I find it hard anyway. My Kiwi great-niece, a tall pretty girl, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, has just given birth to a son. Her partner was and I hope still is a daredevil professional downhill offroad racing cyclist. My younger sister, her grandmother, sent the news and photos of the parents and what looks very like a baby.
I am its great-great-uncle. Never expected to be one of those somehow.
Doubtless others here can joust with me on this one. The very thought makes my heart sink.
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>> The very thought makes my heart sink.
What/which thought?
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>> >> The very thought makes my heart sink.
>> What/which thought?
>>
That he is so old, that he has relations three generations junior to him.
Last edited by: Duncan on Wed 9 Jul 14 at 07:05
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My sister's family has practised generation packing such that my currently very sprightly 83yr old mum is already a great grandma twice over with the eldest great grandchild 18 and in a long term relationship... so it is quite possible she could become a great great grandma if she makes another few years.
For our part we have practised restraint and are a generation behind.
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I have a great-uncle just 12 years older than I and my great-aunt, his wife, is a year younger than I am.
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I am towards the other extreme as far as relatives are concerned.
My only blood relatives are two cousins who are married with children / grand children.
Our children are in their thirties, unmarried and with no offspring I am aware of :-)
My closest relative is my SiL, my adopted brother's widow. She has two married sons with children.
With a wife who is an only child I have avoided all those big family gatherings that others endure.
Even my other two uncles had no children so my family tree is a bit bare.:-)
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My great great grandfather was born in 1796. Anyone beat that?
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>> My great great grandfather was born in 1796. Anyone beat that?
>>
Maybe.
My father was born in 1893 so that's a good start : -)
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>> My great great grandfather was born in 1796. Anyone beat that?
>>
No, but not so far off - 1809.
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Pah!
1774.
Great great great grandfather 1736.
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>> Pah!
>>
>> 1774.
>>
>> Great great great grandfather 1736.
>>
Don't you mean Great great great grandpah?
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Gordon Bennett. My mother was only born in 1947. I expect AC would consider her puppyish and silly.
I can trace at least one branch of my family back almost 2000 years (to Roman emperors). I wonder how many 'greats' that is. I'm not counting them.
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>> Gordon Bennett. My mother was only born in 1947. I expect AC would consider her puppyish and silly.
Why on earth would I, winsome young thing like that? I don't really think even you are those things Alanović except when you are being annoying.
The thought that made my heart sink has come to pass: other people here trumping me with dads born in the 1880s. But I had been surprised to find I was a great-great uncle at only 75. There's no sign of great-grandfatherhood yet but three of my five granddaughters are capable of making me one of those already. I live in fear of being aged by the young, slowly bulldozed into the landfill so to speak.
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I'm guessing people have researched back into their families, people seem to have looked back far. I couldn't even tell you what year any of my Grandparents were born in.
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>> I'm guessing people have researched back into their families, people seem to have looked back
>> far. I couldn't even tell you what year any of my Grandparents were born in.
>>
You should do a little research. I had no idea who my ancestors were. Grandparents died before I was born. Quite easy to do and very interesting. Even found a couple of cousins I didn't know about.
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It's never been something I've been bothered to do. I'm just not interested in long dead people who may be related to me in some distant manner, I don't really feel any connection at all. Perhaps I'm odd.
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>>>You should do a little research.
I'd agree. I looked into both sides of my family back to around 1840... keeping within sensible limits on the distant branches. I signed on to one of the ancestor sites with something like an "all you can find in 30 days" subscription. Printed the results off and left it at that. Found a few places and occupations of interest for example a pub on the old Ermine Street which mum remembers walking to as a young child because of some sort of connection she didn't understand. Turns out in Victorian times one of her relatives when about 20 lost her husband to illness then married the widowed older publican.
In the same way I looked at Mrs F's parents but her tree was already well known as they'd been in the same area for 100yrs plus and were something of an old fashioned family... places they'd lived are walked past every time we visit the home villages. Several properties have been in the family for 60yrs plus and three over 100yrs so it rather brings the history to life without the research. But we did find out one fact about the circumstances of a marriage in the 1880s which answered a long posed question in the family.
So yes... it doesn't have to be a time consuming obsessive search to throw up a few worthwhile snippets.
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>> >>>You should do a little research.
>>
>> I'd agree...
>> So yes... it doesn't have to be a time consuming obsessive search to throw up
>> a few worthwhile snippets.
