Incredible

[Paulo Ricardo Canedo]

Here is an incredible connection extending back over 300 years that I found on the night of 16 February at https://twitter.com/Robinson_IP/status/1381010447709650957?t=iVnCYSwqJ1z7bfYz6uaB4g&s=19. Here is the source,
https://www.charlesholloway.co.uk/2010/09/a-theory-of-relativity/: A man alive in 1999 heard a woman say in 1923 that her husband's first wife's first husband served Oliver Cromwell.
Here is the explanation from the article: "The setting for the article was 1999 but the remark was made in 1923 by a 91 year old who had been born in 1832. At the age of 16 she had married an 80 year old man named Henry. Sixty four years earlier, in 1784, the young Henry had, for obscure reasons, married an 82 year old woman. Her first marriage had been in 1720 and was to an 80 year old who had served Cromwell before his death in 1658!"
What do you think of this?

[Elizabeth A]

It's a remarkable claim, not impossible but certainly unlikely to have been undocumented, so one wonders what the actual marriage records say. But it doesn't seem much less plausible than the stories of other notable last survivors. Notably, the last widow of an American Civil War veteran died less than two years ago (https://www.military.com/military-life/last-widow-of-civil-war-soldier-just-died-101.html). One of the grandsons of 10th U.S. President John Tyler (b.1790) is still alive (another died in 2020) (https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/11/29/president-john-tyler-grandson-harrison/). Very recently, a Chinese news website released an article about the last known survivor of the Long March, which started in September 1934 (https://min.news/en/history/7b637ba10f263e339e51caa01cac701a.html). On a slightly more personal note, a good friend of mine has as an ancestor a man named Conrad Heyer, who died in 1856 at the age of 106. He was the last surviving veteran of George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River in December 1776 and may also have been the earliest-born person ever to have been photographed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Heyer).

-Elizabeth A

[JBrand]

Although some details in the OP's reconstruction seem less than likely, specifically the event of 1784--a marriage between an 82 year old female and a 16 year old male.

[lancast...@gmail.com]

Certainly always good to see something which reminds us to be careful about using probabilities (or averages) to positively assert anything at all.

There is no such thing (strictly speaking about actual "things") as the average person, or the average anything else.

For what it is worth I shall add the example which recently came to me courtesy of bots and algorithms which knew what I would be interested in. The 20th century philosopher Bertrand Russell, who was young enough to have participated (as an old man) in anti war demonstrations in the 1960s, was brought up by his grandfather, who met Napoleon.

[Elizabeth A]

Russell recalled a few memories of his grandfather's life, including the Napoleon meeting, in a 1952 interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL_sMXfzzyA&t=151s

[Paulo Ricardo Canedo]

Oops, a correction, I meant 16 November, not 16 February.

[Peter Stewart]

On 27-Nov-22 1:58 AM, Elizabeth A wrote:
> On Friday, November 25, 2022 at 10:50:51 PM UTC-5, Paulo Ricardo Canedo wrote:
>> Here is an incredible connection extending back over 300 years that I found on the night of 16 February at https://twitter.com/Robinson_IP/status/1381010447709650957?t=iVnCYSwqJ1z7bfYz6uaB4g&s=19. Here is the source,
>> https://www.charlesholloway.co.uk/2010/09/a-theory-of-relativity/: A man alive in 1999 heard a woman say in 1923 that her husband's first wife's first husband served Oliver Cromwell.
>> Here is the explanation from the article: "The setting for the article was 1999 but the remark was made in 1923 by a 91 year old who had been born in 1832. At the age of 16 she had married an 80 year old man named Henry. Sixty four years earlier, in 1784, the young Henry had, for obscure reasons, married an 82 year old woman. Her first marriage had been in 1720 and was to an 80 year old who had served Cromwell before his death in 1658!"
>> What do you think of this?
>
> It's a remarkable claim, not impossible but certainly unlikely to have been undocumented, so one wonders what the actual marriage records say. But it doesn't seem much less plausible than the stories of other notable last survivors. Notably, the last widow of an American Civil War veteran died less than two years ago (https://www.military.com/military-life/last-widow-of-civil-war-soldier-just-died-101.html).

