Please add your comments to my guest book.
The publicly accessible database of Dirk Peters may be the most extensive of all, as far as I can tell. Lately I've been taking much advantage of it, bringing in large pedigrees ``wholesale.''
I intend to upload a new version sometime in September. If you want to submit important corrections or additions please do so soon. As a preview of some of the additions, here is a new pedigree for Eve of EDEN. Note that El is not the father of Elohim, but rather the source character.
Another addition will be pedigrees for King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. Their pedigrees showed about 400 individuals who weren't ancestors of Prince William, including an Empress (Marie Antoinette's mother was the only woman to command the Holy Roman Empire), 6 Emperors, 9 other Kings, and 23 with a rank of Duke or Elector. (Since most of the ancestors of Louis XVI and his wife are from Houses like Habsburg, Brandenburg, Simmern, Savoy, Bavaria, and Oldenburg which were already well represented in the database, most of the new individuals -- though not the high nobles -- came from the pedigree of Louis XV's Polish wife. In addition to these 400, merging in the new pedigrees added another several hundred individuals who are ancestral to Prince William, but weren't yet in the database. Many of these are from the pedigree of Maria de Medici's Spanish grandmother. Maria de Medici was the widow of King Henry IV who ruled while her son Louis XIII was an infant.)
Here are three interesting e-mails I've received recently.
First an excerpt from a message by Richard Hughes, connecting
Septimanian Princes to the House of David:
i read that Nascien was a medieval corruption of the Jewish name
Nahshon (Naasson), and, i knew that the Jewish prince Elzasus (Elchasai;
El-Kasai) had a son Nahshon...i then inserted the pedigree-tract in
the Davidic genealogy to see how it would fit and it was chronologically
perfect...it is conjecture, i know, but so is every other
genealogy where that pedigree-segment appears;...what really anchors
the pedigree in the Davidic Dynasty genealogy is Nascient's son
Cyleddon (Celedoin), who was Bishop of Alexandria circa AD150
whom we know was a desposynic prince...
Steve Franklin has developed a theory which reconciles conflicting Biblical
chronologies:
James,
I note you have Shoshenq I.
as probably not the father of
Nicaule.
I assume this is based on biblical chronology.
What has recently occurred to me is that the 120-year lifespan
of Moses is a clue that they were using a six-month Babylonian year,
making it highly probable that Shoshenq I.
was already on the throne when Solomon married the daughter of the pharaoh.
This also places the Exodus at or near Ramses III,
thus eliminating all the nonsense about the impossibility of
the biblical chronology due to Egyptian incursions into Palestine.
A preliminary draft showing this time period is here:
http://neros.lordbalto.com/ChapterOne.htm.
Just thought I'd throw this clue your way....
Steve Franklin
I'll certainly add a link from Nicaule to Shoshenq, and keep Steve's point in mind when trying to make sense of Mid-East chronologies.
Dim I Nticoudis has linked Creator Gods from different Mid-East cultures, often not as ``fathers'' or ``mothers'' but as ``source characters.'' Because of his input, Pedigree Version 5 will have over 100 Gods and Goddesses. (I'll give them their own entry in the surname index.) Here's an excerpt from one of Dim's messages:
Agenor of Phoenicia has been listed among your ancestors for some time now. But I am afraid you have forgotten to list his maternal line. As twin brother of Belus, King of Egypt, Agenor arguably shares the same two candidate mothers:
1)Libya, Queen of Egypt, and
2)Mutnofret (Mutnofre) of Egypt.
By the way you might want to mention that "Belus" is a Greek form of a Phoenician/Aramaic word, used as a title. The word is "Baal", literally meaning "Lord" or "The Lord". It is included in the names of several Middle-Eastern deities. For example the "Baal Zebub" ("Lord of Flies") mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and the "Beelzebul" of the Christian Gospels are both considered to originate from "Baal-zebul" ("Baal the Prince").
