Life Since 2008, Part III, Genealogy

I'm still finishing up my Medieval genealogy, but I've reached a point where I've exhausted the resources at hand. It is amazing the obscure people I have found by searching through Google Books and British History Online. During the last few weeks of school, when life at work was pretty intense, I started finding people through the Victoria County Histories on British History Online, especially in the History of Lancaster. Having searched and read through the other Victoria County Histories, I have to say that the A History of the County of Lancaster is the best of the series. I must comment that this series was edited by a man named William Farrer whose name I often find as editor of various documents that came from the British Records Office. For me, his name signals a reliable source to search through.

Now I am afraid I'm near the end of such wonderful discoveries. I'm going back to people and places that I put aside because they were very frustrating for some reason or another. For some of these folks, say for instance Nichola le Bird, wife of Peter Bulkeley, the information was right there in Ormerod's History of Cheshire. I just hadn't scoured through the index as well as I should have the last time I was looking. It is always good to go back and look through records and the web pages I have for each individual because looking back through the Bulkeley line I found new ancestors I hadn't previously found, and I found some pretty horrific mistakes. Other places, I found that something made me lose focus, and I had left entries without sufficient sources.

Since I first started dabbling in genealogy, sometime around 2003, I have used a program called Legacy. I think I began with Legacy 3 with the current version being Legacy 7. I originally was drawn to Legacy because at the time it was the only genealogy program that also created web pages. My love for html and building web pages began in 1994 when I made my first home page. My passion for researching genealogy came much later.

Legacy has proven to be a great program and its creators keep adding lots of nice "bells and whistles" to each new upgrade. It holds far more people than I could ever enter in its data base. I love the way it keeps track of sources and its flexibility to set it up to the users needs as well as the users preferences. I have mine set up with the same background that I use for my genealogy web pages. Legacy even incorporated GIS technology so you can find where in the world your ancestors lived. It would take pages to describe all the tools and uses for Legacy, in fact I'm not sure I have even begun to utilize all the great tools it has. I recommend downloading the it for trial and playing with it for a while.

I love the fact that Legacy will generate 1000s of web pages in about ten minutes, especially since I keep updating my pages. One problem is that the numbering on my source pages changes as I add new sources, which requires that I edit each new page. I don't mind this since as I said my love for html hasn't dwindled over the years. Of course if I just uploaded all new pages I wouldn't have this problem. Again, I love html, and since my second set of web page outputs, I've been editing pages and including photos. It just is easier for me to edit the new pages.

Here are some screen clips I took of my Legacy program:

Pedigree view starting with Me

Descendant view showing the descendants

of Franciso Muños - Notice that the

Sánchez de Iñigo family began in New México

with Fray Francisco Muñoz, a Franciscan priest

Family view showing my father's parents

Location Widow open and showing

Cartaya, Andulucia, España where my

ancestor Francisco Vásquez was born.

Cats, Genealogy and mtDNA Haplogroup group U* and H

The year 2008 will soon be over, and 2009 is rapidly approaching, and I want to get one more blog entry in before 2009. Teaching, as always, is wonderful yet totally exhausting, both emotionally and mentally. During the school year, I’m consumed with my job and my students. Luckily for the 2008-2009 school year, I am blessed, again, with a wonderful group of students. It is winter break, and time to update my poor neglected blog.

Cats at Casa de Dulce y López


"Donut Head" wearing a cone after surgery.

The world of cats at Casa de Dulce y López has been blessed with the addition of Laguna. She has managed to charm every human and cat in the house as well as being a spark that keeps life at the Casa interesting. We had expected Pojoaque to be a small cat like his brother Nambe, but he is a huge cat. We also expected Laguna to be the large cat, and at eight months, she is still very small. Unexpected outcomes can be so delightful. After years of having a Casa full of elderly cats, it is so enjoyable to lay in bed at night and hear rapid paw steps of kitties chasing each other back and forth in their favorite game of chase.


Pojoaque

The world of the feral cats at Casa de Dulce y López hasn’t been as blessed. Ildy and Clara would disappear for over a week every once in a while, and finally, they never came back. I knew that loving feral cats would have its share of broken hearts, but I didn’t expect them so soon. We still have Sophie, Nambe and Juan, plus an exact mini version of Nambe and Juan has joined the group. We’ve wondered if he was their father, yet compared to Juan, Nambe and even our Pojoaque, our new gray guy is so small. Sophie is very close to letting Jim get near her, but someone in the past broke our Sophie’s heart. Brokenhearted kitties have a hard time trusting humans again.



Genealogy Updates

In the past six months I have updated and added hundreds of new people to my genealogy web pages. In earlier posts I mentioned all the great sources I’ve used to research medieval British genealogy, but I forgot a few important ones.


Kidwelly Castle

Some Notes on Medieval English Genealogy not only has some great resources itself, but also has links and leads to others. I’ve found their Some corrections and additions to the Complete Peerage very helpful when working with Cokayne’s Complete Peerage.



Foundation for Medieval Genealogy and Charles Cawley’s Medieval Lands: Charles Cawley has very carefully checked his sources for his work, and his work is very impressive. His entries are mainly noble or royal folk.


Warwick Castle

GEN-MEDIEVAL/soc.genealogy.medieval and their archives: There have been times that the good folks who post on soc.genealogy.medieval have helped me out of deep fogs of confusion. Also, they make me question my own work, which I find always is very helpful.

mtDNA

I had both my nephew’s and my mtDNA tested recently with the Family Tree DNA group. My nephew’s, or my Lopez male’s mtDNA happens to be U*, and my or my mother’s mtDNA is H. It seems that the U mtDNA is the oldest in Europe and people with mtDNA U were in Europe at the same time Neanderthals were there. The MtDNA H is one of the youngest mtDNAs in Europe. I’m not totally sure what all this means, but there has been an interesting outcome to my adding my results to the Family Tree DNA mtDNA matching database. I’ve found a lot of Hispanic New Mexicans with the mtDNA of H. We can find shared New Mexican ancestors, but these ancestors are via my father and not my mother, who has the mtDNA H, and whose female ancestors are likely from England.

My “mother line” is incomplete, as is my “father line.” I can find New Mexican ancestors who can be traced back to Native Americans in New México and the Valley of México, as well as to Spain, Portugal, Greece and even Belgium, but my oldest Lopez ancestor was living in Villa de Alburquerque in 1750 and married there in 1726. My oldest mother was born in Medville, Crawford, Pennsylvania about 1803. Like my father’s genealogy, I can trace other ancestors back to England, and even to the Norman conquest of England, but both mother and father lines stop the present day U.S.


Alburquerque, New México

My father line:
Carlos López (NM), Ramón López (NM), Celso López(NM), Ramon López (NM), Vicente Antonio López (NM), Diego López (NM), and possibly Miguel López (?)

My mother line:
Nancy López (NM), Eleanor Blair (NE), Mabel Cecilia Atwood(NE), Stella Ann Cole (PA), Celia Walker (PA), and Sarah Ann Ross (PA)

More information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_U_(mtDNA)

https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html?card=mm020

http://www.olypen.com/amelia/helena/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_H_(mtDNA)

https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html?card=mm024

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Map-of-human-migrations.jpg

Laguna, Family le Norreys, and Monsoon Season BUT in the Reverse Order

Monsoon Season

The single clouds are beginning to consolidate in the sky making them one very dark cloud. First, they gather around the mountains. In the morning, they start as a few fluffy white clouds hanging right above the Sandia, Jemez, Ortiz and Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The sky can be blue as far as you can see. That is until your eyes move to those mountains where the clouds are sitting like a magnetic force pulling all the moisture toward them. For much of the summer, this means there will be an afternoon shower in the mountains.

Usually, late in the summer, the clouds are more numerous, and might build up more and more each afternoon, until it finally rains. This is the monsoon season in the high desert. Growing up in Santa Fe, we would have rain in the afternoon, but Santa Fe lies at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains almost always make their own weather, and rain in the afternoon is very typical.

Sandia Mountains

I’ve lived my adult life in Albuquerque, and unlike Santa Fe, the afternoon showers or floods don’t come in calmly. In Albuquerque, afternoon rains, showers, floods or maybe no rain at all, has a very different personality. It means winds that slam your doors shut, and knock weak branches off of tree. It means loud rumbling thunder and giant bolts of lighting. Sometimes you can feel the electricity in the air. Sometime the air is so humid I feel oppressed by all the moisture that just won’t quite form into rain. I’ve seen some spectacular lighting storms while living in Albuquerque, and as much as I love the dry New Mexico climate, I enjoy monsoon season even more.

Now the question is, is it or is it not going to rain? Outside, everything in the sky will look like it is the perfect conditions to rain, and yet, within a short time, they sky is clear again, and no rain. There have been times when we in one part of the valley get no rain at all, while another part is flooding. I’ve had rain in the front yard, while isn’t a drop in the back. My favorite is a storm while the sun is shinning. The rain is ever so clear, almost sparkling, when the sun sits in the bright western sky and the heavy clouds above can’t hold a single drop more and they burst.

Santo Domingo, in sometime about 1920

Laguna

Laguna is the “youngins” of the Pueblo’s here in New Mexico. They created their pueblo in 1699. People from Santo Domingo moved away from the Río Grandé Valley after the Spanish first moved into New México. The Coronado Expedition & Oñate Spanish settlement had given the Pueblo People plenty of reason to fear contact with the Spanish.

I’ve always found the people of Santo Domingo to be very attractive people. I also have known some extremely attractive Laguna people, both in body and spirit. I’ve often pondered whether some of the folks from Santa Domingo decided to take their beautiful daughters out of the reach of the lusty Spanish, especially since many of them were Spanish soldiers without wives.

Laguna, NM, possibly in the 1920s

Laguna is also the name I’ve given to my newest kitten. Laguna is so pretty. She walks across the room with such poise and presence. She must have an old soul. At the ripe age of eight weeks old, she is so calm and centered she seems almost constantly in a meditative state, even when Pokie is smothering her while wrestling with her or one of us people pick her up while she would much rather be down on the ground. Plus she has the fluffiest tail and fluff coming out of her ears and those white socks on her back feet! All our other Pueblo cats have been named after the Northern New Mexican Pueblos my husband and I grew up near, but Laguna is one of those beautiful girls that are being hidden in Western New Mexico.

Laguna could be the poster girl for pound kitties. All my other cats found me and basically moved in. I saw Laguna on the lost and adoptable web site for the Albuquerque Animal Shelters, whoppps, they call it the Animal Care Center these days. Laguna was a pound kitten, and they held her and gave her love until I adopted her. I have to give the people of the ABQ Animal Care Center kudos for how they cared for my kitty before she was my kitty.

Poster Girl for Pound Kitties

Laguna and Pojaoque immediately became best friends. I’ll catch them sleeping in the same position one next to the other, and Pojaoque’s will have his paw resting on her back. If one is in any given place, I know the other will be right behind. Pojaoque is the gawky teen-age brother, with the poised little sister. It is great to have young cats in the house again to spark up the three oldsters, one being feline, in our house.


Le Norreys

I’ve taken a break from genealogy to ponder a short single line connected with someone who connects with someone else until they find their way into the Bulkeley/Grosvenor line, the Norreys line. I was so pleased to find, on Google Books, a 1850 article written by George Ormerod titled, “Le Noreis or Norres and its Speke Branch in Particular” in the series 1, vol. II issue of Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. My luck, the Norreys I am researching just happen to be from Speke.

I followed Ormerod’s version, but then I ran into Steve Norris’s web page on the John Le Norreys of Speke, Lancashire. He had two additional generations, and one of the generations is different. I wrote Steve asking him why his line didn’t agree with Ormerod’s line? He wrote back telling me he had copies of deeds and documents that prove his version of the line to be true. He assured me he has been working on this information for 25 years. Nothing that he said to me has me convinced, not even the missing generation. Rather, it is his conviction that has me reconsidering Ormrod’s version. I’m also tempted to take him up on the offer of copying all his copies, at my expense, out of curiosity. That has me pondering as well. I mean . . . if I were trying to prove that my great great great grandfather was indeed my great great great grandfather so I would be accepted into the DAR, maybe. Ponder, ponder, ponder! I think I’ll put both versions on my site so others can have the same fun of pondering mixed with confusion!

Speke Hall,

Which May Not Have Anything To Do With le Norreys of Speke

Oh, btw, I do have the proof that my great great great great grandfathers were my great great great great grandfathers and that I could be accepted in the DAR, but I’m really not the “joiner” type of person. Plus there are just so many associations I could join, but just, which is always a big question. I joined the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, and the only reason I’ve remained a member is they make it very easy to remain a member. I used to belong to the New Mexico Genealogy Society and the NM Hispanic Genealogical Research Center, but I can’t seem to rejoin as easily as the NEHGS. I love all three, especially the New Mexican ones.

If you are interested in la Familia le Norreys, visit Steve’s site The Family of "le Norreys." He has a tremendous amount of information on his site, but sadly no references. I have a dream of him scanning all his documents and putting them up on his site to share with the world. And don’t forget to read Ormerod’s article,

Le Noreis or Norres and its Speke Branch in Particular.

And I’m still waiting for the rain . . .

Medieval British Genealogy, Ormerod's The History of County Palatine and City of Chester, and the “DEroyalfication” of Constant Southworth

I’ve spent my summer, as I’ve done in the past few years, traveling back in history, searching for ancestors. I had, on a lark, about six years ago, used the information I found on the web to trace my maternal grandmother’s Southworth line. While I was researching my New Mexican ancestors, and later my New England ancestors, I had learned a lot about researching, and started to really care about having sources for my information. I knew I really needed to go back and clean up the mess that I knew my Southworth line was on my web page.