Apparently four widows of Civil War veterans lived into the 21st
century, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War_widows_who_survived_into_the_21st_century.

Leaving aside the marital connections, which are not all equally
plausible and in any event not genealogical, the Cromwell story (with
suspicious detail of ages/dates considering the "obscure reasons"
disclaimer for the unlikeliest link) represents 5 degrees of separation
over 400 years, between someone living in 1999 and someone born in 1599.

I wonder if this is especially rare. I can trace from myself (with some
time left to go yet) through 5 degrees over 362 years, to someone born
in 1660. Any advances on that?

Peter Stewart

--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com

[Elizabeth A]

I'm not aware of any specific 5-degree relationship with this great a timespan, but individual smaller connections suggest that a similar timespan is plausible, and even as you suggest not unheard of. For instance, in 1961 sisters Delia and Bertie Harris appeared on "I've Got a Secret" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDfQLKIMGHY), their secret being that they were the granddaughters of Revolutionary War veteran Simon Harris (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8742482/simon-harris). Simon's widow's pension can be found here (http://www.revwarapps.org/r4684.pdf). Unfortunately, Simon Harris' precise Virginia origin appears obscure, and Delia, Bertie, and other siblings Mary Lou (who died in 1974) and appeared to have all died childless.

[Peter Stewart]

Apologies, I did not make it clear enough that I was referring to
non-genealogical links as in the Cromwell story - in that case four of
the five degrees of connection were marital but I was leaving that
aspect aside to treat them all as purely social, people who knew each
other rather than being married to each other.

There is a sociological theory, obviously unprovable, that any two
living human beings are linked to each other by no more than six degrees
of separation in personal contact. I was casting that back to a chain of
historical rather than current acquaintance, and in my own case the
longest 5-degree social chain that I know of extends to someone born in
1660. (The longest genealogical one goes back only to 1788.)

Peter Stewart

[mike davis]

On Sunday, November 27, 2022 at 12:12:55 PM UTC, Elizabeth A wrote:
> On Saturday, November 26, 2022 at 4:11:29 PM UTC-5, pss...@optusnet.com.au wrote:
> > On 27-Nov-22 1:58 AM, Elizabeth A wrote:
> > > On Friday, November 25, 2022 at 10:50:51 PM UTC-5, Paulo Ricardo Canedo wrote:
> > >> Here is an incredible connection extending back over 300 years that I found on the night of 16 February at https://twitter.com/Robinson_IP/status/1381010447709650957?t=iVnCYSwqJ1z7bfYz6uaB4g&s=19. Here is the source,
> > >> https://www.charlesholloway.co.uk/2010/09/a-theory-of-relativity/: A man alive in 1999 heard a woman say in 1923 that her husband's first wife's first husband served Oliver Cromwell.
> > >> Here is the explanation from the article: "The setting for the article was 1999 but the remark was made in 1923 by a 91 year old who had been born in 1832. At the age of 16 she had married an 80 year old man named Henry. Sixty four years earlier, in 1784, the young Henry had, for obscure reasons, married an 82 year old woman. Her first marriage had been in 1720 and was to an 80 year old who had served Cromwell before his death in 1658!"
> > >> What do you think of this?
> > >
> > > It's a remarkable claim, not impossible but certainly unlikely to have been undocumented, so one wonders what the actual marriage records say.

