Tracing family trees before 16th century

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Vicki Perry

Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av Vicki Perry » 13 sep 2005 15:12:01

Hi,

I have been following this list with interest for a while but haven't really
posted until now.

I have been researching my own family tree for nearly 20 years, with varying
degrees of success. We nearly have a few lines now back to the beginning of
parish registers (where I assume medieval genealogy begins) and we are
hoping to trace lines back further than this.

I notice that much of the discussion on here centres around the nobility and
more well known people (are these your ancestors or is it historical
research??!). What are the chances of me being able to take my (more humble)
line back to before the 16th century and does anyone have any experiences of
tracing their 'ordinary' ancestors back this far?

As an archivist, I am familiar with manorial records, estate papers and
other medieval sources. However, in my job I obviously only come across the
ones that have survived and have no experience of using these documents for
research.

I'd be grateful if anyone could share their experiences and advice with me.
I'm very excited about beginning this research as it has taken me years to
get here- so I hope I don't come to a brick wall!
Thank
Vicki

Tim Powys-Lybbe

Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av Tim Powys-Lybbe » 13 sep 2005 15:12:02

In message of 13 Sep, vickifperry@hotmail.com ("Vicki Perry") wrote:

Hi,

I have been following this list with interest for a while but haven't really
posted until now.

I have been researching my own family tree for nearly 20 years, with varying
degrees of success. We nearly have a few lines now back to the beginning of
parish registers (where I assume medieval genealogy begins) and we are
hoping to trace lines back further than this.

I notice that much of the discussion on here centres around the nobility and
more well known people (are these your ancestors or is it historical
research??!). What are the chances of me being able to take my (more humble)
line back to before the 16th century and does anyone have any experiences of
tracing their 'ordinary' ancestors back this far?

As an archivist, I am familiar with manorial records, estate papers and
other medieval sources. However, in my job I obviously only come across the
ones that have survived and have no experience of using these documents for
research.

I'd be grateful if anyone could share their experiences and advice with me.
I'm very excited about beginning this research as it has taken me years to
get here- so I hope I don't come to a brick wall!

I wish I had your level of success: I have found very few of my late
16th and all 17th century ancestors in any parish register.

You correctly deduce that medieval genealogy is that which precedes
parish registers. The point is that we are into totally different
types of surviving documentation. Mostly it is comes from records of
land transactions. This give you the clue to getting back further,
that of finding ancestors who had land or who were parties to land
transaction or, indeed, to any transaction or record that may have
survived since those times.

One indicator of landed connections is inclusion in the heraldic
visitations and Achievements Ltd have a search list of names of those in
visitation and related documents:

http://www.achievements.co.uk/services/arm/

That said, you will have a whole lot of work to identify a parish
register entry with a visitation entry.

--
Tim Powys-Lybbe                                          tim@powys.org
             For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org

Denis Beauregard

Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av Denis Beauregard » 13 sep 2005 15:47:46

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 13:11:15 +0000 (UTC), vickifperry@hotmail.com
("Vicki Perry") wrote in soc.genealogy.medieval:

Hi,

I have been following this list with interest for a while but haven't really
posted until now.

I have been researching my own family tree for nearly 20 years, with varying
degrees of success. We nearly have a few lines now back to the beginning of
parish registers (where I assume medieval genealogy begins) and we are
hoping to trace lines back further than this.

You mean you own ancestry or only your male line ?

If you develop your male line, i.e. the father's line, you will get
about 20 ancestors for 10 generations. If you develop all the lines,
you can find more than 500 ancestors (taking into account someone may
appear many times and some people have unknown parents).

You see the difference ?

My own Beauregard line is limited to 18 generations (10 in Quebec and
8 more in France, but this is a matter of luck, especially for this
line because I found the last 5 generations myself). But by the
mothers, I descend from a Baillon family (line back to Charlemagne).
Those are the gateway ancestors. For Americas, the gateway ancestor
is the one on the ship.

