Medieval and Early Modern Matrilineal Lines

[Jan Wolfe]

John recently posted his descent from Alice Sanford and Robert de Vere. The most recent 13 generations of his descent are matrilineal, https://groups.google.com/g/soc.genealogy.medieval/c/8u5g0E1wTeM/m/7YNiRKMxAgAJ.

The length of John's known matrilineal line brings up an interesting question. We think that Agnes Baxter's mother was Catherine Downie, likely born near Edinburgh, Scotland, in the late 1580s (date of marriage November, 1609, baptism of first child January, 1611).

I am curious about how many SGM readers can trace their maternal line back to the 1500s or earlier. We know from the mtDNA study of the remains of Richard III that there are two people living today whose maternal lines can be traced back to a sister of Richard III, and hence to Katherine de Roet, born in the mid 1300s.

If you have a long matrilineal line, perhaps you can post it here.

[joseph cook]

Mine's all German, so I can get back to the 30 year war and then that's it with virtually zero chance of ever going back farther, so to a person born around 1615. For my sister, that's 13 female generations.

--Joe C

[JBrand]

Each male in a patrilineal line of descent will (or usually _should_) have a unique matrilineal line. Oddly, out of my patrilineal great-grandfather (b. 1876), grandfather (b. 1900), and father (b. 1930), it's my father who has the shortest known matrilineal line, going only back to a certain Cynthia Johnston born in the 1830s (her father is known, but her mother is not [at least to my satisfaction]). The other two lines, for my grandfather and great-grandfather, go only back into the mid-to-late 1700). Of course, this is the one of the "black holes" of American genealogy, Scots Irish folk in lower central North Carolina/ upper central South Carolina.

[taf]

On Thursday, February 18, 2021 at 5:48:58 PM UTC-8, JBrand wrote:
> Each male in a patrilineal line of descent will (or usually _should_) have a unique matrilineal line.

And not just in the patrilineal line - each male, anywhere in one's pedigree will have such a line.

taf

[joseph cook]

I think his point is that on the patrilineal line, every maternal line is entirely unique.
If you look at every male in your ancestry, many will have duplicate maternal lines.

--Joe C

[JBrand]

Right, I was just thinking that an easy experiment to keep track of would be to do the matrilineal lines of one's paternal ancestors in the agnate line. As in my case, the recent generations might have shorter (known) matrilineal ancestry than generations further back.

[Peter Stewart]

I'm not clear what is meant by "entirely unique" - if a man married the
daughter of his mother's sister, then his son would have the same
matrilineal ancestry as himself except for the first generations so that
only these would be unique and not the whole maternal line.

Would you apply the same "entirely unique" description to the
patrilineal ancestry of every female in a maternal line?

Peter Stewart

[Jan Wolfe]

I was thinking that matrilineal lines are interesting because of the way mtDNA is inherited. Similarly, patrilineal lines are interesting because of the way yDNA is inherited. One of my distant cousins who has a matrilineal descent from Agnes Baxter took an mtDNA test. As a descendant of Agnes, I was interested in the cousin's test result and matches even though my descent from Agnes is not matrilineal. Unfortunately, few of the cousin's matches knew or revealed anything about their matrilineal ancestors.

[taf]

One's maternal grandfather has a matrilineage no less likely to be unique than that of one's paternal grandfather. There is nothing special that excludes intermarriages in one's patrilineage while permitting it in one's mother's patrilineage or that of either grandmother.

taf

[Jan Wolfe]

On Thursday, February 18, 2021 at 8:28:54 PM UTC-5, joe...@gmail.com wrote:
> > If you have a long matrilineal line, perhaps you can post it here.
> Mine's all German, so I can get back to the 30 year war and then that's it with virtually zero chance of ever going back farther, so to a person born around 1615. For my sister, that's 13 female generations.
>
> --Joe C

Well, 13 generations is a third or more of the way back to the time of Charlemagne, so really not bad at all. In the Württemberg towns where my German ancestors lived, some of the parish registers go back to 1558, and the records tend to be more complete than the early parish registers in England, typically naming the fathers of marriage partners in marriage records and at least the first names of mothers in baptism records. Have you also tried looking at the muster lists and the land record books for your area of Germany? The muster lists, of course, only name men and their weapons, but I have seen a few widows mentioned, sometimes even with maiden names stated, in the Württemberg land record books from the 1500s.

As John's posted line demonstrates, a 13-generation matrilineal line may connect to a much longer mixed line.

[Mary Morgan]

On Thursday, February 18, 2021 at 5:07:36 PM UTC-5, Jan Wolfe wrote:

>

> If you have a long matrilineal line, perhaps you can post it here.