i guess that if they were documented the links would have been listed

>But it doesn't seem much less plausible than the stories of other notable last survivors. Notably, the last widow of an American Civil War veteran died less than two years ago (https://www.military.com/military-life/last-widow-of-civil-war-soldier-just-died-101.html).
> > Apparently four widows of Civil War veterans lived into the 21st
> > century, see
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War_widows_who_survived_into_the_21st_century.
> >
> > Leaving aside the marital connections, which are not all equally
> > plausible and in any event not genealogical, the Cromwell story (with
> > suspicious detail of ages/dates considering the "obscure reasons"
> > disclaimer for the unlikeliest link) represents 5 degrees of separation
> > over 400 years, between someone living in 1999 and someone born in 1599.
> >
> > I wonder if this is especially rare. I can trace from myself (with some
> > time left to go yet) through 5 degrees over 362 years, to someone born
> > in 1660. Any advances on that?
> >
> > Peter Stewart
> >
> > --
> > This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
> > www.avg.com
> I'm not aware of any specific 5-degree relationship with this great a timespan, but individual smaller connections suggest that a similar timespan is plausible, and even as you suggest not unheard of. For instance, in 1961 sisters Delia and Bertie Harris appeared on "I've Got a Secret" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDfQLKIMGHY), their secret being that they were the granddaughters of Revolutionary War veteran Simon Harris (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8742482/simon-harris). Simon's widow's pension can be found here (http://www.revwarapps.org/r4684.pdf). Unfortunately, Simon Harris' precise Virginia origin appears obscure, and Delia, Bertie, and other siblings Mary Lou (who died in 1974) and appeared to have all died childless.

thats pretty amazing, but in my own family I have a great great grandfather born 1816 whose youngest
daughter died in 1973 when my oldest sister was 4. i expect that sort of generation overlap is not so
uncommon but if say we take 1000 years away and found such a family relationship in 10th century
european aristocracies, I would probably wonder if it could be relied on. Sometimes if 1 family
member has a very extended lifespan [for the time] it can lead to unusual generational relationships.
I think Ramesses II lived so long that he outlived about 50 of his own sons and many grandchildren.
I dont think any of his descendants lived half as long.

mike

[Peter Stewart]

Becoming a great-great-grandparent is fairly unusual even for
centenarians, I think - a great-uncle of mine who lived to a fortnight
short of 103 fell short on this score too, while others I recall from
recent knowledge also had only three generations in descent except for
one with a single 4th-generation infant.

The two most notable medieval examples that spring to mind are the
Guelph ancestor Adalberto Azzo II, who as far as is known at 100/101
years of age did not last long enough to see even a great-grandchild
born, and Oda the mother of Otto the Illustrious who reportedly survived
to 107 but overlapped by just a few years with great-grandchildren.

By the way, in my counting of separation degrees I did not mean to
exclude genealogical or marital links between people who knew each
other, as these are necessarily also social. The chain to the individual
I can trace personal connections to through 5 degrees, born in 1660,
goes through 2 genealogical and 3 non-genealogical links, with none by
marriage.

Peter Stewart

Peter Stewart

[Paulo Ricardo Canedo]

I asked Todd about this off list on 17 November and he told me that a 16 year old boy marrying a 82 year old woman was indeed quite odd and had probably been an inheritance grab by his family. He said that it was too bad that we didn't have specific names that could be used to confirm what was going on.
The article I linked to says this is from a The Times article published on 31 December 1999. Maybe the article actually names the people involved in this incredible connection?

[Paulo Ricardo Canedo]

Supercentenarian Sarah Knauss, the third longest living person who died at 119, had one greatgreatgrandchild, read the last sentence at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Knauss#Personal_life.

[Peter Stewart]

You have omitted a generation from her descendants - according to the
wikipedia page, 10 months before she died the lady was photographed with
a "newborn great-great-great grandchild".

Peter Stewart

[mike davis]

I cant beat that but I dont think you have to live to such a great age in the past to
have great grandchildren. Louis XIV [72?] was succeeded by Louis XV his great
grandson aged 4 I think. Also theres the example of the merovingians:

Brunhilda
|
CHildebert II
|
TheudebertII & TheudericII
|
Various great grandchildren

I'm not sure how old Brunhilda was when she died but wiki suggests
about 70, so she might have been only in her late 50s when she had
great grandchildren. In fact if the Franks hadnt killed her, its very likely
she would have seen her teenaged ggkids having her great great
grandchildren.