>>
Oh I don't believe it would be overly time consuming, just that I wouldn't find it interesting. I don't really have in any interest in long dead distant relatives, anymore than I would research the family next door or a family from China's great great great Uncle etc.
As it seems very popular, perhaps it's me. Each to their own though.
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Agree it's not everybody's cup of tea.
I was interested, however, to find that the cottage my great grandfather was born in, in 1859, still exists in Moffat while the birthplaces of all of his descendants in between him and my children have all been flattened long ago.
I am fascinated to know how Alanovic has got a reliable trace of 1 line back to Roman times since I have always reckoned the farther back you go the less chance you have of getting the correct parents for each generation, if you know what I mean.
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Yep,
Unless you are a direct descendant of the Royal family almost impossible to get back with certainty more than a few hundred years.
Still we're all ultimately related to everyone else
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Once you hook in to a suitable aristo from whom you are descended, the rest is in the history books. So it depends on how reliable those are really.
Of course, as you say the further back you go the more dodgy the record is, and there's the probability of a few ancestors fathered in questionable circumstances. But there's never going to be a way to be 100%.
I got back to this fella.........:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I_of_Normandy
...........and then the rest is whatever historians tell us.
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I have no interest in my antecedents, who they were or from where they came, other than that my mother was half (southern catholic, although not practising ) Irish, and was born in Middlesbrough, when it was in Yorkshire and that my father was born in Erith and served in the RN for 95% of his working life.
So - not quite WASP, but 100% English in my view.
I do have to confess to being Empire born myself - Malta, in 1935: thus have a birth stickyfoot in Maltese & English, while SWMBO being a Taffy, has one in Welsh & English.
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I got back to this fella.........:
So does nearly everyone else if you mean distantly related. If you take a generation to be 30 years that would be about 30 generations and you have theoretically about 1 billion ancestors,
1,073,741,820 to be exact. Of course you don' t really as many of them will be repeated numerous times in your pedigree.
Since the population of England was only about 3 million in 1066 it follow that we must all share the same pot of ancestors.
We're all descended from royalty.j
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>> We're all descended from royalty.
Well that's my illusions shattered. I thought it was only me.
;-(
When researching my family, I found a great-great-grandmother who was the descendent by a female line of some minor aristos who had fled to America after the English Civil War, but descendents had returned to England penniless after several generations. That's the line of descent that led me back to the Duke of Normandy etc.
There are countless numbers of such stories and many families will find such links if they look hard enough and the record is there. I just so happened to have found the thread is all.
I find it interesting to have a personal link to some well known history, as I'm sure others do, or would if discovered.
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I thought you were a Republican. Should you be advertising your aristocratic ancestry.? Might be next for the tumbrils come the revolution.
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Happily, er, sadly, er, well, whichever, I haven't inherited a scintilla of money, power nor privilege from those ancestors. Dear Comrade Lenin would approve heartily of my more recent antecedents and their excellent proletarian credentials. My earlier aristo lot were handsomely dispossessed by Cromwell's righteous hoards.
I think I'm safe from Mme Guillotine.
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>>
>> I think I'm safe from Mme Guillotine.
>>
That' s what Robespierre said. :-)
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>> I find it interesting to have a personal link to some well known history, as I'm sure others do, >> or would if discovered.
Absolutely, those I have found so far mainly seem to be agricultural labourers, domestic staff or clerks of some kind until the last 100 years or so.
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>> Once you hook in to a suitable aristo from whom you are descended, the rest
>> is in the history books. So it depends on how reliable those are really.
>>
Yes indeed. b****** son of a duke of Normandy, then back to a Nordic chieftain, then back into mythology with an alleged descent from a norse god. Probably not true. :)
The hobby can be gripping, but it can have a curious double-edged effect in terms of reinforcing, or undermining, perceived "roots".
If family legend and assumed origin turn out not to be true, do you feel a bit high and dry?
If you find out more than you bargained for, do you wish you hadn't looked?
I've always known my mother's side were merchants in Liverpool in the 19th century. But within the past few months I've also discovered they were slave traders, with estates in Antigua, and received handsome compensation from the government when slavery was abolished. Do I feel guilty? Should I apologize to someone?
No, I don't thnk so, but it does make one think a bit.
And I can always instead pick another line to identify with. Kentish yeoman farmers and brewers, Gloucestershire gentry, Irish peasants, Lincolnshire fenland smallholders, property speculators in Georgian London, Herefordshire landowners, Lancashire wheelwrights, etc.
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>>>>You should do a little research.
Mmm, well sometimes a little research can lead you to find family connections one didn't expect. And sometimes they own Citroens.
