I cannot find any documents, let alone proof, to fill in that 120 year gap! It seems far more likely, that the Holdens were already a well-established land owning family long before Willy landed, according to place names I have seen on a map from around 850 (I think). But I have seen this Fantasy Tree regurgitated by a so-called professional researcher, and all my attempts to point out the errors and inconsistencies in the said tree fall on the deaf ears of those who have latched onto it. OC

That's sad OC. How frustrating! I think there must be a lot of very suspect trees out there on the Internet though. It's a pity some Victorian genealogists were content to fill in gaps with fiction. There are a number of modern ones grasping at straws. Fortunately a lot of modern day genealogists (professional and hobby family historians) are doing their best to sort out puzzles to the best of their abilities. In my own case I found there's a bit of a puzzle a long way back on my tree which confused me for some time. I discovered two different versions in trees on the Internet. I spent weeks writing e-mails and letters to owners of these trees, universities, online forums and even Dover Museum and Dover Castle. Eventually I think I worked out a timeline and genealogy which makes sense based on the best evidence available. I then tried telling various people with the same early ancestry and quite a lot of them weren't bothered one way or the other! I suppose some think that sorting out the correct line from about 900 years ago doesn't make a lot of difference but it irritated me that some versions that must be wrong were being passed on. Best wishes Sue

Being a pedant, unless your research is purely on the female line you cannot be sure. (and even then there may be the odd daughter who passes a child off as her mothers)

I know that there there is/are a number of Hoyte Tree/Trees going back to the fourteen hundreds emanating from America that is mainly fiction! Whoever has cobbled it/them together has certainly not done any parish register research, but mainly online 'goo' that has been found and cobbled together and tried to make fit. Part of the tree are my own ancestors which I have researched, and the American version is way off beam. How the family gets from Somerset to the USA and then Northants is not at all clearly shown, never mind researched. This tree is certainly not Victorian Research, but internet 'research' rubbish within the last 10 years and I think that many modern day so called family historians are fuelling the internet rubbish a lot faster than used to be done without the internet!! Janet

It's true you can't ever be 100% sure of any line you are following. As was said by Janet T the female lines are by far the more reliable if you can trace them. However when we can follow a male line back through parish records, wills and other documents then that is all we can hope for. None of us can be sure that any given father is the actual one even in very recent times! One of my family friends died recently and it has emerged since that he was probably not who he thought he was. It looks very likely that he was unofficially adopted by some family but his actual parentage is a bit of a mystery. Obviously the further back you can get then the more likely you are that some link or other is perhaps not what it seems but if we give up on the male lines because we can never be sure before DNA testing then we might as well give up our family history research. Good hunting Sue

Thanks everyone for your replies and there is some great help in there. I have only been doing this for about a year i have have fallen into the trap of using the internet so it is probably likely my infomation is wrong. I think i have made my life a lot more difficult. Some of you mentioned going back through and validating every person. How would i do this? A lot of these ancesters are on my american side so what records can i get hold of? Is it a case of having to make a trip over there and check offices. Also where would i find this info in the uk and is it expensive? Sorry to ask loads of questions but i want to do this properly. Thanks again Jess x

Jessica Glad to see we havent put you off with our rather negative comments! The classic and accepted method is to start with yourself, and then get every birth marriage and death certificate of your direct line ancestors. If you can flesh these certs out with census entries, Wills etc, then so much the better - every piece of 'evidence' adds weight to your research and helps to confirm it. Once you get back to 1837, then you have to use Parish records, some of which will be online, but ultimately you have to go to the records offices and look at the original parish registers, to prove what you found on line. Pre Parish registers (usually about 1554) you are then in the realms of rarified research, using a wealth (hopefully!) of historical documents, such as manorial records, wills, land transactions, ecclesiastical records and so on. Some of these will be in latin (but not as many as you might think) and all will be in Records Offices or other archival depositories - you have to track them down. And sometimes the records simply run out - there is a black hole in the 1400s, partly because of the result of the Black Death (wiped out at least a tenth of the population, including many landowners, and many records got destroyed in the resulting chaos).You will have to weigh up what you find, because you are very unlikely to find dates of births marriages and death, for instance. The above will take you more than a week or so, lol, and you may very well decide it is not worth the effort. A good question to ask yourself - the tree you have seen, does it quote detailed sources and give extracts from those sources? If it doesnt, then it is rubbish I am afraid, or at least a not proven tree. Happy hunting - sounds like you have a lifetime project ahead of you, lol. OC

Thanks OC. I think i do have a lot of work ahead of me so it's a good job i enjoy it! When you say the records office do you mean the main one in london? And do they charge you? And things such as wills would these also be kept there? If you have any recommended sites/books please let me know and i would be very grateful. Thanks millions Jess