Now I find out that folks who have revised Weis’s Ancestral Roots have decided the evidence presented by the author of The Southworth’s Genealogy isn’t up to snuff. Constant Southworth, early Puritan settler of Massachusetts, and ancestor to thousands up thousands of people in the United States are no longer connected to Thomas Southworth according to the authors of the 8th Edition of Weis’s Ancestral Roots. When I read A Genealogy of the Southworths by Samuel Webber, I felt that the author had clearly made the connection. Weis must have agreed since he not only had it in the original 1950 edition of his Ancestral Roots, but he also has the pedigree in his 1959 edition of The Standish of Standish Parish. Anyway, while I was researching my New England ancestors, I found a connection with the Bulkeley and Grosvenor line. Since the Bulkeleys and Grosvenor lines connects to many of the same lines the Southworth line connects too, I decided to refer to Weis’ 7th Edition of Ancestral Roots instead of the revised 8th Edition for my Southworth research. Anyway, considering there weren’t a lot of people living during those early medieval days, adding into the consideration the horrid “right of the first knight,” anyone who has English ancestry is likely to be connected somehow with everyone else who has English ancestry. At this point, it isn’t the person being researched as much as the joy of researching.

Now it isn’t that I really want royal ancestors. Some of my most exciting finds have been my Native American and mulatto libere ancestors from my New Mexican roots. I’d much rather be known as the descendent of Pascuala Bernal, an Aztec woman; or Isabel, a Northern Tewa woman; or Juana Candelaria, whose great grand mother was Anna de Sandoval y Manzanares, daughter of Mateo, who is recorded as mulatto libere than, say, evil, ignominious, John Lackland, King of England. John is one of those hideous skeletons in ones genetic closet that I can only hope the genetics of Pascual Bernal voids out. Plus, he was a really terrible King. The only good that I can find that came from John is the fact that he was so bad that the barons insisted on the creation of the Magna Chart and the “rule of law.” No, I think that the reason I can’t let go of the Southworth connection in the 7th edition of has to do more with my love of my mother.

My mother’s name was Eleanor, and she died way too young when I was only eighteen. I am at this moment one year older than she was when she died. I’ve missed and loved her my entire life. She told me her mother, Mabel Atwood Blair, had a genealogist trace her ancestry, and that it revealed a connection between the Atwoods with King John’s mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Lady Godiva. She told me my grandmother named her Eleanor after Eleanor of Aquitaine. At the time I had no conception of how we were connected, I’ve just always connected Eleanor of Aquitaine and Lady Godiva with my beloved mother. (How I came about finding this genealogy at a much, much later date is explained on my Grandmother’s Genealogy Web Page on my site.)

Back to my messy genealogy web pages. I’m in the process of updating a few
hundred pages at a time. I invested in many new books on Genealogy, and a couple of essential CDs for my research. One of the CDs is the complete three volumes of George Ormerod's The History of County Palatine and City of Chester, and the other is the complete 13 volume CD of Cokaney’s Complete Peerage. I’ve linked them for anyone interested in purchasing them. I also have a dozen other books I’ve added to my genealogy library, but I’ve found myself relying on both these discs more than any other sources. This is especially true for the book by Ormerod. I find that many of the people I’ve been researching were from either Lancaster or Chester in England, and Ormerod has been invaluable in my quest for knowledge. Every time I find information on one person, I end up adding a dozen more people to my database because of this wonderful three-volume collection.

There are times when Ormerod totally confuses me, but I’ve come to believe that he was confused at the time when he was juggling primary sources and other prior genealogist’s work for his own work. In one entry he mentions finding over seventy different spellings for the same surname. He also explains that he finds different names for the same people. Other times, his work is clear and easily understood. He always cites primary sources, and he always supplies discrepancies. I have come to respect the work of the man, and the price of the CD was well worth it in the long run. (Now the CD wouldn’t be costly, but the exchange rate with Europe at this time is the costly part. Thanks to the policies of the Bush/Chenney government, our dollar is worthless today. Hum, I bet both Bush and Chenney share John Lackland as an ancestor, and they didn’t have a Pascula Bernal or an Anna de Sandoval y Manzanares to balance out their John genetics thus making them such John Lacklandish, incompetent & mean spirited rulers.)

In my search for sources, I’m finding that Google Books has some amazing resources. There are digital copies of such treasures as the Annals of the Lords of Warrington in two volumes, Collins’s Peerage of England, The Coucher Book, Or Chartulary of Whalley Abbey, the Pipe Rolls of Cumberland and Westmorland, The Chartulary of Cockersand Abbey of the Premonstratensian Order, many issues of the Collections of the History of Staffordshire, The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal (or as they call it The Yorkshire Archælogical Journal), Records from the British Records Society, issues of Remains, Historical and Literary, Connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester (a personal favorite), plus many, many, and again many, many more. If anyone out there is interested in these sources, I have lots of them on my sources web page and on My Library at Google Books. I have tried to make a sensible organization of the books sitting in MY LIBRARY, but I keep finding books faster than I can categorize them.

Back to research and Ormerod's The History of County Palatine and City of Chester.

P.S. I forgot to mention another great source of information - British History On-line.