Baal is also the personal name of a major Middle Eastern god and several modern scholars have suggested that Belus is based or named after him. In that event his lineage would be:
GENERATION 1
1)Baal , the God of thunder and winter storms. See: http://www.baal.com/baal/about/divine_overview.shtml
Father:Dagan, the Grain God. See: http://www.ancientneareast.net/religion_mesopotamian/gods/dagan.html
Mother: Sala the Goddess. One of two consorts attributed to Dagan. She is also known as consort to fellow god Addu. See: http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/relg/non-christiancomparative/TheReligionofBabyloniaandAssyria/chap5.html,
or
Mother: Ishara the Goddess. One of two consorts attributed to Dagan. Akkadian counterpart to Inanna/ Ishtar. She is also known as consort to fellow god Adad. See: http://www.jameswbell.com/geog0050inames.html,
or
Father: El, the Supreme God. His name literally means "Supreme God" in ancient Semitic languages. He was considered father/creator of both gods and humanity. Ancient Hebrews likely worshiped him as Ellohim for that is the most often used word for "God" in their Bible. His name is also considered the root word for "Allah" (meaning "God" in Arabic languages). Modern scholars have suggested that his religion was eventually absorbed into that of Yahweh. See: http://www.themystica.org/mythical-folk/articles/el.html, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_%28god%29
For Elohim See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elohim
For Yahweh see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton
For Allah see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allah
Mother: Aserah, The Mother Goddess. Consort of El in Semmetic cultures which did not practice strict monotheism. Identified with Inanna/ Ishtar in some later traditions. See: http://www.themystica.org/mythical-folk/articles/aserah.html
GENERATION 2
1) Dagon and El are identified in some traditions. Explanations offered suggest that they are based on the same source-tradition:
"Father" (Source god): Enlil, God of Wind. His name means either "Lord of the Wind" of "Lord of the Air". Among the highest worshipped Summerian Gods. His titles include "Father of the Gods". Also considered source god for Babylonian Marduk and Assyrian Assur. See: http://i-cias.com/e.o/enlil.htm
"Mother" (presumed source goddess): Ninlil, Goddess of Heaven. Summerian deity and one of two known consorts of Enlil. Her titles include "Mother of the Gods". Immortalised in the poem "Enlil and Ninlil". See: http://www.earth-history.com/Sumer/sumer-enlil-ninlil.htm,
or
Mother: Ninhursanga , the Mountain Goddess. "Lady of the Mountain". One of two known consorts of Enlil.Her titles include "Mother of Gods". Her worship is considered to have been eventually absorbed by that of Inanna/ Ishtar. http://www.earth-history.com/Sumer/sumer-enlil-ninlil.htm
2) Ishara and Aserah are sometimes identified with an older female deity
"Mother" (source goddess): Inanna Ishtar, the Goddess of Heaven. "Queen of Heaven". Widely worshipped Middle Eastern deity often identified with several other goddesses ranging from minor local deities to as major fellow goddesses as Egyptian Isis and Greek Aphrodite. See: http://inanna.virtualave.net/inanna.html, and http://inanna.virtualave.net/ishtar.html
GENERATION 3
1)Enlil, God of Wind
Father: Ansar. A primordial being of Summerian mythology. See: http://web.raex.com/~obsidian/MesoPan.html
Mother: Kisar. A primordial being of Summerian mythology. See: http://web.raex.com/~obsidian/MesoPan.html,
or
Father: Anu, the Sky God. The Highest God in the Summerian hierarchy of gods, followed by Enlin, Inanna and Ea. See: http://i-cias.com/e.o/anu.htm
Mother: Ki, the Earth Goddess. Consort of Anu. See: http://inanna.virtualave.net/neareast.html
2)Ninlil, Goddess of Heaven
Father: Haia, God of the Stores.
Mother: Ninshebargunu
3)Inanna Ishtar, the Goddess of Heaven
Father: Anu, the Sky God. See above.
Mother: Ki, the Earth Goddess.,
or
Father: Nanna, consort of Goddess Ningal.
Mother: Ningal, Goddess of the Moon. See: http://inanna.virtualave.net/neareast.html
[truncated ... Dim's message carried this genealogy back another three generations]
Mr. Nticoudis has provided so much information I'm tempted to rename the site
Mr. Nticoudis has submitted so much new material since Version 4 was uploaded that ...
With Version 4, my database finally seemed fairly extensive and I felt like taking a holiday before considering further additions.
