I have written about some of my genealogy research in the
past. I wanted to share one of the
interesting “finds” my husband and I found yesterday.
We began exploring a particular branch of my husband’s
family a few weeks ago. They live in the
South. We’ve seen pictures of his great
grandparents. They could have posed for
the painting “American Gothic.” In the
last hundred years or so, his ancestors have definitely been “hicks.”
We logged onto ancestry.com and began our search of the name
Morgan. Over the past month or so, we discovered that, through his Morgan
branch, my husband is related to Princess Diana and her sons, Humphrey Bogart,
Daniel Boone and Sir Henry Morgan. Henry
Morgan reportedly was a pirate, and you’ll see his picture on bottles of Morgan’s
Rum. Springfield, Massachusetts has a
statue erected of Miles Morgan, one of my husband’s ancestors.
We began yesterday’s journey through history where Martha
Morgan married Joseph Perkins (both of whom are my husband’s 5th cousin,
9 times removed). We found that many
others have researched the Morgan family, and there are dozens of trees
completed and shared on ancestry.com. Some
had conflicting information, and they cited no sources for their information.
We looked at several trees until we found one that had
written out phenomenal sources. His
search, apparently, was done in libraries, churches and government
records. The majority of my research is
done online, because I don’t have the time or money to travel the world seeking
records. His records are public, so I
used them, stating that he was the source.
So, we began using this one particular tree to see how his information
matched ours and whether it went any further back in history than ours. We began by selecting Martha Morgan’s father,
and then we chose her grandfather. We
continued clicking on the father of each person we brought up. We were excited when it kept going back
further and further and the family members were from Wales.
After about 10 generations back, their last names
disappeared. They were not missing. Last names are a relatively new thing. In ancient times, for instance, my name would
have been Julie daughter of Saul. Everyone’s
name ended with son of or daughter of ________.
We continued our travels back in time, and the names became
so strange, that I really had to concentrate to spell them correctly in my
records. How about Lughaidh Sriabhn
Dearg mac Fineamhas? Or, Pedur ap
Cyngar. (Ap means son of; verch means
daughter of.) Pedur’s father was Cyngar ap Gwrthefyr.
Well, little by little, we went further and further back in
history. The family went from Wales to Ireland.
We were soon at double-digit years of birth, and then single-digit
years. Can you imagine being born in the
year 7?
It took several hours, but the tree finally did come to an
end. The earliest person we found was
born before 142 BC in Ireland, and he died in 130 BC. BC! Can
you imagine how long it took for this guy to trace the history for this family
tree? His sources were volume upon
volume of books, many history books, bibles, church records, and government
records. It must have taken him many
years to complete.
We did find a few, but very few errors in his records. For instance, one person died at the age of nine,
leaving behind a wife and two children.
Or individuals who were born years after their father died. One woman had children starting when she was
six years old. I’ll have to contact the author to notify him.
My husband’s Morgan line includes many Kings, Lords and
Knights. It was a very exciting journey
through history. And my husband’s
descendants are recorded back to the year 142 BC!
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