On a different point, there was a law in england in the 18th century
that forbade people under 21 from marrying without the consent of
their parents, but plenty of unequal marriages [in age] took place
with their consent. Recently I read a report of a man aged 86 marrying
in 1785 a 19 yearold whose own father was 91. The groom had
a great grandson aged 14. I looked it up on ancestry and found that
it was basically accurate.

mike

[Paulo Ricardo Canedo]

Thanks for the correction, Peter. It's better than I thought.

[Paulo Ricardo Canedo]

A segunda-feira, 28 de novembro de 2022 à(s) 00:44:53 UTC, pss...@optusnet.com.au escreveu:

This ia the Guiness World Record for number of generations alive at the same time:
https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/Augusta_Bunge_Pagel
"In February 1989, Augusta and her family was featured in Guinness World Records as the most living generations ever in a family: Augusta Bunge (aged 109), followed by her daughter Ella Sabin (aged 89), her granddaughter Anna Wendlandt (aged 70), her great-granddaughter Betty Wolter (aged 52), her great-great granddaughter Debra Bollig (aged 33) and her great-great-great-granddaughter Lori Bollig (aged 15) and her great-great-great-great-grandson Christopher (one month)."

[Peter Stewart]

This augments the point about unpredictability that I was making with
centenarians such as Oda, the mother of Otto the Illustrious, who lived
to 107 yet whose lifespan only just overlapped with a few
great-grandchildren. In her time 15-year-old mothers were not as
uncommon as today, but that didn't make for a rapid turnover of
generations in her case as no doubt in many others.

The number of greats- in relationship terms seems to be causing
confusion in this thread. I don't think anyone would consider having
great-grandchildren unusual for people of around 80+/- years old. When I
was born three of my great-grandparents were living: I got to know two
of them well, and the last one died at 94 when I was in my 20s. Surely
this is nothing out of the ordinary.

A misconception seems to persist that somehow medieval people were all
unlikely to have had very long lives. Of course the average lifespan was
shorter than nowadays, but this is because a much higher proportion of
individuals died at a younger age than today and not because maximal
lifespans were any shorter. I don't know of a medieval Jeanne Calment
living to 125 - no-one does - but of course there is no natural bar to
the possibility that her record may have been outdone in any period of
history.

Peter Stewart

[taf]

On Monday, November 28, 2022 at 1:56:37 PM UTC-8, pss...@optusnet.com.au wrote:
> I don't know of a medieval Jeanne Calment
> living to 125 - no-one does - but of course there is no natural bar to
> the possibility that her record may have been outdone in any period of
> history.

I do recall there being a Cheshire gentry pedigree with someone who supposedly lived to 140, but my memory is failing me as to which family that was. (Not that this is an actual example of an extremely old medieval person. Likely successive generations bearing the same name, confused by the antiquarians - that or a corrupt or misinterpreted primary document.)

taf

[pj.ev...@gmail.com]

I have a woman - sis-in-law's ancestor - who lived to 106, but the first great-great-great-grandchild I've found was born four or five years after her death. (She's documented fairly well, being in 19th-century New England.)

[Peter Stewart]

This raises an issue that I don't recall having been discussed here -
perhaps because it seems unresolvable as a general question - that is:
when is a claim so highly implausible that it may be considered
self-evidently false.

If no human can be proved to have lived for 140 years, is there any
basis to entertain an idea that something phenomenal has even the
remotest possibility in a specific case? This is an extreme instance, of
course, but medieval genealogy throws up many others that fall under
shadow of doubt.

Obviously no rational person today believes that Noah skippered the ark
at the age of 950, but many medieval people did and the world still has
perhaps in raw numbers around as many crazed religionists now who place
indoctrinated faith in what they wish to believe ahead of common sense
based on lived experience.

Documented or circumstantial evidence still needs to be analysed in
accordance with logical understanding, and since the education systems
of the developed world no longer aim as the first priority to stimulate
unbiased critical thinking the productive study of medieval genealogy
may backslide in future.

