Norman French families in England (Anglo-Normans) in the 11th-14th c

Pam, I am still unable to sign into Geni. I don't know what the issue is. I am now working on the Saint Leger line which isn't in the list. I got the early part done, but find a 150 year gap I need to fill...bad merge of course. If you want to add it and include my name, that would be great!
Meg

Hi, Meg! The Geni wiki has a separate sign-in from your regular Geni password, so if you're new to it you need to register. Could that be the problem?

Here's the introduction I wrote for the wiki. I invite all of you to contribute to collaboratively creating this resource page! It's very easy to access and write upon.

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We will begin our project with the generation that came from Normandy (France) to Britain in 1066 with William the Conqueror (Guillaume I, Duke of Normandy and King of England). Many of these men fought at the Battle of Hastings alongside King William and were rewarded for their loyalty with baronages and large tracts of land in the conquered country. In this way, these families became the nobility of Norman England for the next several centuries. They were listed in the Domesday Book, the great survey of land and material wealth carried out in 1086.

These first few generations of Anglo Norman knights were also among the crusaders of the First Crusade in the late 11th century on their mission to capture Jerusalem. The 11th century was an eventful time of great change in the lifestyles and cultural experiences of members of these families.

Some, but not all of them, were titled nobility in Normandy and retained their holdings there as well; others were poorer men, who rose to power through their military or political service, and women, who gained power through their alliances and marriages into powerful families. Some anglicized their names over time, while others retained the French spellings and geographically-based surnames referring to their ancestral villages in Normandy.
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I also found some great bibliographies online and added them as well. It makes me want to go read for a few weeks!

Quite the interesting project. I know I have a few ancestors in among this group.

If you follow back far enough the Richmonds (de Richmonds), relations to the descendants of pilgrim Thomas Rogers, you run into one of the people on the Battle Abbey Roll (granted, that the Roll counts for almost nothing with respect to who was actually at Hastings, as the list was apparently heavily doctored, but inclusion certainly means a high likelihood of Norman ancestry).

My only nits that I would pick, Pam, are that in your description of the Normans, you forgot one of the more important components to their ancestry - that being the Vikings. The Normans wouldn't have been the same if it weren't for all those Norse adventurers who sailed in and occasionally didn't return to Scandinavia.

But interesting project, all the same.

Do you have ancestors who lived in England in the middle ages but whose families came from France? If so, please join the project on Anglo-Norman families that we are starting to help coordinate the development of an even stronger common historical tree in that area. Take a look at the wiki we've created and please add yourself to it (and anything else that you think might be helpful).

http://wiki.geni.com/index.php/Anglo-Norman_Families--NEW

This discussion group is where we can talk about which families we are working on, consult about questions we have, and share resources. This is a huge and really important area of the historical tree on Geni, and it's great to have people like you who work so diligently to help merge and build.

Anything that you can contribute to Master Profiles will be much appreciated. We are trying to designate the profile with the most managers as the Master Profile and then build it up with research information and as much data we can find, as well as eliminating bad connections. We've had to lock down a few that are prone to frequent mismerging, but hopefully once we get the merging under control we can open those up as well.

Thanks to all of you who have been working so hard merging these Anglo-Norman families. I hope you'll join the project.

Pam

Hi Pam:

I'm quite interested, but will probably need a very simple Betty Crocker set of instructions on joining. Something like:

1. Go to this page.
2. Press this button.
3. Sit back, smile, and watch all the email roll in.

Although quite informative, deciphering this sort of step-by-step instruction from the long page of Wiki information, well, perhaps I've just too much caffeine on the brain and I should get some sleep instead of drinking more yerba mate, but right now I'm not getting it.

Looking forward to being able to participate, in any case. -Ben.

Pam,
Very, very good idea! Count me in.
Scott

Pam, I had signed up, then shortened my name, Geni now doesn't recognize my sign in, but I can't re-register. Tried having them send me my sign in info but never got the e-mail. So no go.

@Ben Angel,
Pam walked me through my first ever Wiki entry a few weeks ago. Today, I just edited the page with out any help. If I can do it, anyone can, believe me!

@Meg--contact Noah or Mike and see if they can help you get set up for sign-in. Once signed in, it's a "piece of cake" to do basic writing and editing.

@Scott and @Ben--would you like to each pick out a family or two to "claim" and work on building up their master profiles and cleaning up the lines? Any of us curators can help with merges that you don't have permissions for. There's a list of families on the wiki page but it's not complete, so if you have another one to add, that's great. Ric Dickinson just signed on for a couple of families as well.

And Ben, yes, the Viking/Nordic heritage of the Normans is one thing that makes them so fascinating. First they conquered and took over Normandy, then moved across to England. And the world hasn't been the same since then.

I just started reading a book called "1066: The Hidden History In The Bayeux Tapestry," by Andrew Bridgeford, that promises to be very interesting. It's a revisionist study of the Bayeux Tapestry and the events surrounding the Norman Conquest.

The Richmonds and the de Stutevilles would interest me at this point, but I'm guessing they are probably rather popular families (Richmonds being inlaws of pilgrim Thomas Richmond's family, and de Stutevilles being kind of important in the 12th century - I know that our collective version of their lineage is kind of confused right now on the tree). I probably would have other interests as well, but am still exploring (kind of focused on improving the records of my "Barker" lineage, which includes a bunch of Quakers - Piggotts, Browns, Claytons, etc. - I think this is one of my connections onto the big tree, but still trying to get a fuller understanding there).

I'm from the de Stuteville's! I would love to know more.

Brilliant idea!! I am deep into researching four families in particular here: Lumley, Finnie (I believe that there was a Finnie who went to England with William?), Boyd (whose ancestry apparently comes from the Fitzalans), and McEwen. Don't know if I'd be any great help, but shall take a peek and see if I can assist with this wonderful project. :)

Erica, if you would like taking on the de Stutevilles, would gladly support you, or share responsibility for them if you didn't mind (apparently they are in my ancestry as well). Warning: right now, they are a mess.

Noooooo, I'm leaving de Stuteville's in Pam's very capable hands. Wake me when we hit Lawson (my line and the one 100% clear one, yay!!)

Lawson's are nice and unambiguous on geni LOL.

You do notice I'm not posting any Lawson hyperlinks. There's a reason for that.

Lynne,

Are you talking about Walter Boyd? I lost my path to him but he's in my line and again, an un-ambiguous one, from FitzAlan to Boyd (I think?) to Cunningham.

Walter fitz Alan, 1st High Steward of Scotland is your 24th great grandfather.

Erica:

Re: Lawsons. What, no cousins marrying uncles? That sounds like a complete lack of fun, genealogically speaking.

Re: de Stutevilles. I agree that Pam is quite capable, but it's a big tree, particularly in the Anglo-Norman area. Thus the project. It's a good idea, I think. Puts us nitpickers to work... (speaking for myself, of course).

OK, you made me do it.

Charlie Lawson

Fourth cousin, four times removed. I'm still looking for an MP3 version of the ballad.

You need to post good sites for your "Mayflower" ancestors on the Mayflower discussion so we can get it into the Wiki.

Hi Erica:

The three I use for my Mayflowerchild are:

1. The Thomas Rogers Society
http://www.thomasrogerssociety.com

2. The Richmond Family Ancestry site
http://www.richmondancestry.org

3. The Mayflower Database by Lori Steadman:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~steadman/

And if I need to verify specific events or locations, I try to find sources that appear reputable (British History Online, etc.). If I'm desperate, I'll refer to Wikipedia - emphasizing the sources they used (or lack thereof, if there are none).

Hopefully that was what you were asking.

That's exactly what I wanted ... but in the Mayflower thread, here:

http://www.geni.com/discussions/6000000010037047103

Brendan Molloy has a Wiki going so he can add these as "Ben M. Angel verified sources" to the Family pages for Rogers, Richmond, and all Mayflowers."

Can you cross post?

No comment on my cousin? After I went and found him for you?

Charles seems pretty normal to me - other than of course the mass murder thing. I mean, I don't see any loops in the tree or anything...

Did notice that the kid isn't represented though (the one in Fanny's photo). Hmmm.....

I really want to hear the ballad music. What mountain music is a hit in 2003?

I have a Lawson marrying a Lawson in my tree and no I'm not finding it today. I'm still upset about the Brewsters.

I never really got all that into the MP3 file sharing thing, so I'd probably not have too many sources for mountain music.

Guess I'll have to look up what happened with the Brewsters... been caught up in my own little world most of the day (well, actually, mostly the world of James Brown and Honour Clayton, and their children).

Erica, that's the line, I believe. My Boyd is Ann from Ardrossan. She married William Finnie in Kilmarnock. At the moment, Geni only shows a path to the Fitzalans and Boyd family of Kilmarnock via my cousin's husband, Bryan Guinness. I spend most of my time trying to track down the elusive Ann!! I'm convinced that she must have been related to Thomas Boyd of Portincross, as my 5th g.grandfather was only a hammerman in a foundry, but the family became very wealthy and of course, various branches married into royalty...not something you would expect, unless Ann was wealthy? Don't you just love a good mystery, Erica?!! :))

Come to think of it, my family does have a mass-murderer as well - Sigurd Storada, up in the Anne of Kiev bough of my tree. Granted, she's more the stuff of saga than documented history, but it does give me the privilege of saying "been there, done that". Not really including Vladimir or the other vikings and kings, as they are more the usual conquer-the-world-sacrifice-the-inexperienced-to-the-gods types.

For me, it's easier to just regard the whole royalty side of the family as the black sheep side of the family...

Back to the Quakers...

Erica and Ben, I'm NOT working on de Stuteville at all (my hands are quite full with the bunch of crazy mixed up Norman families I am working on)--so they are all yours!

Primary families I'm curating are d'Aubigny families of Arundel and Belvoir; de Bayeux (Earls of Chester, de Meschines); Malet; de Bohun (and on to Boone); de Braose; de Tosny/Toeni/Toni; Bigod; Lucy Thoroldsdottir and all of her family connections. This is more than a full-time job at the moment--every time I get a cluster cleaned up and turn my back, it seems that the number of parents for each profile multiplies exponentially!

Sounds like it's almost splinter and wood-putty time for the de Stuteville bough. But gotta do my Quakers first...