I have traced my matrilineal line back 15 generations:
Alice Tirrey=John Wynter (d. 1546)
Anne Wynter (d. 1574)=Thomas Wilson (d. 1581)
Mary Wilson (d. 1622)=Robert Burdet (d. 1603)
Bridget Burdet (d. 1636)=William Whelpdale (d. 1652)
Susanna Whelpdale (d. 1702)=Roger Sledall (d. 1667)
Mary Sledall = John Pattinson (d. 1705)
Mary Pattinson (d. 1756) =Christopher Hilton
Mary Hilton (d. ca. 1760)= Thomas Wybergh (d. 1753)
Ann Wybergh (d. 1791)=William Shaw (d. 1794)- moved from Eng to SC, USA
Ann Shaw (d. 1843) = Christopher Smith
Anna Maria Smith (d. 1890)= Willard Watson
Matilda A. Watson (d. ca. 1904)= Elijah Owen (d. 1875)
Jane C. Owen (d. 1911)= James Edward Wilson (d. 1919)
Matilda Ann Wilson (d. 1922)= George Martin Rogers (d. 1931)
Doris Matilda Rogers= Joseph Harold Morgan
Mary Lucinda Morgan (me)

Also, genealogics.org lists Alice Tirrey's mother as Jane Gamage, but there is no source given, so I don't count that

[joseph cook]

On Friday, February 19, 2021 at 12:09:09 PM UTC-5, Jan Wolfe wrote:

Ah, yes, I have ancestors in Württemberg as well, and they did fare better than other areas during the war as far as records, so some of them I can get back to mid/late 15th century. But in this area of Sayn-Wittgenstein, it was just scorched earth. The entire towns vanished. Parish and land records survive from 1656 onward as new towns formed. And I'm perfectly ok with not being able to go further back here, I have plenty of other holes to fill which may be a better use of my time as far as box filling. As you said, 13 generations is not bad. My illiterate, starving poor, Irish ancestors of the mid-1800s are much more recent, and until I have time to check every "Michael" and "Mary" in Ireland (i.e. never), they will also probably be recent dead ends.
But for poor Gertrud, other than a note on her burial, she will be forever anonyma.

--Joe C

[joseph cook]

Of course it is worth noting that she may not have even had a surname at birth. In Sayn-Wittgenstein, many folks only started adopting surnames in the late 16th and early 17th century. Of course the wealthy and titled were an exception.

---Joe Cook

[JBrand]

On Thursday, February 18, 2021 at 8:48:58 PM UTC-5, JBrand wrote:
> Each male in a patrilineal line of descent will (or usually _should_) have a unique matrilineal line. Oddly, out of my patrilineal great-grandfather (b. 1876), grandfather (b. 1900), and father (b. 1930), it's my father who has the shortest known matrilineal line, going only back to a certain Cynthia Johnston born in the 1830s (her father is known, but her mother is not [at least to my satisfaction]). The other two lines, for my grandfather and great-grandfather, go only back into the mid-to-late 1700). Of course, this is the one of the "black holes" of American genealogy, Scots Irish folk in lower central North Carolina/ upper central South Carolina.

When I said each male in the line will/should have a (somewhat) unique matrilineal line, I was forgetting that my great-great grandfather (b. 1845), father of the great-grandfather born in 1876, actually had the same matrilineal line as his son (!):

Jean Spratt = Thomas Neel
Sarah Neel = David Johnston
Mary Johnston = John McGill
Sarah Neel McGill = Joseph Brandon
George Cicero Brandon (b. 1845) = Sarah Pamela Glenn

Jean Spratt = Thomas Neel
Sarah Neel = David Johnston
Jean/Jane Johnston = John Boyd
Eliza M. Boyd = William Glenn
Sarah Pamela Glenn = George Cicero Brandon (see above)
Joseph Alexander Brandon (b. 1876)

These Johnstons were presumably unconnected to the ancestry of Cynthia Johnston, my _father's_ earliest matrilineal ancestress (...but, again, nothing is certain).

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

Aren't cousin marriages fun! (/s) [I have at least three on my tree. They make life interesting - though my matrilineal line disappears about 1700; it runs through Friends, so there are records. Another line goes through New England, specifically Rhode Island, another area with records. And the third disappears fast on the female side.]

[kelsey.jack...@googlemail.com]

These have been some fascinating posts (I've often thought that matrilineal pedigrees deserve much more attention than they receive). My own matrilineal line can only be traced for seven generations, back to Emilie Dorothea Hahn, the wife of an interior decorator in nineteenth-century St. Petersburg, and my father's is only slightly longer: ten generations back to Susannah, wife of Samuel Thompson (d. 1763), a farmer in Elizabethtown, New Jersey.

