Genealogy Place Names - G

G is for . . . 

Gael, Brittany, France

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaël

Ralph de Gael II, Lord de Montfort 1040-1095 (my 25^th Great Grandfather) 

In 1066 the French invaded England, moved in and took over ruling the country. Ralph de Gael was a child of one of those families. In England the Breton barony of Gaël is not one place but the 40 parishes that he inherited as a grant from the Crown. “He held large estates in Norfolk, as well as property in Suffolk, Essex, Hertford, and possibly other counties.” – Wikipedia. 

This man had an extraordinary life as a witness to and participant in important historical events. If you follow the links on this article about him in Wikipedia you will see – The Battle of Hastings; Riding with Conan II; Being with William the Conqueror; Going on the first Crusade; Fighting Vikings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_de_Gael  

The Wiki article states that both he and his wife died on the route to Palestine on the Crusade.  The ancestry.com page for him says Cambridgeshire, England – which is probably where their monuments were placed. 

Photo: Français: Mairie de Gaël; Wikipedia Commons

“G” is for . . .

Gylen Castle, Kerrera Island, Lorn, Scotland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gylen_Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerrera

Mary de Ergadia MacDougall, Countess of Strathearn 1234-1303 ( She is my 19^th Great Grandmother and also related to my husband.)

Clan MacDougall's very attractive tartan.

https://www.geni.com/people/Mary-Maire-Queen-of-Isle-of-Man/6000000000701219915
on this one scroll down to look at their notes.

Genealogy Place Names - E

With the letter ‘E’ we visit Scotland and Iceland. This is an interesting pairing as our Viking ancestors who settled in Iceland came from the Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland. 

E is for . . .

Eaglesham, Renfrewshire, Scotland and the Montgomery family.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eaglesham

John Alexander de Montgomery 1338-1401 (my 18th great grandfather)

There is a ton of information on geni.com about John de Montgomerie (Montgomery). 

https://www.geni.com/people/Sir-John-Montgomerie-10th-Baron-of-Eaglesham/6000000008517729892

Photo from http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/eaglesham/eaglesham/index.html

Montgomery Street

Montgomery Street was once known as South Street and commemorates the Montgomeries, the Earls of Eglinton and later Earls of Winton who owned Eaglesham Estate for seven centuries. ^{- Wikipedia}

Montgomery Moto: Watch Well and Tartan (lowland)

E is for . . .

Eyiafiord, Iceland

The last place name of ‘E’s is in Iceland. This is serendipitous as recently some of our family filled their days with wonder on a vacation to Iceland. There weren’t enough days on their vacation to travel to northern Iceland – so let’s take a look. (See blue area on map.)

https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Eyjafj%C3%B6r%C3%B0ur

The History of Iceland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iceland

It looks as if our ancestors are contained in the first sentence of the above article. They came from Orkney Island off the coast of northern Scotland.

Eyjafjörður  is the longest fjord in Iceland. It is located in the central northern coast of the country, near the second most populous place in Iceland (25,000).  Still a very small population.

Photo by Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

Wikipedia Commons

Genealogy Place Names - A

Silly me I thought it would be a good idea to create a ‘Place Usage Report’ in Family Tree Maker. I didn’t limit the report to direct line ancestors and what I ended up with was 4,434 pages of places mentioned in that huge tree. What to do with that massive document? Since the report is alphabetical I decided to go at it one letter at a time.

I want to share information with my family on, not only, our ancestors but the places where they lived – feeling that those places helped to shape their lives. With hundreds of choices among the ‘As’ how do I choose? I decided to keep it simple. I picked the town (or place – it could be a castle, county, etc.) that came first in the ‘As’ with a direct line ancestor. Then I picked the last place with an ‘A’.

This is how that turned out (my first random choice landed a big fish!):

Aachen, North Rhine, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany (AKA – Aix-la-Chapelle) and dear Grandpapa Charlemagne. 

Aachen Cathedral with Palatine Chapel

According to Wikipedia – “Charlemagne spent most winters in Aachen between 792 and his death in 814.”  This makes me want to stop there on my next trip to Europe – the last time I was in Germany was when I was 4, so I’d say it’s about time for another visit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aachen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne 

Check out the links with a ‘control/click’. 

