Genealogy Chat

I found this on another message board. What do you think his chances are? Has anyone else successfully chased a family of Smiths for 500+ years?

'My name is XXX and live in Florida, USA. I believe that my 16th generation Great Grandfather was born in the Lincolnshire area about 1435. His name was Wiliam Smith and he married Joan. I have no maiden name for his wife Joan. Wiliam had a son by the name of Thomas. Thomas was born 1460 in Welbourne, Lincolnshire, England. What I am trying to get is where exactly Wiliam was born. Also what is Joans maiden name, and what was Thomas Smiths wife name. And that's just for starters. Any info would be greatly appreciated.'

Geoff No, not chased Smith for 500 years but ironically my earliest sighting of a Smyth is 1590 in the very small hamlet where my 1610 Smythe is coming from, but not connected the two yet as there is a generation missing! Of all the more unusual names in my tree it is the Smith that I am furthest back on!! With records not starting much before 1540 give or take a few years, the chances of getting a Smith back to 1400's is well...........say no more.....!! I would hope to be further back than 1440 with 16 generations. I am seven generations back to 1655. Now that is worth looking at! How far back in generations would this be realistically. Mathematicians where are you? Janet

I see the aforementioned Thomas Smith appears on the LDS Ancestral files as 'about 1460' and his father William as 'about 1435'. I think 30 years for a generation or three generations per century is about the norm. Most of my ggg-gparents were born about 130-160 years before I was.

Geoff Now that is an interesting reply because I was always told 40 years for a generation and the 40 years is 280 years for 7 gg grandparents generations which I have back to 1655 and 280 years +1655= 1935, back to my Grandfather! As for the LDS and Thomas Smith in 1440 I would love to know the Source as well as the understanding of the Latin. I was 'reading' a 1590 book in the British Library recently and found it a baptism of fire, although many of the names were very legible, I just did not quite understand what they were saying about them and I studied Latin!! Janet

I would have thought that a 'generation average' of 40 years would be unusual. Women tend to produce young from say age 20-45 which *on average* would tend to produce 3 generations a century. OK, men tend to be older than their wives, so perhaps one might expect a higher average on male lines than female ones.

I am sure that a Generation in genealogical and historical terms is more than the fact of the child bearing years but I must find out more. Dictionary Definition is 'about 30 years.' Janet

I've heard cod archaeologists taking a generation as 20 years, which is patently absurd, like the statistics that life expectancy in Roman times was 25 years and average age at marriage was 28! In early modern western europe, couples married fairly late, say 24 for men (ie after apprenticeship) and slightly younger for women. My ancestor who had a second family at 70 will throw the statistics for men, while all those unfortunate women who died in childbirth are going to pull down the upper limit for women. In idle moments, I have looked at the range of birthdates for various generations of ancestors. The wild fluctuations in more recent generations gets flattened out over time (one would have, assuming no cousin marriages, 65,000 16gt grandparents) In that sort of volume, the average is going to return to about 30 years, though goodness knows what was happening during the middle ages: none of the statisticians can quite work out exactly why the birth rate was so low.

Wishful thinking alright. I would love to see his 'proofs'. I can get my ANCESTRAL name back to 1187, however I have not PROVED that they are mine, I have a huge brickwall at 1824. The odds are that I DO come from this Ancestral line - there are so many of them that it would be very odd if I DIDN'T descend from them - however that's not the same thing as proof. Neither is it the same thing as my Ancestral line as given by various people on the LDS site, some of which is accurate for the individual involved but utter rubbish as far as the relationships are concerned. I havent actually had much problem yet with very early documents because most of them have already been translated into English and the few PRs which are in Latin are easy to read if you have a basic knowledge of Latin - don't forget, most of the scribes in those days knew little more Latin than we do. However, I wish him luck with his SMITH search! Marjorie

my furthest generations back is 11 on one line and that goes back to a death date of 1684, don't know the birth date

I do like the optimism of some people's postings. I've found that even with unusual surnames its hard to get back further than my gt gt grandparents, all of whom were around within 20 years of 1800. Of course some women had children from age 16 to about 45 and her first child would be a generation older than the last born. nell

Debby, the local archives or family history society usually has the parish records deposited and they are usaully on michrofilm or fiche. Most have from the earliest records up to at least the beginning of the last century. Problem here of course is if you dont live in the area you have to travel. They usually have all the indexes for bmd too. Pauline

I have a will for Percyvall Makares from 1515 but I need to find the intervening years from the early 1830s back to prove he is mine. I'm fairly certain all the Macarees on LDS are mine (mainly in the Canterbury area) as my earliest one was a Silk weaver in Shoreditch and Canterbury was the capital of the industry when the Hugenots moved here but as yet no proof. A friend of mine's relatives had a tree done 'professionally' (which they piad a large sum of money for) and they supposedly decended back to 600 in Ireland. I haven't got the heart to tell him that without Royal connections it is unlikely to go back that far. However, I can, with the aid of LDS go back to 1790. Just need the time off work to verify it now.

Janet I can go back to Adam, via Genghis Khan, with the LDS!!!!(Tee hee). I know exactly what you mean though, the odds are that your oldest document IS yours - its just the small matter of proving the years in between. I do wonder though,why would the man looking for Smiths in 1400- ish, think that anyone would know more than he does? Where did he get that early info from and why doesnt he follow that source back further? Intriguing - do I smell a copied tree here? Or was he just having a bit of a brag? Marjorie

Jon Oh dear, can't have that, I shall have to push mine back two more generations, erm, Amoeba, Mars and Plankton, Jupiter should do it!! Marjorie