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tinwe
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Posted: Tue 21 Jun , 2005 5:40 am
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The internet is a truly amazing thing. In a fairly short amount of time I have managed to trace my family name back over a thousand years to the time of Macbeth! Ok, it’s not exactly a direct line, but some of it can be surmised, I think, given what I know and have been able to find out.

My family name is Armstrong, which can be traced back to a Siward Fairbairn (or Fair Beorn, meaning white bear)of the Strong Arm, born 995, a Viking , son of a Danish King, who came to England (or may have been born in England) and earned the title of Earl of Northumbria from Edward the Confessor.

Siward’s sister was married to Duncan, King of Scotland from 1034-1040 and he fought against Macbeth (he’s even a character in Shakespeare’s play) to help his nephew, Malcolm III, win back the throne. He had two son’s, Osberne and Waltheof. Waltheof had no male heir, but his daughter, Matilda, married King David I, son of King Malcolm III, and the present day royalty of England and Scotland are descended from Matilda.

Siward’s oldest son Osberne had a son named Siward Barn the White who fought with Malcolm III against Edward the Conqueror. Legend has it that Siward rescued Malcolm during a battle when Malocolm’s horse was killed under him, by lifting him with one arm and carrying him to safety. Malcolm knighted Siward, gave him the name Armstrong and granted him land along the border with England in the area of Liddesdale. Thus was born the Armstrong Clan, which became one of the greatest of the Border Clans of Scotland.

The border lands were in a constant state of war which made it nearly impossible for the inhabitants to rely on farming for their subsistence, so most of tem took to thievery. By the 1400's the practice of reiving, or stealing livestock, had become commonplace along the borders and the Armstrongs were professional reivers. Here is an interesting story about the Armstrongs I found searching the internet:
Quote:
The Story of Carey's Cows.

Sir Richard Carey, the Warden of the English West March, after many abortive attempts to subdue the Armstrongs, decided on a determined plan to rid Liddesdale, once and for all, of the reiving activities of this tiresome clan.
1. He entered Liddesdale with a strong force, and, as expected. the reivers withdrew, with their families and belongings into Tarras Moss.
Carey deployed his men at all the known exits to the Moss ensuring that no one could possible get in or out without his knowledge.
He awaited events.
He waited a long time and his provisions were getting low and he found it impossible to purchase meat locally as all livestock had suddenly disappeared.
After a while, when his stocks were dangerously low, and Carey was beginning to fear that he would have to call off the siege, he was approached by some friendly locals and offered a fine beast to purchase. He gratefully accepted and asked for more to feed his men, and he got them.
Carey was quite unaware that a body of Armstrongs, had left their refuge without difficulty, and made their way south to Carey's home in England. Carey's livestock, being relatively unguarded, the Armstrongs had no difficulty in driving north a choice selection of Carey's fine beasts.
When Carey found out that he had been purchasing his own cattle, he was not amused.
Acutely embarrassed, Carey called off the siege and went home.
Ha!

In 1503 Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie was treacherously executed by the young King James V in an effort to bring law and order to the borderlands. What he achieved, however, was another 100 years of bloody lawlessness. In 1603 James VI bacame King James I of England and set out to bring peace to borderlands once and for all. He did this by declaring the border clans outlaws and killing or driving most of them out of there homelands. The last chief of the Armstrong Clan was executed in 1611.

I was never sure if I was descended from these same Armstrongs that lived in the borderlands of Scotland. Being a descriptive name, I would assume that Armstrong cropped up in other places besides this one area of Scotland. However, after doing some fairly easy research on the internet I was able to trace my family name in a direct line from father to son back thirteen generations to a William Armstrong, born 1565 in Gilnockie Scotland. While this is not definite proof, it is a pretty good indication that I am descended from the original Armstrongs.

Here is a good website that I used to find some of this information:

Genealogy.com

I was also able to trace my paternal grandmother, Pearl Moretz, back 9 generations to the first person of that family’s name. Christian Moritz, born in Saxony Germany, came to America sometime in the mid 1700's. His son John purchased land in Watauga County, North Carolina in the late 1700's. The clerk who registered the deed for the land wrote the name down as Moretz. John apparently thought this was the Anglaconized spelling of the name, so he took as his name from then on. His grandson, John Moretz, fathered an astonishing 25 children by two wives.

I’ve had little luck on my mother’s side of the family. She is from Germany, but her family left Germany and moved to Austria before the outbreak of WWII, so she never knew much about her family. She was born in Pössneck Germany to Elizabeth Meissner and Rudolf Ploberger. I don’t know anything beyond her grandfathers Kurt Meissner and Rudolf Ploberger.

