I’ve wanted to research my family tree for ages. I first looked at it for inspiration when I was choosing names for the boys, as we wanted something a bit old fashioned, but it’s taken me years to start writing it all down.
It’s part therapy to be completely honest, as I grew up with just my mum as my dad left as when I was a baby (I’ve never met him, but that’s a whole other story!) and I guess I’ve always been looking for a sense of belonging ever since. Always being on the outside of others people’s, very functional 2.4 children families, a loner looking in - my own cousins that I’d spend most of my school holidays with, or the child minder. This feeling of not belonging has always made me feel not good enough ~ daft I know.
Finding out about distant relations has always brought me great comfort, a sense of belonging, in the tree of life, that I am a name on the family tree like them, a daughter and a mother, continuing a line. I love the history, the chasing the lineage, hoping for wild and interesting tales and the possibility that I may be related to someone famous or be royal? And I love that whole nature v. nurture debate and whether I have any traits that are because of where I come from, rather than how I was raised.
I’ve been using Ancestry online to research, and thanks to hundreds of other people before me, a lot of the work has already been done through family trees overlapping. Despite hoping for exotic tales, maybe a few pirates or smugglers, or wealthy estates to which I can lay claim, my family seems to have been quite average and lived in the UK for centuries, which has also made it easier to find them.
Anyway, I bought a large A3 sketch pad and set about plotting all the trees as neatly as possible, which is not very easy when there are branches off, here there and everywhere.
I discovered on a great great grandfathers birth certificate, that he was born at sea. ‘How wildly romantic’ I thought, but tracing his parents, and the places where his father married and had his brothers and sisters, he had been born at sea coming back from the US! His father came from Stroud (where I live!), moved to Ireland, married a girl from Dublin, emigrated to the US where two siblings were born, he was born on the ship back home and he ended up back in Gloucester! So a very elaborate wild goose chase, to find he ended up just a few miles from where he was born!
Then there are the huge Victorian families that had ten or more children, and the heartbreak of realising that many of the children didn’t survive childhood, and only two lines of descent came from the ten children. Makes it bonkers to even contemplate how you exist at all?
Then the other night I stumbled upon a great grandmother’s lineage, through her maternal side, and clicked on her parents, then their parents and so on. Trying to write it all down as I followed the line back in time. Up until this point I hadn’t traced any line further than 1500, and in Gloucestershire too - we really don’t like to travel far at all!
But then I discovered the Dodd family, who came from Edge in Cheshire and were there throughout the Middle ages. I just kept finding more and more of them, going back to the 1400’s, then the 1300’s, then the 1200’s, then oh my goodness the 1100’s.
and then…
Hove d’Dodd, born 1160, the eighth son, from the second marriage of Cadwgon ap Madog and Gwenllian II verch Owain. Of course this meant nothing to me apart from obviously being Welsh. But Cadwgon is the grandson of the King of Powis and Gwenllian the daughter of the Prince of Wales and King of Gwynedd, Owain ap Gruffydd.
Now obviously this is all unverified and I need to brush up on my Welsh medieval history to check everything out BUT by the time my husband got back from the dog walk I had swapped my allegiance from English to Welsh rugby. I’d googled the ‘family’ castles of Aberfrraw, Powis and tried to find Nannau, obviosuly I’ll need the National Trust to relinquish their ownership of Powis, as my great grandad x 28 actually built it, and I’m sure I can claim some right to it. I’d looked at all the pictures of all these great Kings, Princes and Knights of Wales, who fought Henry II, and found online the wildly romanticised illustrations of them, I’m sure I have their nose!
Obviously I am taking this way too seriously. The reason I wrote it all down was to document it all for my mum for Mother’s Day on Sunday, and it’s been so hard not to ring her up and say “guess what? We’re royal, oh and Welsh too!”
I wish I’d paid attention and actually read all the info panels that are in every Welsh castle you visit, I’m sure I’d have more of a clue. But how amazing right? I’ve obviously got a lot of work to do to understand and verify the links and sources, and the Welsh lineage is beautifully documented so goes back to the year dot.
I can’t wait to discover more about ‘the family from North Wales’ one of mine and my husbands favourite places in the world. I know there are thousands of people out there that share the same lineage but, just for a moment, it feels all quite exciting.
Nos da!
So exciting Emma, wild and romantic
Loved this. Makes me want to find out more about mine.