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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: GordonD on Monday 26 June 06 11:03 BST (UK)
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I was rereading an article called Daughters of Eve in the June issue of Practical Family History. In it the author talks about tracing back through the mother each time. He states in the line that while many people concentrate on the male line it is the female line, without meaning to be disrespectful to our female ancestors, that we can be 100% sure about as over lots of generations a "non-paternity event" may have taken place.
The Queen's matrilineal line goes back 5 generations whereas Queen Victoria's could be traced back 28 generations. Prince Philip is linked to Queen Victoria through a maternal line so his is 30 generations.
The author says during writing the article that he posted a topic on how far back the matrilineal line in an internet genealogy list (don't think it was on RootsChat as couldn't find a topic on it). The highest he got was 9 generations.
I think a lot of us on here are more interested in learning more about what the lives of our ancestors than simply collecting earlier and earlier names but I was wondering how far back we have got on this line. Are we as far back as the Queen or can anybody go back further?
The author of the article went back five generations. If I use my gran as starting point (born the year before the Queen to even out the generations) I can definitely go back 5 generations(from my gran's mother : Agnes Tulloch Cowan Tripney, Mary Ann Barclay Campbell, Agnes Tulloch Cowan, Susan Gibb, Agnes Tulloch) and I have got a marriage date for Agnes Tulloch's mum Susan Alexander(although this is the only piece of info got on her).
Gordon
PS My family on this side seem to have taken the Scottish naming pattern to a new level with the eldest daughter being given the full name of her mum's mum as her forenames. My mum was glad that her parents went for the forenames Agnes Tripney rather than the full Agnes Tulloch Cowan Tripney!
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This is how my Paternal Grandfather researched
family history over twenty years ago for the same
reasons. :o
So I actually knew of my connection to the surname
Hargreaves before I found it.
from himself Jackson, Eddleston, Hargreaves
Do not know how many generations I can go back
on maternal each time I will check.
I do not JUST concentrate on the Paternal, I have
better results on my Maternal Line.
My Mother was originally a Pye, her mother was
originally a Singleton, her mother was originally
a Fletcher, her mother was originally an Eccles.
but I do that for every line.
So every generation I get more, and more
surnames to look for.
Jinks
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This post made me check my own, from my Great Grandmother I can go back a further 3 and I am back in North Wales.
I research all lines, some faster than others. I can not understand when people concentrate on just one line ? perhaps I am just so interested to know what they were doing and how they were ;D
Gordon perhaps you should start a poll then you can find out how we are all doing on our maternal line.
Sarah ;D
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I've been trying to do all my lines as well. Due to my research mainly being in Scotland found the all the maternal lines easier to verify as they were often known by their maiden names on census returns and the fact can search death certificates by both maiden and married name.
I think the author's surprise was that he could get to the same point as someone as someone who we think of having well document origins i.e the Queen. Some of my generations more closely spaced so my earliest is prob around 20-30 years later than the Queen in terms of birth (Queen's on this line 1744 birth from her marriage I would estimate mine to be 1760-1770 although not verified).
How do you start a poll on a thread?
Gordon
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Beggars can't be choosers, so I'm happy to learn anything about any of my lines. But I DO have a fascination with matrilineal descent. And wasn't it through mitochondrial DNA that it was finally proven that Anna Anderson wasn't Princess Anastasia, after all? For me, though, it's been confounding - can't find a marriage certificate, not sure if the families on the censuses really ARE my family, the surname has too many variations, etc. etc. And this is only for my ggg-grandmother, Sarah (nee ???) HULME born somewhere around Wilmslow or Knutsford, Cheshire, circa 1809. Well, I'll keep happily digging.
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How do you start a poll on a thread?
On your first post of this thread, you will find a button at the top right "Poll +".
You can add a poll by clicking on this button.
kind regards, Arranroots ;)
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I've always been a great matrilineal fan.
Unfortunately, I get my mother,then Parry, Jones, Jones and then they seem to disappear into the Berwyns , probably into the merched/ferched - takes me back to the 1780s though :(
However, I've done all the other matrilineals as well - my father's mother's line is Mates, Jones, Lee, Jones. Then full stop again somewhere in the Berwyns.
Try the other's - grandfather's line - granddad, Wilson, Burgess,Carson, McCrea or Porter. I have to follow up these two then, just to check. This a bit different, Western Kircudbright or Wigtown ;)
etc., etc.
Gadget
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I found this to help you work it out !! ..... !!
http://www.umanitoba.ca/anthropology/tutor/descent/unilineal/matri01.html
Annie :)
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I research all lines. But thinking about my mother's mother's family, we have got that back to about 1189! Well, it is a cousin who has been doing that particular part of the family, and she has had the good luck to find someone who had extensively researched part of that line. It includes a couple of convicts here in Australia, and goes back to people who came over with the Normans!!!!
So I've voted for 9+. I don't think it matters which line you are doing, it is where you get lucky!
MarieC
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Gosh Marie - I thought I was going well getting my mother's maternal line back to c. 1770 in Edinburgh - My gggg gmother's name is Janet Ross. I have her marriage but very difficult to get her parents.
Trish
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Trish,
It's probably a function of families living in a small village in Staffordshire and perhaps good parish records - though I am not sure how the researchers got back that far! Not nearly as hard as a bigger place like Edinburgh, or, God help us, London, where I am stuck on a couple of my lines at the end of the eighteenth century, with no real chance of going further back unless a distant rellie with info miraculously emerges!!! Why couldn't they have lived in the country????? ??? ??? :'(
MarieC
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I hope you checked it all Marie. Never take anything second hand.
Gadget
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If I take it from my grandmother, I have a further 3 generations. When we were children my gran taught us a rhyme which was the names of her matrilineal line.
Terry, Payne, Faulkner, Fowler - I think the next name was Sales or Sayers, hopefully I will find out soon!!!!!
Kerry
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I hope you checked it all Marie. Never take anything second hand.
Gadget
These are two experienced and careful researchers, Gadget, who have spent years checking and double checking. I have no reason to doubt their findings, or reinvent their wheels, and I have other lines of research to follow. At some point, in all activities of life, you and I and everyone else make decisions to trust others, or not. Otherwise we would all be hopelessly bogged down in our various activities.
MarieC
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I'd still check though and expect anyone to check my findings.
Gadget
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Gadget
I work co-operatively with a few cousins, whose methods I trust, on a large volume of family history research. We do not have time, nor access to each others' sources, to check all of each others' findings, though of course we ask questions from time to time to establish the validity of what others have found in our own minds, to check how they have reached certain conclusions.
As others on Rootschat have pointed out, family history is an inexact science. No matter how scrupulous we are, at some level we need to trust the information that comes to us, or not, even on matters such as paternity. We cannot prove it absolutely. You will have done this. I have certainly done it. We all have.
You do not know me or my co-researchers. I do not know you or the methods you use, so certainly would not presume to give you unsought advice on your findings.
MarieC
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I research all sides (I can't stop; I get a name and I want to know more), and have found out that with one gg grandmother I can't check the paternal side, even if I wanted to. I believe her mother (my ggggrandmother) was a little on the racy side :o. We have no father for her and I don't have any candidates. I have recently discovered my 5th great grandmother, but people don't believe me: Dorcas Ann Mickelwright. Is it disrespectful to name a pet after a relative? I'm thinking my next cat, but my kids say no. :P
Kathleen Stahl
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I'd still check though and expect anyone to check my findings.
Gadget
I agree with this, I have been given information from some really helpful people who have done lots of research but we are only human and can all make mistakes.
I double check every bit of information given to me, whilst I trust the people who give me the information, I may have access to resources they don't that might shed a different light on things. This hobby is reciprical and I may be able to send some information back to them.
I have had emails from people pointing out a couple of my mistakes too, usually because I make assumptions without investigating every possibility.
Kerry
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Been really really interested in the replies to my original post. Knew that concentrating on the paternal side and not knowing the concept of matrilineal descent (although maybe not knowing the technical term as I didn't before reading that article!) that was mentioned in that article wouldn't apply on here. We are all far too interested in all our ancestors ;D Seems that the majority of us can go back 5-6 generations- presumably when parish register coverage can get a bit hit and miss. Obviously we have lines that we have more success with than others due to the information available on that line.
One of my great grandmother's lines is wholly maternal too Kathleen. Her mother married three years after her birth so presume he wasn't the father. My grandfather never knew that she was illegitimate. Am interested in who her death certificate gives as the parents as would have been registered by one of my grandpa's siblings (need to wait till I can get to Edinburgh as was around 1964). From 1901 census think she was brought up by her grandparents and the naming pattern (closely followed in my family)for my grandpa's siblings suggests that she definitely thought of her grandparents as her parents as their names take the mum's mum and mum's dad place in the naming.
Gordon
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Nice one. Soon had me scrabbling for the reading specs and the chart :D
Mother's line, which should be longest, oh ha ha, Harriet, mother Eliza Ann, mother Mary Ann Byles. >:(
Tother side, starting with Grandmother Sara, my Father's Mother.
Sarah Baker 1867
Emily Price 1840
Mary Ann Ward 1808
Sarah Franklin 1773(base born oh ho) ;)
Mary Franklin1755 (also base born. Like mother like daughter) :-\
Ann Franklin 1738
Jane Rickard 1705
Elizabeth Woolman 1681
Unknown Ann wife of William Woolman
So I suppose that makes me eight if you count Gran Sarah, or even eight and a half, if you count the unknown Ann.
