View Full Version : Family Tree/Lineage,, Any X-spurts?
Need help...
I have been using the Ancestry dot com free family tree app to build our tree. There is a lot of great help. Signed up for a trial subscription so I could get at the work completed by others. Well worth it..
I now have a tres going back 18 generations to around the 1100s
On the Johnson branch, I got stuck at Smerviemore Johnson DOB 1035 France. There were notes that he was related to King Richard I of Britanny, but no details.
So I started leaning on my google fo and found myheritage dot com with answers.
In the 1st attached pic, you can see Smer in the lower left.
His dad Arthur and mom Guinevere
Above them is GrandPa Uther, full name??
King Uther Pendragon, de Bretagne, Roi
I mapped Smer on Ancestry vs MyHeritage and it seems to match.
Oh, and the notes about Smer being related to Richard I,, it was thru his wife, Adrian according to myheritage.
HELP..
This is very Bizarro..
Opine at will..
:munching
PS: Here is the link. If you tap on someone a side page pops up with their details.
https://www.myheritage.com/site-family-tree-427455891/johnson-family?indID=3000076#
Badger52
12-13-2021, 06:32
This is a pretty cool topic. Some of the difficulties (at the hangup point) might be that there are 2 very differing schools of thought regarding Arthurian legend when injected into a tree. Some works (Chretien de Troye, et al) seem to place him reliably in the century 400-500. However, as noted by Brad Miner in the book The Compleat Gentleman (https://www.amazon.com/Compleat-Gentleman-Modern-Guide-Chivalry/dp/189062652X), many of the other accounts written in the mid 11th century on into the 12th evoke a detail that could only have been met by someone who had been through those times, but which conflict with reality (unless there's a 500 year old scribe somewhere with a very long beard). (Note: the book above is not about tracing Arthurian lineage but other matters which Arthur was germaine to.)
An example pointed out would be Arthur's and the Knights' participation in tournaments on horseback, which would've been extremely difficult without the use of stirrups which hadn't been introduced into Europe till much later. Miner notes that Henry & Wife/Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine did make good use of 'Arthur' in sustaining the legend because it helped them win hearts/minds of their subjects as they evoked their "Englishness." Keepers of the flame, so to speak.
I mention all this not to disparage what the companies provided you, but I wonder if the online ancestry companies commonly reach a dead-end around this point in recorded history. No dispute, historically, there are camps on both sides adamant that Arthur existed... or on the flip-side that he was a (necessary?) myth. I have a cousin who took my Mother's side of the family back to the early 1300's but then had to pretty much throw in the towel due to the difficulty of finding verifiable records. (She posed the question, if there's only 1 record of something how is it verifiable? lol)
I'd be curious to hear what you find out & what sources take you further back.
:)
1stindoor
12-13-2021, 07:12
Pretty cool thanks for sharing that. I tend to lean more toward Dennis when thinking about King Arthur...
"Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.":D
This story of Smer is starting to look/sound like the creation/documentation of the bible.
Is it fiction, non-fiction, or the truth told with an author's personal bias?
Found a couple of accidemians with THEIR take. They spend a lot of time arguing word semantics and little on facts.
Several argue that the stories of the Pendragon Clan did happen around 1000.
They also document that the stories are based in fact.
They all suggest that the recorder of these stories used a lot of leniencies
Remember that outside of the Christian Church,, 99% of the population did not read nor write. So, that fat frier in the abby creating picture books was more inclined to please the Abbot/Priorate. And the Abbot took orders from the Pope or local peerage
Reminds me of the movie The Name of the Rose (1986) with Sean Connery
I think for now I will leave the linkage and tell my kids and g-kids there may be weak points to the Grand Hertage of the Johnson Clan :munchin
I mention all this not to disparage what the companies provided you, but I wonder if the online ancestry companies commonly reach a dead-end around this point in recorded history. No dispute, historically, there are camps on both sides adamant that Arthur existed... or on the flip-side that he was a (necessary?) myth. I have a cousin who took my Mother's side of the family back to the early 1300's but then had to pretty much throw in the towel due to the difficulty of finding verifiable records. (She posed the question, if there's only 1 record of something how is it verifiable? lol)
I'd be curious to hear what you find out & what sources take you further back.
:)
I am going to say from my experience there are dead ends and/or a point you reach where there is no way to verify the person is the person you are looking for, at which point it is a guessing game.
Also, when it comes to family Trees on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FTDNA, etc they rely subscriber input so it's garbage in garbage out.