[Denis Beauregard]

On Thu, 1 Dec 2022 09:18:39 +1100, Peter Stewart
<pss...@optusnet.com.au> wrote in soc.genealogy.medieval:

>On 30-Nov-22 9:10 PM, taf wrote:
>> On Monday, November 28, 2022 at 1:56:37 PM UTC-8, pss...@optusnet.com.au wrote:
>>> I don't know of a medieval Jeanne Calment
>>> living to 125 - no-one does - but of course there is no natural bar to
>>> the possibility that her record may have been outdone in any period of
>>> history.

I assisted years ago to a presentation about centenarians. There is
some kind of international study to find them.

In Quebec, we have some extended database with all vital records
available for this kind of study. At this time, it is complete to
1861 but at the time of the presentation, there was some extract of
records about old people, perhaps over 90, according to the burial
records, so any true centenarian could be found and verified using
both the baptism and the burial records and other records if needed
or available.

From my notes, I found that the older family with centenarians had
the following people.


[14044] LIZOTTE, Nicolas, born 1703-10-31, baptized 1703-11-30
Rivière-Ouelle, buried 1802-01-07 Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies

* married 1724-05-03 La Pocatière

MIVILLE dit DESCHÊNES, Marie Madeleine, born about 1704 (burial 1769),
buried 1769-02-14 La Pocatière

1) Marie Josèphe LIZOTTE, baptized 1725-05-02 La Pocatière, dead
1821-12-26, buried Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies, married La Pocatière
1742-10-08 Joseph OUELLET

4) Marie Anne LIZOTTE, baptized 1731-07-06 La Pocatière, buried
1835-01-16 Saint-Léon de Maskinongé, married Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies
1751-01-11 Jean Baptiste BOUCHER dit SAINT-PIERRE, married La
Pocatière 1760-11-24 Philippe BOUCHER

8) Marie Rosalie LIZOTTE, baptized 1738-12-25
Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies, dead 1847-03-05, buried 1847-03-08
Rivière-du-Loup, married Kamouraska 1773-04-26 Joseph MIGNER dit
LAGACÉ


Out of 14 children, 2 died over 100 and 1 when 96. The father
was nearly 99.

So in 1731 and 1738, before the modern times, in a place with no
large conflicts (except the taking of Quebec City in 1759 and some
smaller battles not close to them), 2 women were born and lived for
over 100 years. A local well-known author who is now 97 is a
descendant of that family.

I don't know if another older example of documented centenarian
occured.


Denis

--
Denis Beauregard - généalogiste émérite (FQSG)
Les Français d'Amérique du Nord - http://www.francogene.com/gfan/gfan/998/
French in North America before 1722 - http://www.francogene.com/gfna/gfna/998/
Sur cédérom/DVD/USB à 1790 - On CD-ROM/DVD/USB to 1790

[Jinny Wallerstedt/Girl 57]

Peter, Re: "...and since the education systems

of the developed world no longer aim as the first priority to stimulate
unbiased critical thinking the productive study of medieval genealogy
may backslide in future."

This comment leapt out at me, the immediate genealogical issue aside. I'd never explicitly
connected today's state of runaway uncritical thinking with the study of medieval genealogy.
Thought provoking and sobering. I so value the discussions here not only for their
information but because of how carefully cases are made and conclusions are reached.
It's an education and a pleasure.

[Peter Stewart]

On 02-Dec-22 5:06 AM, Jinny Wallerstedt/Girl 57 wrote:

> Peter, Re: "...and since the education systems
> of the developed world no longer aim as the first priority to stimulate
> unbiased critical thinking the productive study of medieval genealogy
> may backslide in future."
>
> This comment leapt out at me, the immediate genealogical issue aside. I'd never explicitly
> connected today's state of runaway uncritical thinking with the study of medieval genealogy.
> Thought provoking and sobering. I so value the discussions here not only for their
> information but because of how carefully cases are made and conclusions are reached.
> It's an education and a pleasure.

Recent academic work that has a focus on medieval genealogy shows a
tendency to the pursuit of novelty and possibility from the available
scraps of evidence over careful and thorough investigation of what is
and is not verifiable. This is hardly surprising, since the people doing
the increasingly silly research in this field tend to have been trained
rather than educated - easier for teachers and examiners, more
impressive for heedless parents, so of course they take the line of
least resistance and over a couple of generations the bottom falls out
of scholastic standards.

