Ancestor Surfing

Introduction

The line from Lord John Fleming, First Earl of Wigton, and his wife Lilas Graham leads back to King James IV of Scotland (1473-1513) reigned 1488-1513. 

If you go to My Ancestors and Relatives and from the Name Index in the left column navigate to Fleming and then to John 1st Earl Wigton Fleming (b. 1567) and then click on Ancestor Pedigree Chart, you will see the image displayed below, with the ability to click on each of the names to see details about those individuals and navigate still further back through many different lines.  (Further discussion about the Fleming line, below).

With political marriages among the royal families of Europe, those lines lead to ancestors who were kings of England and France, Holy Roman Emperors, Emperors of the Byzantine Empire, princes of Kiev/Muscovy, and Viking chieftains. The ancestors include William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, King John (of Robin Hood and Magna Carta fame), King Alfred the Great,  King Robert the Bruce of Scotland ("Braveheart"), half a dozen saints, as well as the House of Este in Italy (by a very different route than family tradition -- by way of the Cary family, rather than the Estes family). Another ancestor is King Clovis of France, who the novel The Da Vinci Code claimed was a descendant of Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ :-), and whose great-grandfather, according to legend, was a sea-monster. 

(For details about the direct line from the Estes family in America to the House of Este in Renaissance Italy see http://www.seltzerbooks.com/gen/renaissance.html )

The most fascinating ancestor so far is Eleanor of Aquitaine (played by Katherine Hepburn in the movie The Lion in Winter), mother of King Richard I the Lion-hearted and King John I.  The movie didn't mention that before her son Richard went on the Crusade, she led an army of Crusaders, purportedly dressing up her ladies-in-waiting as Amazons. 

The longest line so far goes back 55 generations to Rome around 350 A.D., to an ancestor (Flavius Afrius Syagrius) who served as proconsul of Africa, prefect of Rome, and consul (in 382). According to Wikipedia: his is "the earliest known ancestor of any of the royal houses of Europe. For the proposed genealogical link, see descent of Elizabeth II from the Romans." (Queen Elizabeth's line, as listed there, is identical to ours for the first 33 generations, through King Edward III).

For many generations, both the father and mother are not only known, but also have entries in Wikipedia, which links to their parents.  And for nobles from Scotland and England when Wikipedia runs out of information, in many cases,  generations show up in The Peerage.com http://www.thepeerage.com

Keep in mind that, except in cases of people who are related to one another marrying each other, the number of your ancestors doubles with each generation.  That would mean that you could have as many as a quadrillion ancestors in 550 AD.  But there were only about two hundred million people alive at that time.  You might conclude that just about everybody alive today is descended from just about everybody who was alive back then.  But just a few hundred years ago, most people lived in rural areas, with little travel and little contact with people in other towns, much less other countries. It was common for a family to stay in the same small geographic area for many generations (except when driven away by catastrophe, such as war, plague, and famine).  That meant lots of inter-marriage, with everybody in a town being cousins to one another.  (From a biological viewpoint, war, plague, and famine may have been "necessary" to change/expand the gene pool and increase the likelihood that mankind would survive). In any case, very few people can trace their ancestry back four or five generations, much less 50. 

I have followed a few of the lines of descent as far back as I could trace.  But literally thousands of other lines are possible.  You can surf through those others by using the Wikipedia links in the following documents. At the very least, this should give you a new and personal appreciation for history. Making a break-through like that in tracing my ancestry on the Web reminded me of the experience of Paul Atreus ("Muad-Dib") in the novel "Dune." Thanks to the effects of the "spice" and of his special genes, he suddenly senses the presence both individually and collectively of all his ancestors back for thousands of years.

The Abraham Effect: Be Careful, Be Proud -- the Future of the Human Race Depends on You

Let's flip that concept and take into account that people are much more mobile today than they were a thousand years ago.  Let's look ahead a thousand years.  In the year 3000, every human being alive on Earth (if the human race survives that long) will be a descendant of people who are alive today, and not just of one person alive today.  No, odds are they will be descendants of hundreds, thousands, even millions of people who are alive today.  In other words, if you are a parent or could become one, there's a reasonable chance that everyone alive a thousand years from now will have genes that passed through you.  That is an awesome responsibility.  Be careful. Be proud.  The future of the human race depends on you. 

"Four Queens"

Highlights

The files linked to below are Web pages detailing the ancestry.  

My starting point for numbering generations is Adela and Lila (my grandchildren).  If you are a relative of mine, check your generation number (I'm in generation 3).  Then you are a direct descendant of (have the genes of) everyone in these lists with a higher generation number than yours. 

Family lines. All have links to Wikipedia and thepeerage.com  I'm in the process of adding more lines. The number refers to the generation number in which this family first appears. The individual name is the mother in that generation whose ancestors we then follow.

According the Cary Estes Genealogy p.85 (with the footnote, "This genealogy from Judith to Lilias Graham was secured by Mr. E.S. Lewis, Genealogist, 1937"):

The question is who is the son of John, Earl of Wigton.

What I currently have at ancestry.com derives from what appears on the chart shown above (based on data from the Church of the Latter Day Saints):

John 1589-1650 was born and died in Scotland.

I found the Alexander line at http://familytrees.genopro.com/454373/Roelofs/default.htm?page=FLEMING-Jean-I919.htm That site is difficult to navigate, because it is based on a database, rather than using fixed URLs.  I use a screen shot from there on my page http://www.seltzerbooks.com/ancestorsurfing.html

In other words, Charles is the son of John Fleming (1627-1686) md. Mary Fleming (possibly a cousin?)

NB -- John, Charles, William, and Thomas are names that recur frequently, from one generation to the next in the Virginia branch of the Fleming family.  By contrast, Alexander only appears once, which seems strange if he had surviving male off-spring.  The family also often used the mother's maiden name as a middle name, but Anderson does not appear as a middle name in any of the following generations.  (Alexander appears to have been named after Alexander Livingston, father of Margaret, who married John Fleming (b. 1589).)

It is possible that the Mary Fleming who married John (b. 1627) was his first cousin, a daughter of Alexander Fleming.  I see no evidence of that, but such a relationship would not have been  uncommon at the time and would explain the confusion.

In any case, John (b. 1589) was the son of John Fleming, First Earl of Wigton.

While I want to be as accurate as possible, there comes a point where you have to go with what is most plausble.

Please send feedback to: seltzer@seltzerbooks.com

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