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Dindraug
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Posted: Tue 21 Jun , 2005 7:52 am
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Eru, you asked in your first post for input from Europe, well here I am ;)

I will post more later as I really don't have time, but I would add a couple of things.


Firstly, when tracing ancestry, don't assume anything.

As an example, I have been told all along that I am descended from a Welsh side, and a Jewish side. One family history has me descended from Llewellyn ap Gruffudd and the Earls of Crewe.

Recently, even cursorily looking into it, has shown that at least one side of my family is from the Wirral (Cheshire) for generations, with the possible occasional odd incursion from Jewish and 'wandering' families.

That is in four generations, in England.


Secondly, if you are Welsh, you should be able to place Llewellyn on the family tree, it is like Charlemagne for any North European.

But be careful with family names ;)

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Jaeniver
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Posted: Tue 21 Jun , 2005 9:07 am
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I'd love to know mine but i really have no idea with my mother family living ehm...pretty far away in the Middle East. All i know is that i am a grand child to a famous Libanees musician :scratch

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Dave_LF
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Posted: Tue 21 Jun , 2005 10:59 am
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The ancestors I know about all claim to be Dutch, though my surname is French (there are several plausible ways that could have come about). My parents told me once that our forebears fled from Holland to France to escape persecution, lived there for a while, and then came to America; apparently so they could do some persecuting of their own. I've never verified this though, and don't even know where I'd start. My mom's family look and act like Dutch stereotypes (for the most part), and are probably as close to "pure-blooded" as anyone is. My father's side appears to be more mixed, but we don't have as much information about them.


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Jaeniver
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Posted: Tue 21 Jun , 2005 1:59 pm
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Dutch stereo types dave do tell please. I am curious ;)

and they fled to France? :Q :scratch trying to think of a period when they could have fled to France. if it had been for religous persecution reason i can't really think why France though. :scratch mysteries.

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LalaithUrwen
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Posted: Tue 21 Jun , 2005 2:44 pm
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Dindraug,

Know anything about Germans living in Czechoslovakia? Lindner is definitely a German name, but on the census my g grandparents listed Czechoslovakia as their country of birth and the birth country of their parents. :scratch I must admit that threw me for a loop.

Gimli, I loved reading your post. That is so neat about the WWII pilot and all. :)

tinwe, that is just too cool that you can trace your lineage back that far. I'm fascinated by that time period, particularly by Queen Margaret and King Malcolm.

Beth, you have some great stories about your family. You really should start writing them down as a novel. I've toyed with the idea myself, and I've decided that if I don't know something I'll just have to make it up as best as I can.

Very interesting, everyone!


Lali


Edit because I'm woman enough to admit that I cannot spell Czechoslovakia right the first time!!!!!

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Axordil
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Posted: Tue 21 Jun , 2005 2:55 pm
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So far as I can tell, everyone of English descent shares at least one Plantagenet ancestor, generally from the 13th century. :D Evidently they had two hobbies, killing off their existing relatives and making new ones...

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Ara-anna
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Posted: Tue 21 Jun , 2005 3:17 pm
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Oh ok....this is very interesting.

One day my grandfathers ship crashed ...We said oh no, we weren't supposed to crash here. The great pubba in the sky said didn't you read the sign....(BTW Earth has a warning sign). We said yes we did read the sign that said under no circumstances land here, they can't even get along with black and white, imagine what they will do with green.

So off to the tranformation chamber we all went. After transforming into humanoid looking creatures we went on a walk about, ran right into these three foot fellows being chased by some other dead looking fellows. We told the three foot fellows to use the force, they looked at us strangly and said can we use this ring to use the force. We looked a the three foot fellows and then at the ring, told the three foot fellows...What :scratch ?

We decided to take a boat trip after that, ended up with 6 foot fellows with pointy ears. When we landed we said Live Long and Prosper, to which they said May Go Van in. We said we did not bring our Van, but if we did you could have a ride in it. They said What :scratch ? We said Van, automobile...primitive form of travel. Well we decided at that point to move on and landed in this place called America, were we opened up our greatest invention, a food store called McDonalds.

