Ninnian (JG-1)

       Moving on down the family tree, the 7th generation grandfather is named Ninnian (JG-1). He is the first grandfather down from the top to have nothing listed connecting his name to a title of some sort or another. Of course my curiosity would wonder why, and it took some time to reach a reasonable explanation. 

       Hum...here goes. Of course the spelling occurs in different ways with Ninnan, Ninian, and Nynia all being an option. The earliest found, spelled Ninian, was a monk who was contemporary to that famous Martin of Tour around 432 A.D. As a monk, Ninnan founded Whithorn, which was one of the earliest missionary bases on the Island. He became known as the Apostle to the Picts, and would certainly have had his work cut out for him. Wow, to be named after one of the first monks to be moving about the Celtic folks of the day would certainly have a reason. Since Tudor Trevor's (JC-1) brother, Ynyr Frych (JC-3), was tagged as a Bishop of  Abbey Dore (see post 25th April, 2023), the family certainly had interest in this line of work. To name your son after a monk must have generated a lot of discussion among the ranks while growing into manhood. Perhaps, this was a family's wish for future activities? 

      Here is a figure which places Ninnian (JG-1) into the family tree. He had three sons of his own and, the name of a monk does not appear on down the branches.

      P.S. The references for the discussion above is Latourette p 344 (see post 30 Sept., 2022), Butler's Lives pp. 371-373 (see post 15 Aug.,2022), and my research notebook titled Celtic Saints RN#9.