Many cultures memorize their family trees, first passing them on orally, and then documenting them in sagas or in written text such as St. Matthew did in Chapter One of his Gospel which lists the 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus. I am blessed having descended from cultures that valued their genealogies; including the Scots, the Scandinavians, and the various tribes of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, which into nation states and empires. I have been able to trace ancestors back 60 generations to King Fjolnir of Uppsala AD), Sweden and for many others back to the the 6th century...going back further is a work in progress!
Creating my family tree and my ancestry blogs are meant primarily to be a legacy for my children and others in the tree. But for me personally, as with many others, Churchills words ring true. I have always been a forward looking person, and knowing where from gives me some insights into why I am the way I am. I have always been a student of history, and history books are
my favorite genre. alive for me when I can relate directly to historical characters. So as you read the next several blogs, please know where this from, and enjoy learning history through some of Linda and my ancestors.
Subsequent to posting my planning blog to for this trip (see Planning for Ancestral Visitations to Scotland) I tried to separate Linda and my family trees so that all her ancestors would be shown as some multiple of great grandparent rather than a cousin of mine. I eventually realized that I could ascend her family tree, and when an ancestor was identified as being some multiple great grandparents, we shared that ancestor The first ancestors we have are 1) Sir Robert Douglas, Lord of Lochleven and Lady Margaret Balfour, Countess of Morton, 2) Sir Archibald Boyd of Bonshaw and Lady Christian Mure, and 3) Sir Archibald Gillespie Campbell, 2nd Earl of Argyll and Lady Elizabeth Stewart, Countess of Argyll, all of whom are our 15thgreat grandparents: making Linda my 15th cousin. This means that all their ancestors are great grandparents. In all, we share about 2000 ancestors over the previous 500 years. But I am fearful
of eliminating some aunts and uncles who may not be my ancestor but would be Lindas. Again, a work in progress, but necessary as I we have 12,500 ancestors in our tree, which has unwieldy.
Together, our individual ancestors provided a treasure trove of not only Scottish aristocracy, but also the Plantagenet kings of England; the Capet kings of France; the Viking kings of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden - Norwegian vikings kings of the Isle of Man, Dublin, the Hebrides and the Dukes of Normandy; the Swedish Varingian Viking founders of Russia and Ukraine, who also served as the body guards of the Byzantine Emperors; several Byzantine Emperors; the Holy Roman Emperors; the Carolingian emperors; and the Dukedoms of what are now Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy; the Hapsburg founders of the Empire; Polish and Hungarian kings; and even the Khan of the Cumans, a nomadic tribe from the steppes. In my travels I have been to many of the homelands of these ancestors not knowing we were related to their dukes and counts. With the exception of Poland I doubt I will revisit these countries to view them from the perspective of tracing
our ancestors. However, my interest is at least expanding to the European continent of 1000 years ago...lots of research!
Turning back to our Scottish ancestors, there are too many to cover them all. I decided to focus on the castles where they lived. There are as many as 3,000 castles in Scotland. I have identified about 40 castles and palaces built by the major branches of our ancestors, five battlefields where they fought the English and so many died, and eight abbeys and cathedrals where they were crowned and buried.
