Family Antecedents

We are all here because of our antecedents, just as they were, in their time, because of theirs. And like it as like it not, we cannot change it.

Each of us is born to two parents and thus in turn, obliged to four grandparents. Each of has eight great-grandparents and sixteen great-great grandparents and if one follows the mathematics of exponential growth, it isn't hard to sit with pen and paper and figure out that by the tenth generation, we will each have 1,024 gt.gt.gt.gt.gt.gt.gt.gt. grandparents to thank for our existence today. And that is an inescapable, biological fact.

I mention this as an introduction to my file, not because in the great scheme of things I hope you will be impressed but instead because, I want to impress upon you, how pitifully inadequate it is.

If I tell you it drags on back to an era before 1000AD, don't laugh; yours does too..... Indeed, it is a clear certainty that once upon a time, we shared multiple common ancestors..... Even if we had to go back as far as the dusty Rift Valley of the African continent to find them.

And if in this world of calculation, we try to put things in some sort of perspective, I would like you to think about that exponential growth. Why? Because if we allow for example, that each generation is separated by a period of 30 years as a mean average, then that ten generations that I mentioned earlier, only takes us back to the early 1700s; a time when Queen Elizabeth I had already been dead a century.

Not convinced? Try taking the calculation back around 32 generations, to the time of 1066. A time when the world population was estimated to have been only 310 million people and there weren't much more than a million living here in Britain. I get 4,294,967,296 people..... and that is patent nonsense unless you and I have multiple common ancestors.

So now to my file. I haven't put it here because I imagine it sets me apart from anyone else; it doesn't. I have put it here as an information resource that may help others. If you look at it, it will be clear that I haven't a clue who most of my family are but those that I do know, I am grateful for, else I would not be here today.

Below, is a link to a PDF file that illustrates my own antecedent history. If your curiosity compels you to look at it, then I must afford some explanation beforehand, for it runs to quite a few pages and it goes back over 24 generations, which seems far enough, since it is just over 214Kb in size on PDF format. For the sake of simplicity, I have reduced the file from 30 generations, since it it just started to look silly and ran to about 1.6 Mb.

You will note that references are made to links in other generations, without having to repeat them. The reason for this is twofold. One, (from my point of view), to conserve space in the file, which is program limited to displaying 1000 names and two, because it finds many of it's roots in families of those who married into other families already shown on the chart. One must remember that was ever the custom that particular classes, for want of another expression, to marry into its own, particularly when it was either financially or politically expedient to do so and such people as feature here, because their records are more complete than most, are easy to illustrate.  Thus, it is possible to find many links between long established families, most particularly when one casts the net back over centuries.

For myself, this is compounded by the complexities of my Quaker heritage, where owing to the one-time obligation of Quakers to marry Quakers, (marrying-in), families became intertwined once more. The descendant trees on this site, illustrate this more effectively, when used in conjunction with the ascendancy file below.

One may suggest that such a document is shifting from the mundane, to the interesting, to fanciful, to fantasy but to do so would be wrong, for such is documented well enough, excepting perhaps for some of the early Welsh princes, where I readily admit one might be heading into the realms of legend. Nonetheless, such lines are not un-accepted and err on the side of probability. As to the others, I believe the consensus, holds that the facts are as stated. 

So, for what it may be worth.... click here...... but don't for God's sake press the print button.