Part 2

Ayrshire, Scotland 

Eglinton Castle, Ayrshire

John Beatty 1672-1720 and Lady Margaret Montgomery 1436-1461

John and Margaret lived in Ayrshire in different centuries – but one represents my mother’s family the other represents my father’s family; which means my parents' ancestors lived in the same small county centuries before they met and married. 

John Beatty arrived in New York in 1691 and almost immediately married Susannah Asfordby, who had arrived with her parents from England in 1674 at the age of five. He just as quickly became a prominent resident of Ulster County, New York and the village of Marbletown. Some sources say he was born in Ireland and others say Ayrshire, Scotland. I somehow hear him with a Scottish brogue. These days it is a ferry boat ride from Ayrshire to Northern Ireland so he may have lived in Aryshire and disembarked for America from Ireland. Hm, I may need a trip to Ayrshire to get to the bottom of this puzzle.

Lady Margaret Montgomery had 18 hints awaiting and her father 23 on the ancestry.com tree. More questions than answers here but then that is part of the hunt. Right?  I can already see the value in the exercise. I’m learning more than my children, no doubt! I wonder what ‘B’ has in store? Please check out this link to Ayrshire:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayrshire

Photos:  Aachen Cathedral with Palatine Chapel, Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas via Wikipedia Commons
Eglinton castle ruins, Eglinton Country Park, Kilwinning, North Ayrshire, Scotland. A view from the old stables/offices side. Rosser1954 at English Wikipedia

Graves in Ontario, Canada

Woodland Cemetery - Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

(photo courtesy of findagrave.com by Miriam McDonald)

2 April 2017

I’m home from a Florida vacation with fresh eyes, renewed ambition, and the genealogy bug is nibbling at me. The bug is easily fed by opening my large ancestry.com file to just about anywhere and I’ll find hints in the form of leaves flying in the virtual wind. This time I was given an email nudge from a fellow researcher. I don’t know her other than she is a kindred spirit who belongs, as do I, to ancestry.com and findagrave.com.

In this case Rosemary was snapping photos of tombstones in cemeteries in Ontario. (When will I ever get to Ontario? Probably never. What a boon the Internet is to genealogists.) As well as adding her photos to the database at ‘Find a Grave’ she did a search for these particular ancestors on ancestry.com and notified me of the photos she’d posted. How wonderful that she went the extra mile.

The odd thing is that I couldn’t find those ancestors on my rather mammoth tree. As of this morning there are 44,228 entries. Subsequently, I wrote back to Rosemary to thank her for contacting me but that I couldn’t find those Canadians in my family. She wrote back immediately saying that these ancestors were on ‘Rachel’s Tree.’ Mystery solved. Over the years I’ve put together family trees for various friends and loved ones and there they sit on my account with little or no attention.

These Canadians of long ago on my friend Rachel’s tree are not my family. The question to myself is – do I spend my time on them or ignore the information and go directly to my tree?  What is the most productive and most satisfying use of my time? (As we get older that is a question we ponder more and more. I had, after all, just turned my Outlander calendar to April 2017 – what time I have left, whether it be less than 1 year or more than 25, is slipping quickly away.) I opted for Rachel’s tree which seems rich with Scottish Protestants who immigrated to Canada in the early part of the 19^th century. How exciting. I can see those woolen garbed Scots with their heavy brogue immigrating to the cold north – a climate to which they were not unaccustomed. What adventurous souls. Were they excited? Scared? In awe of what they dared to do?

Rachel, whose tree I hadn’t looked at in eons, had lots of green leaves flying. I dwelt among them with the new information, mostly recent cemetery photos, for a couple of hours doing updates. Later that day as I was walking Beatrice, my Coton de Tulear whose dog ancestors hale from Madagascar, we stopped at Rachel’s for a chat. In her eighties, with no known living relatives, Rachel was delighted and most surprised to hear that a stranger had contacted me about her ancestors long buried in Canadian ground. Soon she’ll come over to take a look at her enriched tree. Was it a good use of my and Rosemary’s time. Absolutely.