But wouldn't you know it? The very day that Version 4 was ``hot off the presses'' I happened to notice that William `Brave-Heart' Wallace (the Guardian of Scotland made famous by a Mel Gibson movie) wasn't in my database even though he appears to be an ancestor of Winston Churchill and Lady Di. Here's a preview of the Version 5 page for William Wallace. (One genealogical allegation that can be safely rejected is the suggestion in the Mel Gibson movie that Brave-Heart fathered King Edward III. William Wallace was hanged, drawn, quartered and beheaded on 23 August 1305; Edward III was born seven years later!)
Missing `Brave-Heart' wasn't a show-stopper, but a week later, my perspicacious contributer Dim I Nticoudis provided another of his extensive lists of corrections and additions, including the earliest legendary Gods of the Middle East.
This new data won't be on-line until Version 5 is installed but here's a preview of Kain's new page and a page that links to various ``First mortals''. (By the way, Kain's page shows his pedigree back more generations than my software default. Would you prefer if all the pages were like that? Please write in and suggest format improvements for Version 5.)
Version 4 has 42,214 pedigree pages, almost 12% more than Version 3. The additions range from some 18th-century ancestors of Queen Elizabeth all the way back to ancient Chinese and African dynasties. (The 42,214 pedigree pages include 200 abstractions, 200 markers, 1200 unnamed individuals, perhaps 2000 gods or mythical prehistoric people, and 1000 named alternates without their own page. With these adjustments the database comprises about 39,500 named humans.)
The major format change in Version 4 is the new way to show details about an ancestor. These are now shown in the yellow ``hover'' window instead of the small navigation window. You access those details as before: place the pointer over the name and leave it there. (Unfortunately, the hover-window disappears after a few seconds. Just use the mouse to move the pointer away; then move it back.)
This non-standard Title Tool-tip on Hover works with MicroSoft's Internet Explorer and, I'm told, Mozilla 1.4.1. Sorry if it doesn't work with your browser.
Another change I've made is to use a CSS StyleSheet. This means I can change the background color or other behavior without replacing all 42,000 pedigree pages. So if my pages seem to change color from week to week, that's just me playing around!
Let me stress one more time that much of this information is Wrong. For example, consider the pedigree of Kenneth MacAlpin, first King of Scots. While his father was surely Alpin, beyond that many scholars believe that the connections to ancient Celtic and Pictish Kings are ancient fabrications. Perhaps those ancestors existed, but just weren't the ancestors of MacAlpin. Or perhaps some of the people are completely fictitious. I just don't know; you'll have to do your own research.
Use this website for HINTS, but not as a source!
The pedigree pages show whether various ``marked ancestors'' are possibly or probably in the pedigree. For those marked ancestors who are historic I try to make these notations accurate, but for semi-mythical ancestors, like Camber or Abraham, the designation is more arbitrary.
With this version I have ``demoted'' some of theses markings. Beli Mawr and Camber are no longer shown as probable descendants of Abraham (just possible); the illustrious alleged pedigree of the early Frankish Dukes has also been demoted to just a ``possibility.''
Many very large genealogical databases have, unknowingly, the same individual twice.
For example, I finally figured out that Wichard II von Geldern (d. ca 973) was the same Wichard II of Pont whose daughter married Otto I of Zutphen. I also concluded that Qutighu (9th King) of Huns is the same person as Chu Ti Hou (Khan) of Huns. although their dates show up as nearly a century different.
I'm afraid there are other duplicates I've not yet found. Contrariwise, I'm afraid some women are shown with two husbands when they were actually two different women with similar names.
You will also see two different pedigree pages for same-named people who are shown as siblings. These might be the same person, but I didn't merge them -- they might also be two different people with wrong parents shown for one.
Stewart Baldwin,
a top-ranked expert on early medieval European genealogy,
offered this comment:
I suggest that you take all pre-400 Irish individuals and all
pre-800 Scandinavian individuals and simply delete them from your
database lock, stock and barrel....
Not
only will you have removed a huge amount of bogus data, but virtually
nothing of value would be lost by such a move.
I've not removed these Individuals -- the legendary genealogies are too much fun, even if they are fabricated -- but Mr. Baldwin's note should serve as a wise caution. (Some experts would not fully agree with Mr. Baldwin, claiming that many legends are based on fact.)