It is no accident that the most successful con-artist in history - a
deeply ignorant, madly dishonest and extremely foolish but very crafty
man - reached the peak achievement of the US presidency in 2016 due to a
population that had been largely infantilised and stupefied in schools
and colleges over 30 years. Troubled adjustment to change is a constant
in modern history: the beginning of the information age has reduced the
need for young heads to be crammed with knowledge, but educators failed
to realise this increased the need for critical thinking to assess data
or even to work out where to find reliable news. Hence Q-Anon, Brexit,
celebrity worship and countless other idiocies and delinquencies in
current public life and culture.

[Jinny Wallerstedt/Girl 57]

My hope for medieval genealogy in the info age: may all influencers be educated.

[Jan Wolfe]

On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 5:42:12 PM UTC-5, Jinny Wallerstedt/Girl 57 wrote:
> On Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 4:22:29 PM UTC-5, pss...@optusnet.com.au wrote:
> > On 02-Dec-22 5:06 AM, Jinny Wallerstedt/Girl 57 wrote:

...

> > > Thought provoking and sobering. I so value the discussions here not only for their
> > > information but because of how carefully cases are made and conclusions are reached.
> > > It's an education and a pleasure.

...

> My hope for medieval genealogy in the info age: may all influencers be educated.

I very much agree with both of your statements, Jinny!

While it's not related to medieval genealogy, I thought I'd mention a published chain of genealogical connections (and a story passed down) with similar timing to Peter's, but extending back a little further in time.

In 1948 one of my great great uncles published a book of poems. One of the poems is a ballad telling a story about an event in the lives of John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley, Mayflower passengers, "The Ballad of Elizabeth" (Herbert Delahaye Miles, _Look Up O World_ (Boston: Bruce Humphries, Inc. and Toronto: Ryerton Press, 1948), 133-149). The author, a descendant of John and Elizabeth, was born in 1866 in Milwaukee, WI, where his father had been a partner of P. D. Amour in a grain business. Mr. Miles died in Ashville, NC, in 1958. My parents, brother and I visited him there in 1955 while on a family vacation. My mother had read the book of poems aloud to us as we drove from Ohio to North Carolina.

The prelude to the ballad explains how the tale was passed to Mr. Miles:

"Today, in nineteen-forty-four,
I tell this tale of Plymouth lore;
I keep a pledge—alas, quite late—
A pledge of eighteen-seventy-eight;
To tell, and prove four tellings brought it
From Mayflower’s child to me, who sought it.
To show how slight Time’s bridge can be
Between that child and you and me!
Between, just three John Chipmans,—straight
From us to sixteen-twenty-eight!

Elizabeth Tilley Howland, child of the Mayflower voyage, in 1683, when she was aging, told this tale of her 1628 adventure to her grandson the second John Chipman, thirteen years old.
That John Chipman, born in 1670, passed her tale to his grandson, the fourth John Chipman, then eleven years old, in 1755, in Newport.
In turn he, born 1744, in 1826 passed the tale to his grandson, the sixth John Chipman of the line, then fourteen years old. He, the third one of his name pledged to pass the tale, born 1812, in 1878 told it to me,—to the boy of twelve, that was I!"

[Peter Stewart]

Splendid, Jan - to me the social connection through five degrees between
you today and Elizabeth Tilley born in 1607 is more interesting than a
genealogical one through (I suppose) around 12 degrees, simply because
our personal interactions have more to so with our disposition and
self-awareness than whatever we can know of our biological past.

Horace Walpole met all of the Hanoverian kings of England, a curiosity
that is probably unique and to me far more interesting than the
countless people in his time who were related to all of them.

[Peter Stewart]

I dare say your great-great-uncle the poet might have been as chuffed at
his connection through 4 social links to someone born a compatriot of
the living Shakespeare as at his more remote descent from Mayflower
passengers.

