So Far Away

This week's #52ancestorsin52weeks is Father's Day - but of course, it's not Father's Day in Australia, so I'm going to do the theme we had a couple of weeks ago when I was away - So Far Away.

When you first start doing your family tree, it's exciting to see how "far back" you can go with your branches. Until last weekend, the furthest back on my direct line was Benjamin Broome, my 9th great-grandfather born in 1646 in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England (grandfather of John Broom in my carpet story), which I thought was a long way back!

Last weekend, I was searching back to see if I could see a link between the Freemans on my Dad's side and the Freemans on my Mum's side (spoiler alert - not yet). Anyway, I was having a search on Joseph Freeman (my 5th great-grandfather born in Gloucestershire, England in 1765) and his wife - Sarah Arkell (my 5th great-grandmother also from Gloucestershire, England, born in 1767). Well, I had her father John Arkell (born 1730 in Gloucestershire, England) and then I found his father Henry Arkell (born 1682, also in Gloucestershire) and his father Thomas Arkell (born 1639, also in Gloucestershire) and we are back to my 8th great-grandfather and the early 1600s!

Screenshot of the pedigree from Mary Ann Pegler (my maternal great, great grandmother) to Thomas Arkell

Well, things were starting to get a bit boring with all this Gloucestershire business, when up pops his father, Thomas Walraven van Arkel Heukelom - who was born in 1613 in Ammerzoden, Gelderland in the Netherlands! He must have migrated at some stage because he married Mary Willets in (you guessed it) Gloucestershire in 1638. I wonder what made him move?

Those Netherlands people keep good records because this opened up a HUGE branch of the family tree and links us back to medieval nobility because it turns out the van Arkels were a medieval noble family from Holland! Was I excited? You bet I was! I can trace the van Arkel paternal line back to good old Herbaren van Arkel II born around 1200, somewhere in the Netherlands. He is my 20th great-grandfather!

This post could get bigger than Ben Hur (and possibly I am related to him too), but it gets too confusing and too hard to keep track of everyone. So I'm just going to run through the most exciting branch (and there are lots more posts with other branches just waiting for their story to be told too).

Thomas Arkell through to Otto van Arkel Heukelom IV
I kept going back along the branches, amazed there was so much information going so far back. 

Johan van Arkel Heer van Heukelom en Lienden III through to Floris van Lynden II

My good friend Google informs me that the van Lynden's were nobility too, one of the oldest Dutch noble families!

As an aside, if you can see Lady Agnes van Herlaer in the diagram above (my 18th great-grandmother), she is also Princess Diana's 18th GG, Winston Churchill's 18th GG and some other royals who aren't as famous 18th and 19th GG!!! Me and Diana - blood relatives!

Anyway, I kept going, tracing, finding lots of coats of arms and counts and countesses...

Floris van Lynden II through to Thierry de Montbelliard von Pfirt Graf in Althkirch II
...and going, where lo and behold old paintings of Dukes start popping up and we start to get a French and German flavour happening:

Thierry II through to Kunigunde de Francs de l'Ouest

Kunigunde de Francs de l'Ouest (Cunigunda of France) was born in Aachen, Germany in 886. Her mother was Ermentrude of France was born in about 870. Her father was Louis the Stammerer, King of Aquitaine and later West Francia, born 1 November 846.

Louis the Stammerer

His father was Charles the Bald, King of West Francia, King of Italy AND Holy Roman Emperor, born 13 June 823. Guess I'm a good Catholic after all.

Charles the Bald

His father was Louis the Pious (also known as Louis the Fair and Louis the Debonair), King of Francs and also co-Emperor, born in 778. Debonair. Of course he was.

Louis the Pious

And for today, we come to the end of this line - he was the only surviving adult son of Karel I de Grote der Franken - otherwise known as Charles I or Charles the Great or simply Charlemagne, born 2 April 742. He was King of Franks, King of Lombards, and Holy Roman Emperor. He united much of western and central Europe in the early Middle Ages and was also known as the "Father of Europe". He is my 35th great-grandfather!

Charlemagne

I know we can go back at least another generation, but for now, I am happy to be related to this famous figure of history and to be back to 742 AD and 35 generations! That is So Far Away, I think!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First

Image
FIRST - a new year and another attempt at recording some of my family history via the 52 Ancestors prompts! This week, the prompt is "First" and I'm delving deeper into my first Ancestor to arrive in Australia - Samuel Freeman. He was my 4th Greatfather and his offspring eventually led to my maternal Grandmother and my Dad. I think he was born about 1799 in Hertfordshire, England, but I have no definitive records of that (more research to do - Freeman is a very common name!). At age 21, he was working as a millwright (a high-precision craftsman or tradesman who installs, dismantles, repairs, reassembles and moves machinery in corn mills). At about 5pm on 10 October 1799, he was caught stealing out of the chamber room of Thomas Bigg of Kimpton Mill. He stole a "scarlet printed Kersymere waistcoat (worth 10 shillings) and one pair of dark-coloured breeches (worth 15 shillings). He also stole from the sleeping room of Joseph Bigg one Bank of England note of 20
Read more

Water

Image
Long time no blog about dead people! With this lockdown-living because of COVID-19, I've had more time to sit on the laptop and keep researching. So, I decided to tackle another " 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks " challenge and this week's theme is Water. I've decided to interpret this theme with some amazing photos I found, whilst double-checking my Dad's records for my tree! My grandmother was Cora Parsons (who married Joseph Sedgwick). Her generation is the first one with lots of photographs. They lived in southern Sydney (Jannali), but I have a few amazing photos of her and her siblings enjoying seaside vacations in Middle Harbour and the Central Coast. This is Cora in January 1926, aged 25, at Middle Harbour. Cora, in the same outfit with umbrella, so presumably, somewhere also near Middle Harbour. I can't tell from Google Maps where this might be - so if you recognise that spot, let me know! This is Cora in March 1926, aged 26, at the E
Read more

Lucky

Image
For this week's #52ancestors, the theme is Lucky. So today, being St Patrick's Day and all, we will discover William Buckley, who is Andrew's father's mother's mother's father (so his 2nd great grandfather).  William was born in Ferbane, Offaly County (formerly Kings County), Ireland in about 1834 (I haven't been able to find a reliable record of this - it is estimated from other documents). His father was Carson (or perhaps William) Buckley and his mother was Julie Doyle. I think he came to Australia as a free settler in April 1857 on the FitzJames . He married an Irish lass Margaret McBrien when he was 25 in Parramatta, NSW in January 1859. They had 13(!!!) children, one of whom was Julia Catherine Buckley born in 1873, who went on to have Sabina Langdon in 1893, who was Andrew's paternal grandmother. William worked as a labourer and died in October 1918 in Toongabbie, aged 84. In Australia, there was another famous William Buckley, who was
Read more