Am I the only one who finds the modern world too hectic and materialistic? Genealogists are a welcome change from the business world. Many many people have written to me to provide additions and corrections to this pedigree. Not a single one of them has ever asked for anything in return; not a single one has even asked that I acknowledge their contribution on this site. They were happy just to share their research anonymously with the world, using this site as a conduit. I do try to mention most of the major contributors on this page or on my List of Sources, but many contributions have gone unacknowledged.
There are two contributors who deserve very special mention.
David Hughes has accumulated a huge wealth of ancient genealogical information, some of it his own research and speculations, some of it the research of others, and, without even asking for acknowledgement, he has generously shared it all with me. Version 3 already owed much to Mr. Hughes; Version 4 adds ancient Teutonic Kings, the legendary descent of Kushite and Zagwe dynasties from Moses, several detailed Davidic lineages, Attila the Hun's ancestry and much much more, all due to Hughes. Thank you, David!
Dim I Nticoudis also deserves special thanks: he has contributed many hours of his time adding to (and correcting) my ancestors from the ancient world and Greek mythology.
I add new items towards the beginning of this page; so the remainder is ``Old'' news.
I should have kept notes about all the genealogical sites I've visited on the Internet. By now I'd be able to prepare quite a ``Guide Book'' !
But better late than never. Let me mention a website I stumbled on very recently (March 2004): Ronald Well's ANCIENT ANCESTORS site This site has a huge amount of information on ancient genealogy. I thought I'd finally achieved good coverage of ancient ancestral lineages, but Ron Well's site puts mine to shame. I'm afraid to visit his site too often: I'll just find more and more lines that I'm missing.
Congratulations to Ron on a superb source of information that looks like it required an enormous effort.
To keep this review ``balanced,'' I'll make two complaints about ANCIENT ANCESTORS:
My excuse for not keeping track of webpages is that ``you can always find them again with a Google search,'' but of course that isn't really true. The ANCIENT ANCESTORS page I first found would have shown up with a search for ``John Tibetot'' but so would thousands of other pages.
The reason I stumbled across the site is because I wanted to complete my ancient Irish pedigrees: I was missing the 155th Monarch. Old Irish names have a huge number of alternate spellings, but the spelling I happened to have for the 155th Monarch was ``Congal Cendmagair'' so I plugged that in to Google. Only about 4 pages showed up; of them it was ANCIENT ANCESTORS that answered my question (The 155th Monarch turned out to be the grandson of the 148th Monarch).
One might not expect to find Visigoth ancestry on a page with Irish Monarchs, but ANCIENT ANCESTORS is organized alphabetically. I'd stumbled on a T page (the Monarchs in question come from a TIR-CONALL branch) and the page also traced some 11th-century Counts of TRASTAMARA back to King Aistulf of the Lombards. None of these people were in my database, but they should have been! Among others, they were ancestral to King Fernando IV of Castile.
I moved over to Ron's L page to get some more of the LOMBARDS I was missing, and soon found that he had the ancestry for the LYONS of England as well.
I doubt if I'll have the ambition to copy these many ancient lineages into my own database. Be sure to check out ANCIENT ANCESTORS if my website doesn't go back far enough for you.
I've made a list of some of the key connections between Queen Elizabeth and her early ancestors. (The list isn't very interesting, but I've promised to mention anything new here in the Newsletter.)
A big Thank You again to the many many e-mail correspondents who have helped assemble this family tree, and pointed out errors. I can't list you all, but I mention four in my List of Additions below. The last major change award for Version 3 goes to Kenneth D. McAlpine who provided the pedigree of Sargon II (King) of ASSYRIA. (As mentioned below, I'm already accumulating additions and corrections for a future Version 4. This version will show different parentage for Sargon II, though the earlier lineages will still be due to Mr. McAlpine.)
I also need to again thank Robert Brian Stewart: whose on-line database puts mine to shame. As I was finalizing my new List of the Irish Monarchs (with pedigrees) (which already owed much to Stewart), I happened to compare my database with his and noticed I was missing the line from Sadb O'Kelly (wife of 10th century King of Connacht, and 2-great grandmother of the 181st Monarch) 22 generations back to the 120th Monarch of Ireland. (If you think my site has an impressive array of Irish pedigrees, you haven't seen Mr. Stewart's!)
Although I've just installed Version 3, I guess it's not too early to start documenting the changes that will appear if/when Version 4 appears.
The additions above occurred just in the first week after I uploaded Version 3. I continue to make more additions but will not itemize them as above.
It may be interesting to detail the new connection to the T'ang Emperors:
Although expelled from Jerusalem, Crusader Kings continued to rule in Cyprus, where they intermarried with Middle Eastern nobility, including descendants of Abu as-Sahl (King Hamazasp III of Vaspurakan). Recently an addition to Abu as-Sahl's pedigree was presented in the soc.genealogy.medieval newsgroup, taking his ancestry back to Emperors of China.
Eventually, Anne Lusignan Princess of Cyprus married a 15th century Duke of Savoy; this is how T'ang blood enters the pedigrees of Europe. Anne Lusignan's daughter Margaret had daughter Marie, who had daughter Antoinette, who had daughter Marie, who had daughter Mary. That Mary was the famous Mary Queen of Scots.
Version 3 has 37,700 individuals (pedigree pages); that's almost 14% bigger than Version 2. Yes, even though I promised to go into a more passive error-correcting role, the change from Version 2 to Version 3 is actually the biggest single increase in the history of this database. (I don't know whether to ask for congratulations or condolences.)
You'll know if you're looking at Version 3, because the phrase ``The PEDIGREE of'' will appear at the very top of each pedigree page. This is to remind you that my database works best just to show ancestors. Lists of spouses and descendants may be misleading. (A clear example of this is the page for King Henry VIII. He had many legal wives, but the only ``Wife'' to appear was just a mistress! That's because only his illegitimate children show up as ancestors in the rest of the database. I almost replaced the label ``Wife'' with ``Mother of Child(ren)'', but chose instead to Keep Things Simple. In other cases, even wives who appear in the database may be missing from the list of Wives, if they appear only as alternate mothers.) On a man's pedigree, the only way to determine a child's mother (or on a woman's pedigree, the child's father) may be to click on the child to view his/her own pedigree page.
This pedigree is an unusually eclectic potpurri. You'll see what I mean from a
My website doesn't specialize in Oriental genealogies, but, according to some sources, the ancient Shahs of Persia appear in the pedigree of Saint William of Gellone, the 8th century Margrave of Septimania whose daughter married the son of Charlemagne. This makes the Indo-Aryan and Chinese Kings ancestors of the Carolingian Kings, and hence most of Europe.
The connection to Buddha is controversial, but if true would make Queen Elizabeth II the first cousin of Gautama Buddha, 81 times removed.
I have also made many hundreds of corrections. (That's the good news. The bad news is that there are still many hundreds of uncorrected errors.) When an ancestry is shown to be incorrect, I usually leave it in place, but add a ``Not!'' or ``prob. not'' indicator.
I've updated my ``Deaths in Battle'' list below, to reflect new additions to the database. The Battle of Pinkie wasn't in the list before, but now I find seven database individuals who died there.
After a brief rest, I started making additions and corrections again, and have installed Version 2, with about 2200 more individuals than Version 1. I usually make an obvious format change so people will notice a new version has been installed; in this case the change is that many of the ancestors of Prime Minister Winston Churchill are marked as such.
The recent additions include:
Notes about Winston Churchill:
One thing that makes genealogy fun is learning about the past in a roundabout way. I'm in such a hurry that I seldom record dates and months, just keeping the year, and don't bother with cause of death unless it catches my eye, yet I noticed many Scottish nobles dying at Flodden on Sept. 9, 1513. Checking some data at home, I found several more men in my database where I had recorded just ``d. 1513'' but who actually died on Sept. 9. (I also found one who died Sept. 10 from wounds suffered the day before.)
