fellow genealogists would certainly agree
that finding distant relatives, a generation,
maybe two, or if you’re lucky, three’s a testament
that most of us will fade into obscurity, i must
admit a lucky thread runs through my family tree
~kat
For Jane Dougherty’s Stanza a Day Challenge. Taking a breather today from royal name dropping. Royals are like cockroaches. If you find one, there are dozens more hidden between the cracks. Mostly because there are scarce records kept on common folk like me and…I won’t presume to speak for you… 😊 What records that may exist are often locked away in dusty church archives…baptisms, marriages, deaths…like the one I have pictured here. It is the burial record of my 15th great grandmother, Joan Pilford, born in 1536 in Braunton, Devon, England, to John Pylforde (surnames often changed generation to generation) and Joan Thorougood. She married Walter Wyatt in 1556 and had one child, a daughter, Margaret (my 14th great) in 1569. Joan died in 1589. She was here for a blip and then gone but for a few blots of ink on fading pages, in tomes piled high in dusty archives. I think I relate more to old Joan than many of our more notorious greats. But it is kind of cool to know they’re out there. 😉
like mercury colliding... 
August 11th, 2018 at 12:27 pm
I’d say I’d love to know more about my ancestors, but I can probably guess most of it 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 11th, 2018 at 12:38 pm
My best discovery this week was a family portrait of my great great grandparents August and Charlotta Johansson. The immigrated to Jamestown in 1873 and the photograph was taken before they left Sweden. New information added to Ancestry from a distant cousin, no doubt. I also discovered the names of Charlotta’s parents. I’ll feature them all in a new Stanza this week. 😉
LikeLike
August 11th, 2018 at 12:47 pm
I’ve been doing a bit of research around the characters in my new story and find that the genealogy sites give the same person as sister, daughter, mother, and one is given dozens of nonexistant siblings because whoever entered the data didn’t understand that they were entering the same name but in Irish, and including titles as if they were another person. You’re lucky if you get sense out of them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 11th, 2018 at 12:52 pm
It’s been tricky. I’m keen on the birth and death dates. I don’t generally list all the siblings on my page, just my direct line. I did at first, but found that to cause confusion. Though I do wish I’d saved a record of the sizes of some of those old families…a dozen or more children! It’s a wonder the women lived as long as they did!
LikeLike
August 11th, 2018 at 3:48 pm
There were women who popped baby after baby, and there were big families because the husband had been through several wives, killing them in the process of bearing his children. A woman’s lot…
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 11th, 2018 at 11:37 pm
Yes this is true. I suppose that is why there are so many ancestors connecting us. All those children. 😊
LikeLike
August 12th, 2018 at 3:43 am
It must help!
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 11th, 2018 at 12:57 pm
An interesting tidbit…I did happen upon a while ago was the common relative that I shared with my ex-husband, making us 9th or 10th cousins some odd number removed. I don’t exactly get all that “removed” stuff, but our kids got a kick out of that!!🤣
LikeLike
August 11th, 2018 at 3:53 pm
I’m not certain about it either. I think it’s like your cousin’s children are not your nephews and nieces, but cousins once removed, and for your children they are cousins twice removed (I think.
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 11th, 2018 at 7:10 pm
Ah. Thank you. Now I get it.
LikeLike
August 12th, 2018 at 3:45 am
🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 11th, 2018 at 2:12 pm
The best that can happen to some relatives is for them to be removed!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 11th, 2018 at 2:13 pm
I won’t argue with you there. 😳
LikeLiked by 1 person