I notice that much of the discussion on here centres around the nobility and
more well known people (are these your ancestors or is it historical
research??!). What are the chances of me being able to take my (more humble)
line back to before the 16th century and does anyone have any experiences of
tracing their 'ordinary' ancestors back this far?

This is quite common. In the ancient times, the nobles were about
1/1000 of the population. So, chances are good you find a noble among
the first 1000 ancestors, and if you find 2000, then odds are only
better.

As an archivist, I am familiar with manorial records, estate papers and
other medieval sources. However, in my job I obviously only come across the
ones that have survived and have no experience of using these documents for
research.

It could be helpful if you indicate in which area your line(s) reach
a dead end.

I'd be grateful if anyone could share their experiences and advice with me.
I'm very excited about beginning this research as it has taken me years to
get here- so I hope I don't come to a brick wall!


Denis

--
0 Denis Beauregard - Les Français d'Amérique
/\/ http://www.francogene.com/genealogie-quebec/
|\ French in North America before 1711
/ | http://www.francogene.com/quebec-genealogy/
oo oo Mon association de généalogie: http://www.sgcf.com

Chris Phillips

Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av Chris Phillips » 13 sep 2005 17:00:33

I'd say that it's pretty hard to trace continuous genealogy in England
before the 15th century unless you have some records of land tenure to help
you - or else the kind of records that were generated by people who held at
least some land.

You certainly don't need nobility, but it is a lot more feasible with the
kind of people Tim has indicated - the local "squierarchy" - who might have
held at least a small manor or a significant freehold estate than with
others. If you are very lucky with the survival of local records you can go
further down the social scale - e.g. W. G. Hoskins in "The Midland Peasant"
was able to trace a lot of the genealogy of the medieval freeholder families
in Wigston Magna, Leicestershire, but that was based on an exceptionally
good surviving collection of charters. Manorial records can document the
descent of ordinary people who held copyhold land, but medieval records
survive for only a minority of manors.

On the other hand if you are researching a reasonably uncommon surname,
enough records survive which mention people in passing that there should be
quite a good prospect of at least catching glimpses of the family in the
same area back as far the 14th century. But you can't hope for much
genealogical information beyond, perhaps, A being described as the son of B.

Chris Phillips

Vicki Perry

Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av Vicki Perry » 13 sep 2005 17:29:01

Hi,
I have been researching all of my lines. We trace one line for a while and
then when we get stuck we go to another one. I find it easier this way as
when I go to a record office if I can't find one ancestor I will start on
another branch. We tend to focus on one branch at a time, depending on where
it is easy to get to to do research. I am in London (England) at the moment
so I've been concentrating on the southern branches of the family.
My father's line is Irish, so we have come to a dead end at around 1800 with
that branch. The rest of the family is English and Welsh (sorry, I should
have mentioned it- you forget that people from all over the world are on the
mailing list!)
At the moment, I am concentrating on a branch of the family that come from
around the Oxfordshire/Buckinghamshire border. I have just about traced a
line back to the 16th century (I am hoping to go to Aylesbury RO very soon)
and this is the line I will concentrate on in terms of medieval research.
You're very lucky to have found a noble ancestor- all of mine are either ag
labs and paupers so far, the highest up the social scale we have is a
shepherd!
Vicki

From: Denis Beauregard <no@nospam.com.invalid
Reply-To: denis.b-at-francogene.com.invalid@nospam.com.invalid
To: GEN-MEDIEVAL-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 10:47:46 -0400

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 13:11:15 +0000 (UTC), vickifperry@hotmail.com
("Vicki Perry") wrote in soc.genealogy.medieval:

Hi,

I have been following this list with interest for a while but haven't
really
posted until now.

I have been researching my own family tree for nearly 20 years, with
varying
degrees of success. We nearly have a few lines now back to the beginning
of
parish registers (where I assume medieval genealogy begins) and we are
hoping to trace lines back further than this.

You mean you own ancestry or only your male line ?

If you develop your male line, i.e. the father's line, you will get
about 20 ancestors for 10 generations. If you develop all the lines,
you can find more than 500 ancestors (taking into account someone may
appear many times and some people have unknown parents).