For instance in my adopted paternal family some old hens got together in the 1950's-60' and concluded that the patriarch of the family was a former Lt. Governor of the State of Virginia who had the same name and born in the same period. They went as far as getting papers notarized to authenticate their accuracy. These documents permeated family trees for years and provided bogus data across hundreds of trees.
It took 3 YDNA to proved those documents to be wrong. Despite this there is still a family member who pollutes the Ancestry database with that inaccurate information.
Another in my maternal family member is a writer. He moved to My Heritage to 'write' his own version of the family history. He sent me a bio on a family member that was complete fiction, and that is what subscribers can and do pull into their trees.
Most of the AncestryDNA matches with family trees do well if they get back to their G-Grandparents. That's it, that's all they know about their families. Those that do get past G-Grandparents, many merely point and click on what comes up in their hints.
Family Search says my 13th G-Grandfather is an Indian Chief from back East who married a white woman...a Grand Sacum or something like that. No way for me to prove that, but it's a pretty cool possibility :D
Badger52
12-13-2021, 15:55
Remember that outside of the Christian Church,, 99% of the population did not read nor write. So, that fat frier in the abby creating picture books was more inclined to please the Abbot/Priorate. And the Abbot took orders from the Pope or local peerageExactimundo. That factoid is lost on many who think they should just be able to run down to the Register of Deeds office and get a copy of a microfiche. When my cousin did ours this was way before this internet hoohoo and it took her years, the old-fashioned way.
But it's how I learned why "Scots-Irish" tend to be pretty irascible cusses. :D
JJ, Your located in NOVA which I take to mean Northern Virginia?? If so, get thee to the Library of Congress which has a whole section on genealogy.
I hit the place about 35 years ago, before the computer era when I lived in Silver Spring. Cleared up some issues regarding the family tree. Learned a lot forgotten over the years. Lotsa interesting factoids...
List of what the first guy brought with him from what is now Germany. Included "One Rifle" :D Names of the guys in the militias from Braddock's Defeat up through the Revolution and Civil War.
Guy by the Name of Dr Samuel Bates did the rosters for the PA regiments. That was a bit time consuming reading through. One dead at Vicksburg, one dead at Fredericksburg, one dead at Wilderness, one dead at Antietam, One dead at the James River. Two dead of disease. One severally wounded standing in a wheat field next to a Peach Orchard July 2nd 1863.
Even found some references from the Old Country!! A guy pinched for poaching the local noble's game. lol.
They have the Census records. No slaves on my family farms.
I put Smer's "dad" Arthur, Guinevere, and GrandPa Uther(980) in the tree.
Along with his GGP Cynyr Ceinfarfog(953) and GGGP Agricola of the Long Hand(926)
And I shall stop at that, as far as this tree goes, I will look no further. There is a grand conundrum in the force. One school says Arthur was born in the 4th or 5th century, while others say the 9th-10th. Then others say he is a complete fiction.
Not My Job.. :munchin
I built the tree from today back to Smer. So I didn't have a perception of who or where it would lead. I entered myself, my dad, GP, GGP as I already data, mass cards, and pictures. On my mom's side, I managed to get back to GGG pa & ma.
Ancestry dot com made suggestions using my info and matching it to their data and other family trees.
Occasionally the matching algorithm would suggest: do you think this Bill Johnson or this Bill Johnson. But not many, so the tree built rather quickly.
The 1st colonizer to die in the USA, was Isaac Johnson, B:15 Dec 1615 Ware End, Great Amwell, Hertfordshire, England,, D:18 Dec 1675 The Great Swamp Fight at Narragansett, Rhode Island, USA
Before Isaac migrated, multiple generations back to Smer, the fathers, mothers, and siblings had peerage titles, not 100%, but more than not.
At least one Duke, couple Marquesses, and several "Sir"(presumably Knights??)
As I understand it, the UK peerage system of old was built on a buddy system that surpasses the current Democratic party. So I didn't pay much attention, but now after "filling in" those 18 generations,, maybe there is some truth to Smer's parent peerage??
Again, Thank you all for the suggestions and pointers :lifter:D:lifter
twistedsquid
12-14-2021, 16:58
We are all descended from kings. And kings descend from aliens.
This story of Smer is starting to look/sound like the creation/documentation of the bible.
Is it fiction, non-fiction, or the truth told with an author's personal bias?
Found a couple of accidemians with THEIR take. They spend a lot of time arguing word semantics and little on facts.
Several argue that the stories of the Pendragon Clan did happen around 1000.
They also document that the stories are based in fact.