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The Watcher
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Posted: Tue 21 Jun , 2005 3:34 pm
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LalaithUrwen wrote:
Dindraug,

Know anything about Germans living in Czechoslovakia? Lindner is definitely a German name, but on the census my g grandparents listed Czechoslovakia as their country of birth and the birth country of their parents. :scratch I must admit that threw me for a loop.
I have a lot of the same problems with my maternal grandmother's family, since both of her parents came over here from what were then parts of Germany, but in tracing the surnames (Goenne and Blaser) at various times either the boundaries changed (as it did with any of the German principalities, and do not get me started on the boundaries of the various different empires) or the family seemingly moved about. Not being as familiar with German history certainly doesn't help either. That will be one of my next big projects - I have lots of leads and possible connections, but have not proven anything too much as of yet.

Put it this way, if it says German, Prussian, Austrian, Czech, Polish, Swiss, but the surname is the same and provides lots of links/ties, I would not give up. Chances are it IS correct.

Also, I know all too well about the fallabilities of spelling and birthdates - they DO vary wildly most of the time, and even given first names or christening names are not names that these people may have actually gone by. I have found a Judith who went by Julia, an Elbert who went by Robert, a Melissa who went by her middle name of Voe, etc.

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Lacemaker
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Posted: Wed 22 Jun , 2005 2:59 am
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Ara-Anna: :LMAO:

Hey Vison, talk about six degrees of separation! I work for a small parish in the Eastern Townships:its first pastor worked at Grosse Isle and almost died of the typhus(Luc Trahan). He was succeeded here by an Irish orphan who lost his parents either during the trip or at Grosse Isle itself, and was then adopted by a Fr-Can family but kept his name(Patrick Quinn). The parish had lots of Irish settlers; about half the genealogy look-ups I do are for families descended from those Irish survivors.

Family "legends": my own gr-grand-father used to tell all who could listen that he was of Irish descent, giving lots of details. While researching our family, my sister and I found out this was not true at all! Go figure!


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tinwe
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Posted: Wed 22 Jun , 2005 4:23 am
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LalaithUrwen wrote:
tinwe, that is just too cool that you can trace your lineage back that far. I'm fascinated by that time period, particularly by Queen Margaret and King Malcolm.
I had heard the story of Siward Fairbairn before but I had always believed it to be nothing more than legend. It always included tales about slaying dragons and other fantastic deeds. After doing a bit research over the last few days however, its seems there is some basis in fact of some parts of the story.

For instance, it seems certain that there was a Danish Siward Fairbairn who was the Earl of Northumbria around the year 1000 and that he was in fact instrumental in the defeat of Macbeth and the ascendance of Malcolm III to the throne. It also seems certain that Malcolm was related to Siward through his mother, who was a kinswoman of Siward, either his sister or his niece. It also seems certain that Siward’s son Waltheof was the father of Matilda who married Malcolm’s fourth son David, who became King after his brothers died.

Siward’s second son Osberne is mentioned in some other sources, but I haven’t found anything to corroborate the existence of Osberne’s son Siward Barn the White, who was, according to legend, the progenitor of the Armstrong name. What’s more, there is a more than 200 year gap between the supposed Knighting of Siward by Malcolm III and the emergence of the first recognized Lord of the Armstrong Clan, Alexander, in 1300. It’s possible, I suppose, that the Armstrong’s merely claimed Siward as their mythical forefather, however the name Fairbairn has always been associated with the Armstrong clan all the way back to Alexander, so it seems likely to me that there is a legitimate connection.

It is all rather fascinating. I am not familiar at all with Macbeth, never having seen or read Shakespeare’s play. Perhaps I should look into it!


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The Watcher
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Posted: Wed 22 Jun , 2005 5:10 am
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tinwe -

Welcome to the addiction that genealogy can become. But, take caution, while you have a strong clan source to back up your research, as others have noted, they all want to claim a definite hook in the best ancestors that they can support. Just be wary. It is more fitting that you focus your efforts on the more recent people in the family, and then work your way backwards, and then when you have exhausted any direct leads, start speculating based on what you DO already know.

Case in point, I have a direct ancestor with the surname McNabb. I know the family back seven generations here in America. But, all I have to go on from there is clan history, which states that the name means "son of the Abbot" and is also related to Scottish nobility, back to the same late Dark Ages that you have found, with some Viking King who had some sons etc. As far as I know, my progenitors could have been serfs on the land who took on the name and had no connection whatsoever, although, given clans in general, this would be a bit unlikely...... but just saying, there is no proof!!! :)

Also, when one runs the numbers of descendents that one has even assuming only two offspring having two offspring themselves, and then run it out to twelve generations or more, well, that makes 4096 current cousins alone. Then factor in the fact that it is not always just two but maybe fifteen, or how many bastards were fathered who took the name, or maybe none at all, and take it from there........ :Q :D

And do not forget the women........... :Q Tracing those will make you rip out whatever hair you ever had.........

