Only connect

Although of course I knew from a very young age that a baby has two parents, it wasn't until I was nearly middle aged that I understood the implications of what I knew. Family history taught me that my number of direct ancestors doubled as I went back each generation: two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great grandparents. It doesn't take a genius to work out the maths.

The working forward of that thought didn't come until later. I have twice as many ancestors as my mother...she had twice as many as my grandmother...who had twice as many as her mother. My children have twice as many as me. Their children will have twice as many as them.

The trouble is, that much like the old story of the mathematician's payment, where a ruler was asked to pay one grain of rice, or wheat (depending upon who tells the story) on the first square of a chessboard, and two grains on the second, doubling up with each square, you soon get into the realms where you feel as though someone is slowly tryng to turn your brain inside out.

Three greats: 32; four:64; five:128; six:256; and so on: 512; 1024; 2048; 4096; 8192; 16, 384; 32, 768; 65,536; 131,072. 17 generations back and you have one hundred thousand ancestors, and the numbers seem unimaginably huge. But actually, allowing for 30 years a generation on average, seventeen generations only takes you back to about 1500... and the beginning of a problem. The numbers appear to accelerate enormously quickly over the next few generations: 18 is 262, 144. 19 generations back comes to 524,288; and 20 comes to over a million... 1,048,576. So your total ancestry going back to around 1380, would be around a million people. Hold...on...though.

In 1377 the adult population (over 15 years of age) were subject to a poll tax, and so we have good records about the number of people in England at that time. There were 1,355,201. So go back another generation... to around 1350... you will have 2,097,152 ancestors in theory. Which is many more than the adult population of England at the time.

Even allowing for the ravages of the Black Death, which removed about a third of the population of London in the course of 1348-50, there are still too many ancestors for the number of adults.

Now it is already obvious from my own family that the same people turn up in the family tree over and over again. If cousins marry, then the lines of family ancestry will join together with the same couple appearing as grandparents on both sides of the family. This has to account for the conundrum that although you have in theory twice as many ancestors each time you go back a generation, the maths doesn't add up once you are in the 14th century.

My feeling is that anyone with an English ancestry is probably related in some unknown way to any other person with an English ancestry. We are all cousins, and family. Probably that's true of all people, everywhere, because once you go back a few more generations, you need the adult population of the world to account for all the ancestors.

I enjoy family history because it moves me in a way that political history never could. Initially I thought it was the thrill of finding out about my own ancestors... but it isn't, because I feel every bit as thrilled about researching other people's families. I think it is simply that history on a personal level; the history of people, their story, is touching because you can always project yourself into the person's place, and understand their lives in a much more empathetic way than the wars and machinations of government.

Family history research has convinced me that we are all connected, and that time is much shorter than we think. Where once I would have thought of 14th century England as a place far removed from my daily life, and the people as being a long way from the people of today, I see that there are no real differences: the people living then were not much different from the people living today. 500 years, in the context of the history of the world, is hardly an intake of breath, it is no time at all.

It always amuses me when I hear someone from a documented ancient lineage say: of course my family goes back to the time of the conqueror.... Yes, so does my family - and your family - and the next person's family. By dint of us being in existence, we all have ancestors who were alive back then, and the chances are, they were related. In fact the population of England must have been fairly static for a few centuries, because there are estimated to have been about 1,250,000 to 2,000,000 people around the time of the Domesday survey.

So next time you see a picture in a gallery of an illustrious 15th century merchant, or a peasant in the fields, don't look upon them as a stranger. The likelihood is, if you have English ancestry, that they are your grandfather or grandmother - or aunt or uncle, cousin or sister. We are all related, and all connected, and we should celebrate that.

Kiva: microfinancing entrepreneurs

I had one of those web and virtual world connections-leading-to-a-connection things we all experience. Last night I went to the perfomance of the Wall in Second Life, and then to the after-show party. While there, I saw an avatar dressed in some great clothes, and followed the creator to her shop, To The Nines.

Looking for information about the creator, I found the LeeZu Baxter blog, on which she mentions that LZB makes a donation to Kiva. As I hadn't heard of Kiva, I followed the link and found a wonderful thing.

Kiva is a website which matches people who have money to lend with entrepreneurs who need microloans to enable them to grow their business. There are fantastic stories on the website which make the loans personal, show what a wonderful thing it is. Visit it!

Ecological living

My son introduced me to stumble upon, and as I am currently suffering from back pain, I have spent a little time this morning stumbling over a variety of wonderful things. Go, sign up!

Among them is the story of this house in west Wales, built for £3000 in a farmer's field, with natural materials. I am sure that the article written by the mother of the family glosses over some of the difficult times which they must have experienced in the building of the project, but the result is just gorgeous, and I WANT it.

I have always loved buildings which have an organic shape... I like the buildings designed by Hundertwasser, by Rudolph Steiner and Gaudi. I think people respond to organic buildings and love them... which means the market isn't effective in producing what people want to buy, as new buildings are generally angular and ugly, not curved and beautiful.

