Genealogy Trip to BC

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 5^th 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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