Nov 27th 2012, 5:24:12
interesting, nuk. i may or may not address that, shortly.
can you place an oldest line by line ancestor, or is this something you've been told based on your surname? regardless, my family - which settled italy in the 13th century, was originally from normandy as well. you guys went to england sometime around 1052 while we came down with charles of anjou, to southern italy, a couple hundred years later. a dna test has in fact confirmed this diaspora of my grandfather's ancestors - a common line was identified in the 12-13th century between our paternal many times g-grandfather and the paternal grandfather of the american hopkins family. so basically our common grandfather was from normandy and our lines broke off many centuries ago, but we both trace our ancestors back to france with unequivocal certainty.
however, my documented line by line oldest ancestor is really only found in the early 16th century, around 1510. to him i can identify each generation in an unbroken line. he lived in the same properties and held same positions as many of the earlier in this family, in the same location (in the 14th and 13th centuries) but we are missing the direct link. so even though it is certain, and in theory, i do indeed know the name of the original progenitor of this family, in the 12th century, i can only point to the oldest documentable ancestor as the gentleman born around 1510.
in fact, even the borbone (to whom my family was loyal to, even after the unification of italy in the 1852) and the savoia (last Sovereigns of the unified italy, monarchy abolished around 1932 i believe) can only place an oldest documented ancestor around 1300, even if there is strong evidence to link them to the early 'counts' dating back to the 9th century, that their genealogies so often celebrate. anyway, lots to say on that matter but that's a different story all together
atryn, what is the name of the family? if you can link them to the mayflower and any of the early mowayflower hopkins, then we can find a common ancestor in 11th century france :)
diss- are you still in denmark?
qz - very cool, thanks for starting us out. where did your ancestors eventually settle?
red x - it is sometimes interesting to look at history through the scope of your own family. but it's one of those things. if you aren't into it, it's tough to start caring about it all of a sudden. for me, this is the last link to my great-grandparents and an old tradition that does have some good fundamental rooting.