I do wish they had put the womens names down earlier! >:(
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As most of my lines disappear into Eastern Europe or Ireland after a few generations, I'll generally research anybody willing to be found, just so I have a few successes now and then (keeps up the motivation ;D )
But I am deliberately searching for one matrilineal line, that of my daughter !
There is a tradition in her family, that the first daughter was always called Hessie. This goes back to a soldier from Hesse who fought in the British Army in the american War of Independance and then settled in Scotland on the way back home. (*) They then moved to Ireland
I've mentioned this on RootsChat now and again ( :P ), just try searching for "Hessie"
So far I'm back 6 generations, that's Hessie Stevenson, b. 1861 (*) in Ireland, 5th. generation and the name of her mother, Hessie Baxter. And there I'm stuck !
This particular line has the advantage of having a definite ending point, "The First Hessie",
....... if ever I can find her ???
Bob
(*) added
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By matrilineal you mean mothers mothers mother mother and so on back through the female line, right??
So far I have found my matrilineal line back about 6 generations. According to the poll, that the same as most others RCers.
Now if I was to follow my maternal grandmothers paternal line - that one goes back 10 generations. And my paternal grandmothers paternal line can also be traced back 10 generations.
BD
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Burrow Digger
My Matrilineal line is one of my shortest also! ;D
Kerry
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Just found this thread - don't generally come on this board!
It was the maternal line that started me on genealogy - my mother has a small ornament which was purchased by her maternal grand-mother and passed down through the family (daughter to daughter). Mum and I thought it would be fun (?) to try and trace its ownership.
Little did we know what we were letting ourselves in for - we now trace all lines (some back to late 1500s) and have a website!
Unfortunately, the maternal line has now ended with a great big (possibly insurmountable) brickwall at the end of the 1700s!
Pennie
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Pennie,
It all starts that way, doesn't it? We all have simple reasons to start on genealogy and next thing we know, we are sucked in. Did you ever find the ownership of the ornament? I have plates that I have recently started trying to trace. We aren't sure if they come from my great-grandmother, or her mother, who is the fatherless child. I hope they were hers, as she died at 24 after an extremely sad life and it would be nice to have a legacy from her.
Kathleen
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Kathleen
Do tell us the story of your ancestor who died at 24! (I'll have tissues at the ready!)
MarieC
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MarieC,
It is a sad story and my cousin doesn't want to claim her as ours because she wants someone with a bit of a happier life. Apparently, she was born out of wedlock in Staffordshire, no father in sight. We find her on the 1871 census living with a family that has ties to her, but we aren't sure. One possible tie is that one man who might actually be her father married a daughter in the family. They also might have come from the same part of Ireland as her mother. Very marginal exististence, her mother living in various homes as a servant. They lived in a very poor area and rumors here and there of one or another living with them going before the magistrate. Then she is in the 1881 census, working as a servant. She and my gg grandfather, who was a little older than her, come to America and get married in New Jersey. They have two children within five years of coming to America. When she is 24 she is pregnant again. Here it gets a little confusing, but according to her death cert, she didn't die from childbirth as we thought, but an infection after childbirth. And we don't know what happened to the children. I say children, as my mother and a great aunt insist they heard it was twins, but don't remember how they know that. Not only do they say it was twins, but they say fraternal, and the only way they really would have known that back then was if they were boy and girl. My cousin and I think that maybe those babies were put in an orphanage or given to another family. Another family rumor was that the "nice ladies" of the church told my gg grandfather he couldn't raise his kids on his own and should put them in an orphanage. He got to the steps of the orphanage and couldn't do it. This is a time period of 1864 to 1888.
I think it so sad that never did this poor woman catch a break. I like to think that maybe for the few years she was with my gg grandfather, she was happy and life got a little easier. My gg grandfather died in 1943, and he never remarried.
I guess there are sadder stories out there, but ... sometimes you just want someone to catch a break, and she never does. Had she lived, she would have had a good life, but I guess sometimes it's not meant to be.
So that's my story. I have spent years searching for this poor woman. And I am happy to claim her.
Kathleen
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Kathleen
I needed the tissues!! :'(
This is a very sad story, and I'm sure has been replicated thousands of times. It reminds me just how hard a life many women have had throughout history, and still have, in many parts of the world.
I bet you wish you could trace those missing children, but I suppose there is no way to do so! I wasn't clear from your email - is it just the last-born children (twins?) that are missing?
At any rate, I am certain that wherever she is, she is delighted that you have spent so much time in searching for her, and that you are happy to claim her. Good on you!!!! :)
MarieC