They all suggest that the recorder of these stories used a lot of leniencies
Remember that outside of the Christian Church,, 99% of the population did not read nor write. So, that fat frier in the abby creating picture books was more inclined to please the Abbot/Priorate. And the Abbot took orders from the Pope or local peerage
Reminds me of the movie The Name of the Rose (1986) with Sean Connery
I think for now I will leave the linkage and tell my kids and g-kids there may be weak points to the Grand Hertage of the Johnson Clan :munchin
Just tell them your clan arose to defend against the Vikings that invaded King Arthur's Kingdom. In the end the savages became woke, changed religion, and released all their white slaves. Some of the clan did a double take and said they don't want to be woke thats why you have members of the family argue during the holidays.
Golf1echo
12-15-2021, 12:27
JJ You bring up a very interesting time and place in history. The history of Brittany is quite different than I would have thought. From the first hundred years AD to the 3rd Crusade their was a lot of moving pieces. Historians and Political interests still point to Arminius and the Teutoburg Forest as a major turning point of civilization.
Airbornelawyer
01-02-2022, 08:10
My mother was her family's official historian, maintaining and updating the family genealogy, so I grew up surrounded by her research, including all the correspondence and detective work one had to do in the times before one could just click on an Ancestry leaf without verifying the accuracy of the information. I also have created and maintain several family trees on Ancestry for my family and some friends.
I would echo Paslode's comments regarding all the bad information on so many family trees on the various on-line sites. With regard to older genealogies, especially those which take you back to noble lineages, I would also advise taking what you find woth a grain of salt. It was especially common in the 17th through 19th centuries, as the middle class grew in wealth, to claim false lineages or at the very least to solidify really tenuous links to the landed gentry. The nouveau riche of the time wanted to establish links to the older aristocracy to increase their standing, and they had willing accomplices in the scribes and others who created the books of lineages which are still the backbone of much genealogical research to this day.
While all of us with some English ancestry are probably related to William the Conqueror, since his son Henry I famously had 24 illegitimate children, and thus through William to the older English, French and Norman nobility, the actual relationship is probably not as firm as some of the published lineages would imply.
Another factor muddying the water is, at least for Europeans, the main source of information before the rise of modern bureaucracies was church records (BTW, the Mormons have done a great service to genealogical research, as their missionaries have collected church records from all over Europe). But especially in what is now Germany, as well as other places caught up in the wars of religion, church records from before the Thirty Years' War were often lost. My father's father's family tree in southern Germany is well-documented back to the mid-1600s, and then hits a wall due to the destruction of churches. Some church records from before could be reconstructed, but that also created another avenue for erroneous connections to be made.
Still, while I cannot say with 100% certainty how accurate the genealogies are, it is still amusing to be able to point to the likes of William the Conqueror and Lady Godiva in my family tree. And it's fun to point out to some of the younger Harry Potter fans in my family just how many Death Eater families like the LeStranges we are related to.
Most of the family trees I have were built using a persons Ancestry DNA matches for the purpose of ferreting out biological families. AncestryDNA provides a road map and Ancestry.com provides a lot of data. And from there you can substantiate links further by using public sources like Newpapers.com Linkedin, FB, Spokeo, MyLife and Whitepages. When dealing with adult adoptees or a adults from a single parent home the results must be 100% accurate and you must be able to explain in detail how all the pieces in the puzzle fit to together for this result. And it can take 2 days to 2 years to reach the conclusion. I've done that for 20-30 people with a 100% success rate.
One of my GGG-Grandfathers was a Robert Henry with a unique surname who was from Ohio and later moved to Missouri. I found another person with the exact same name who was married in Kansas City, MO in the late 1800's. Same guy? Maybe a son? Maybe related? A lot of family trees had this as the same person which ended up not being the case. The Robert Henry married in KCMO was a cousin and he had quite a interesting life. His parents died when he was young. He lived with an uncle for a short time, then set out on his own around the age of 16 and really made something of himself.
GGG-Grandpa was a real character, he got a field commission after Vicksburg from a Sergeant to a 1st Lieutenant, he apparently abandon his first wife and child in Ohio, married a woman in Missouri whom he had 10 kids with, his Civil War pension was declined because there was no record of a divorce from the first wife.....and likely why he is not buried near his 2nd wife and sons. On Christmas Eve 1868 someone embedded a drawing knife 1-1/2" into his skull, from that point on he was severely ill and he finally died in 1885. From 1868-1885 despite his debilitated state he produced 8 of his 10 children, the last being born in 1885 :D
A little leg work goes a long way and will separate you from the chaff. When people find your tree of interest they will in turn populate Ancestry, MyHeritage, etc with the data you provided and in time that will over write the crap.
Sorry I have not been keeping up..
Well, the tree is a shaking.
