Pieces Of The Puzzel

        Family trees contain many items to be discovered. Frequently, putting all the pieces together may seem a daunting task. The post of August 16th gave some examples of added information accruing during this period of my Jones surname family tree. Maternal surnames, geographic locations, identical first names being repeated were a few such items. The following scan places some of these past items in what could be called a "big picture".

         World's End divides the two major locations of my family's activities which are shown by the black arrows drawn on the map. Llanfair- Dyffryn Clwyd, just below Ruthin, and Wrexham located to the East, are connected by a road running north along the border of "World's End"! It certainly might have seemed so during this period of time. 

       A thin red line outlines the biggest, and longest, ditch ever build in the area staring from around 750 A.D. called Offa's Dyke. Extending northward from Old Oswestry it bends a little, rounding World's End on the western side, and then, bending a little more, it passes the old home front Llanfair-Dyffryn Clwyd! A fence between the family for all these generations.

       Now the maternal sides of the family were also from around the same geographic areas, hugging the eastern side of that World's End. These locations are just south of the road connecting all our families. Bersham (x2) and, Rauabon are marked in green, joining our separate kindreds' hands during this stormy time. Can you picture it? Sort of like a purse string drawing us together.  

       These items of my family's story helped bridge the branches which were heading all kinds of way.  Deciphering and straightening the twisting branches much later in my own tree climbing. For a reminder, the next scan shows Llwyn-Ynn Hall from an old map. This becomes the branch of my Jones surname family yet to be discovered. [At the very middle of the page bottom of the scan.] The relationship to Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd can be identified.

      The next scan shown the location of Llwyn-Onn on the other side of the ditch (Offa's Dyke). This became a second branch of the same family tree. East and West divided along a fence and held together by the grandmothers' branches. [Lower right-hand side written Llwyn Onn Hall (Hotel).]

       Note the difference in spelling.  The western side is spelled "Ynn" (Welsh) and, the Eastern side. (English) "Onn". All items were pieces of the puzzle.

P.S. From my childhood day's memories see post 7 December 2010!

Will The True Bluestones at Stonehedge Please Stand UP

        From many generations' past, my Jones surname ancestors have considered the stones at Stonehedge.  Since the days of Indigo Jones (1620-1625) who was the earliest to give his opinion as to the origin of all the stones, many have joined to discuss this circle of mysteries. One of the greatest mysteries has been the bluestones. 

       Discussed most astutely with lots of diagrams and beautiful pictures, the text by David Souden reveals many of the items discovered that have been most recently explored. Bluestones are summarized pages 36 - 39 and pages 80-83. His "Re-evaluation" states: "Coming as they did from a landscape rich in standing stone monuments, the bluestones may already have been an existing setting moved wholesale to Wiltshire: a trophy of war, an expression of priestly power, a gift perhaps?" [ The stones were taken from Preseli Mountains S.W Wales, about 250 miles away!] 

        Now from an ancestor of the first to suggest a theory to where all these stones originated, let me give some thoughts. First, my Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, McGraw-Hill, 4th edition, 1989, states (p. 234) that bluestone is classified as a mineral and is officially called Chalcanthic (kal- kan-thit) p.326. It is described as "a blue-to-bluish-green mineral". It joins elements of copper (Cu), sulphur (S) and water (H2O) molecules into a copper sulfate pentahydrate. Secondly, my college chemistry book, Chemistry: Principles and Properties by Sienko and Plane, 1966 (another exciting book by McGraw-Hill!) states p. 448 : "Probably the best known cupric compound is copper sulfate pentahydrate." Cu (H2O)4 SO4 H2O. [please note - can not type subscripts as written in text but hopefully you get the idea] It goes on to state, "In this material each cupric ion is surrounded by a distorted octahedron of oxygen atoms; four of these lie in a square and belong to four H2O molecules, and the other two belong to neighboring sulfate groups. [sounds like a fun neighborhood] Continuing it states "The odd H2O molecule, the fifth one, is not directly bound to the cupric ion but forms a bridge between SO4 and other H2O groups. [sort of like a bridge over troubled waters]!!! It ends by giving the most significant information regarding our bluestones. "The pentahydrate, or blue vitriol, as it is sometimes called, is used extensively as a germicide and fungicide [italics mine], since the cupric ion is toxic to lower organisms. Its application to water supplies for controlling algae and its use on grapevines to control molds depend on this toxicity." 

      So there you have it! You can just guess how many Athlete Feet were walking around all these bluestones. As recent 2008, in an article on "Secrets of Stonehenge" [National Geographic, June 2008, pp.34-59] the bones of a "Distant Traveler" thought to have grown up in the Alps and to be buried around 2400 B.C. raised the question "what brought him to within a few miles of Stonehenge at its height?" (now called "Amesbury Archer" pp. 52-53) Well, who would not want to go to the Mayo Clinic of the day and get washed in all that blue vitriol!

P.S. Here is a scan of a picture of Inigo Jones (1573-1652) [see post 15 Dec 2021]. My family tree genealogy in Research Notebooks: RN#138 and RN#138A and can be seen The Jones Genealogist Research Notebooks [https://tjgresearchnotebooks.blogspot.com] which was started as a blog 6 July 2012.

       One of my favorite ancestors!        

