According to some, my ancestor Hugh Harry is supposed to have royal ancestry spanning much of ancient Europe. I am beginning to doubt that. I’ve just had to cut off two lines that according to Wikipedia, descent was not possible. One ruler was Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last King of Wales. The other was Offa, King of Mercia, who died in July 796. Mercia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in ancient England. Unless there are different forms of his children’s names I don’t know about, I was unable to make a connection between the child’s name I had and his.
It is possible that Hugh Harry’s descendants are the victims of a fraudulent genealogy. At one time it was popular for European nobility to claim descent from biblical characters. In this country it was popular for people to claim descent from European nobility. How does one go about creating a fraudulent genealogy? Did they just string together likely sounding names, never guessing that two hundred or so years later the World Wide Web would be created and their descendants would be able to check the veracity of their claims?
After watching the Time Team programs, I also came under the romantic spell of the ancient British Isles. I’d check my genealogy to see if I had the landowner in my database. At least I’ve had the good sense to double check my information, to my disappointment.
I wonder how much truth is in my database. I wonder where all true names of ancestors end and the fictitious ones or relationships begin. I have so many dead ends just in North America. I don’t know if I’ll ever have answers to this.
Wabash Valley Families 