On 31 Jul at 10:49, Ian Goddard <goddai01@hotmail.co.uk> wrote: > Geoff Pearson wrote: > > > However, interesting question: does anyone have a proven ancestor > > only 5 generations back living before 1700? Given that we normally > > allow 30 years per generation it will be very good going but could > > be done. > > OP wrote 5x *great grandfather*. Add on father & grandfather so we're > dealing with 7 previous generations, not 5. Does anyone have a > 5xggfather living before 1700? <snip> for brevity> Well that makes some sense for what I had dismissed as a ridiculous question and I find that I have birth dates of before 1700 for 10 of the 84 5G G-Fs that I have found. Though at least half of the 84 I have not got any birth dates at all. Of these 10, 5 are Quaker; it is noticeable that my Quaker ancestors generally married late in life giving greater generation gaps. -- Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org for a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/

From: Tim Powys-Lybbe <tim@powys.org> > On 31 Jul at 10:49, Ian Goddard <goddai01@hotmail.co.uk> wrote: > > > Geoff Pearson wrote: > > > > > However, interesting question: does anyone have a proven ancestor > > > only 5 generations back living before 1700? Given that we normally > > > allow 30 years per generation it will be very good going but could > > > be done. > > > > OP wrote 5x *great grandfather*. Add on father & grandfather so we're > > dealing with 7 previous generations, not 5. Does anyone have a > > 5xggfather living before 1700? > > <snip> for brevity> > > Well that makes some sense for what I had dismissed as a ridiculous > question and I find that I have birth dates of before 1700 for 10 of the > 84 5G G-Fs that I have found. Though at least half of the 84 I have not > got any birth dates at all. > > Of these 10, 5 are Quaker; it is noticeable that my Quaker ancestors > generally married late in life giving greater generation gaps. > > -- > Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org > for a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/ < My great-great-great-grandfather GEORGE STOCKDILL was born about 1718, calculated from his given age of 66 when he was buried in 1784 at Husthwaite in the North Riding of Yorkshire. I do not know who his father was, but he must almost certainly have been born before 1700, which would make him my 4x-great-grandfather and me only the seventh generation from before that date. In my direct male line there are much longer gaps between the generations than in most families, principally due to my great-grandfather ROBERT STOCKDILL (1806-1896) who was married four times, the last time in 1851 when he was 45 and he had my grandfather when he was 55. 1) George Stockdill, b circa 1718, married 1756 when he was about 38, d 1784. 2) Robert Stockdill, b 1765, married 1790 at 25, d 1822. 3) Robert Stockdill, b 1806, married 1851 at 45, d 1896. 4) Albert Edward Stockdill, b 1861, married 1885 at 24, d 1907. 5) Leonard Stockdill, b 1902, married 1941 at 39, d 1961. 6) Me, born 1940. Thus, it will be seen that because of the marriages at a fairly late age of my great-grandfather and my father, from the birth of my 3x-great-grandfather to my own birth is a span of 222 years, or an average of 44.4 years compared to the norm of 25-30. -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Famous family trees blog: http://blog.findmypast.co.uk/tag/roy-stockdill/ "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE