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Has anybody traced a line of genealogical descent back to the 10thC recently?

• Message 1.Μύ

  Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Thursday, 18th October 2007

  I did just that this morning, using family lore, search engines, known genealogical lines of descent, town archive CDs, and intuition; I've spent about four years doing it,in truth.
  
  It can be done with the infinitely greater power that the internet provides.
  
  Bonnell Howell
  
  Descendants of the Norman invaders 1066
  AND of the only king of the whole of Wales
  Hywell Dda. 945AD

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 18th October 2007

  Intuition, a great tool indeed. Doesn't cut much ice with examination boards, I found though.
  
  Intuitively, by the way, I've managed to trace my own families (since they tend to expand in reverse) back to a small shack on the leeward slope of Monteillou in the Pyrenees. There was a small sheep outside at the time, I remember. I reckon it was around 1015, but it must have been summer because it had been bright up to 955. We spoke Atlantean. It was fun.

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by Richie (U1238064) on Thursday, 18th October 2007

  Nordmann, that was naughty funny mind you.
  
  The only other person I know of who has worked with "intuition" to trace their tree is a certain Canadian who shall remain nameless who can trace his family (male descent all the way of course) right back to the 530'sAD
  
  I'm not doubting your work Gar, (your NN is just Carmarthenshire right? lol) its just that tracing a line back that far without gaps is difficult in the extreme. I take it that you've been successfull with just one branch in this?

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 3.

  Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Thursday, 18th October 2007

  I'm convinced. I'm quite certain!
  
  It's got to be right!
  
  How can I not be descended from Hywell Dda AND the followers of William the Conqueror from Aquitaine called Bonnell, the plantation specialists of Wales.
  
  It's obvious. I mean when do I start saying "I'm a fossil?"
  
  Bonnell Howell

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• Message 5

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Thursday, 18th October 2007

  Howell, his descendants, were no fools. They married the conquerors' planters. Soon sort out this English/Welsh business eh?

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• Message 6

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Taffnp (U9933321) on Saturday, 20th October 2007

  Well I can beat all that. I was cleaning out my attic and I found the original bible. I showed my dad and he took me to a local football field where he pulled out enough paper to cover it. It was the Taff family tree. "There son, look right at the top is Adam and his Wife Eve"

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• Message 7

  , in reply to message 6.

  Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Sunday, 21st October 2007

  I bet that impressed yer!
  
  Were Adam and Eve not from the Middle east?
  Who would their descendants be playing for then?

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• Message 8

  , in reply to message 7.

  Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Sunday, 28th October 2007

  So if UΓ­ NeΓ­ll( Neill of the nine hostages) had seventeen wives and now has three million descendants, Hywell Dda (Howell the goods) had thirteen (lucky for some)so how many blood line descendants should he have?
  
  How in heaven's name can they possibly do genetic blood tests for O'Neill if they don't have the bloke's original genes?
  
  Or have they done everybody with the Name O'Donnell and put them altogether and made
  two and two make six and a half?
  
  Unlike Mahomed and O'Donnell, Hywell does not usually boast about his wives; if he had done somebody would have nicked 'em!

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• Message 9

  , in reply to message 8.

  Posted by Richie (U1238064) on Sunday, 28th October 2007

  oh dont worry, depending on which way you take my surname I could very well be descended from the Ui Neil line, at the very least my name is a very unusual Irish name that is linked into that particular clan
  
  Of course the other root of my name is simply a Lancashire derivative of the more dominant Yorkshire version.
  
  Oh the joys

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• Message 10

  , in reply to message 9.

  Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Monday, 29th October 2007

  It is not that you may be but that you are!
  Have you taken the genetic test to see if you are one of the three million descended from NeΓ­ll of the nine hostages?
  
  Hywell cannot be so different with the thriteen wives. It is just that we have grater belief in monogamy.

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• Message 11

  , in reply to message 10.

  Posted by Richie (U1238064) on Monday, 29th October 2007

  no, not taken any sort of DNA test. I'm not sure exactly what the worth can be in them to be honest. I mean, as you say, Ui Neil is what 1500 years ago if not slightly more. The vasy ammount of ancestors in my bloodline that have been added since leaves me doubting the usfullness of such far back DNA research. Using it for more recent family history yes, 1000 years plus, with all the variants in place I'm not as sure

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• Message 12

  , in reply to message 11.

  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 29th October 2007

  O'Neill is a complicated name to research geneaologically in any case. As a surname it was used both to denote the chief identity of the tribe (roughly a large community of people with common familial heritage) and of the power structure at its head, which itself could admit, be usurped by, or even be gifted to those who actually belonged to another tribe. Some O'Neills, for example, were really Loghlainnigh (McLoughlin/Laughlin - meaning originally of Norse extract), some were Dochartaigh (O'Doherty - like the McLoughlins, a lesser tribe based in Inishowen that became dominant politically under the O'Neill banner). These in turn never relinquished the O'Neill surname even after their time at the top was over, and intermarriage with "genuine" O'Neills further complicated the already diverse make-up of the whole "clan" (a nomenclature used only after the English had directly or indirectly already begun to administer the surrounding territories). At the last count (courtesy of the Heraldry Department affiliated to the Irish National Museum) the O'Neill umbrella covered in its time over a hundred different tribes still represented by individual family surnames today, and a surprisingly impressive portion of them carry significant Scandinavian DNA!

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• Message 13

  , in reply to message 12.

  Posted by Richie (U1238064) on Monday, 29th October 2007

  Yes, well when I started looking at my surname as opposed to my ancestors who bore that name (largely because of a huge genelogical brickwall in 1878!!) I assumed that it was an English nickname surname, "Caru Leas". This is a Lancashire surname based on the more dominant Yorkshire one. And in the 19thC census' up until the 1881 census I would say that 95% of the people bearing that name lived or were born in Lancashire. The vast maj of them in Toxteth (nice area apparantly )However, I notice that a few were marked down as having been born in Ireland, which got me thinking. Is it an English surname (which the surname dictionaries tell me it is) or is it an Irish Surname that has travelled over to England and become "anglised" (I have another surname which screams out "Scottish" yet the only people I can find who have it all lived in Lincoln, go figure)
  
  So I looked into the Irishness of the surname and apparantly there are people over there with it. It appears to be an old surname meaning "son of Charles" and comes in about 3 variants, one of which is exactly as mine is spelt, others are more Irish in their spellings. It is linked to Ui Neill, but as I thought and as Nordman says, there are many families linked to the "clan" which are not nessecarily blood related (probably similar to Septs in Scotish clans)
  
  As for Scandinavian, for me that is a definete. My mothers maiden name is a Scandinavian patrynomic from the old Danelaw (Yorkshire) The name in its original variant appears in the Doomsday book. And my daughter has recent Scandinavian with a Finnish GG GRandfather (I say Scandinavian because I don't knw if he was Finnish-Finnish or Swedish Finnish though to complicate things he could be Norwegian from Finnmark, such is a vagueries of Scandinavian research)

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• Message 14

  , in reply to message 12.

  Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Monday, 29th October 2007

  It also looks as though Bonnell of West Wales contiguous with Howell of Hywel Dda terrain, is also
  derived from UΓ­ NeΓ­ll, possibly from an early marriage contract, but the historian genelaogists
  may say that it is quite impossible even to say that.
  
  I am a bit non plussed by the frequency charts on the name geography sites, so the number of Bonnells in West Wales may merely be a move from the Marches
  of Norman family Bonnell; I have my doubts; Ashford Car(Bonnell) near Ludlow, a Norman plantation family.

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• Message 15

  , in reply to message 13.

  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 29th October 2007

  Don't forget, Richie, (just to make it interesting) that there are also English surnames that became Gaelicised upon arrival in Ireland in pre-reformation days. Some survived only in Ireland and are often mistakenly regarded as Gaelic. Even more were not only Gaelicised but - to complicate matters even further - ended up with an Irish name that corresponded to an existing surname. When in later centuries the name was Anglicised again both the "old English" and the "real Irish" descendants all switched to the English. Smith is a good example of it, and the argument over the true correspondence between MacGabhann (Gowan/Gahan etc) and Smith is one that looks likely never to be resolved.
  
  What was true however was that when these people arrived as immigrants in England, whether they had English names, Irish versions of English names, or Anglicised versions of Irish versions of English names, they were "Irish" upon arrival in any case, making the euphemism "Irish" a potentially disastrous red herring when tracing geneaology back some distance.

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• Message 16

  , in reply to message 15.

  Posted by Richie (U1238064) on Monday, 29th October 2007

  Nordman, I can feel my headache getting worse
  
  yes I had considered that. Esp with the meaning "son of charles". But as you say, trying to link one way or the other is not something that I am ever likely to resolve and then it just comes down to which version you hold to be more likely (for me it is an english surname that has just travelled westwards and then come back)

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• Message 17

  , in reply to message 16.

  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 29th October 2007

  I hadn't even mentioned the Irish surnames that were Anglicised early on to the point that the Irish name died out, but then with Norman assimilation became Gaelicised after a few generations, and so Anglicised again in more recent times when Penal Laws made it necessary. And just to make matters even more interesting, it has now become fashionable for some of the products of this process (especially those who work for the national broadcaster in Ireland, for some reason) to invent a new "Irish" version of the surname so they won't be accused of being "West Brits".

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• Message 18

  , in reply to message 15.

  Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Monday, 29th October 2007

  English surnames that became Gaelicised upon arrival in Ireland in pre-reformation days. Some survived only in Ireland and are often mistakenly regarded as GaelicΜύ
  
  Or completely changed. Howell sent a bellicose delegation to support his Demetae tribal/clan colleagues in Ireland and were so welcome that they stayed and were known as the "Welshies" (in south Eastern Ireland)or the "Walshies", so now most people called Walsh or Welsh are in fact Irish with
  antecedents by the name of Howell.
  
  The name Howell and Walsh are not synonymous but sequential, firstly Welsh and now Irish people.

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• Message 19

  , in reply to message 18.

  Posted by Richie (U1238064) on Monday, 29th October 2007

  Ok, lifted admitably from the following site
  
  
  
  
  The surname CARLOS could be a β€œCenel Eoghain” sept traditionally descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages. One of Niall of the Nine Hostages’ sons was named Eoghain.
  
  (Mac) CORLESS, Carlos, Caulfield
  
  A surname of many origins. The majority of our Caulfields are MacCawells β€” Mac Cathmhaoil in Irish, a CenΓ©l Eoghain sept traditionally descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages. Located in the barony of Clogher (Co. Tyrone). Other anglicized forms are those Campbell, Howell, MacCarvill, MacCowhill, Callwell, MacCall and MacHall. The last two are also used for Mac Cathail of Hy Many [aka Ui Maine], which, when found in its homeland in Connacht is now Corless, Carlos or Charles; Corless and Carlos are often Mac Carluis in modern Irish. Today MacCaul and MacCall belong mainly to the Armagh-Monaghan-Cavan area, while Caulfield is most numerous in north-east Ulster and in Mayo.
  Μύ
  
  Most likely only of interest to myself I know, but just goes to show that Nordmann was right in that anything to do with Irish surnames and lines of descent are a tangled web
  
  Oh the joys
  
  

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• Message 20

  , in reply to message 19.

  Posted by Dai Bath (U2444609) on Tuesday, 30th October 2007

  Not at all; it is all grist to the mill. All points of interest.

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