Finding our Past - one generation, one step at a time

Welcome to several years of effort, some of it intense, and some sporadic.

Starting a project like this always sounds so easy, and as those that have been down this path will attest it is not.

I have spent many, many hours doing web research, matched with in person research, and looking for information. I found some really great researchers/genealogists on the web, and others that weren't so great. I verified what I could to this point, but as anyone who has done this knows I have just scratched the surface. I will continue researching; now that I have an outline, I can really dig deeper.

My family history in the Middle Ages sounds like every king, queen, prince or noble of any kind did nothing but fight, kill other people, get killed by someone else, get marriages annulled and kidnapped their next wife/husband. I'm sure there were some normal, well-adjusted people there, but I'm still looking for them!

This record contains some mythical and a lot of real( think Zeus and then think Henry V) , vast stretches of imagination (Adam and Eve link), and much more in the realm of reality.

Please use this data freely for what it is worth - the first 10+ generations for Rick and I in our direct ancestor line is all original research, but after that it is based on other sites and other information. A huge thank you to Daniel T. Rogers, he and I have many ancestors in common and he has done some incredible research!

The notes (unless otherwise specified) are from WikiPedia - so, take them for what they are worth. I plan to use them as a stepping stone to get to the real data, but they are very useful as the stepping stone.

Some notes on names:

I have tried to Anglicize the names as much as possible - right or wrong, that is what I have done. Since most of my research is done in English, in order to avoid as many duplicates as possible I have tried to stay consistent.

I have tried to find genealogical standard for names from the Middle Ages and older, and there apparently aren't any, so I made my own, based on what I saw others doing.

I elminated de/di/du as much as possible, and used of - please check all possibilities.

If an individual was titled, i.e. William I, King of England, I did not use William I of England. If the individual was not titled, I used the of England/of France/of Italy etc designation to help distinguish the many Marys, Elizabeths, Willams, Johns, etc.

I have made each person with a title also have that same designation as their occupation. The King of France does not have another occupation!

Irish names - good luck with those! Between Anglicized, modern Irish, Middle Irish, and Ancient Irish, I'm sure I have many duplications in that area!

The same with all the Caesars - I tried to distinguish between Caesar as a title and Caesar as a name - probably didn't do a good job with that!

A note on dates:

There are many B.C. dates in this site, any date with B.C. needs to be understood as estimated. Every date is based on the standard Gregorian calendar to the best of my knowledge and ability.

Please feel free to contact me with any further information, or corrections that you can identify. This is but the first real step of putting this out there for everyone to see. There is still a lot of work and a lot of corrections to be made.

My e-mail address is: [email protected]. Since I still work for a living, I am not on my e-mail during the day, but I do try to read it every night and promise I will response as quickly as possible.