Although I suspect it's possible, I can't immediately find a Baltic-German matriline which goes back to early than the later sixteenth century. One example is that of a slightly more distant ancestor of mine:

1. Elisabeth Fiefhusen = Bartholomäus Taube a. Saage
2. Elisabeth Taube (+ 1654) = Hermann von Wrangell a. Ellistfer
3. Elisabeth Magdalena von Wrangell (+ before 1663) = Jürgen von Uexküll a. Angern
4. Gertrud von Uexküll (1640-1683) = Otto Wilhelm von Fersen, Freiherr zu Cronendahl
5. Margarethe Elisabeth Freiin von Fersen (1669-1710) = Bengt Heinrich von Bistram a. Alt- und Neu-Riesenberg
6. Anna Elisabeth von Bistram (1699-1774) = Christoph von Derfelden a. Klosterhof
7. Margaretha Elisabeth von Derfelden (1715-1791) = Karl Gustav von Baranoff a. Groß-Lechtigall
8. Wilhelmina Margaretha von Baranoff (1737-1808) = Jacob Johann von Tiesenhausen, Freiherr zu Erlaa
9. Helene Wilhelmina Elisabeth von Tiesenhausen, Freiin zu Erlaa (1757-1809) = Magnus Joachim Graf Stenbock a. Kolk
10. Wilhelmine Helene Elisabeth Gräfin Stenbock (1783-1847) = Ludwig Reinhold von Brevern a. Jaggowal
11. Pontus Miloslaw von Brevern (1805-1849)

And another is of one of my grandmother's cousins:

1. Anna Gutslev = Fromhold von Ungern a. Fistehl
2. Anna von Ungern (living 1634) = Heinrich von Ungern a. Eddefer
3. Margarethe von Ungern = Johann von Buddenbrock a. Bruddenbrockshof
4. NN von Buddenbrock = Gotthard Georg von Buddenbrock
5. Margaretha Gertrud von Buddenbrock (fl. 1688) = Johann Adolph Boltho von Hohenbach a. Lodenhof
6. Hedwig Eleonore Boltho von Hohenbach (d. 1742) = Zacharias Conrad Kobes
7. Margareta Eleonora Kobes (1714-1789) = Georg Gustaf von Gersdorff (1718-1776)
8. Agneta Gertruda von Gersdorff (1743-1825) = Friherre Gustaf Johan Gyllenstierna af Lundholm (1709-1764)
9. Friherrinan Eleonora Christina Elisabeth Gyllenstierna af Lundholm (1759-1800) = Klaus Gustav von Baranoff a. Penningby
10. Johanna Luise Helene 'Jeanette' von Baranoff (1787-1858) = Gideon Johann von Fock a. Kawast
11. Julie Eleonore von Fock (1809-1879) = Franz Richard Baron von Maydell
12. Marie Luise Sophie Baronesse von Maydell (1835-1922) = Maximilian Zoege von Manteuffel a. Neu-Harm
13. Maria Theresia Zoege von Manteuffel (* 1862) = Alexander Woldemar 'Lux' Baron von Rosen
14. Eva Alexandra Marie Theresia Baronesse von Rosen (* 1906)

It would be an interesting project to identify solid matrilines beginning in the medieval period which could be reliably traced to numerous individuals today.

All the best,
Kelsey

[joseph cook]

This woman on genealogics has 37 generations of females...
https://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00543809&tree=LEO
That has to be a candidate for the longest known matrilineal pedigree?

[Matt A]

On Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 8:39:44 AM UTC-5, kelsey.jack...@googlemail.com wrote:

As Joe alluded to, the most readily available English example is that of Eva (Aoife) of Leinster, wife of Richard FitzGilbert de Clare. As shown on Genealogics, one notable matrilineal descendant is Malcolm Forbes, 23rd (present) Lord Forbes, a 31 generation descendant.

I had hoped to discover a gateway ancestor who is a matrilineal descendant of Eva/Aoife. The closest I could find is Edward Skepper, a 17th-generation descendant who is the father of emigrant Rev. William Skepper/Skipper, the bulk of which is shown in "The Ancestry of Joan Legard, Grandmother of the Rev. William Skepper/Skipper of Boston, Massachusetts," The American Genealogist, Vol. 69, No. 3, July 1994, pgs 129-139. Per "Lincolnshire Pedigrees," v.1 p. 306 (https://archive.org/details/LincolnshirePedigreesV50/page/n323/mode/2up) and v.3 p. 883 (https://archive.org/details/lincolnshirepedi5255madd/page/882/mode/2up), Edward Skepper's sister Bridget married "Syrach" (Shadrach?) Disney and had a daughter Anne, but the line seems to end there.

I would imagine that indigenous matrilineal societies probably have well-established oral traditions of longer matrilineal descents, but that is arguably outside the scope of the question.

[Stewart Baldwin]

On Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 11:28:02 AM UTC-6, joe...@gmail.com wrote:
...

> This woman on genealogics has 37 generations of females...
> https://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00543809&tree=LEO
> That has to be a candidate for the longest known matrilineal pedigree?