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Provocative?
Some studies have suggested that people with higher IQs have fewer children and later in life. other studies have refuted this.
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Some fool has entered my brothers and my details on one ancestry site, along with a lot of utter claptrap about my parents. As I'd have to join it to refute said claptrap, I've left it.
I do have an aunt who has done some ancestry research but as she knows the true picture about my brother and I, I very much doubt she's the guilty party.
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>> Some fool has entered my brothers and my details on one ancestry site, along with
>> a lot of utter claptrap about my parents.
Beware of ancestry site details They are a favourite source for personal information for the bad guys, date of birth, middle names etc are not usually good things to have easily searchable on the interweb.
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One of my ancestors was hung for stealing cattle. (Border reivers)
He would have made a good politician today :-)
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>> One of my ancestors was hung for stealing cattle.
>>
hanged
(Point nicely made in the previous Sherlock series )
:)
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Beware of ancestry site details They are a favourite source for personal information for the bad guys, date of birth, middle names etc are not usually good things to have easily searchable on the interweb.
Good point.
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Back to the OP: congratulation to the Coussine family on your new arrival! May you have many happy moments together.
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Thanks Gromit. I ought to remember the new arrival's surname but I'm ashamed to say I can't. I think I can remember his father's first name but even herself isn't sure, and she's better at remembering things like that than I am. I'm very fond of his mother though. She stayed with us in the Grove. All will soon become clear.
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>>>lead you to find family connections one didn't expect. And sometimes they own Citroens.
I knew a chap when faced with somewhat similar unexpected connections who changed his car brand, swapped jobs and moved house twice to blur the trail.
>>> All will soon become clear.
Teasing again AC?
Last edited by: Fenlander on Wed 9 Jul 14 at 17:19
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>> I'm very fond of his mother though. She stayed with us in the Grove. All will soon become clear.
And (forgive me) very fond of his, gulp, grandmother too, my eldest niece. She captivated me when very small by saying confidently: 'We will meet again.' Later drove about for a while in a Porsche GT3 she told me casually. God how annoying.
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I've read every word on that link and I simply cannot understand that remark Meldrew.
Do you mean the woman with 6 kids in the article you link to or the author of the blog?
Whichever it is, I can't find any reason to assume her intelligence, in fact I have admiration for both.
Pat
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I found it very hard to penetrate the language style, but persevering I got the point in the end. A young mother with 3 children took on another 3 young siblings because otherwise they would be homeless or in care.
It sounds the sort of story that ought to gladden the heart of any supporter of the big society.
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I suspect Meldrew read the headline and did exactly what the author expected;)
Pat
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>> It sounds the sort of story that ought to gladden the heart of any supporter
>> of the big society.
Aside from the story, I think that's first time I've seen or heard the words "big society" used by a normal person outside the usual media channels, and even they don't seem to have done so for a couple of years. It's certainly the first time I've had any idea what it's supposed to mean. Thanks for that.
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>>
the words
>> "big society" used by a normal person
>>
Yes, I ought to have put it in inverted commas, indicating mild irony.
In the dentist's earlier to day he explained a new monthly scheme which would have been such an obviously good deal that I felt myself on the point of uttering the words "no brainer".
I hate the expression, but some popular useages are so expressive they worm their way into even a normal person's vocabulary. Resisting the urge manfully, all I could come up with was "Yes, that sounds like good value", which sounds pathetic.
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>>>In the dentist's earlier to day he explained a new monthly scheme which would have been such an obviously good deal that I felt myself on the point of uttering the words "no brainer".
My dentist's receptionist offers such a scheme every time I visit and I do agree it's a very good deal.... for them.
Not my favourite phrase but I have been known to utter it with a facial expression that indicates inverted commas.
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I'm afraid I do still use terms such as "psychedelic!", "far out", "groovy" and "and that's like wow, man", inadvertently, which has been known to raise the occasional eyebrow.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Thu 10 Jul 14 at 16:07
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>> "psychedelic!", "far out", "groovy" and "and that's like wow, man", inadvertently, which has been known to raise the occasional eyebrow.
'Psychedelic' does have a meaning of a sort. Those other expressions didn't last long with me even back in the day, although I probably used all of them except the last.
I still address people as 'man' and refer to them sometimes as cats. I expect no raised eyebrows. Doesn't bother me in the least if some benighted uptight individuals think it's childish or affected or old-fashioned. They know what they can do.
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A bit hard to believe - rtj70