On Down The Line

       My Jones surname ancestors faced their next hundred years. The "Wars" that were to last a hundred years. Wow, can you imagine? The land and earth around Llwyn-Ynn (Dyfed-Clwyd) and, Llwyn-Onn (Wrexham) seemed to be an anchor point all along the roads to survival. The following chart shows the line of descent during most of these years. Starting with Jeuaf (JH-1) [remember the spelling is the new Norman-French "J"] followed by Iorwerth Fychan (JI-1) and wife Mali (JI-2)[Mary]. Again, this is a distinctive genealogical point given that "Fychan" appears before Iorwerth (JK-1) and by most tree climbers, the name "Fychan" is thought to mean "Junior". He is tagged the first of Llwyn-Onn. 

        Just climb on down the family tree. Next is Gruffyd (JJ-1) and wife Margaret (JJ-2). Then comes Iorwerth (JK-1) and wife Anne (JK-2). [Note the Jr./Sr. connection.] Then comes the naming that is again important to this tree climber. The maternal side is given in geographic location. Gwenllian (JL-2) the wife of Llewelyn (JL-1) is recorded as of Bersham. This is followed by Margaret (JM-2) the wife of Howel (JM-1) of Pengwern. [Note the importance of the coding system being used. The two "Margaret" are identified and place in their positions on the branches.] Then comes another Margaret (JN-2) wife of Edward (JN-1), who is also of Bersham. Now you can begin to see what nightmare two of the same name and, of the same area and, at around the same time in the family tree!

       Finally comes Robert (JO-1) and his wife [can you believe it!] Margaret (JO-2). Three in a row are "Margaret". For the last two wives their surnames are given. Wylde for JN-2 and Eyton for JO-2 are listed. Whew...all the help you can get to climb on down the line.

P.S. Lots of brick walls around every branch. The blog "The Brick Wall Protocol" gives many of the items which helped along my Jones surname family tree climbing.

https://thebrickwallprotocol.blogspot.com

Fragmentation

        Cultural adhesion fractured dramatically during these corridors of time. Different dynamics jarred the foundations. Rights of descent, rights to property, rights to land and, rights to protection all joined hands in this flux of authority. Some historians have called this "The Hundred Years Wars". It must have seemed so! Here is a scan of such writers:

         Before "The Black Death" [1337 A.D.] until well beyond [1453 A.D.], the tumoral flashed across the skies. How did my Jones surname survive along the Vale of Clwyd? How does a genealogist sort through all the cracks? Associated surnames and marital descent opened many windows into the family tree. Fragmentation was part of the journey.

Life's Pages

        The books of life were closed for many, many, and many; all at the same time, during the black death. Those remaining tore out most of the pages of their own books while asking how could such a thing happen? Those writing just after the piles of bodies were buried dwells on the effect of the character of those survivors.  "Callous, reckless, superstitious, heartless. cruel, and licentious" as recorded in The Historians' History of The World, Vol. 18, p. 469. My own Y-chromosome seemed to have survived this valley of death to remain connected at Llwyn-Onn for many generations to come. The following scan shows the reference for these branches that continue on down my Jones surname family tree.

Scan is from Nicholas Vol. I, p. 355 [see post April 9, 2023]. For Black Death see post February 21, 2024. For a discussion of my research notebooks see post April 14, 2023. For a discussion of Llwyn-Onn see post of August 28, 2023. Much more to be written about these life's pages.

By The Numbers

        For many years climbing out the branches of my ancestor's family trees, one of my basic concepts was that an "average" lifespan for each generation followed an accepted path. The further back in time you went, the shorter duration of existence. When my own grandmother reached the age of 65, she was already set to go to the great beyond. [This was the 1950s!] By my medical school days [ the 1970s] this had reached the age of around 73 years. However, going back in time, length of life would decline in the opposite direction. So, getting the family tree all the way back to around 850 A.D. [Gadforch (JA-1)] it seemed reasonable that most folks lived to around 30 years of age.

       Now, it was somewhat surprising that the folks who started to write their own accounts of the day [Hywel Dda and the guys starting around 850 A.D.] gave their life span at 60 years. What was this all about was my thinking.  Let's see now. How to check this context?

       Well, the text by Mike Ashley, British Kings & Queens, (see post 20 February 2023) gave a window to around this time. The following table is the result of trying to look through the ages.

       The first column lists the individuals named who could be found to have a length of life recorded. The page of each person is given from the text by Ashley where the dates are recorded. The second column shows the years listed for each individual. There were eleven folks (n=11) for a total of 587 years [third column]. The average age for all the folks listed was 53 years! Column four shows calculations for the variance and standard deviation with the standard deviation being 38 years.

        What about that! Sixty years was a good fit. It shows you what I knew about these years long, long ago. But hey, by the numbers, 60 years seems a good number.

One More Time

      The following drawing continues down the yellow brick road starting with the post of June 3rd. It connects the road from Ninnian (JG-1) to Jeuaf (JH-1), as the direct male line of my Jones surname ancestors continue on down the family tree. Iorwerth Fychan (JI-1) is identified as being the 1st of Llwyn-Onn beginning during the reign of Henry II [1155 A.D.- 1189 A.D.]. This geographic location would have most likely been considered a "Townland" (see last two posts) and continues past the Black Death period of the 1350s. Edward (JN-1) seems to have made it through the dark clouds of his day to continue the story of my Jones surname ancestors. The dates range from around 1100 A.D. to 1400 A.D.

       Many more branches to be climbed.