Preparedness for when

nuatha

ivyleaf wrote: »

ETA nuatha I recognise some of those names from "Young Lochinvar", which we read at school.

The names echo throughout history. Lochnivar would be a Gordon. Fenwicks would be the department store family.

I recently found out that in the 1911 census most of the people with my maiden name were in Durham. My ancestors a bit further back than that were in Newcastle, but two of them, father and son with identical names, went to two different ports in America. Later, one of them came back, but we don't know which!

The joys of genealogy. I have four uncles (ie brothers) who are Bob, Tom, Tom and Bob, who have cousins who share the names and name their kids after themselves and their brothers. It makes the family tree rather confusing.

Karmacat wrote: »

Thats true - lots of Celtic stuff, like Katherine Kerr, not just swords and sandals, but very detailed and realistic.

In case you don't know Kit is working on a new Deverry novel and recently published a trilogy of Deverry shorts (one never published before)

Its so interesting, isn't it - roads not taken.



Ooh ... Armstrong, yes ... who else? James Irwin (Apollo 15)? Mae Jemison (STS 47, I thought she'd done more than one)? There are two Johnsons! Story Musgrove (lots of shuttle missions), two Scotts (but David was in Gemini 8 *and* Apollo 15!), they had a James Taylor (no flights) ...

See what you made me do :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: I can't let a space reference go And also, "The Debatable Lands" - that's such a beautiful phrase, I really, really love that.

Bit of a diversion I know, sorry folks!

Actually even simpler.
The Apollo 11 crew are all Riding Families, historically Aldrin and Collins are graynes (septs, lesser families protected by) of Armstrong. Back on Earth, the US President, Nixon was descended from the Armstrong's biggest rivals, Ford (vice-president) and McCormack (Speaker) generally rode at Nixon orders.

GreyQueen wrote: »

Hey, nuatha, isn't there some old time statute which bans persons surnamed Armstrong from being in Carlisle after sundown? Back to the border reiver times, because the Armstrongs were so troublesome?

There was, though it did apply to all to the riding families for a while. You may enjoy the tales of Kinmont Willie one of the more notorious of that clan.

You make a good point, generally our ancestry didn't enjoy peaceful times of plenty. They survived some seriously tough times, and passed their genes on to us - that means we have the potential to do the same. They also managed to carve survival out of this very land, without the modcons, proves it can be done.

nuatha

fuddle wrote: »

I've always been interested in the connection between Durham and Northumbria but namely Cuthbert and Venerable Bede. I am very ashamed to say that although I was born and bread in the Land of the Prince Bishops I am only tonight questioning who these Prince Bishops are!

Northumbria was the joining of two Angle kingdoms, Bernicia and Deira, and covered the area from Edinburgh to the borders, Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Merseyside. There's evidence that suggests it stretched to the Thames briefly and controlled much of East Anglia for a short time.

As far as I'm aware County Durham comes into being after the Norman conquest. However the claim for Durham being a special provision is based on a claimed land grant from King Ecgfrith of Northumbria to Cuthbert when he became Bishop of Lindisfarne. A grant confirmed by the King of York some two hundred years later (granting the land between the Tees and the Tyne as Cuthbert's remains were in a catherdral in Chester le Street, being moved to Durham shortly before the conquest.

A prince bishop holds both spiritual and temporal power, although they swear allegiance to a monarch they rule as if they themselves are monarchs.

The title survives as a tagline on the county nameplates and a shopping mall. Shame its not even taught in Durham schools - there weren't many county palatines in England.

moneyistooshorttomention

Beginning to wonder if I should be on this thread:rotfl:

Don't think there's a single sheep rustler/anyone else that "didn't oughter" live that way/etc/etc anywhere back on either side of the family. Note to self "Tell mother I feel deprived....:rotfl:Everyone else must have had our share of disreputables....".

GreyQueen

You might be surprised, MITSTM. Lots of people went to a great deal of trouble to disguise the kind of ancestry we now regard as colourful because it wasn't 'respectable'. And my family history also contains a lot of rather more prosaic agricultural labourers, farmers, blacksmiths, tailors, soldiers, railway clerks, domestic servants, milliners etc.

Given where we're from, and physical appearances, we're typical British mongrels and almost certainly partially descended from Viking and Saxon invaders/ traders. I have been jokingly accused of having a Germanic head before now (large and squarish) which I attribute to being an evolutionary adaption to environments where people might have tried whacking the ancestors across the noggin with heavy weapons. And, curiously, clothing from German ladies' wear ranges fits me better than stuff made in the UK. Hmm.......:rotfl:

nuatha, know what you mean about family names. My dad has 3 forenames, the first of which has been used by the family for 400-odd years for the eldest son. I asked him if it gives him the willies seeing his name going back through all those documents and got a baffled 'no'. And then there are the relatives where father and son share a name, where someone misrecorded the spelling of our main paternal surname in parish records, so there are at least two variants floating around, where people had a given name that they were never known by..........arrgghhhhh!!!!!!

My own Grandad was one of the latter. He was born during WW1 and his mother wanted to name him after her brother who'd just been killed in France. His father didn't like the name and said you can call him

---

if you like, but I shall call him

---

. So, Grandad lived for 83 years in the same village and, at his funeral, people who'd known him since they were all infants found out his official given name was different.

:j Tonight I shall be returning to archery for the first time this month as I've epretty ill. I am now much better and restored to my default setting (Tigger) and ready to send those arrows down-range with extreme prejudice. Be werry afraid............

thriftwizard

Glad you are feeling better now, GQ. And you are not the only one who finds that German clothes fit better; if I buy in a job lot of "vintage" clothing, it'll nearly always contain a fair proportion of Germanic origin, and these things will fit me - and curiously, most of my customers - rather better than anything home-produced, except some of the handmade bits.

I don't think I have any borders ancestry, except perhaps on my mother's martial side (as opposed to her Quaker, originally French, side) and that's probably as much Indian as lowland Scot as they spent about 200 years up on the NW frontier despite bearing a Scottish name. My father's family were solid West Country yeomanry, with plenty of blacksmiths, farmers, butchers, milliners, glove makers, naval personnel (including one Admiral, who fought as a midshipman at Trafalgar) West Indian 'baccy farmers & "privateers"...

I sometimes look at the family tree and see that it's in time of war that the genetic net gets spread wider, as it were; in peaceful times, the ancestors (going back to around 1485 on my father's side) seem to have married the girl next door (most of the West Country being somewhere you don't particularly want to escape from) but in more unsettled times, brides - and grooms - seem to have come from much further afield. I have a feeling that life on the Borders was always somewhat unsettled!

jk0

Yeah, it's funny how many of us have a different given name to what's on our birth certificate.

Some neighbours of mine, we were introduced to the wife as 'Jenny'. Then years later, we found out it was spelt 'Genny'.

Finally at her funeral, we found out her name was Doris. 'Genny' was an abbreviation of her maiden surname, (like Fergie.)

Karmacat

I just love genealogy and the border lands. Interesting to know for sure that Northumbria included Merseyside once upon a time - makes sense of the hankering for the north of England to get independence the same way that the Scots are going for it ...

Frugalsod

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this is the video for the first crowdfunding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dd9NIlhvlI

Here is their website

http://gravitylight.org

And here is the crowd funding page for the latest version.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gravitylight-made-in-africa/x/7630030#/story

mardatha

I live in the Borders, have read all the books and old stories of the Reivers, and recognise the names (and the wild natures lol) in many of my neighbours. There are loads of books about it, the best one is Steel Bonnets. I think life here then was very like the American wild west. I'm surrounded by Scotts, Humes, Douglas, Kerrs.
Anybody interested in this should click on this link and lookat my favourite castle which in person is totally awe inspiring...this is a Douglas stronghold they called "The Strength of Liddesdale"
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/hawick/hermitagecastle/index.html

Frugalsod

Karmacat wrote: »

I just love genealogy and the border lands. Interesting to know for sure that Northumbria included Merseyside once upon a time - makes sense of the hankering for the north of England to get independence the same way that the Scots are going for it ...

Apparently there is a #scotlandtakeuswithyou tag being used by those in the north of England.