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From: "Roy Stockdill" <>
Subject: RE: [YKS] A 14th century family tree
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 12:36:15 +0000
In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20030826195930.02171eb8@mail.bellsouth.net>


"Joseph A. & Ruth O. Ryan" <> wrote.....

> Roy, I don't mind the 'American' and 'female'; those
> are the usual cliches and shame on you for using
> them; but you are painting too broad a picture with
> 'Bible Belt', which is really 'old hat', and reeks of
> snobbery. I was raised and schooled in the Northeast
> (USA), but since studying genealogy, I have gained
> much more appreciation for what is behind the
> character of the Scots-Irish pioneers
> and their descendants. I'm glad my husband's maternal
> lines were all pre-revolutionary (American). It's been a
> fascinating journey into history.
> Since being down south (Mississippi for a few years), I have
> friends who may not be as well educated as I am, but
> they are trying and working hard. They are good country
> folk, with some strange ideas, but that's OK. Those are
> the people who built our country, and probably yours. The
> way things are going now, they may be among the persons who
> save western civilization, Adam and Eve included. We can
> usually find a middle or common ground, and have a
> lot of fun talking about things in general.
> By the way, one book I read described the poor folk
> of Northeast England as being barefooted in the 14th
> century. Now, I do have rellies from NRY, Durham and
> Northumberland, ag labs and such back into the late
> 17thC. and it took me while to imagine their
> ancestors living barefooted. I wonder what strange
> ideas they had and passed down in their families?
> Anyway, I have fun agreeing with you, and disagreeing
> with you!
> Ruth>

VALID points, Ruth, but I was merely stating facts as I find them.
The gentleman with the website claiming Adam and Eve as his
141x-gt-grandparents (it was 141, not 137 as I mentioned originally
from memory) is apparently in Texas. Nuff said? <b.g.>

I have quoted it often before, but let me cite yet again the best
abolition of the absurd Adam and Eve genealogies I know of. It
occurs in an excellent book called "Everyone Has Roots" by Anthony
Camp, former director of the Society of Genealogists, published in
1978.

Writing of fictitious pedigrees, he says: "Geoffrey of Monmouth about
1135, recording descents fabricated at least as early as the ninth
century, takes the ancestry of Rhodri Mawr [a great Welsh king in the
9th century, my brackets] back to Noah through Brutus, a grandson of
Aeneas, and through the Kings of Troy, Hector and Priam. This
descent, together with that of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs including
Alfred the Great through the storm-god Woden back to Sceaf the son of
Noah, who is said by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History to have been
born in the Ark, was put together with other fabulous descents in a
large sheet pedigree compiled by G. M. H. Milner and published in
1923. This worthless pedigree, 'The illustrious lineage of the royal
house of Britain', has gone through many editions obtaining a wide
circulation, and derives David, Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII
and Duke of Windosr), from David and the Royal House of Judah.)

* NOTE: Camp was using the term "fabulous" in its strict dictionary
definition of mythical or legendary.

I have no doubt Milner's work exists somewhere on the Internet and
these Adam and Eve people find it, tag their own proven descent from
some minor royal on to it - and hey presto, they're back to their
origins in the Garden of Eden! I also like the idea of being
descended from the Norse god, Woden, as the Anglo-Saxon monarchs
claimed. There are many descendants of Alfred the Great around today
through female lines, so I suppose they could claim this, too.

Roy Stockdill (Editor, Journal of One-Name Studies)
SoG Executive & Director of Projects, FFHS
Guild of One-Name Studies:- www.one-name.org
Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History:- www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html

Never ask a man if he comes from Yorkshire. If he does he will tell you, if he does not why humiliate him? - Canon Sydney Smith

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