Blog post

Monday, October 17, 2011

The Ancestors' Geneameme

Geniaus is on a geneameme (her term) creating roll! I’m a bit late in joining this one as I only arrived home from a holiday on Saturday night.

She says:

“I invite anyone with an interest in genealogy to participate. If you don't have a blog and wish to participate you can send your responses to me in an email and I will pop them into a blog post on the GeniMates blog. Please let me know when you participate by a comment on this post or by email and I'll collate a list of responses on this blog.

“It would be appreciated if genealogists would let the meme run its course before copying and republishing it with alterations and amendments.”

Here’s my response:

The Ancestors' Geneameme

The list should be annotated in the following manner:
Things you have already done or found: bold face type
Things you would like to do or find: italicize (colour optional)
Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type

You are encouraged to add extra comments in brackets after each item.

Which of these apply to you?

  1. Can name my 16 great-great-grandparents
  2. Can name over 50 direct ancestors
    (About 100 for whom I have both a first and last name, with varying degrees of certainty)
  3. Have photographs or portraits of my 8 great-grandparents
    (I would like to. I have photos for seven out of eight. If anyone has a photo that is or even might be James Henry French 1849-1915 who lived in the Avoca, Victoria region, please please please get in touch!)
  4. Have an ancestor who was married more than three times
  5. Have an ancestor who was a bigamist
  6. Met all four of my grandparents
    (This is not possible as all of my grandparents are deceased. I met three of them. My paternal grandfather died before I was born)
  7. Met one or more of my great-grandparents
    (Again, not possible, but I would have liked to!)
  8. Named a child after an ancestor
  9. Bear an ancestor's given name/s
    (I do bear an ancestral surname)
  10. Have an ancestor from Great Britain or Ireland
  11. Have an ancestor from Asia
  12. Have an ancestor from Continental Europe
  13. Have an ancestor from Africa
  14. Have an ancestor who was an agricultural labourer
    (Probably – my neglected Irish ancestors are described as farmers)
  15. Have an ancestor who had large land holdings
    (I think some of them did – I haven’t looked into those records yet) 
  16. Have an ancestor who was a holy man - minister, priest, rabbi
  17. Have an ancestor who was a midwife
  18. Have an ancestor who was an author
  19. Have an ancestor with the surname Smith, Murphy or Jones
  20. Have an ancestor with the surname Wong, Kim, Suzuki or Ng
  21. Have an ancestor with a surname beginning with X
  22. Have an ancestor with a forename beginning with Z
  23. Have an ancestor born on 25th December
    (my great-great grandfather William Tregonning was baptised on 25 December 1825)
  24. Have an ancestor born on New Year's Day
  25. Have blue blood in your family lines
    (Not that I know of. Someone once told me that my Carey ancestors descend from Anne Boleyn's sister. I’ve never bothered looking into it until about ten seconds ago when I Googled and found this. So there we have it – I descend from Henry VIII Smile with tongue out)
  26. Have a parent who was born in a country different from my country of birth
  27. Have a grandparent who was born in a country different from my country of birth
  28. Can trace a direct family line back to the eighteenth century
  29. Can trace a direct family line back to the seventeenth century or earlier
  30. Have seen copies of the signatures of some of my great-grandparents
    (I have original marriage certificates of some of my great-grandparents so I’ve seen their actual signatures)
  31. Have ancestors who signed their marriage certificate with an X
  32. Have a grandparent or earlier ancestor who went to university
    (No – I was the first generation to attend university)
  33. Have an ancestor who was convicted of a criminal offence
    (Not that I know of – but if I do I would like to know about it)
  34. Have an ancestor who was a victim of crime
  35. Have shared an ancestor's story online or in a magazine (Tell us where) (Bits and pieces on this blog)
  36. Have published a family history online or in print (Details please)
  37. Have visited an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries
  38. Still have an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries in the family
  39. Have a  family bible from the 19th Century
  40. Have a pre-19th century family bible

2 comments:

  1. Thanks, Shelley, for joining the meme.

    Hope you had a great break and are restd and ready for ne challenges.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shelley! I have spent quite a lot of effort following up the putative 'royal' link that you mention above (point 25) - and it just ain't true!! Anne Boleyn did indeed marry William Car(e)y - they had two children that 'may' have been Henry's children - one was a daughter and the son's line died out in the mid-17th century. There is a distant connection between them and the Earls of Falkland (Scotland) and a family in Donegal. However, these are not related to the Carrey family of Carrickfergus, who married at least two of the family from which your ancestor comes - both families were Protestants with Scottish connections and I think the to-ing and fro-ing across the sea between Glasgow and Northern Ireland is the reason why this connection has been difficult to follow. When we consider that some of your ancestors went from NI to Australia, that little bit of the North Sea is very insignificant, yet land-lubbers like me find it difficult to think of families spread over the two areas. Now that I have retired I may even go up to Glasgow to search records in person!

    ReplyDelete