From: Self <roy.stockdill@btinternet.com> > 4) Of my 16 great-great-grandparents, these are the figures: 9 born > in Yorkshire; 2 in Wiltshire; 1 in Wiltshire; 1 in Somerset; 2 in Northumberland; 1 in > Edinburgh. So now my Yorkshire ancestry is down to 9/16 or just over 50 per cent, of > which only 2 of my great-great grandparents were born in Bradford.> Slight slip of the old typing finger there..... I meant to say that 9 of my great-great-grandparents were born in Yorkshire, 2 in Wiltshire, 1 in Gloucestershire, 1 in Somerset, two in Northumberland and 1 in Edinburgh. What I also find interesting is the very considerable difference in time gaps between them. The "oldest" of my gt-gt-grandparents, Robert STOCKDALE/STOCKDILL was born at Husthwaite, near Easingwold, in 1765, while the two "youngest", William Henry GIBSON and Frances Rachel POTTS, my two Northumberland ancestors, were both born in 1834 - a difference of almost 70 years. In fact, Robert Stockdill died in 1822, 12 years before my Northumbrian ancestors were even born, yet technically speaking they were of the very same generation when I look at my ancestral chart. This anomaly arose because of a long sequence of men in my direct paternal ancestral line having children late in life - the average gap between generations being about 43-45 years instead of the usual 25-30. Another thing that intrigues me is social mobility and movement. Why, for instance, did William and Frances Gibson leave their remote parishes in Northumberland and move to Yorkshire? Answer: because William became a train driver and if you want to drive a train where else would you go but York? Their son, John James Gibson, was born in York and he moved to Bradford and married there. How did another of my great-great-grandparents, Mary BUCHANAN, a Scottish lass born in Edinburgh about 1822, come to meet her husband, Richard BRACEWELL, and marry him in the Yorkshire Dales at Arncliffe in 1840? My theory is that they were hawkers and perhaps met on the road somewhere, but it's only a theory. They too wound up living in Bradford, where all my lines eventually lead. It is this question of looking at the broader canvas of family history, i.e. migration, social mobility, work patterns, age patterns, generational patterns, naming patterns within the family structure and more, that is the real stuff of genealogical debate and fascination because it involves so much more academic study than just doing census look-ups. I hope others will weigh in with their own thoughts.....! -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE