A Field of Dreams

      Cubs, Yankies, Dodgers, and Reds in my room of the world would easily be recognized as professional baseball teams, all playing on their own field of dreams during the 1960s.  However, if you were to go back in time to the start of my family tree, you might instead be able to call it the league of tribes. Who exactly were all the players and on what teams? The 9th and 10th century were a dynamic period in time, with incessant wars, and a number of peoples who were attempting only to survive on their own field of dreams. For the genealogy nut inside me, trying to put all the players together that impacted my Jones surname family tree, was part of the exploration and understanding of my own ancestors.

      Let's see now, the name would be something like the "Life Lived League" of the 9th and 10th century. All major players of the day would become members, with each team having to pay their dues. Perhaps there would be four divisions named, "The Celtic", "The Teutonic", "The Scandinavians", and the last being named "The Invaders". Each division would have a number of teams all playing against one another with the chant shared by all, "To The Victor Goes The Spoils". There would be no rules and, each team could create their own secret plays. No holds barred and anything goes. What a game it must have been.

      Here are the lineups for each division:

                                                                The Celtic = "4-leaf Clovers" (Irish)

                                                                                     " The Bag Pipers" (Scots)

                                                                                     "The Red Dragons" (Welsh)

                                                                                     "The Players Purple" (Picts)

                                                               The Teutonic = "The White Dragons" (Saxons)

                                                                                        "The Golden Wings" (Angles)

                                                                                        "The Anglia" (Jutes)

                                                      The Scandinavians = "The Settlers" (Danes)

                                                                                         "The Cut Throats" (Vikings)

                                                                                         "The White Knights" (Swedes)

                                                         The Migrators = " The Invaders" (Visigoths/Ostrogoths)

                                                                                      "The Pirates" (Vandals)

                                                                                      "The Horde" (Huns)

      Wow! What a league it would become. Each team would be anxious to play against one another in their game of life. The umpires could be the monks from the nearest monastery, if they would show up at all. The coaches would be fired if they experienced a few losses in a row, and not very many would get an extended contract. The best players would get all the glory, but game injuries would be all too common.  No IRAs would be written here. My Tudor Trevor (JC-1) played for "The Red Dragons". On which team did your ancestors play? Certainly, each team would have their own field of dreams.