1st February 2006 - Ian Rathjen
“Up your family tree”
This was an interesting explanation of genealogy by Ian Rathjen (left) a member of the Probus Club of Surbiton, to about 85 members and lady guests, including Hove Wood a visitor from the Probus Club near Johannesburg, South Africa who had found us on this website
Ian covered this topic in a most entertaining manner both from content, humour and a professional understanding of this rather complex area of research. He quoted Bill Bryson who in his book A Short History of Nearly Everything seeks to explain how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us, as Bill states "It's not so much about what we know, as about how we know what we know, and with respect to genealogy we are here because of our parents!"
Ian continued when we think of tracing our family tree, we often think following our surname back thousands of years to the first bearer of the name is a simple exercise, each successive generation bears the same surname - spelled exactly the same way in each and every record - Ian smashed that theory with some basic facts with respect to his family tree and expected it to be similar to each and every one of us.
He explained surnames as we know them today did not begin in the European world until about the eleventh century, surnames, for the most part, evolved during the past eight hundred years to help distinguish one person from another as the world's population grew. The acquisition of surnames has been influenced by many factors, including social class, naming practices and locations.
Even tracing your ancestors back to the point where they first acquired surnames can be a challenge as surname spelling and pronunciation has evolved over centuries, making it unlikely that your present surname is the same as the original surname bestowed on your distant ancestor.
To compound matters Ian indicated that if each family traces back only eight generations then we have at least 250 dependants, this using only the parents, not the numerous offspring, of cousins and sisters and aunts! If this is expanded to the Shakespearean or the Pilgrim Fathers era then this equates to 16, 000 whilst backwards or is it forwards to Roman times this has the staggering figure of one million trillion, as this is greater than the world population then we in fact are all related, sorry about that!
Ian gave some outlines of how to get started, without a doubt the first step is to ask the family, especially the very old unless you have left it too late! Best of all get as many together so that names and perhaps dates can be collaborated; remember names in current usage may not be the same as those given on certificates, birth, wedding, etc.
Armed with this data and perhaps copies of certificates, you have two routes for the couch potatoes then the Internet is a valid method with numerous web site and or CD’s , but beware not all data is online.
Hence for those in the Epsom & Ewell area we have two close centres, the first is at The National Archives at Kew, off Ruskin Avenue, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, they hold many types of documents. Perhaps before a days visit it is worth getting the book Making Use of the Census, [ISBN 190336535x] This is a guide to census records at The National Archives, and offers help in tracking down individuals as part of a family tree. Census Ian said started in 1801 and has been repeated every 10 years, but in 1841 was expanded to hold more personal data.
Or alternatively a trip to London as details of births, marriages and deaths as well as microform census returns are kept at the Family Records Centre at 1 Myddelton Street, Islington, EC1R 1UW see http://www.familyrecords.gov.uk/default.htm
Ian then asked himself the question, is such time spent on researching your family tree worthwhile? He indicated yes, it could result in satisfaction, frustration, a great deal of fun, where we came from, what our families did, what was the environment they grew up in or indeed climbed out of! But he predicted if we tracked back far enough we would find cases of madness, illegitimacy (what’s new) and surprises.
Please note this is a short overview of Ian’s talk and if you wish to have the pleasure as we did of an entertaining and instructive presentation then invite Ian to your meeting, you will not be disappointed.
In the vote of thanks Percy Norden, who with his has wife had attempted to build their family tree duly expressed the members and their Lady guests thanks for Ian's most interesting and very helpful lecture and the membership whole heartily supported his.