If I recall correctly, when this was discussed here some time back (15-20 years ago?), there was one matrilineal line that went a bit further back that Eva of Leinster's greta-grandmother Gormlaith ingen Finn Ua Caellaide. Unfortunately, I can't remember what that line was, but a detailed search of old postings might turn it up. By the way, although apparently not shown on genealogics, Gormlaith's paternal grandmother was a member of the dynasty that ruled Osraige, and that line can be traced back until the reliability becomes uncertain in the late seventh century.

Stewart Baldwin

[Jan Wolfe]

Thanks, Mary, and everyone who has posted their own or another interesting matrilineal line. Like Mary's, mine goes back to England (assuming I've interpreted the parish records correctly):

Dorothee Knight = (1569) Richarde Clarke in Moulton, Northamptonshire, England
Alice Clarke = (1595) Thomas Gibson at St Sepulchre, Northampton, Northamptonshire
Elizabeth Gibson = (1633) John Wellford at All Saints, Northampton, Northamptonshire
Elizabeth Wellford = (1655) Thomas Whithorne at All Saints, Northampton, Northamptonshire
Elizabeth Whithorne = (1679) Thomas Dust at Northampton St. Giles, Northamptonshire
Mary Dust = (1706) Phillip Harris at St Mary, Lambeth, Surrey
Frances Harris = (1735) Joseph Barnardiston at St Paul's Cathedral, London
Mary Barnardiston = (1758) Samuel Howes at St. Mary's Islington, London
Elizabeth Howes = (1801) John Joseph Marshall at St George, Bloomsbury, Middlesex
Mary Ann Marshall = (1826) Charles William Meakins at St. Marylebone, Middlesex
Eliza Howes Meakins (b. 1835 in Montreal) = (1857) John Harte at Hamilton, Wentworth, Ontario, Canada
Ada Elinor Harte = (1883) Francis Frederick Miles at Belleville, Hastings, Ontario
Ella Frances Miles (my maternal grandmother)
Counting my granddaughters, there are 17 matrilineal generations.
A mixed male-female line to Mary Barnardiston connects this line to medieval ancestors.
In 1558 William Knyght of Holdenbie, Northamptonshire, bequeathed a sum of money to his daughter Dorathie to be delivered at her day of marriage. William's widow Agnes, in 1560, bequeathed household goods to Dorothye Knyght but did not call her "my daughter."

[lancast...@gmail.com]

I can only take my maternal line back to the 19th century, in Bedfordshire. Sarah Waller: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Waller-1443 I think that makes only 8 generations including both Sarah and myself.

As reported by most people I've ever discussed it with, mitochondrial DNA testing has led to no genealogically interesting information. Of course one reason is that mt DNA does not mutate much, but at least in my experience I think there is another more old-fashioned problem, which is that records tended to say less about people's mothers, than about their fathers. There are parish registers which don't mention mothers at all, and when they are mentioned, at least in England, there is normally no mention of surname. It is easier in Scottish and Belgian registers where maiden names were generally kept, and godparents/witnesses also often give leads to family connections.

...But as a general rule I have found it more difficult to track the mother's family than the father's family. When genealogists talk about their walls, I wonder how often it is a maternal wall.

[Patrick Nielsen Hayden]

On Feb 20, 2021 at 12:28:00 PM EST, "joseph cook" <joe...@gmail.com> wrote:

> This woman on genealogics has 37 generations of females...
> https://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00543809&tree=LEO
> That has to be a candidate for the longest known matrilineal pedigree?

This was startling. I have no traceable medieval ancestry; my rooting interest
in the subject is my wife, who has several canonical gateway ancestors in
17th-century New England. But a cursory glance at this woman's ancestry on
Genealogics demonstrates that she's plausibly related to me -- perhaps the
first time I've seen anyone on Genealogics of whom this can be said! Not
through her impressive matrilineal line, but through her mother's father, Mark
Sykes (1905-1978), son of the Mark Sykes whose name adorns the infamous 1916
Sykes-Picot agreement.

Although Genealogics doesn't show it, these Sykeses are all descendants of
Richard Sykes (d. 1645), a wealthy third-generation Yorkshire cloth trader who
was instrumental in securing the city charter of Leeds and served as its
alderman in 1629-30 and 1636-37. His uncle Edmund Sykes was a Catholic martyr,
"hanged, bowelled, and quartered" at York Tyburn on 23 Mar 1587, and beatified
by JPII in 1987. If I've correctly pieced together other people's research, I
descend from the alderman through a younger son of a younger son who wound up
in Virginia. And if Genealogics and the narrative at this site for the Sykes
family papers at the Hull History center --
http://catalogue.hullhistorycentre.org.uk/catalogue/U-DDSY?tab=description --
are both correct, this Virginia Angela Cayzer b. 1990 is my 10th cousin twice
removed. Yes, I know, we all have something like a million 10th cousins, but
this is the first time I've run across one in Genealogics.

