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.

A Few More Squares

        The last post gave a "color code" of small squares to represent a concept of the land use phenomena that had joined together my Jones surname ancestors. The smallest square colored "pink" represented the toft where the first generation [Gadforch JA-1] enclosed the land and, to "plant" the first seeds of the family tree. His son [Ynyr JB-1] continued the four-acre plot system, to the next son Tudor Trevor [JC-1], to Dingad [JC-1] who began the branch to my own Jones surname family tree.  Generation after generation (see post June 3rd: "To Tell The Tale, Follow The Yellow Brick Road") from "shareland", to "holding" and, to "Townland" it continued. Now, just imagine when the generations grew to the "Maenol" (4 Townlands) and, to the "Commote" which joined 12 "Maenol"! The following figure continues the thought process to show how all this living might relate.

       The "Townland" is outlined in orange and adjoining groups of "Townland" are shown in all sorts of colors trying to demonstrate the possible relationship to one another. The clusters fill the page with all sorts of little squares each representing a toft of 4 acres. Each "Townland" clusters about and, when 4 of these [256 acres each] expand, a "Maenol" (manor) [1023 acers] is organized with a mayor and others (post of April 10th). Now expanding the whole bunch of little squares to the whole page a "Commote" (12,288 acres!) is named. This "Commote" became the standard social and cultural unit of all the ancestors of the day. {ca. 800 A.D. to before the black death of 1350 A.D.}

 

From One Small Square To Another

        Mental pictures of the life and times of the ancestors can be hard to develop. This is especially difficult if these ancestors lived many years in the past. My Jones ancestors started their journeys before any such surname existed. Finding the culture that wrapped them in daily living became a challenge one little step at a time. The following figure is my mental image of how my ancestors might have built some of their existence one small square at a time.

       Now it certainly helped when they stared to write important social principles into some agreeable form such as a law book. It is from this series of writings that has been used to piece together some social images. [Beginning from post starting this past March 7th.] 

       The small squares colored above are drawn using simple graph paper and, in my mind, helped organize a number of items scattered about as to the daily living arrangement over many generations. Let's see now, each small square represents a single toft. [Post March 12th] It is colored "pink" and contained 4 acres of land surrounding the founding owner (proprietor). Having family and moving on down the family tree, each son when of legal age could join the father with his own toft and family sharing the fruit of their joint endeavors. They called this "shareland" [Post of March 14th] and, indeed it was giving the growing family a place to call their own. 

       Next, as each son had his sons, the family joined these shared lands into a "holding" which grew in size to around 64 acres. Four "shareland" to each "holding" [Post of March 21] is shown colored blue. Each generation would occupy at least 30 years (birth to marriage 20 years and youngin's around the hearth the next 10 years). However, during this period a lifetime was considered 60 years! [Hywel Dda, The Law, p. 123.] Anyway, you can begin to picture the conflicts that could arise when four of these "holdings" reached 256 acres called a "townland" and bumped against a not so close family member.       All told, this would cover around 180 years of family growth. Do you get the picture one small square to another?

To Tell The Tale...Follow The Yellow Brick Road

        It was 1936 when Dorothy and her three travel companions were advised the best way to reach their heart-felt goals. Since starting this genealogy adventure through the corridors of time to around 800 A.D. [starting 1959 A.D.], there have been a number of yellow brick "Walls" that have been confronted. Since Dorothy and her crew kept to the yellow bricks most of the day, I thought this TRIPTIK might serve to assist others on their Jones surname travels. Here's the start of my yellow brick road beginning post March 20, 2023 with Gadforch JA-1.

      Each yellow brick (grandfather shown above) is placed in the context of the culture they lived between 800 A.D. to 1350 AD. and will be discussed in future posts. Oh...to tell the tale one toft at a time.
 

Celebrating

       Graduation days from high school for eldest grandson. Celebrating with family this month of May. Returning to blogs soon.