British Pensioner creates Worlds biggest Family Tree

[stanmapstone]

No illegitimate births  no brickwalls 

Stan

[Gatacre]

You are right, Stan.

Wish I had a jump back to the 12C and rich land owners.   

My brick walls cannot be climbed or knocked down with a bulldozer

[stanmapstone]

According to the National Archives
Although Domesday contains many thousands of names it is probable that only two families can, with any certainty, trace their lineage back in the male line to an Anglo-Saxon forebear mentioned in Domesday. Anglo-Norman ancestors who held large estates and are often given surnames in Domesday are easier to trace. But even here the problem remains that between 1086 and 1154, the date of the first continuous series of public records, there is a gap in the archives.

Stan

[Gatacre]

Stan

I have read this, too  and when I started doing FH in 1976 my son bought a good book  written by a well-known researcher of the day who pointed all the pitfalls in the rural counties or anywhere for that matter of finding a surname which maybe was mentioned just  twice in the early centuries and assuming that one belonged to you.  One has definitely to prove and not assume as records were not available to have that name for oneself.

However, I do not think I will ever get into that position in England with the Industrial Revolution playing havoc nor in  N. Ireland  where the records that are available do not help nor with the seemingly endless records in America where I found my paternal g.g.g. grandfathers births in 1767 and 1768 from family bibles not discovered until 2000.  BUT I do not think we will ever stop trying

Norah

[davidft]

Personally i take his claims with a pinch of salt. He seems to be running a campaign to get himself in the Guiness book of records. I saw him on a television programme over a year ago with his "fantastic" tree. It all fell a bit flat when the interviewer queried the veracity of some of his records 

[Lydart]

But was the interviewer someone who actually KNEW anything about genealogy or such research and its hazards ?

The mans web-site gives some good stories, but to put everything he has found on it in his years of paper searches, would take a team of typists months and months !

I'm staying open-minded ...

[davidft]

Well if not an expert in genealogy the interviewer had certainly been primed to ask the right questions.

[Lydart]

Most interviewers are well primed ... one of our neighbours is a BBC TV news reporter ... he can interview anyone on absolutely any subject ! 

[Gatacre]

Would Nick Barrat have  given it a positive comment if there was no real evidence in the early centuries to support the man's claims?

We need what the experts really think  about the research ...in print ..to be able to make up our own minds about this puzzle.