My family tree - now as old as the telescope!

[cybereye (Mario)]

Originally Posted by Gem

I traced my family back to around the 1650-1700s on most lines... until discovering one line that a cousin had traced back to AD 350!!!!! Easy to trace royalty it seems and we are descended from King Harold of 1066 fame.

Well, I stumbled upon some work that a very distant relative in the States had done and it seems I'm a descendant of William I aka William the Conquerer!! Grant, I guess it's a bit late to apologise for that little misunderstanding between our relations at Hastings back in 1066? It also seems that because of the route to William I'm also related to Kenneth MacAlpin, the first King of the Scots (Picts) and Margaret of Wessex, aka Saint Margaret of Scotland... Hmmn, I wonder whats on my Italian side... a Pope perhaps?

All very interesting but it hasn't cleared the cloud...

Cheers,
Mario

[GrahamL]

Its interesting reading isn"t it Mario, I had no idea where my family name came from until a woman rang me out of the blue to ask me who my family were, turns out the original was laffiette ' which was changed and shortened after the owner had served his time out here
which wasn't uncommen back in the day to avoid the stigma of being a convict.

My wifes family names spelling was changed to avoid a mail mix up with another of the same name down the road and 100 years on its still the same. :0


Whats a little concerning in all this stuff is that I read somewheres was the experts for a long time couldn't fit the population models of the past to the current numbers off us , seems they left out an important
little bump in the maths, in that Grandma way back didn't always just love Grandpa , somtimes things developed and families were a little closer related than we all would like

[cybereye (Mario)]

Originally Posted by nightstalker

Its interesting reading isn"t it Mario, I had no idea where my family name came from until a woman rang me out of the blue to ask me who my family were, turns out the original was laffiette ' which was changed and shortened after the owner had served his time out here
which wasn't uncommen back in the day to avoid the stigma of being a convict.

My wifes family names spelling was changed to avoid a mail mix up with another of the same name down the road and 100 years on its still the same. :0

The name change was a problem I came across in my research. One of my ancestor's surname was originally Melmoth but when William came to Australia in 1849 it somehow got corrupted to Melmouth. Most of his children were Melmouth although two have the original spelling on their birth certificates. It makes it all very confusing...

Just on my relationship to William the Conquerer, I've been looking at a website devoted to the ancestors of William I and it is easy to see that there would be literally millions who could find a line back to him. 5 to 6 children surviving each generation for about 24 generations and I think you get the picture!!

Cheers,
Mario

[Gem (Grant)]

Originally Posted by cybereye

Well, I stumbled upon some work that a very distant relative in the States had done and it seems I'm a descendant of William I aka William the Conquerer!! Grant, I guess it's a bit late to apologise for that little misunderstanding between our relations at Hastings back in 1066?

All is forgiven!