Family tree research - a fun question for you ...

[Peter Gillson]

Hi

Since i am not doing a lot of modelling at the moment I have taken the opportunity to do a bit of research on my family tree, building upon some work my brother did a few years ago.

I have a question for you:

we have managed to get documented evidence of our family tree back to the year 2, yes- the year 2! The question for you is: how have we managed to get records right back as far as the year 2?

I'm interested to see if anybody can come up with the answer.

Peter

 

[adt70hk]

That's impressive not to say unfair of you but explain more!! Do tell!!!

Personally not done it yet.

 

[Neil Merryweather]

napoleonic calendar?

 

[Peter Gillson]

Well done Neil. - I had expected it to take a bit longer.

i am half French so part of my family tree is from France - obviously!' One of the results of the French Revelution was a desire to rid France of all things relating to the former monarchy. The legal system was changed and it the basis on the current French legal system, but they also changed the calender.

The full history of how it started is a little confusing since some decision were made retrospectively, but in essence the year 1792 became year 1. So in relaity I can trace my family back to 1793 - not so impressive as saying the year 2!.

the change was an attempt to decimalise the calendar 'which consisted of 12 months each of 4 weeks of ten days. To confuse matter more each year started in Autumn. months were also named after aspects of nature - see this link to find out more;

French Republican Calendar

The French Republican calendar (also known as the Revolutionary calendar) was introduced during the French Revolution to replace the Gregorian calendar and begin a new era. The calendar was based on scientific rather than Christian principles.

www.familysearch.org

you will soon appreciate why it did not catch on!

Peter

ps - they also tried to decimalise time!

 

[Gern]

Well done Neil. - I had expected it to take a bit longer.

i am half French so part of my family tree is from France - obviously!' One of the results of the French Revelution was a desire to rid France of all things relating to the former monarchy. The legal system was changed and it the basis on the current French legal system, but they also changed the calender.

The full history of how it started is a little confusing since some decision were made retrospectively, but in essence the year 1792 became year 1. So in relaity I can trace my family back to 1793 - not so impressive as saying the year 2!.

the change was an attempt to decimalise the calendar 'which consisted of 12 months each of 4 weeks of ten days. To confuse matter more each year started in Autumn. months were also named after aspects of nature - see this link to find out more;

French Republican Calendar

The French Republican calendar (also known as the Revolutionary calendar) was introduced during the French Revolution to replace the Gregorian calendar and begin a new era. The calendar was based on scientific rather than Christian principles.

www.familysearch.org

you will soon appreciate why it did not catch on!

Peter

ps - they also tried to decimalise time!

I seem to remember they wanted to introduce a system of 100 seconds per minute and 100 minutes per hour with a 10 hour day round about the same time as the decimal system we use today. The almost universally adopted SI system makes sense and certainly makes calculations easier - I wonder why the time system didn't catch on.

 

[Tim Marlow]

Possibly for the same reason the world adopted the Greenwich meridian as it’s datum point Dave. Britain dominated maritime commerce at the time and what we used for time was exported around the world much as trade goods were. .

 

[Dave Ward]

You can have fun tracing the old family roots - according to one branch of our tree - I'm related to Cnut, the last pagan king of Denmark! However when you look closely, there are several 'adoptions', and the dates of births & deaths are iffy & some of the connections are downright dodgy!!! I can just get back to the Civil War - 1650 on my fathers side, my mothers, only to the early 1800's. It can be great fun, as long as you don't take it too seriously - I find that there's a great deal of wishful thinking from some people................
Dave

 

[stillp]

- I find that there's a great deal of wishful thinking from some people................

+1. I find the best thing to do with other peoples' "research" is to ignore them!
Pete

 

[adt70hk]

That's pretty cool Dave, if you can get back that far!!

On a couple of those 'who do you think you are' they were able to trace a direct line to William the Conqueror....and if can go back that far I'm assuming you can go back quite a bit farther than that too....

 

[Peter Gillson]

Researching family is fun. My French side goes back to 1793 which my brother research so I am confident it is ok. My UK line goes back to 1747 which I have researched. I found a copyof a family tree which overlapped my Guernsey family which goes back to 1390: it is this line which I am now checking.

So far nobody particularly interesting has been discovered A line if fishermen so far.

the decimalisation of time has a logic to it, i guess that at the time anything to do with Napoleon was not going to be accepted by the Allies.