At least 32 individuals in my database were slain at the Battle of Flodden Field. (Among the 29, Janet Graham lost both her husband and her father. The total is probably more: most of my sources don't show cause of death, and there are several others who died in 1513.) England was at war with France at the time, and Scotland, an ally of France, raised an army of 100,000 to invade England. 70,000 of this number deserted before Battle and 10,000 were slain or wounded by the English army who met them near the border at Flodden Field, in Northumbria. The English, led by Thomas Howard, poss. my 13-great grandfather, enjoyed a resounding victory. Twelve Scottish Earls perished that day, along with their leader, King James IV.
Much of my best information is e-mailed to me by people who browse my site. It was Jeanette Forbes-Hood O'Reilly who pointed out that James IV King of Scots was the last British King to die in battle.
I checked my database and home records looking for other Battles that showed up as the cause of death of several individuals. (The following table should not be viewed as ``statistically significant.'' Because of my ancestry, this database emphasizes late medieval Scotland. Also, many battle deaths who show up in other databases don't make it into mine, for the simple reason that the early death prevented them from having living descendants.)
Ralph Bigod and his son John both fell at the Battle of Towton; John's grandson John fell at the Battle of Flodden Field. The English throne had no gratitude: that John's son Francis (possibly my 14-great grandfather) became a Puritan and was hanged for treason.
Edmund Earl Stafford fell at the Battle of Shrewsbury; his son Humphrey (1st Duke of Buckingham) fell at Battle of Northampton. His son Earl Humphrey II fell at Battle of St. Alban's. Earl Humphrey II's son Henry and grandson Edward (2nd and 3rd Dukes) were both executed for treason. (Both sought the English crown for themselves.)
King Robert I of France was born in 866, the same year his father Robert Fortis fell at the Battle of Brissarthe. One source shows King Robert's mother, Adelaide of Tours, also dying on Sept 15, 866, without explanation. Probably an error, but remind me to check into it.
This section was prepared for Version 2 of my database. But the database continues to grow; Version 3 is 15% bigger, and has probably been uploaded by the time you read this. At last count, there are 33 individuals in the database who died at the Battle of Flodden Field. Compiling this database is mostly a dry statistical chore, but one can almost sense the grief in Scotland on September 9, 1513. For example, Isobel Hoppringil lost both her husband and her oldest son at Flodden Field (her son isn't in my database: he went to his death unmarried).
There are many excellent sites on the Internet related to King Arthur of the Round Table and his genealogy, but I've prepared a brief summary of Arthur's possible identity.
A few years ago, I wrote ``King Arthur seems to have no living descendants.'' Boy, was I wrong! King Arthur had fifty children, supposedly, by three Queen Guineveres and many lovers; his agnatic descendants include the Campbell clan and King Henry VII.
Rootsweb may have agreed to continue allowing updates to this on-line pedigree, but I still wonder if there's a better way. I hope a friendly reader can give me a good idea. My genealogy isn't that special -- there are many bigger and better ones on the Internet -- but it is my special toy, and I've had many people send e-mail saying they appreciate the easy-to-use organization.
One possibility is to sell CDROMs containing the updated database. I'd prefer to avoid the headaches of copying, mailing, etc., especially since I'd want to mail free updates whenever the database changes.
A more likely possibility is to create my own site (maybe FabulousPedigree.com). This may not be too expensive, especially if I can sell little ads (I won't use popups, like MyFamily.com has started to do on this site).
Here follows the ``First newsletter'' I published a few months ago. I leave it ``as was'' though the comment about stopping work is no longer operable.
I'm done. I've built a database of the target size -- 31,031 nodes -- showing my own ancestors and many of the royal ancestries of Prince William. Let's call this Fabulous Pedigree -- Version 1.
Is there interest in starting a public Yahoo Group to discuss the Fabulous Pedigree? I'd volunteer to be a co-moderator if someone else does too.
I will still incorporate the corrections that are e-mailed to me (it may take a few months for a correction to appear on the website). I'm afraid there are many many errors. It's better to fix those errors than to keep expanding the database willy-nilly and let more errors accumulate.
Ivan the Terrible was a good recent addition to this database (his bastard daughter is allegedly mother of the first Romanov Tsar), and I was also happy to add the mythical trail from Kings of Troy to Julius Caesar. But I had to stop somewhere and when I noticed that the database had 31,031 nodes representing 29,920 individuals. I decided finally to freeze at that size. On the statistics page I explain why these numbers are so special.