Much more typically of my known direct ancestry, my matrilineal line peters
out a mere seven generations back, in mid-18th-century Cornwall:

Margaret Warren, who on 30 May 1789 married Richard Casley at St.
Just-in-Penwith
Margaret Casley (b. 1789) = John Hocking (b. ~1791)
Elizabeth Hocking (~1821-1902) = James Penberthy (1825-1877)
Elizabeth James Penberthy (1852-1933) = Anthony Couch (1851-1937)
Lottie Couch (1886-1974) = Richard Edwards Gyles (1886-1945)
Gwendolyn Lottie Gyles (1910-1997) = Everett Luke White (1905-1967)
Jeannette Mary White = James Elbert Hayden
Me

--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
p...@panix.com
nielsenhayden.com
nielsenhayden.com/genealogy-tng

[Matt A]

Here is a 28-generation line to a "gateway ancestor" of sorts, which if later connected to the present would rival Virginia Angela Cayzer's 37 generations:

Elisabeth _____ = Gui II 'le Rouge' de Monthlery [11th c.]
______ de Monthlery = Anceau de Garlande
Agnes de Garlande = Amaury III de Montfort
Agnes de Montfort = Galeran de Beaumont/Meulan
Isabelle de Meulan = Geoffroy II de Mayenne
Clemence de Mayenne = Robert de Sable
Marguerite de Sable = Guillaume des Roches
Jeanne des Roches = Amaury I de Craon
Isabelle de Craon = Raoul III de Fougeres
Jehanne de Fougeres = Hugues XII de Lusignan
Jeanne de Lusignan = Piers de Geneville
Joane de Geneville = Roger Mortimer
Maud Mortimer = John Cherleton
Joan Cherleton = John Beauchamp
Alice Beauchamp = Thomas Boteler
Joan Boteler = Hamon Belknap
Elizabeth Belknap = William Ferrers
Anne Ferrers = Walter Devereux
Elizabeth Devereux = Richard Corbet
Margaret Corbet = Richard Clive
Dorothy Clive = James Barker of Haghmond [1st cousin 3x removed to my gateway ancestor, Rev. Francis Doughty of MA, NY, MD, and VA]
Margaret Barker = Andrew Charlton
Cecily Charlton = Francis Forester
Mary Forester = Thomas Chetham
Margaret Chetham = Nicholas Loftus
Eleanor Loftus = John Cliffe
Jane Cliffe = Richard Vigors
Ellinor Vigors = William Cliffe
Loftus Cliffe

Loftus Cliffe was a British Army officer in North America during the Revolutionary War, who apparently died in India (see, e.g. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clementsead/umich-wcl-M-2179.1cli;view=text). Unfortunately, I can't connect this family cluster to the present at the moment, although near collateral lines stretch into the early 19th century, so I expect it's only a matter of more time and research.

[Matt A]

A collateral line apparently extends well into the 20th century, for 34 generations:

Elizabeth Devereux = Richard Corbet [as above]
Mary Corbet = Thomas Lacon
Mary Lacon = Thomas Acton
Joyce Acton = Thomas Lucy
Anne Lucy = Edward Aston
Anne Aston = Ambrose Elton
Anne Elton = Thomas Cocks
Dorothy Cocks = Robert Tracy
Dorothy Tracy = William Higford
Frances Higford = Henry Wakeman
Elizabeth Wakeman = ________ Owen
Sarah Owen = William Selby
Mary Frances Selby = Louis Francois Le Cesne
Frances Mary Le Cesne = John Peter Hobkirk
Louisa Jane Hobkirk = Rev. Samuel Berjew Fookes
Grace Fookes = James Sutherland Babington
Dorothy Grace Babington, m.1936 Frithjoj Pihl [who died in 1988 and appears only to have had one child, a son by a different marriage]

[Matt A]

On Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 8:39:44 AM UTC-5, kelsey.jack...@googlemail.com wrote:

My initial impression is also that the longest line outside England is probably in Germany. For instance, I found this 24-generation largely German line, running Eleanor of Aquitaine:

Gerberge ________ b. 1053 = Barthelemy de L'Isle-Bouchard
Maubergeon/Dangerose de L'Isle-Bouchard = Aymeric I de Chatellerault
Aenor de Chatellerault = Guillaume VIII/X de Poitou
Eleanor 'of Aquitaine' = Louis VII of France
Alice de France = Thibaut V de Blois
Marguerite de Blois = Otto II von Burgundy
Beatrix von Burgundy = Otto I von Meran
Margarethe von Meran = Friedrich von Truhendingen
Margareta von Truhendingen = Kraft I von Hohenlohe
Agnes von Hohenlohe = Ulrich II von Hanau
Else/Elisabeth von Hanau = Philipp V von Falkenstein-Münzenberg
Agnes von Falkenstein = Philipp VI von Falkenstein
Agnes von Falkenstein = Philipp VI von Falkenstein-Münzenberg
Agnes von Falkenstein-Münzenberg = Otto von Solms-Braunfels
Agnes von Solms-Braunfels = Ruprecht IV von Vimeburg
Genoveva von Vimeburg = Henrich II von Nassau
Ottilia von Nassau = Philipp von Katzenelnbogen
Ottilie von Katzenelnbogen = Christoph I von Baden
Beatrix von Baden = Johann II von Simmern
Helene von Simmern = Philipp III von Hanau
Dorothea von Hanau = Vollrath von Gleichen
Dorothea Susanne von Gleichen = Georg von Morsperg
Sophie Dorothea von Morsperg = Christian Gunther II von Schwarzburg
Sophie Dorothea von Schwarzburg-Amstadt = Ernst zu Stolberg-Ilsenburg
Sophie Elisabeth zu Stolberg-Ilsenburg = Heinrich XIII Reuss
Sophie Henriette Reuss = Ludwig Gunther IV von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt [1767-90]

But it does not seem to survive past the 18th century. Notably, in many of the German noble matrilines there is a long sequence of women named after their mothers.

Incidentally, I descend from Samuel Thomspon (d.1763)'s first cousin Thomas Thompson, who married Hannah, traditionally called Hannah Rushmore.

[kelsey.jack...@googlemail.com]

Dear Matt,

I suspect you're likely right about Germany being another probable location for longest matriline, at least at its origin point. Something I've noticed is that, lacking the patriarchal ties to a single estate or lordship, matrilineal descents are much more likely to be highly geographically mobile. The idea of an agnatic pedigree beginning in Italy and ending in medieval Scotland sounds implausible at best, but on the matrilineal side of things . . . .

Railinda of Como (fl. later 10th century) = Oberto II, Margrave of Milan
Berte d'Este (d. 1029) = Olderich II, Count of Susa
Irmingard de Susa (d. 1078) = Otto, Herzog von Schwaben, Markgraf von Schweinfurt
Judith von Schweinfurt = Bodo von Pottenstein
Adelheid von Pottenstein (d. after 1106) = Heinrich I, Graf von Limburg
Agnes von Limburg (d. 1136) = Friedrich IV von Putelendorf
Bertha von Putelendorf (d. 1190) = Berthold I, Graf von Henneberg
Irmgard von Henneberg (d. 1197) = Konrad, Pfalzgraf am Rhein
Agnes von Hohenstaufen (d. 1204) = Heinrich I, Pfalzgraf am Rhein
Agnes, Pfalzgräfin am Rhein (d. 1267) = Otto II, Herzog von Bayern
Elisabeth von Bayern (d. 1273) = Meinhard, Herzog von Kärnten
Elisabeth von Tirol (d. 1313) = Albrecht I, Herzog von Österreich
Anna von Österreich (d. 1327) = Hermann, Markgraf von Brandenburg
Mechtild, Markgräfin von Brandenburg = Henryk, Duke Zaganski
Agnes von Schlesien (1312-1362) = Ludwig I, Herzog von Schlesien-Liegnitz in Brieg
Margaretha von Schlesien-Brieg (d. 1386) = Albrecht, Graaf van Holland
Margaretha von Bayern (1363-1424) = Jean, Duc de Bourgogne
Marie de Bourgogne (1394-1463) = Adolf I, Herzog von Kleve
Catharina von Kleve (1417-1479) = Arnold van Hegmond, Hertog van Gelre
Marie van Egmond (1433-1463) = James II, King of Scots
Princess Mary (d. 1488) | Princess Margaret

Both daughters of Marie van Egmond married or left issue by Scottish noblemen and I suspect this descent could be traced down to the present (in which case, it might give the previous 27-generation descent a run for its money).

All the best,
Kelsey

[Peter Stewart]

On 26-Feb-21 3:47 PM, Matt A wrote:

<snip>

> My initial impression is also that the longest line outside England is probably in Germany. For instance, I found this 24-generation largely German line, running Eleanor of Aquitaine:
>
> Gerberge ________ b. 1053 = Barthelemy de L'Isle-Bouchard
> Maubergeon/Dangerose de L'Isle-Bouchard = Aymeric I de Chatellerault

I wonder where you find a birth year for Gerberge at the head of the
list without finding her parentage.

The link from her and her husband to Dangerosa the wife of Aimeric I of
Châtellerault is not firmly documented, just speculation: Gerberge and
Barthelemy occur with a daughter named Dangerosa in an undated charter
ascribed by its editor to ca 1087, while Aimeric named his wife as
Dangerosa without identifying her parents in a charter dated 1109. There
is no proof that these were one and the same woman, as proposed by
Alfred Richard in 1903, although this does seem reasonably likely.

