h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks ladies, for your messages.

Haven't looked at Forums yet, but will do so soon.



ps. brrr - have just cycled into the bookshop in town. Had a lovely browse and bought the DaVinci Code, but am still busy trying to plough through the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Nice way to spend 2 hours on Mother's Day.

I've got the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail - I got it several years ago after borrowing it from the library on the strength of all the family trees. I already knew quite a lot of them from my work on ours, but there were parts that overlapped that I didn't realize before. I haven't done anything about the Da Vinci Code, though. When people start hyping something that much, it tends to put me off!

I wonder if you women would like to just fan the embers of the resistance? All though we know our fate is sealed.

Jen has got an appeal about how we can leave a mark about how disappointed we are with the way things have gone with this site. It is a way of stating what the site means to us. Good to give a fitting epitaph for GW on Ican as I think it will still be remaining after this site is closed. Here is a copy of Jen's post to me:

Hi Sweet Serin,

Please do check this out:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting/F2017114?...

And see who has so far:

A3746676

Would love to see you in there too! How's about by Wed 9th March, or thereabouts, if you can?
Also pass this on to anyone else who may be interested.

Hope all is well with you and sorry I ain't been in touch lately. Head up arse and all. Going home this w'end as is Dad's birthday and Mother's Day. Will drop ye a wee 'e' on return with all the craic. May catch you also on Yahoo too! Hehehehehehe!

Thanks and will chat soon, Missus.

Jen
x


Would be great if you could add something FG and Nickers Serin

Thanks Serin,

I have put my thinking hat on re PenJen's Resistance.

The Government here has just given the licence fee another 10 years on the understanding that the BBC does cultural stuff and doesn't chase ratings with downmarket pap. Perhaps this gives strength to the continuation of Get Writing - we are a cultural entity!

Dear Nicky,

You must have the most fascinating family tree. I remember now you saying about moving into your house, because you liked it, then finding out that it had once belonged to your ancestors.

It has got me looking at the family trees in the book and wondering about your family tree links - they must be very ancient. It mentions Jean de Gisors, with property in Sussex and Hampshire, and Jeanne de Bar, grandaughter of Edward I. (Sorry if I'm too inquisitive - but I've only got more recent and decidedly working class people in my family tree - Italian emigrants to Clerkenwell, Victorian public house owners, people born in the workhouse, an Irish grandad who had to work at 14 so couldn't take his scholarship to grammar school, and a grandad in the Scots Guards.)

Have just finished reading the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. I did read it once before - about 8 years ago - and found it very rambling and unexciting to read. This was just before a holiday near Elbe, in France, where we visited a Cathar church in the Lot gorge. We stayed in a small farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and had some very atmospheric twilight walks, one where we came across an unexpected round church. Also, we visited Minervois a few years back, where I was horrified by the accounts of the slaughter of the Cathars, in the local museum.

Also, that year, we went to see the Cathar castle of Lastours, which I thought was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen; with the sound of a waterfall from the valley to one side and tall Cypress trees along a rocky hill. The path to the castle passed through a cave.

I will read the DaVinci Code - knowing it is a derivative book that has been much hyped - but I'm interested in what makes a popular novel. But only after I have finished the Wild Swans (bought from the Cat Protection League shop in Whitchurch for 50p!).

Serin, I've just found your messages at 11 p.m.. I'll have a look at the PenJen thing, and reply properly, in the morning. My husband has been building us a new computer, and this evening was the great switch-over, so I haven't been on here till just now. As you can tell, it's working!

GOODONYAGIRLS! The Irish Colonial and Chieftan (lol) will be happy with a result from my nagging

Serin

Before I forget, both of you... Please will you each send me an email. Now we have this new computer, I have lost the hotmail 'contacts' list which has your email addresses on it.

It wasn't our actual house that belonged to ancestors, but the land it's on that was part of what one of them owned in this part of the world.

Everybody's family tree goes back just as far as everybody else's - I'm just lucky in being able to put names to the people. It wasn't a question of growing up with consciousness of a huge heritage or anything of the kind. We didn't know any of it before about 30 years ago when we started digging. One of my grandmothers had an unusual surname, and most of the bearers of it at that time lived in an isolated country district, so it was quite easy to track them back from there in parish records. It turned out that they had been landed gentry, one of whom had lost all on a game of cards in the 1800s (so my grandmother's family were farm-workers etc.). Going back further, one of them had had as a wife a daughter of the local aristocracy. Once you get into aristocracy, their family trees are recorded by the heralds, as well as wherever they crop up in history, charters etc. (because they originally had the rank only along with the responsibility for running things). All these people tended to marry the children of others of similar rank, so I could track the ancestry on a lot of the branches, the wives' families as well. It does mean that history has all got very interesting, because I know there is a blood-link to so many of the people involved. I used to say the furthest back I knew was a Roman in 16 A.D., but I've recently come across a link to an Irish line that goes back further. Basically, going on what I know of this section of my family, if you say that most people in western Europe are related to one another, you won't be far wrong.

I'm looking at the book I've got here, and realize it ISN'T The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail - it's Bloodline of the Holy Grail, by Laurence Gardner. I imagine it must cover much the same ideas. I was quite surprised when you said it was rambling and unexciting, because this was interesting (but then I thought maybe that's just because I 'know' some of the people), but - different book entirely. I'm not sure how much I believe about the 'holy blood', i.e. the last few links going back to the biblical family, but certainly huge amounts of these charts I know check out from other sources. (The authors could just have grafted the 'interesting' bits onto them, of course.)

I've found Jean de Gisors, in the family of the St Clairs and Orkneys. We descend from Ragnald (I) of Orkney by his wife *and* by his mistress, so there's a connection there. I can't see Jeanne de Bar, but she's a connection too, because we descend from Edward I by his daughter Elizabeth who married Humphrey de Bohun.

A schoolfriend of mine now lives in the Cathar country, and she and her husband are fascinated by it, so I can imagine your holiday visits very well. I could do with some of the sunshine and warmth from there right now!

Hi both of you,

Serin, I was trawling to see if I could find anything to post of someone else's on PenJen's campaign. Will have another go tonight. If I don't find anything then may have to write a short peice.

Nicky, your research sounds totally fascinating. Is it right then that once you hit on a link to the aristocracy that all the trees are there for you to find?

My partner, Rob, has a friend Ian, who lives in Weymouth (near you I think), who is thinking of giving up his job to become a geneologist. At present he's a ranger. Ian and his wife have the chimneypeice covered with photos of their antecedents - his on one side and hers on the other. The families look so very different.

Yes, lovely southern France! Could go for a glass of local red wine while eating outside. We had a holiday in the Creuse region last year, on a farm, where there had been a settlement since pre-historic times. There was a Roman cystern underground, in the centre of the courtyard, and some kind of stone-age religious/dwellings in nearby woods. It was a really atmospheric place. There were also two ancient chestnut trees, that were said to be 1000 years old. One had two wooden ladders leant against it, and the upper one had become part of the tree.

Must dash

'once you hit on a link to the aristocracy that all the trees are there for you to find'

That's a bit sweeping. Someone will have written down a whole lot more of the family records for them as things went along, because the connections mattered - like animals' pedigrees, really! But then it's still hit and miss what things survive into the present day, and do you find where they're kept if they do. (We know that a whole lot of wills for our family were kept in the archives at Exeter Cathedral, but that was bombed in World War II, so the originals are gone. We still hope that maybe someone copied them at some time, but haven't found anything so far.) I've had old histories from France and Germany, and Scotland, and once was lent a book from the Queen's library at Windsor Castle (all through the local library) - but you still have to find out what you need to ask them to get for you.

I love the sound of the place where you stayed - very special.

Your friend could have a good living there if he enjoys this sort of thing. I don't think I'd be so interested if it wasn't my own family - you get mental indigestion after a while, and need to go and do something else (like, for years!). We've got family pictures all up the wall over the stairs, like theirs by their mantelpiece, but the different bits all mixed up. Every so often, one of the children says, 'WHO was that...?'