Last edited by The Watcher on Wed 22 Jun , 2005 6:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Dave_LF
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Posted: Wed 22 Jun , 2005 6:06 am
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Jaeniver wrote:
Dutch stereo types dave do tell please. I am curious ;)
Oh; you know. Tall, blonde, stingy, hardworking, quiet. I suppose I fit the bill well enough myself, though I'm not really blonde anymore.
Quote:
and they fled to France? :Q :scratch trying to think of a period when they could have fled to France. if it had been for religous persecution reason i can't really think why France though. :scratch mysteries.
No idea, it's just something one of my parents mentioned once. They said something about French Huguenots too, though that doesn't seem to make much sense unless it happened the other way around (fled from France to Holland instead of Holland to France). Something I learned today looking at the geneaology.com site, though, is that my surname was a "dit" name in the French army. Apparently during a certain period everyone who served was given an extra name to identify their company or something (eg Pierre Bourbeau dit Lacourse), and some people kept that name as their own after they left or passed it to their children (maybe someone else knows more about this than I do; hint hint). So I suppose it's possible that some relative of mine was in the French army and picked the name up there, but I don't actually have any French blood.


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Jaeniver
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Posted: Wed 22 Jun , 2005 8:25 am
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Dave_LF wrote:
Jaeniver wrote:
Dutch stereo types dave do tell please. I am curious ;)
Oh; you know. Tall, blonde, stingy, hardworking, quiet
Ahhh our stereotypes must have changed over the years :D now it's more loud mouthed hard working types :P

and cool about the surname! :D

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Dave_LF
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Posted: Wed 22 Jun , 2005 10:11 am
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Jaeniver wrote:
Quote:
Oh; you know. Tall, blonde, stingy, hardworking, quiet
Ahhh our stereotypes must have changed over the years :D now it's more loud mouthed hard working types :P
Well, you're in a better position to know than I am. We have a number of the loud-mouthed types as well, incidentally. ;)


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Dindraug
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Posted: Wed 22 Jun , 2005 12:50 pm
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Jaeniver wrote:

and they fled to France? :Q :scratch trying to think of a period when they could have fled to France. if it had been for religous persecution reason i can't really think why France though. :scratch mysteries.
Catholics!

Lalaith
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Know anything about Germans living in Czechoslovakia? Lindner is definitely a German name, but on the census my g grandparents listed Czechoslovakia as their country of birth and the birth country of their parents. I must admit that threw me for a loop.
Checoslovakia was created as a country in the early 20 century (not sure when off the top of my head). Before that, it was part of Germany esentially.

Will be back in later, this was a 20 post at the very end of my lunch brake ;)

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Jaeniver
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Posted: Wed 22 Jun , 2005 1:20 pm
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We are Protestant remember ;) during the Huguenots i'd say the protestant french would flee to Holland not vice versa.

again, i can be very very wrong here.

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Dave_LF
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Posted: Wed 22 Jun , 2005 1:28 pm
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Jaeniver wrote:
We are Protestant remember ;) during the Huguenots i'd say the protestant french would flee to Holland not vice versa.

again, i can be very very wrong here.
No, you're right. That's why I said that if it was true, the story would have to be backwards.


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LalaithUrwen
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Posted: Thu 23 Jun , 2005 2:55 am
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Dindraug wrote:

Checoslovakia was created as a country in the early 20 century (not sure when off the top of my head). Before that, it was part of Germany esentially.

Will be back in later, this was a 20 post at the very end of my lunch brake ;)
Thanks! I guess I'll just have to do some more research. I knew that many of those countries had shifted borders many times, but I don't think I realized that about Czechoslovakia and Germany.


Lali

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IdylleSeethes
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Posted: Thu 23 Jun , 2005 5:43 am
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Czechoslovakia was formed from two of the fragments left from the collapse of the Hapsburg Empire (Austro-Hungarian) during WWI.

Germany coalesced in the mid 19th century from largely unorganized remnants of the collapsed Holy Roman Empire tacitly associated with the Hapsburg Empire in its last few centuries until 1806. Metternich and Bismarck gave it form.

The resulting nationality issues are murky. Hitler, for example was actually Austrian, not German. Although Czechoslovakia had a large German population, I don''t think it was territorially part of Germany until Hitler's annexation of it and other parts of the old Hapsburg Empire during the 1930s.

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