I previously had a conversation likewise to this when I asked if it's Cerdic or the monarchs of Wessex. I know some people proposed that it was Arnulf of Mentz or Crimthann mac Énnai. What person would be her most distant ancstor that she can trace her linage to withought gaps?

On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 9:10:16 AM UTC-8, Dude wrote:
> I previously had a conversation likewise to this when I asked if it's Cerdic or the monarchs of Wessex. I know some people proposed that it was Arnulf of Mentz or Crimthann mac Énnai. What person would be her most distant ancstor that she can trace her linage to withought gaps?

Really depends on what you mean by 'gaps'. There are a range of qualities of genealogical information, without a black and white division between fully acceptable and absolutely wrong. There is no consistent benchmark for what level of uncertainly, niggling doubt or unconfirmed single sources of late date rise to the level of representing a 'gap'.

taf

On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 1:53:38 PM UTC-5, taf wrote:
> On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 9:10:16 AM UTC-8, Dude wrote:
> > I previously had a conversation likewise to this when I asked if it's Cerdic or the monarchs of Wessex. I know some people proposed that it was Arnulf of Mentz or Crimthann mac Énnai. What person would be her most distant ancstor that she can trace her linage to withought gaps?
> Really depends on what you mean by 'gaps'. There are a range of qualities of genealogical information, without a black and white division between fully acceptable and absolutely wrong. There is no consistent benchmark for what level of uncertainly, niggling doubt or unconfirmed single sources of late date rise to the level of representing a 'gap'.

Well, yes; but maybe the OP question can best be answered by saying that all of the individuals proposed in that thread (the Western ones at least), are all ancestral to the queen. So the answer to the question "Who is the oldest traceable european ancestor of any european?' and 'who is the oldest traceable ancestor of Queen Elizabeth?' Quite possibly have the same answer. There is no one who can trace a genealogical line before the 10th century that does not consist of the uber-wealthy or uber-powerful.

Joe C

On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 5:15:37 PM UTC-5, joseph cook wrote:
> On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 1:53:38 PM UTC-5, taf wrote:
> > On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 9:10:16 AM UTC-8, Dude wrote:
> > > I previously had a conversation likewise to this when I asked if it's Cerdic or the monarchs of Wessex. I know some people proposed that it was Arnulf of Mentz or Crimthann mac Énnai. What person would be her most distant ancstor that she can trace her linage to withought gaps?
> > Really depends on what you mean by 'gaps'. There are a range of qualities of genealogical information, without a black and white division between fully acceptable and absolutely wrong. There is no consistent benchmark for what level of uncertainly, niggling doubt or unconfirmed single sources of late date rise to the level of representing a 'gap'.
> Well, yes; but maybe the OP question can best be answered by saying that all of the individuals proposed in that thread (the Western ones at least), are all ancestral to the queen. So the answer to the question "Who is the oldest traceable european ancestor of any european?' and 'who is the oldest traceable ancestor of Queen Elizabeth?' Quite possibly have the same answer. There is no one who can trace a genealogical line before the 10th century that does not consist of the uber-wealthy or uber-powerful.

Maybe that is the more interesting question. What is the oldest traceable Western European genealogical line with none of the links being a knight, lord, baron, or other titled individual. I would be hard pressed to identify one that extended to before the 1350s or so...

--Joe C

On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 4:17:57 PM UTC-6, joe...@gmail.com wrote:

> Maybe that is the more interesting question. What is the oldest traceable Western European genealogical line with none of the links being a knight, lord, baron, or other titled individual. I would be hard pressed to identify one that extended to before the 1350s or so...

I have such a solidly documented line in my own ancestry going back to the early 1400's, and I would not be at all surprised if others could do a century or more better than that.

Stewart Baldwin

On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 7:14:46 AM UTC+1, Stewart Baldwin wrote:
> On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 4:17:57 PM UTC-6, joe...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Maybe that is the more interesting question. What is the oldest traceable Western European genealogical line with none of the links being a knight, lord, baron, or other titled individual. I would be hard pressed to identify one that extended to before the 1350s or so...
> I have such a solidly documented line in my own ancestry going back to the early 1400's, and I would not be at all surprised if others could do a century or more better than that.
>
> Stewart Baldwin

I would be interested to hear what type of people they were Stewart, in order for such records to exist? Not even a lord of a manor, or an armiger? Perhaps wealthy citizens of a city?

Le vendredi 21 janvier 2022 à 07:14:46 UTC+1, Stewart Baldwin a écrit :
> On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 4:17:57 PM UTC-6, joe...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Maybe that is the more interesting question. What is the oldest traceable Western European genealogical line with none of the links being a knight, lord, baron, or other titled individual. I would be hard pressed to identify one that extended to before the 1350s or so...
> I have such a solidly documented line in my own ancestry going back to the early 1400's, and I would not be at all surprised if others could do a century or more better than that.
>
> Stewart Baldwin

"Bourgeoisie" registers in French and Belgian Flanders begin very early (1291 for Lille or 1380 for Ypres for example) and it is not unusual to be able to trace a line to the earliest registers. I have myself solid lines until individuals probably born late 1300s-early 1400s.
regards

antoine

There are IPMs, feet of fines and Common Pleas records going back to the early 13th century, so there could be people who are gentry (by a later definition) but not knights, lords or barons. (Though Knights in the 13th century were a broader social class than they were in the 15th century.)

> I would be interested to hear what type of people they were Stewart, in order for such records to exist? Not even a lord of a manor, or an armiger? Perhaps wealthy citizens of a city?

On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 1:14:46 AM UTC-5, Stewart Baldwin wrote:
> On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 4:17:57 PM UTC-6, joe...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Maybe that is the more interesting question. What is the oldest traceable Western European genealogical line with none of the links being a knight, lord, baron, or other titled individual. I would be hard pressed to identify one that extended to before the 1350s or so...
> I have such a solidly documented line in my own ancestry going back to the early 1400's, and I would not be at all surprised if others could do a century or more better than that.
>
> Stewart Baldwin

As far as I know churches diden't start keeping record of baptisms, marriages and deaths of the until the prodesitent reformation in the mid 1500s. Before that all the commoners lived their entire lives under the wire with no documentation. Also keep in mind that almost no one literate at that time anyways (not even the kings until the late middle ages) and only the clergy would keep records. In addition many of the records were not preserved well and lost forever. The furest commoner that anyone in Europe can trace their ancestery to withought gaps to the best of my knowlage is Fulbert de Falise. He was believed to be a tanner or mortition. His daughter became the mistress of Robert I "The Magnificent", Duke of Normandy and had the Illegitament child William "the Conqueror" FitzRobert, Duke of Normandy, King of England. But to answer your question you will almost certainly not find record of any of your ancestors that lived before the mid 1400s unless they had a signifagent social status.

In England there were records that included common people back through the 14th century: Poll Tax returns, lay subsidies, manorial court rolls, legal records...

That's no guarantee that you will be able to trace any particular family, but records exist.

> As far as I know churches diden't start keeping record of baptisms, marriages and deaths of the until the prodesitent reformation in the mid 1500s. Before that all the commoners lived their entire lives under the wire with no documentation. Also keep in mind that almost no one literate at that time anyways (not even the kings until the late middle ages) and only the clergy would keep records. In addition many of the records were not preserved well and lost forever. The furest commoner that anyone in Europe can trace their ancestery to withought gaps to the best of my knowlage is Fulbert de Falise. He was believed to be a tanner or mortition. His daughter became the mistress of Robert I "The Magnificent", Duke of Normandy and had the Illegitament child William "the Conqueror" FitzRobert, Duke of Normandy, King of England. But to answer your question you will almost certainly not find record of any of your ancestors that lived before the mid 1400s unless they had a signifagent social status.

John McCoy has used notarial records in Switzerland to trace the Dutoit family of Moudon to the mid 1400s. See https://www.realmac.info/~chevaud/dutoit/ or http://sites.rootsweb.com/~chevaud/dutoit/.

I think that a genealogist in Germany has traced one of the ancestral families of my great grandfather and great grandmother from the Winnenden area of Württemberg to an Ulrich Hilt born about 1465 (my great grandfather's ancestor once and my great grandmother's four times so far in the records I have seen). I haven't had time yet to study the specific records used for this line before the parish registers (1558).

On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 5:05:41 AM UTC-8, Dude wrote:

> Before that all the commoners lived their entire lives under the wire
> with no documentation.

This is an oversimplification.

> Also keep in mind that almost no one literate at that time anyways (not
> even the kings until the late middle ages) and only the clergy would keep
> records.

This really isn't the case. Most kings were at least minimally literate. Likewise, there was a burgeoning bureaucracy staffed by literate clerks that recorded all kinds of records (court, tax, transactions) up and down (though not all the way down) the social ladder. As a result, on a manorial level as well as in the livery companies of cities there were numerous records of commoners. But as you say . . .

> In addition many of the records were not preserved well and lost forever.

> The furest commoner that anyone in Europe can trace their ancestery
> to withought gaps to the best of my knowlage is Fulbert de Falise. He
>was believed to be a tanner or mortition. His daughter became the
> mistress of Robert I "The Magnificent", Duke of Normandy and had the
> Illegitament child William "the Conqueror" FitzRobert, Duke of Normandy,
> King of England.

Fulbert's status is not well documented. At least one scholar has suggested that the historical anecdote that led to him being viewed as a tanner has been misinterpreted, and that he was actually a chamberlain, which would not be a role for a commoner. Even were he a commoner, I don't think he was the earliest. Robert of Normandy isn't the first prominent man recorded to have taken a 'commoner' as mistress (even among the Norman Dukes), and some of the pedigrees get us back, at least for a generation, to what was basically a tribal setting where it is hard to project these terms of social stratification onto individuals.

taf

On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 12:36:57 PM UTC-5, Jan Wolfe wrote:
> I think that a genealogist in Germany has traced one of the ancestral families of my great grandfather and great grandmother from the Winnenden area of Württemberg to an Ulrich Hilt born about 1465 (my great grandfather's ancestor once and my great grandmother's four times so far in the records I have seen). I haven't had time yet to study the specific records used for this line before the parish registers (1558).

Yes, the families of Winnenden and Württemberg are very well documented in town records even before baptismal records.

The oldest non-notable I can see in my line is one Heintz Rabe of Marburg, Hesse, Germany who was born probably in the 1390s. He held some small town office, and I descend through his son Johannes who was not notable at all, just a baker who is recorded selling his wares. The citizenship lists of Marburg go into the early 1400s I believe. There are records of the homeowners and residences down generation to generation back this far. Luckily there is a single work that records every family of every person who ever lived in Marburg, Germany. 1500-1850 and their relatives and biographical details.

The problem earlier than this is that people didn't really have "family names" of any sort in the records much earlier that were passed generation to generation. In some parts of germany, family names were not common even by 1500 CE.

On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 4:46:30 PM UTC-5, joe...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 12:36:57 PM UTC-5, Jan Wolfe wrote:
> > I think that a genealogist in Germany has traced one of the ancestral families of my great grandfather and great grandmother from the Winnenden area of Württemberg to an Ulrich Hilt born about 1465 (my great grandfather's ancestor once and my great grandmother's four times so far in the records I have seen). I haven't had time yet to study the specific records used for this line before the parish registers (1558).
> Yes, the families of Winnenden and Württemberg are very well documented in town records even before baptismal records.
>
> The oldest non-notable I can see in my line is one Heintz Rabe of Marburg, Hesse, Germany who was born probably in the 1390s. He held some small town office, and I descend through his son Johannes who was not notable at all, just a baker who is recorded selling his wares. The citizenship lists of Marburg go into the early 1400s I believe. There are records of the homeowners and residences down generation to generation back this far. Luckily there is a single work that records every family of every person who ever lived in Marburg, Germany. 1500-1850 and their relatives and biographical details.
>
> The problem earlier than this is that people didn't really have "family names" of any sort in the records much earlier that were passed generation to generation. In some parts of germany, family names were not common even by 1500 CE.
Matt Tompkins posted notes to soc.genealogy.medieval in 2006 showing that the Pigott family of Little Horwood in Buckinghamshire faked its pedigree in the visitations and descended from peasant families in Great Horwood and Winslow. His thesis sets out these peasant family trees as evidenced in the manor court rolls which connect these people back to 1423. There is a gap in the rolls between 1377 and 1423. The same family names do appear in the C14 rolls, but it is impossible to make specific connections across the fifty-year gap.

It is true that member of the Pigott family did achieve standing as gentry and were knighted in the C16, thus failing Joseph Cook’s precondition that there be no knights in the pedigree.

Tracing a descent from several generations of named peasants is nonetheless rare and may well have mortified gentler descendants. Anyone descended from Jeremy Clarke would share these peasant ancestors or for that matter from Richard Weston, Justice of the Common Pleas, whose origins gave rise to heated discussion in 2014.

Scott Swanson

On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 1:14:46 AM UTC-5, Stewart Baldwin wrote:
> On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 4:17:57 PM UTC-6, joe...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Maybe that is the more interesting question. What is the oldest traceable Western European genealogical line with none of the links being a knight, lord, baron, or other titled individual. I would be hard pressed to identify one that extended to before the 1350s or so...
> I have such a solidly documented line in my own ancestry going back to the early 1400's, and I would not be at all surprised if others could do a century or more better than that.
>
> Stewart Baldwin

Do we disqualify the line if any wife in the line had an ancestor who was a knight or titled?

On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 3:19:22 AM UTC-6, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
> I would be interested to hear what type of people they were Stewart, in order for such records to exist? Not even a lord of a manor, or an armiger? Perhaps wealthy citizens of a city?

The ancestors I was referring to appeared in a 1457 deed, which mentioned John Moore/More of La More, son of John Moore, and Rose (wife of the younger John Moore), daughter of William Brace of Droitwich. William Brace was apparently a wealthy resident of Droitwich, who was (based on arms quartered by his descendants) a cadet member of the Braces of Droitwich, who held the manor of Doverdale, but I don't have proof as to exactly how he descended from that family. Based on the same quarterings, the above John Mores were evidently cadets of the Mores of Haddon in Oxfordshire. Since I don't have proof of the parentage of either William Brace or the elder John More, I'm not sure how much further you would have to go to get to a lord of a manor. Perhaps only one additional generation, perhaps more. If "not an armiger" is required, then my example won't work, but I didn't see that in the original requirements.

In any case, as Vance has already pointed out, there are a large number of Common Pleas records available back to the 13th century, and I suspect that a thorough examination of these (perhaps by someone with infinitely more free time on their hands than I have) would produce numerous examples.

Stewart Baldwin

On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 5:17:57 PM UTC-5, joe...@gmail.com wrote:
[snip]
> Maybe that is the more interesting question. What is the oldest traceable Western European genealogical line with none of the links being a knight, lord, baron, or other titled individual. I would be hard pressed to identify one that extended to before the 1350s or so...
>
> --Joe C

I believe (I haven’t personally done the documentary research) I am descended from a Swiss family named Ringger from Canton Zurich; the progenitor is said to be Uli Ringger, born in the first half of the 14th c.

I also have a descent from the Maplesden/Mapelsden family of Kent, which included mayors of Maidstone (and also knights later, but not in my direct line). Would this count? If the Kent visitation is to be believed (admittedly a big “IF”), the family descends from a Henry Mapelsden who must (according to generational math) have flourished in the mid- to late-14th c.

Jim+

On Saturday, January 22, 2022 at 12:25:34 AM UTC-5, Jan Wolfe wrote:
> On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 1:14:46 AM UTC-5, Stewart Baldwin wrote:
> > On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 4:17:57 PM UTC-6, joe...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > > Maybe that is the more interesting question. What is the oldest traceable Western European genealogical line with none of the links being a knight, lord, baron, or other titled individual. I would be hard pressed to identify one that extended to before the 1350s or so...
> > I have such a solidly documented line in my own ancestry going back to the early 1400's, and I would not be at all surprised if others could do a century or more better than that.
> >
> > Stewart Baldwin
> Do we disqualify the line if any wife in the line had an ancestor who was a knight or titled?

Perhaps another example of a "non-titled" English line traceable to the 1400s is my line to Laurence Omer of Ash-next-Sandwich, Kent (https://www-personal.umich.edu/~bobwolfe/gen/person/g19175.htm). Laurence wrote his will in 1487 and was dead by1489. Laurence's younger son, Thomas, wrote his will in 1504. The bequests suggest that Thomas had four sons who were of age and a daughter who had a daughter. This suggests that Laurence was likely born in the first half of the 1400s, say about 1430. One wife in the line (Alice Stoughton) may be the great granddaughter of Isabel Culpeper whose ancestors were knights. Alice's great grandfather was Walter Roberts. Walter's mother was Agnes Baker whose grandfather Adam Baker of Ticehurst, Sussex, was born in the first half of the 1300s.

Bonjour

La population du Puy Sainte Réparade a pu être reconstitué en quasi totalité jusque 1350, grâce aux notaires subsistant

Les familles D'origines srictement marseillaise peuvent etre retracée jusque 1328 grace a un fond de notaire exceptionnelement bien conservé..
Les marseillais d'origine remontent tous a Guillaume RICARD , meunier du moulin d'Allauch en 1250 et Pierre BLANC, boucher à Marseille vers 1230
http://fbarby.lagenealogie.org/
JL

Meanwhile, in Iceland:
Íslendingabók hefur að geyma upplýsingar um 904.000 einstaklinga, helming allra íbúa Íslands frá landnámi eyjarinnar á 9. öld.

Or:
Íslendingabók contains information on 904,000 individuals, half of the total population of Iceland since the settlement of the island in the 9th century

On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 5:59:03 PM UTC, taf wrote:
> On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 5:05:41 AM UTC-8, Dude wrote:
>
> > Before that all the commoners lived their entire lives under the wire
> > with no documentation.
> This is an oversimplification.
> > Also keep in mind that almost no one literate at that time anyways (not
> > even the kings until the late middle ages) and only the clergy would keep
> > records.
> This really isn't the case. Most kings were at least minimally literate. Likewise, there was a burgeoning bureaucracy staffed by literate clerks that recorded all kinds of records (court, tax, transactions) up and down (though not all the way down) the social ladder. As a result, on a manorial level as well as in the livery companies of cities there were numerous records of commoners. But as you say . . .
> > In addition many of the records were not preserved well and lost forever.
>
> > The furest commoner that anyone in Europe can trace their ancestery
> > to withought gaps to the best of my knowlage is Fulbert de Falise. He
> >was believed to be a tanner or mortition. His daughter became the
> > mistress of Robert I "The Magnificent", Duke of Normandy and had the
> > Illegitament child William "the Conqueror" FitzRobert, Duke of Normandy,
> > King of England.
> Fulbert's status is not well documented. At least one scholar has suggested that the historical anecdote that led to him being viewed as a tanner has been misinterpreted, and that he was actually a chamberlain, which would not be a role for a commoner. Even were he a commoner, I don't think he was the earliest. Robert of Normandy isn't the first prominent man recorded to have taken a 'commoner' as mistress (even among the Norman Dukes), and some of the pedigrees get us back, at least for a generation, to what was basically a tribal setting where it is hard to project these terms of social stratification onto individuals.
>
> taf

The Angevins claimed descent from one Tortulf the Woodman [AKA Tertulle]. He doesnt sound that
noble. And so the queen would also be descended from him. But did he actually exist? I found this
old post in the archives from 1996 about him:

>> nta...@fas.harvard.edu (Nathaniel Taylor) wrote:
>> >In article <4r68le$p...@peach.america.net>, "Gerald L. Blanchard"
>> ><jer...@america.net> wrote:
>>
snip
>> But what about Tertulle? Did he ever exist? Does anyone know
>> of any contemporary source that mentions him. I remember reading
>> that Ingelger, father of Fulk I, had a father called Tordulf or
>> Tortulf the Woodman, who is supposed to have received land
>> from Charles the Bald. Has this ever been verified? Even so
>> if this Tortulf is Tertulle, was he count of Anjou?
>
>I don't have these materials to hand, but for some reason Bachrach seemed
>to accept the (late) evidence of the Gesta consulum andegavorum and
>assumed that the named parents of Ingelger were real people--they may not
>have been counts (or marquesses), but they probably were not 'woodmen'.
>It was a common device of the twelfth-century comital genealogies to
>attribute the line to someone who rose by merit, like a knight errant,
>under the middle or later Carolingians.
>
>Even if Tertullus and Petronilla are historical personages and the
>testimony of the gesta is to be accepted, there is no known genealogical
>link from Ingelger to Charlemagne, and that was the point of the original
>post.
>
>Nat Taylor
It is as you say the 12th century _Gesta Consulum_, which tells
the history of the Angevin dynasty from the 9th century, which
furnishes these genealogical details.

In this source, Tertulle was the son of Tortulf, who it says
was made royal forester at Limelle near Angers by Charles the
Bald. He rose to favour with the king, and his son Tertulle
became a _clientela regis_ at court, and received the benefice
or fief of Chateau-Landon in the Gatinais. But he was not a
count, only a _miles_. The king arranged his marriage to
Petronilla relative of Hugo the Abbot (d.886). Their son Ingelgar
married the grand-daughter of the lord of Amboise, who was also
the niece of Adalard Archbishop of Tours 875-91, and Raino of
Angers 880-905. He served first as viscount of Orleans, then
'prefect of Tours', before becoming Count of Anjou.

So goes the story. However the _Gesta_ is probably not a
reliable source for the 9th century, written as it was so far
removed from the period it describes, and under direction of
Fulk IV: as you say it is doubtful whether Tertulle or Petronilla
existed. Their names are unlikely for the 9th century. The
_gesta_ uses 12th century forms and langauge which would not
be the case if they were genuinely working from 9th century
materials or sources. Moreover even Ingelgar was never count
of Anjou: his son Fulk I only took that title in 929. The
_gesta_ seeks to legitimise the dynasty's ancestral control
of Anjou and the Loire valley, by connecting it to Charles
the Bald and earlier noble families. However in ascribing a
relationship with Hugo the abbot, it may preserve a tradition
that the ancesters of Fulk I served in the retinue of the
9th century Marquis's of Neustria; Robert the Strong (d.866),
Hugo the Abbot (866-86), Odo (886-8), Robert II (886-922).
As their deputy, Ingelgar may well have been viscount of
Orleans and then Tours. While I have yet to locate a Tortulf
or a Tertulle in the sources of the second half of the ninth
century, there are several Ingelgars. I shall keep looking.

tom>>

And presumably never found any evidence. But surely the oldest verifiable ancestor
of the Queen is Egbert of Wessex d839 ?

mike

On Saturday, January 22, 2022 at 1:00:08 PM UTC-5, mike davis wrote:
> On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 5:59:03 PM UTC, taf wrote:
> > On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 5:05:41 AM UTC-8, Dude wrote:
> >
> > > Before that all the commoners lived their entire lives under the wire
> > > with no documentation.
> > This is an oversimplification.
> > > Also keep in mind that almost no one literate at that time anyways (not
> > > even the kings until the late middle ages) and only the clergy would keep
> > > records.
> > This really isn't the case. Most kings were at least minimally literate.. Likewise, there was a burgeoning bureaucracy staffed by literate clerks that recorded all kinds of records (court, tax, transactions) up and down (though not all the way down) the social ladder. As a result, on a manorial level as well as in the livery companies of cities there were numerous records of commoners. But as you say . . .
> > > In addition many of the records were not preserved well and lost forever.
> >
> > > The furest commoner that anyone in Europe can trace their ancestery
> > > to withought gaps to the best of my knowlage is Fulbert de Falise. He
> > >was believed to be a tanner or mortition. His daughter became the
> > > mistress of Robert I "The Magnificent", Duke of Normandy and had the
> > > Illegitament child William "the Conqueror" FitzRobert, Duke of Normandy,
> > > King of England.
> > Fulbert's status is not well documented. At least one scholar has suggested that the historical anecdote that led to him being viewed as a tanner has been misinterpreted, and that he was actually a chamberlain, which would not be a role for a commoner. Even were he a commoner, I don't think he was the earliest. Robert of Normandy isn't the first prominent man recorded to have taken a 'commoner' as mistress (even among the Norman Dukes), and some of the pedigrees get us back, at least for a generation, to what was basically a tribal setting where it is hard to project these terms of social stratification onto individuals.
> >
> > taf
> The Angevins claimed descent from one Tortulf the Woodman [AKA Tertulle]. He doesnt sound that
> noble. And so the queen would also be descended from him. But did he actually exist? I found this
> old post in the archives from 1996 about him:
>
> >> nta...@fas.harvard.edu (Nathaniel Taylor) wrote:
> >> >In article <4r68le$p...@peach.america.net>, "Gerald L. Blanchard"
> >> ><jer...@america.net> wrote:
> >>
> snip
> >> But what about Tertulle? Did he ever exist? Does anyone know
> >> of any contemporary source that mentions him. I remember reading
> >> that Ingelger, father of Fulk I, had a father called Tordulf or
> >> Tortulf the Woodman, who is supposed to have received land
> >> from Charles the Bald. Has this ever been verified? Even so
> >> if this Tortulf is Tertulle, was he count of Anjou?
> >
> >I don't have these materials to hand, but for some reason Bachrach seemed
> >to accept the (late) evidence of the Gesta consulum andegavorum and
> >assumed that the named parents of Ingelger were real people--they may not
> >have been counts (or marquesses), but they probably were not 'woodmen'.
> >It was a common device of the twelfth-century comital genealogies to
> >attribute the line to someone who rose by merit, like a knight errant,
> >under the middle or later Carolingians.
> >
> >Even if Tertullus and Petronilla are historical personages and the
> >testimony of the gesta is to be accepted, there is no known genealogical
> >link from Ingelger to Charlemagne, and that was the point of the original
> >post.
> >
> >Nat Taylor
> It is as you say the 12th century _Gesta Consulum_, which tells
> the history of the Angevin dynasty from the 9th century, which
> furnishes these genealogical details.
>
> In this source, Tertulle was the son of Tortulf, who it says
> was made royal forester at Limelle near Angers by Charles the
> Bald. He rose to favour with the king, and his son Tertulle
> became a _clientela regis_ at court, and received the benefice
> or fief of Chateau-Landon in the Gatinais. But he was not a
> count, only a _miles_. The king arranged his marriage to
> Petronilla relative of Hugo the Abbot (d.886). Their son Ingelgar
> married the grand-daughter of the lord of Amboise, who was also
> the niece of Adalard Archbishop of Tours 875-91, and Raino of
> Angers 880-905. He served first as viscount of Orleans, then
> 'prefect of Tours', before becoming Count of Anjou.
>
> So goes the story. However the _Gesta_ is probably not a
> reliable source for the 9th century, written as it was so far
> removed from the period it describes, and under direction of
> Fulk IV: as you say it is doubtful whether Tertulle or Petronilla
> existed. Their names are unlikely for the 9th century. The
> _gesta_ uses 12th century forms and langauge which would not
> be the case if they were genuinely working from 9th century
> materials or sources. Moreover even Ingelgar was never count
> of Anjou: his son Fulk I only took that title in 929. The
> _gesta_ seeks to legitimise the dynasty's ancestral control
> of Anjou and the Loire valley, by connecting it to Charles
> the Bald and earlier noble families. However in ascribing a
> relationship with Hugo the abbot, it may preserve a tradition
> that the ancesters of Fulk I served in the retinue of the
> 9th century Marquis's of Neustria; Robert the Strong (d.866),
> Hugo the Abbot (866-86), Odo (886-8), Robert II (886-922).
> As their deputy, Ingelgar may well have been viscount of
> Orleans and then Tours. While I have yet to locate a Tortulf
> or a Tertulle in the sources of the second half of the ninth
> century, there are several Ingelgars. I shall keep looking.
>
> tom>>
>
> And presumably never found any evidence. But surely the oldest verifiable ancestor
> of the Queen is Egbert of Wessex d839 ?
>
> mike
Arnulf of Mentz b.582 has sufficant documentation to Emperor Charlamange.

On Saturday, January 22, 2022 at 6:00:28 AM UTC-8, James Baker wrote:

> I believe (I haven’t personally done the documentary research) I am descended from a
> Swiss family named Ringger from Canton Zurich; the progenitor is said to be Uli Ringger,
> born in the first half of the 14th c.

My earliest non-English-gentry-linked line is also Swiss, but I didn't get that far back (well, yet at least).

> I also have a descent from the Maplesden/Mapelsden family of Kent, which included mayors
> of Maidstone (and also knights later, but not in my direct line). Would this count? If the Kent
> visitation is to be believed (admittedly a big “IF”), the family descends from a Henry Mapelsden
> who must (according to generational math) have flourished in the mid- to late-14th c.

This is the classic problem. A pedigree from a much later date for people too obscure to be readily identified in contemporary sources. It is almost certainly not accurate all the way back, given the societal pressure at the time of the visitations to extend one's pedigree back, but one has no basis for knowning where it transitions from accurate genealogy to just made-up generations.

taf

On 1/21/2022 3:19 AM, lancast...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 7:14:46 AM UTC+1, Stewart Baldwin wrote:
>> On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 4:17:57 PM UTC-6, joe...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> Maybe that is the more interesting question. What is the oldest traceable Western European genealogical line with none of the links being a knight, lord, baron, or other titled individual. I would be hard pressed to identify one that extended to before the 1350s or so...
>> I have such a solidly documented line in my own ancestry going back to the early 1400's, and I would not be at all surprised if others could do a century or more better than that.
>>
>> Stewart Baldwin
>
> I would be interested to hear what type of people they were Stewart, in order for such records to exist? Not even a lord of a manor, or an armiger? Perhaps wealthy citizens of a city?
>

Somebody (Stewart Baldwin?) suggested Fulbert the "tanner". Along that
line, what about Ketil, father of Aud, and on up in Iceland? I descend
from her.

I do the genetic genealogy for the Clan Donald. I would argue that up in
Scotland it all depends on what you consider gentry or "knight". IF
you equate Clan chief to "knight" the we're in that category, but
numerous of ours are mighty low level for "knight" .... "famous Scots
Mafia hitman" would be accurate. Even quite a few not so famous. We've
got the DNA to back it up.

Doug McDonald