Peter Stewart

[Peter Stewart]

On 26-Feb-21 8:29 PM, kelsey.jack...@googlemail.com wrote:

<snip>

> Dear Matt,
>
> I suspect you're likely right about Germany being another probable location for longest matriline, at least at its origin point. Something I've noticed is that, lacking the patriarchal ties to a single estate or lordship, matrilineal descents are much more likely to be highly geographically mobile. The idea of an agnatic pedigree beginning in Italy and ending in medieval Scotland sounds implausible at best, but on the matrilineal side of things . . . .
>
> Railinda of Como (fl. later 10th century) = Oberto II, Margrave of Milan
> Berte d'Este (d. 1029) = Olderich II, Count of Susa

I don't think the connection to Railenda has survived modern scrutiny -
from memory, Berta is now thought to have been the daughter of an
unknown second wife of her father.

Peter Stewart

[Matt A]

Yes, a birthdate without a parentage should have been a red flag for me as well. As I am unfamiliar with the sources for this time and place, I was entirely dependent on Genealogics, which cites Histoire et Genealogie de la Maison de La Rochefoucauld, La Ricamerie, 1975, Martin, Georges.

[Peter Stewart]

Leo had made duplicate entries for Dangerosa, one with the speculative
parentage derived from Alfred Richard
(https://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00020887&tree=LEO)
and one without this
(https://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00020890&tree=LEO).

The first of these entries includes a link to an ill-informed Wikipedia
article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangereuse_de_l%27Isle_Bouchard),
which wrongly states "Dangereuse was a sobriquet she received for her
seductiveness".

If she was the daughter of Barthelemy and Gerberge then she received the
nick-name Dangerosa early in life (as probably did most of the few other
women who are recorded with it), since she cannot have been other than
their eldest child still in infancy or not much older by ca 1087.

The meaning was most probably 'hard-to-please' or 'disobedient' - the
adjective 'da(u)ngereuse' occurs with these meanings down to the 15th
century at least.

If she had ever been reputed a femme fatale then the term would more
probably have been 'periculosa' rather than 'dangerosa'.

Another person with the same name occurs in a Fontevrault charter from
the 1140s as the donor's sister, "Dangerosa soror mea". Not many people
would refer to their sister as a loose woman.

Peter Stewart

[Peter Stewart]

Sorry Kelsey - my memory had reversed the order of Oberto II's marriages.

His first wife, mother of his sons Adalberto and Hugo, is unknown; his
second wife, mother of his son Oberto III and of Berta, was Railenda of
Piacenza who had also been married before.

Peter Stewart

[Peter Stewart]

A niggling doubt led me to check further - the names Oberto and Berta
were repeated frequently around this time within the family known as
Obertenghi, and the Berta who was daughter of Railenda was not the same
as the Berta who married Olderico Manfredi and whose daughter Irmingard
married Otto of Schweinfurt. The latter Berta's father was another
Oberto, a nephew of Railenda's husband.

The confusion of two Bertas in different lines of the family was an
interpretation by Ferdinando Gabotto in 1918 that has been revised since
- see Romeo Pavoni's 'Problemi di genealogia obertenga' in *Memorie
della Accademia lunigianese di scienze «Giovanni Capellini»* 79 (2009)
at p 277 note 13 and tables I and II on pp 316-317 here:
http://www.accademiacapellini.it/pluginAppObj/pluginAppObj_28_01/MEMORIE-VOL-LXXIX.pdf.

Peter Stewart

[Elizabeth A]

As for the 17th-century gateway ancestor with the longest matriline, that distinction would seem to be held by Anne (Humphrey) Palmes, which is not surprising given the nearness of her noble ancestors:

Maud d'Avranches = William de Curcy
Hawise de Curci = Renaud de Courtenay
Egeline de Courtenay = Gilbert 'II' Basset
Eustachia Basset = Richard de Camville
Idonea de Camville = William Longspee [grandson of Henry I]
Ida Longespee = Walter FitzRobert
Ela FitzWalter = William de Odingsells
Ida de Odingsells = Roger de Herdeburgh
Ela de Herdeburgh = William le Botiler
Ankaret le Botiler = John le Strange
Eleanor le Strange = Reginald de Grey
Edith/Ida de Grey = John Cockayne
Elizabeth Cockayne = Lawrence Cheyne
Elizabeth Cheyne = Frederick Tilney
Elizabeth Tilney = Thomas Howard
Elizabeh Howard = Thomas Boleyn
Mary Boleyn = William Carey [officially; perhaps Henry VIII]
Catherine Carey = Francis Knollys
Anne Knollys = Thomas West
Elizabeth West = Herbert Pelham
Elizabeth Pelham = John Humphrey
Anne Humphrey = William Palmes [to Salem, MA]

Anne (Humphrey) Palmes also has modern matrilineal descendants, for instance:

Susan Palmes = Samuel Avery
Mary Avery = William Walworth
Rebecca Walworth = James Packer
Zurvier Packer = Joseph Sherphardson
Salome Shephardson = Walter Bell
Eliza Ann Bell = Horace Kemp
Ida Grace Kemp = Charles Dewey Miner
Mavie Lucretia Miner = Thomas White
Bell Marion White = Edward Galvin
Nancy Galvin = Kevin Murphy
Dana Murphy [residing in Oakland CA as of the 2012 obituary of her mother] [33 generations in total]

One prominent collateral descendant of this matriline is Charles Cavendish-Bentnick, great-grandfather of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late Queen Mother:

Catherine Carey = Francis Knollys
Lettice Knollys = Walter Devereux
Penelope Devereux = Thomas Rich
Essex Rich = Thomas Cheke
Anne Cheke = Robert Rich
Essex Rich = Daniel Finch
Mary Finch = William Saville
Dorothy Saville = Richard Boyle
Charlotte Boyle = William Cavendish
Dorothy Cavendish = William Cavendish-Bentnick
Charles Cavendish-Bentnick

[Peter Stewart]

On 28-Feb-21 3:16 PM, Elizabeth A wrote:

<snip>

> One prominent collateral descendant of this matriline is Charles Cavendish-Bentnick, great-grandfather of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late Queen Mother:
>
> Catherine Carey = Francis Knollys
> Lettice Knollys = Walter Devereux
> Penelope Devereux = Thomas Rich
> Essex Rich = Thomas Cheke
> Anne Cheke = Robert Rich
> Essex Rich = Daniel Finch
> Mary Finch = William Saville
> Dorothy Saville = Richard Boyle
> Charlotte Boyle = William Cavendish
> Dorothy Cavendish = William Cavendish-Bentnick
> Charles Cavendish-Bentnick

The Cavendish-Bentincks may have been proto-Beatnicks for all I know,
but not "Bentnicks" - their Dutch ancestral name was definitely Bentinck.

Peter Stewart

[Peter Stewart]

The first reference given here is wrong - I couldn't see where note 13
(beginning on p 277) ended and the following note started - I should
have cited note 14, at the end (on p 280).

By the way, if the speculative maternity noted by Pavoni for Olderico
Manfredi's wife Berta is correct, then this matriline can be taken back
a generation further than in the original posting about it.

Alessandro Pallavicino proposed in 2005 that Berta's father Oberto
married ca 980 a daughter of Aleramo, ancestor of the Montferrat and
Vasto families. This would have been part of a double marriage alliance,
since Oberto's sister Gisla married Aleramo's son Anselmo around the
same time. Pallavicino reasoned that this maternity would explain the
rights in Asti and Alba of Oberto's son, Berta's brother Adalberto II.

If this is accepted, then the mother of Berta would have been Aleramo's
second wife Girberga of Ivrea, to whom he was evidently married by March
in an undetermined year between 958 & 961 when she intervened for him
and certainly by August 961 when she was named as his wife. Girbirga's
parents were King Berengar II and Willa; the latter was daughter of
Boso, count of Arles & marquis of Tuscany, and his wife Willa whose
ancestry is unknown (she is often said to have been a daughter of Rodolf
I of Burgundy, but this is just a name's-the-same supposition because
his wife was also a Willa).

Peter Stewart

[Bronwen Edwards]

[Bronwen Edwards]

On Thursday, February 18, 2021 at 2:07:36 PM UTC-8, Jan Wolfe wrote:

>
> If you have a long matrilineal line, perhaps you can post it here.

It's amazing to me how difficult it is to find a matrilineal line at my end of my genealogy. It's been a frustration in doing genealogy to find that this is usually the case, the exceptions being people from important families. I could only build a five-generation matrilineage: Sarah Clark from Inverness and immigrant to Canada; her daughter Henrietta MacInnes, to Canada with her mother & family & then on to the Calif. Gold Rush; her daughter Elizabeth Barrett; her daughter Claire Newman; her daughter Elizabeth Webb, my mother.

[Jan Wolfe]

American Ancestors includes a survey in its "The Weekly Genealogist" email newsletter. Last week the survey asked how many generations respondents had traced in their maternal line. Here are the results:

1%, One (my mother)
3%, Two
10%, Three
19%, Four
19%, Five
12%, Six
8%, Seven
6%, Eight
4%, Nine
5%, Ten
3%, Eleven
13%, Twelve or more
<1%, I have not been able to document the names of any women in my matrilineal line.
<1%, I don’t know.

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

I'm one of the people who answered 10 - my matrilineal ancestors were mostly Quakers, so there's fairly good documentation back to before 1750. The last one is Elizabeth who married Robert Lord of New Jersey; she died in 1726 at about 52 years.