The biggest recent change has to do with the color code for
the key ancient ancestors. With the new (June 2003) database,
and the old (February 2003) software, Empress Galla would be shown as
--- Aelia Galla PLACIDIA + ==&=> [ 119 ,,BqD]
But the new software shows her ``possible'' ancestral color code
in parentheses to the right:
--- Aelia Galla PLACIDIA + ====> [ 119 ,,BqD,&]
To earn the colored arrow, ancestors have to be at least ``probable.''
(Before June, 2003, ``possible'' descent was enough to get the color code, but the color symbols were being inflated by many dubious allegations like those of Empress Galla shown next.)
In my old pedigree of Empress Galla Placida she is shown with no ``color coded'' ancestors but in Empress Galla's new pedigree her ``possible'' ancestors are shown as light green (descent from Persian and Irish Kings). One of her alleged distant descendants (St. Clothilde) was Clovis' wife, so these new connections alone greatly increased the alleged pedigrees for many in my database.
The connection between Empress Galla and Clovis' wife may also be romanticised: Hrothildis, wife of King of Burgundy (and Clovis' great grandmother-in-law), supposedly had Alaric I of Visigoths (famous invader of Rome ca 400 AD) as one grandfather, and Emperor Theodosius as the other. Anyone know if this pedigree is valid?
These are examples of the many implausible connections which show up
on the Internet. I include these, as I come across them, in my database,
at least as ``possible'' links, because I don't have the
time or talent to research them.
The reason I'm freezing the database is that I may have reached the point
that fresh lines I've not seen before are increasingly
likely to be fabricated or mistaken lines.
My database
was getting bigger, but it is increasingly hard to weed out
faulty lines. Many of the lines came from large Internet
Gedcoms of uncertain reliability; in fact I've
heard
``Don't trust any Genealogy with more than 30,000
individuals.''
I've only 29,920 individuals in my database, so I'm stopping now!
This database includes nearly all the corrections sent to me.
If Gary Radcliffe had mailed me an hour earlier his correction would
have made it into Version 1.
Instead he'll have the ``honor'' of first correction into Version 2.
I'll let him make the correction in his own words:
Hi Jim,
i can only say "WOW!" What a big job you've done. I haven't the patience.
One little thing:
Ivo de Taillebois was married twice. Nothing is known about his first wife.
His second wife was Lucia of Mercia, a MALET.
Lucy had a second husband whose name was Roger or Richard Fitzgerald
de ROUMERE (Roumare?).
You somehow combined the names of both of Lucy's husbands.
Ivo's father was Gilbert Crispin, William the Conqueror's tutor. Gilbert
is often referred to as William's uncle. Therefore, Ivo and William I
were first cousins.
Thanks for a splendid site.
I still haven't found how Prince William is descended
from Ivo but with further search, I may.
Gary Radcliffe
When genealogy involves long trips to cemetaries or libraries, it is essential to keep good track of Sources. But with the Internet, it is easy to grab information from on-line sources and I don't always bother to record where I found it: Using Google or other Internet search facilities, you can probably locate my source, and even better sources to boot.
I don't pretend to be a genealogist. I just wanted to compile my family tree and have been rather astonished to see its growth.
I do appreciate the mail from people who have browsed the website, although I don't answer every one.
Andrew Vevers was very kind to send me an old family tree for his noble ancestors. Help me figure out how to use that image to decorate some of my drab pages. (My pedigree doesn't agree fully with this old chart, partly because I can't read Latin.)
Here's another item from the mailbag:
I was perusing your site, as I do often, and noticed that you
had recently done the line from Richard Grey,
the 6th Baron of Wilton, back to Eleanor FitzThomas through
Mary MacLeod and Olaf of Man & the Northern Isles.
I was wondering: from which source did this set of info come?
...
I was curious, since I am descended from Richard Grey of Wilton....
...
Steve J. Canton
As usual I was embarrassed when asked for my source. I did a Google search and found an interesting site which mentioned the controversial connection. It didn't prove that Mary MacLeod was married to the 2nd Baron of Kerry, but it did have a lot of info on the Lords of Kerry, some of which I incorporated in my database.
If I do show your e-mail message here, I won't mention your name unless you give me permission.