I have spent my time trying to re-verify the limbs and branches and quickly came to a problem.
Somehow Ancestry com allowed me to connect great-great-grandpa Nehemiah Johnson to parents that were both died 60+ years before his birth.
It took almost 2 weeks to find his real parents, and I am still not 100% positive. :confused:
SO, I am hooked,, spending my days trying to make the links work. Given that we are stilled snowed in here in NOVA, I will not be bored for a while :D:lifter
YES, I agree with all your suggestions. There is a lot of trash records out there. I was looking at a lady's work where she had 5K+ relatives in her tree.
Need more coffee.
Thanks for the hints and pointers :D
The problem I found, especially with my father-in-law's side of the family, is when someone is known by their middle name. There was one on my mother's side which I figured out rather quickly, but on my FiL's side, every male did that. I gave up.
BTW, JJ, I had to stop with my mother's side when it got back to 'Longshanks'. :eek:
Many times when I have trouble linking a person with a name, such as Pat mentioned , I find the crucial piece of information in obituaries. When searching for old obituaries you may need to tweak the name i.e. John David Jones could be J.D. Jones, John D Jones, J. David Jones and the wife is listed as Mrs. J.D. Jones, etc. Obituaries for son/daughter of said parents can be useful as well. These obituaries can also help you differentiate a child Susan Jones from another Susan Jones by providing their current residence, married name and husband.
In some states like California when a woman changes her name there can be 2 birth & marriage certificates, one with the birth name and another with the adopted or married name. This was the key to one a finished a couple weeks ago. The woman was given her mothers maiden name at birth and later took on her mothers husband name. There were 2 marriage records, one with the birth name and one with the adopted name, DOB and Date of marriage were the same.
The problem I found, especially with my father-in-law's side of the family, is when someone is known by their middle name. There was one on my mother's side which I figured out rather quickly, but on my FiL's side, every male did that. I gave up.
BTW, JJ, I had to stop with my mother's side when it got back to 'Longshanks'. :eek:
Middle names?? Most of my dad's relatives, including some of the ladies, use their middle names exclusively,,
Another curveball,, about 1/4 my aunts used names that did not derive from their given name. My #1 favorite grand Aunt Peggy,, was Georgina or Georgena or Georgiana,,
A Royal PITA :mad:
I b having fun :D
I had a bunch of relatives that totally erased all traces of their origin in the old country once they arrived. Changed their names etc. No way to trace them back. They burnt their boats.
Badger52
01-05-2022, 21:13
I had a bunch of relatives that totally erased all traces of their origin in the old country once they arrived. Changed their names etc. No way to trace them back. They burnt their boats.With this, and the mention of middle names, something about Grant got me thinking. Ol' Hiram Ulysses got to be who he was on the $50 bill simply by the guy who nominated him & greased the skids into his USMA appointment screwing up his name. Used his middle, and then added a maternal family-side Simpson in the (new) middle. He ran with it, not wanting to upset the USMA apple cart and no one ever came back later, taking him or anyone to task over it.
My point is that it seems that even that recently many weren't all that concerned about exactly what the name was and, especially, in what order it was arranged.
Airbornelawyer
01-06-2022, 13:42
One of the biggest issues is that once you go back a few generations (in my case, only one or two), most of our ancestors were farmers. So the further you go back, the fewer records there are. And, of course, the stories are far less dramatic.
Also, the further you try to go back, you run into a few other problems. Going back about 20 generations, or 400 to 500 years, gives you theoretically over 2 million ancestors. That's a bit hard to fit into a family tree, but don't worry! You don't actually have that many ancestors, because you are all inbred to some degree. Far more of your ancestors married their cousins than married a princess or a knight. It was unavoidable when most people were born, lived and died in the same village or parish.
I suppose the parish churches aspired to keep the most meticulous records possible just to ensure that you didn't marry too close of a cousin, and they were probably a bit more successful as the royal families of Europe infamously were. Though no doubt a good deal more successful than the sibling-marrying Egyptian pharaohs. As long as they kept to 3rd, 4th or 5th cousins, or lesser degrees of consanguinity, the risk of genetic issues was minimal. Hell, 1st-cousin marriage is legal in New York to this day (or at least it was when I took the bar exam).
Golf1echo
01-09-2022, 02:41
I found this program to be very insightful regarding history and the context of the history we are taught. Some fascinating new techniques which bring new details to life were very interesting. At the 15 minute mark they cover a magnetic survey that brings hidden details to life. At the 25 minute mark another way science is unraveling DNA and the origins of populations.
Turns out things were very different than the historical narration.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ErA2hDJwWVY