Peter

 

[Dave Ward]

You can find some interesting & intriguing facts - you just wish you could have the backstory - like my paternal great grandfather marrying an Irish girl, in 1880 when she was 25 & he was 67! - He'd had a previous family, with his late first wife, and promptly started another family ( including my grandfather ). He was a Yorkshireman ( an engine driver ), how he married an Irish girl is lost! I'd also love to know why my maternal grandmothers' brothers were named after Shakespearean characters! ( Orlando, Lorenzo & Horatio ). They were all Yorkshire textile workers, so those names must have raised a few eyebrows!
Dave

 

[Niho]

My sisters did this for us Richardsons a few years ago... before mum went .... traced back to N'thumerland,York ....nordic origin but over time, 'son of Rikard' became Richardson ..... from Norman influence, either though language ie; translation, interpretation....
So 9th century Britian but line goes back to Trondhiem....

 

[The Smythe Meister]

I looked up my family tree....
..... and a monkey s*** in my face !!

 

[Peter Gillson]

Some of the interesting stories do not have to be far back.

in the early 1920's my grandfather lived in St Peter Port while my grandmother was born and lived in the parish of St Pierre du Bois - three mines from St Peter Port. When he went to St pierre du Bois courting my gran, he and his mate had to carry pick axe handles becasue the local boys tried to beat them up - foreigners taking our girls!

Peter

 

[stillp]

It's very easy to chase down rabbit holes and discover relatives who are really too distant - one example in my tree, from Jersey, Ellen Desalliond, born 1871, is my (deep breath) half aunt of sister-in-law husband of my 1st great-uncle, and I'm sure there are even more remote relatives in my tree.
I think the earliest record I have is 1741, although the earliest I have for my paternal ancestors (i.e. my surname) is 1761.
One of the things you discover when researching is how hard life was in earlier times - one of my wife.s ancestors gave birth to 12 children within the 10 year gap between censuses, but they all died before they were a year old. My great-grandfather, the tallow chandler for his town so presumably relatively well off, lived in a two-up, two-down house, tiny by today's standards, but raised 8 children. Must have been a bit crowded!
Pete

 

[JR]

Luckily for me there is a book about living and working in the Dales and the demise of the industry which forced my family from my father's side 4 generations back to move to Essex and to set up business as farmers and builders. The family name can be traced back to the 1500 s , the end of the lead mining forced the the Race name to spread out from the north of England to far away places such as the US . Saved me hrs of searching the web .

 

[spanner570]

I had a tentative go at my surname. It's Scandinavian, so not many around....

I found out one ancestor was a pirate who lived on Lundy Island and raided commerce shipping sailing down the Bristol Channel.

The other was a 'Sir' who was executed for running a poor sole through with his sword, just because he wouldn't sit down and play cards with him!

I decided it best not to delve any deeper.....

 

[JR]

I had a tentative go at my surname. It's Scandinavian, so not many around....

I found out one ancestor was a pirate who lived on Lundy Island and raided commerce shipping sailing down the Bristol Channel.

The other was a 'Sir' who was executed for running a poor sole through with his sword, just because he wouldn't sit down and play cards with him!

I decided it best not to delve any deeper.....

Oh dear 570 I can quite see why.
I don't think we have any thing like that , apart from my great uncle who fired at a bloke on his farm for taking more rabbits than allowed !
His claim to fame was putting up a sign saying beware of snakes near a foot path through his land as he was fed up with people wandering around .There were no snakes but it did the trick !

 

[The Smythe Meister]

I had a tentative go at my surname. It's Scandinavian, so not many around....

I found out one ancestor was a pirate who lived on Lundy Island and raided commerce shipping sailing down the Bristol Channel.

The other was a 'Sir' who was executed for running a poor sole through with his sword, just because he wouldn't sit down and play cards with him!

I decided it best not to delve any deeper.....

Hmmmm....
Never thought "570" would be of Scandinavian origins !

 

[Peter Gillson]

It's very easy to chase down rabbit holes and discover relatives who are really too distant - one example in my tree, from Jersey, Ellen Desalliond, born 1871, is my (deep breath) half aunt of sister-in-law husband of my 1st great-uncle, and I'm sure there are even more remote relatives in my tree.
I think the earliest record I have is 1741, although the earliest I have for my paternal ancestors (i.e. my surname) is 1761.
One of the things you discover when researching is how hard life was in earlier times - one of my wife.s ancestors gave birth to 12 children within the 10 year gap between censuses, but they all died before they were a year old. My great-grandfather, the tallow chandler for his town so presumably relatively well off, lived in a two-up, two-down house, tiny by today's standards, but raised 8 children. Must have been a bit crowded!
Pete

Peter
very true. life must have been very hard. It is quote sobering to see the number of infant deaths; I have found quite a few where the Christian name of a deceased child is 're-used' for subsequent child. Very sad.

We live in comparatively fortunate times.

Peter.