The RAF captain, but not as we know it

I've always liked Alexander Armstrong, but I particularly like his Armstrong and Miller sketch show, and of that I REALLY like the RAF sketches.



For those who haven't seen them, these feature two archetypal RAF pilots, with authentic backgrounds, who happen to talk the street-talk of contemporary teenagers. The juxtaposition of the black and white visuals and the audio has a very comic effect. This is an official trailer from the BBC, but there are a lot of these sketches on youtube.

St Nicholas, Lower Oddington, Gloucestershire

Looking towards the side gate across the churchyard at St Nicholas

Hannah Lardner's gravestone

Leah Lardner's gravestone.

Gravestones in the churchyard

More gravestones

...and still more gravestones

Gravestone for Amy Rose, 1890


I spent a very pleasant weekend with my aunt and uncle in Gloucestershire, to celebrate my recent birthday. In the course of my stay, we visited the Church of St Nicholas in Lower Oddington. It seemed to be semi-abandoned, which is a shame, as it has some very unusual wall paintings, which may be being affected by the damp.

Always mindful of the fact that I may be walking where other family historians would love to walk, I took a few pictures around the church and the churchyard, which may be of interest. Feel free to use these for your family history... please let me know if you find them useful!

Gravestone for Ann Harbert.

In the churchyard there are some very clear gravestones. I honestly wish I had had time to record all of them, but even as it was, my family were waiting for me in the car.

More Lardner gravestones in the churchyard.

Campin gravestone, St Nicholas churchyard.

Memorial for the Gardner children. As far as I can work out, this says the following:
John Gardner ? ?
Children
Anne dyed September ye 4 etaet 2 y
John dyed Septemberye 14 etaet 7 y 1697
Edward? dyed September ye 16 Etaet 19 y
Margery Gardner Dyed April ye 3 etaet ?9? y 1696
grandmother to these children

Just before this place wee lie in
hope of a joyful resurrection

John Gardener, father
of these children
Dyed November the s? 1704
etaet 60 years

Detail of the Gardner memorial

Entrance to the porch

Next to the door is a socket for a stick, and gradated lines, a wall sundial for telling the time, when the sun was bright enough

Inside the church is the doom painting, a coat of arms, and a damp smell. I had no idea the church and the paintings were so significant, until I came back and read this page.

My aunt Hilary, uncle Geoff and mother Diana, looking at the wall paintings inside the church

Coat of arms for William IV, one of only two known instances, apparently, and painted over earlier work.

Hilary and Diana look at the memorial for Charlotte Rice, who died after having 10 children.

Memorial for Charlotte Rice
Light streaming through a side window


We didn't know what these strange groves and hollows were for, in the porch of the church. They look like they may be for liquid, but what, and why? Randi tells me in a comment that these are marks where people have sharpened swords and arrows. I had forgotten that archery practice was compulsory for every man over seven for many years. I had also forgotten that people very often used the porch of the church more than any other part, for weddings, will readings, business and trading.

Side window and side door from the other side of the wall

Townsend gravestone
Yew in the churchyard, one of many

Infinite variety

I love the new Dr Marten's t-shirt contest. I think this is a well-designed way of using the internet to advertise without making people want to hurl their computer out the window. i just think it is amazing that you give people the same tools and the same starting point and they make such different things.

I'm addicted to designing them, I love the tools they have provided. I've done a few... feel free to go and vote for them. OK, what I mean is go there and vote for the ones you like.

Oh dear... people are voting negatively against designs. I can't help feeling that there's some big gaming going on. The 4th rated boot now has 32 positives and 26 negatives. I know one man's meat is another man's poison, but one of my designs has attracted two positives and two negatives... my entries in the last contest didn't attract any negatives at all over the whole course of the contest. I'd have to feel pretty strongly to vote anything but positively for any design. I've voted positively for the ones I like, without worrying about whether they are above or below me... I'd never do anything else.

Dead but not gone....

OK, so I can't quite remember what I was looking for, when I found a post which is called "top 10 incorruptible corpses". I was transfixed by it. And the comments after it.

The news that the Catholic Church has a policy of digging up the corpses of those who have been recommended for sainthood, 50 years after their deaths, was a bit macabre. Imagine having that as a job! "Oh yes, I was chief exhumator for the Catholic Church for many years...."

Quite apart from the fact that one or two of the incorruptibles seem to be fairly corrupt - well blackened, at the very least - it appears that some may have been vaccuum-packed. And covered in wax. Or enhanced in some way. Still, the oddity is just what we look for here. St Silvan (above) is in pretty good shape for 1600 years, although it is interesting that he is canonized despite the fact that he was killed for his faith is the only thing anyone knows about him. Oh and that his body does seem remarkably preserved. I'm wondering what other weird top 10s I may find if I put my mind to it.