You see the difference ?

My own Beauregard line is limited to 18 generations (10 in Quebec and
8 more in France, but this is a matter of luck, especially for this
line because I found the last 5 generations myself). But by the
mothers, I descend from a Baillon family (line back to Charlemagne).
Those are the gateway ancestors. For Americas, the gateway ancestor
is the one on the ship.

I notice that much of the discussion on here centres around the nobility
and
more well known people (are these your ancestors or is it historical
research??!). What are the chances of me being able to take my (more
humble)
line back to before the 16th century and does anyone have any experiences
of
tracing their 'ordinary' ancestors back this far?

This is quite common. In the ancient times, the nobles were about
1/1000 of the population. So, chances are good you find a noble among
the first 1000 ancestors, and if you find 2000, then odds are only
better.

As an archivist, I am familiar with manorial records, estate papers and
other medieval sources. However, in my job I obviously only come across
the
ones that have survived and have no experience of using these documents
for
research.

It could be helpful if you indicate in which area your line(s) reach
a dead end.

I'd be grateful if anyone could share their experiences and advice with
me.
I'm very excited about beginning this research as it has taken me years
to
get here- so I hope I don't come to a brick wall!


Denis

--
0 Denis Beauregard - Les Français d'Amérique
/\/ http://www.francogene.com/genealogie-quebec/
|\ French in North America before 1711
/ | http://www.francogene.com/quebec-genealogy/
oo oo Mon association de généalogie: http://www.sgcf.com

G.J.Fox

Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av G.J.Fox » 13 sep 2005 21:43:34

I notice that much of the discussion on here centres around the nobility
and
more well known people (are these your ancestors or is it historical
research??!). What are the chances of me being able to take my (more
humble)
line back to before the 16th century and does anyone have any experiences
of
tracing their 'ordinary' ancestors back this far?

This is quite common. In the ancient times, the nobles were about
1/1000 of the population. So, chances are good you find a noble among
the first 1000 ancestors, and if you find 2000, then odds are only
better.
Denis

This statistic assumes that a noble would marry anyone in the community.
This was far
from the case. In general terms a noble would marry within the nobility,
occasionally
within the gentry and very rarely anyone else.
Gerald Johnson Fox

Tim Powys-Lybbe

Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av Tim Powys-Lybbe » 13 sep 2005 22:28:28

In message of 13 Sep, Denis Beauregard <no@nospam.com.invalid> wrote:

<chomp>

In the ancient times, the nobles were about
1/1000 of the population. So, chances are good you find a noble among
the first 1000 ancestors, and if you find 2000, then odds are only
better.

Possibly this might have been true on the continent of Europe but I got
the impression that the question was being asked in the context of
England. Certainly up to the year 1600 I do not think there were more
that 100 nobles, ie peers, at any one time. I'm not sure of the size
of the population, but three million is not far out. So the number of
English nobles was no more than 1/30,000 of the population, making the
likelihood of finding a noble ancestor much more remote.

--
Tim Powys-Lybbe                                          tim@powys.org
             For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org

Gjest

Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av Gjest » 13 sep 2005 22:57:27

Vicki

Keep digging. I have been pottering about with genealogy for twenty
years, having inherited much research from my forebears. My father's
family were generally well-off, landed and with patrician connections.
My mother's family were working-class, ag. labs and the like. Like
you, I realised that my best bet in terms of tracing a line back to the
mediaeval period was through the gentry (or better still, nobility).
Years of researching my father's ancestry got me no further than the
1500s. A bit of energy on my mother's side, however, got me back to
the late 1400s on one line of yeomen (through early Kentish wills) -
and then I hooked one line of poor farm workers in Cambridgeshire back
to a family who appear in the Visitations. Their descent was rapid: a
gentleman's daughter married a local man (social status unknown); their
son became a tradesman in a nearby town, and was clearly rubbish at
business; his son farmed; his daughter married a farmer, and their son
was an agricultural labourer sent to Australia for some minor theft.
Gentry to bottom of the social ladder in five generations.

