Exhibit A:
So, from my grandfather we are still going through my great-great-grandmother, Lucinda Jett Pepper, only this time the branch of interest on the right runs through Sarah Smith.
Exhibit B:
From Sarah Smith we go to Joshua Holcomb on the lower right. If you ever get to a Holcomb in your family tree, follow that branch: Holcomb is an ancient and prominent family and in a few generations you'll meet some very interesting people.
Exhibit C:
Here, we're just following the Holcomb's back from Joshua to Thomas the elder. Note that it is Thomas the younger who came to the colonies around the 1630's.
Exhibit D:
We're still following the well-documented Holcomb's back here, and note that John on the right lived before the discovery of the new world!
Exhibit E:
Here, we break off from the noble Holcombes to go through the maternal line to an even more royal name. In the middle of the maternal line on the right is... William Plantagenet! You connect to a Plantagenet and you can trace your line all the way back to ancient Rome if you want to. Notice also that Matilda The Empress is on the bottom of the maternal line. Nice.
Exhibit F:
William's line is perfectly documented: Not a blank box in it. This line has almost nothing but great people in it: Matilda the Empress Leads to Henry I "Beauclerc" to William the Conqueror, arguably the most influential invader in English history (1066 Battle of Hastings).
Through Matilda of Scotland we get back to Duncan I of Scotland, who Shakespeare had murdered in his sleep by Macbeth (Though, the historical Duncan died fairly young and was never the elderly man Shakespeare portrayed).
Note "Fulk the Rude": I love that.
The connection of interest on this page, however, is William's father Robert I Duke of Normandy.
Exhibit G:
This page is remarkably complete for the time as well, though Herbastus of Crepon seems to have married a commoner. Though Robert the first's bloodline has some interesting persons in it, this page is solely for the connection to Matilda, Countess of Ringleheim, who was the wife of Heinrich I. Note that we are now in the first millennium. Too cool.
Exhibit H:
Note that Matilda lived for ninety years. Quite a feat for that time period. She is also, already at this early time period, of quite pure royal blood. We're going to follow her mother Ludmilla's line back to Lothair I Emperor of the Occident.
Exhibit I:
This is too cool: Lothaire's father was Louis I "The Pious" Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and his grandfather is Charles the Great, more commonly known as Charlemagne. Then, through Pepin of the Franks we get to... Charles Martel, aka Charles the Hammer who saved Christendom from the invading Moslems. Charles and Pepin's relationship was sent up in the ribald play "Pipin" which I've seen several times and love.
Charlemagne was into family trees too:
That's Charles on the lower left: "Carolus magnus imperator." Unfortunately, the photo is archived with no annotations and I can't make out the rest of the names clearly.
Here's Charles "The Hammer" Martel at the Battle of Tours as painted by Steuben:
As I said, I traced one of my lines all the way back to ancient Rome through these royals, to a Senator and then a Consul. If you look at history as coming in chunks - the ancient roman period totally disconnected from the Frankish kings &c. you're not getting it. Governments rise and fall but some prominent families continue on for millennia through various connections. Those high born ancient Romans lead to the royal families which still survive today!
I find this stuff absolutely enthralling.
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Sorry about the light to nil music blogging, but I'm reprogramming one of my performance rigs, and explaining how cool a new flange-through-phase effect I came up with probably wouldn't be any fun to blog about.
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I'm sure these trees have thousands of "spicy stories" in them.
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