[Jan Wolfe]

Thanks, Peter. I don't know which connections would have pleased Herbert Miles the most. His autobiographical scrapbook is preserved at the UNC Ashville library (http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/mss/miles_herbert/default_miles_herbert.htm, http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/mss/miles_herbert/miles_scrapbook_miles.htm).
Mr. Miles met and interacted with many interesting people in his lifetime including U.S. presidents and titans of industry. He wrote _The science of currency and centralized banking; a study of publications recently issued by the National Monetary Commission_ in 1911 (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t0jt07p6s&view=1up&seq=5 and https://books.google.com/books?id=OEQuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1) and several thoughtful articles as well as poems.

[Jinny Wallerstedt/Girl 57]

Jan, thank you so much for sharing this. It's just wonderful. Mr. Miles sounds great...How many of us here would love to have such an uncle? And oh, the heaven of being read poetry on a car trip!

[Peter Stewart]

If a long car trip could be made heavenly for a child, that may be the
way to do it. Certainly the line "To show how slight Time’s bridge can
be" is the first poetic expression I've come across of an abiding
side-interest of mine in the study of history.

Recently I lost a long-treasured instance - for 50 years I had believed
I once met a niece-by-marriage of the poet Robert Browning, but just
learned that this alleged relationship was a mistaken legend in her
family. O well, the old lady was unforgettable anyway and the portrait
of Browning over her fireplace was presumably genuine.

[Jan Wolfe]

On Monday, December 5, 2022 at 9:18:14 AM UTC-5, Jinny Wallerstedt/Girl 57 wrote:
> Jan, thank you so much for sharing this. It's just wonderful. Mr. Miles sounds great...How many of us here would love to have such an uncle? And oh, the heaven of being read poetry on a car trip!

Thank you, Jinny. I'm happy that you enjoyed it. If you love poetry, you may be interested to know that one of Herbert Miles' nieces (daughter of his youngest brother) was UC Berkeley poet and professor Josephine Miles (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/josephine-miles, https://www-personal.umich.edu/~bobwolfe/gen/pn/p2646.htm).

[Paulo Ricardo Canedo]

A sábado, 26 de novembro de 2022 à(s) 03:50:51 UTC, Paulo Ricardo Canedo escreveu:
> Here is an incredible connection extending back over 300 years that I found on the night of 16 February at https://twitter.com/Robinson_IP/status/1381010447709650957?t=iVnCYSwqJ1z7bfYz6uaB4g&s=19. Here is the source,
> https://www.charlesholloway.co.uk/2010/09/a-theory-of-relativity/: A man alive in 1999 heard a woman say in 1923 that her husband's first wife's first husband served Oliver Cromwell.
> Here is the explanation from the article: "The setting for the article was 1999 but the remark was made in 1923 by a 91 year old who had been born in 1832. At the age of 16 she had married an 80 year old man named Henry. Sixty four years earlier, in 1784, the young Henry had, for obscure reasons, married an 82 year old woman. Her first marriage had been in 1720 and was to an 80 year old who had served Cromwell before his death in 1658!"
> What do you think of this?

Today, what I found searching for the quote "husband knew Oliver Cromwell" on Google Books has made me very skeptical of this story. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22husband+knew+Oliver+Cromwell%22&client=ms-android-xiaomi-rvo3&prmd=ivn&source=lnms&tbm=bks&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjftceYw-r7AhXAXaQEHdOWAgQQ_AUoBnoECAEQBg&biw=393&bih=736&dpr=2.75 shows two books by David Ovilgy, one from 1978 and the other from 1997. Both of them tell exactly the same story as the 1999 article by Simon Jenkins except that it takes place in the 1860s when it is chronologically much more plausible. What do you think of this?

[Peter Stewart]

The idea that no-one - whether in the 19th century or the or 20th -
should speak ill of Oliver Cromwell just because a boy who once knew the
man had liked him is so idiotic that I would place no reliance in
anything said by someone foolish enough to think it in the first place.

The purported marital linkage amounts to little more than an "old axe
with a new head and a replaced handle" story anyway.