Having found that link, I can now trace lines back to Henry II etc etc
etc

Given the statistics, chances are if you keep looking for long enough,
you will find such a link. Social mobility in England, even in the
Middle Ages, was greater than you might think. Good luck!

Denis Beauregard

Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av Denis Beauregard » 14 sep 2005 02:19:10

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 22:28:28 +0100, Tim Powys-Lybbe <tim@powys.org>
wrote in soc.genealogy.medieval:

England. Certainly up to the year 1600 I do not think there were more
that 100 nobles, ie peers, at any one time. I'm not sure of the size

Sure ? There are 650 gateways just for the USA...


Denis

--
0 Denis Beauregard - Les Français d'Amérique
/\/ http://www.francogene.com/genealogie-quebec/
|\ French in North America before 1711
/ | http://www.francogene.com/quebec-genealogy/
oo oo Mon association de généalogie: http://www.sgcf.com

Tim Powys-Lybbe

Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av Tim Powys-Lybbe » 14 sep 2005 07:45:26

In message of 14 Sep, Denis Beauregard <no@nospam.com.invalid> wrote:

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 22:28:28 +0100, Tim Powys-Lybbe <tim@powys.org
wrote in soc.genealogy.medieval:

England. Certainly up to the year 1600 I do not think there were more
that 100 nobles, ie peers, at any one time. I'm not sure of the size

Sure ? There are 650 gateways just for the USA...

What is a gateway? It is certainly not the same as a peer of the House
of Lords as these are the only nobles in England. Perhaps I should add
that nobility is not inherited in England unless you inherit the peerage:
the children of a noble are not noble until their father dies and then the
eldest son inherits the peerage and becomes noble.

--
Tim Powys-Lybbe                                          tim@powys.org
             For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org

Kelly Gray

Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av Kelly Gray » 14 sep 2005 17:42:01

denis-

is there a site listing all these usa gateways?

thanks,

kelly

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
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Denis Beauregard

Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av Denis Beauregard » 15 sep 2005 05:50:31

On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 15:41:29 +0000 (UTC), kelly6424@hotmail.com
("Kelly Gray") wrote in soc.genealogy.medieval:



denis-

is there a site listing all these usa gateways?

I don't remember the URL, but someone on the list posted the list
of the gateways. That is more or less the table of content of
a book called RD600 or Royal Descents 600 by Gary Robert Boyds.
The site had only the list of the gateways and not the lines.


Denis

--
0 Denis Beauregard - Les Français d'Amérique
/\/ http://www.francogene.com/genealogie-quebec/
|\ French in North America before 1711
/ | http://www.francogene.com/quebec-genealogy/
oo oo Mon association de généalogie: http://www.sgcf.com

Leo van de Pas

Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century

Legg inn av Leo van de Pas » 15 sep 2005 07:04:01

I am still in the process of adjusting the Gateway ancestry.

However, if you go to http://www.genealogics.org then under Text Search
enter in Occupations box +Gateway +USA then you will get at the
moment 213 of them. A certain number more have been adjusted in my own
computer but these won't become visible until after the next update and that
is polssibly in early October.

Best wishes
Leo van de Pas


----- Original Message -----
From: "Denis Beauregard" <no@nospam.com.invalid>
To: <GEN-MEDIEVAL-L@rootsweb.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 2:50 PM
Subject: Re: Tracing family trees before 16th century


On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 15:41:29 +0000 (UTC), kelly6424@hotmail.com
("Kelly Gray") wrote in soc.genealogy.medieval:




denis-

is there a site listing all these usa gateways?

I don't remember the URL, but someone on the list posted the list
of the gateways. That is more or less the table of content of
a book called RD600 or Royal Descents 600 by Gary Robert Boyds.
The site had only the list of the gateways and not the lines.


Denis

--
0 Denis Beauregard - Les Français d'Amérique
/\/ http://www.francogene.com/genealogie-quebec/
|\ French in North America before 1711
/ | http://www.francogene.com/quebec-genealogy/
oo oo Mon association de généalogie: http://www.sgcf.com


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