In heaven, so to speak!

Here's a site that is just so spiffy for a history freak like myself: Early British Kingdoms. This site concerns itself with the little-known history of the indigenous Celtic population of Britain between the time of the withdrawal of the Romans (around 400, more or less) and the time of Anglo-Saxon domination of the island after about 650. In other words, the time period generally known as the early Dark Ages. It's comprehensive, extremely well-researched and organized, and a sure time-sink for me in the next few days (following our move, of course ...) It also includes an excellent section on historical Arthuriana.

Geneaological research has strongly suggested that at least one line of my descent comes down from the Welsh aristocracy and part of my enthusiasm for reading this kind of stuff is the possibility that I may be reading my own ancestors' histories. In any case, many of "my people" came from England, Wales and Scotland so some of my ancestors (at least) lived in this place, at this time. Perhaps my imagination is childishly overactive, but reading these histories I feel a real connection, as opposed to reading, say, Japanese history. Which is very interesting by itself, but I read with detachment because it is a culture whose connection to my own is very recent, very little understood and therefore too shallow for me to explore to greater depths. It's largely this greater-than-normal connection I feel with what I understand to be my ancestors that has meant that I embrace pagan religion.

Comments

[Wendy]

Aristocracy? Cool. I, myself come from a long line of poor dirt farmers. You know: the youngest son of the youngest son and so on...so that none of them actually ever inherited the family land and had to live as sharecroppers? Yeah. Hey, maybe some of my ancestors worked for yours? ;-)

[Ann]

I've got plenty of poor dirt farmers in my background too, and the thing is, Wendy, some of those dirt farmers might have been in different circumstances back in the old country. You just never know untill careful research shows something. For instance, these very same Welsh artisocrats: my mother's mother's father's family. Lived in South Georgia and they were genuine Crackers. My great-great-grandfather was a itinerant Primitive Baptist preacher and by all accounts was barely literate. But they kept decent family records, we've been able to trace them with a good deal of certainty and it turns out that the ancestor who first came here (in the 1670's, which is a freakin' LONG time ago ...) was a King's Attorney from Gwynedd in Wales. This is how we're able to trace that family line back about 700 years with full certainty and then tentatively about 500 years byond that - no kidding. The main thing I like about having ancestors like those is not that they were rich or something (cause I certainly don't got no money now ...) but that you can put names with historical times. Which I find quite exciting, silly woman that I am. Can't do this with all my family lines by any means ... the Northcutts, for instance, we can't trace beyond the 1820's; and my dad's great-grandfather Parsons seems to have sprung fully-formed in Fulton Co. in 1879. I'll stop rambling now ... get me on geneaology and I really tend to go off!