How do I check ancestry?

Question

My dad says we are descendants of Tristan Knight one of the Knights of the round table but I don't know if it's true or not. How do I check? (And don't say ancestry.com) I am very eager to know if I am of Noble birth.

Answer 1

Whoa! Merry Olde England had a king (several of them at the same time, as Arthur was a king only in one area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur



Anyhew, Arthur was king; under him were the nobles; under the nobles and fighting for them were the knights. The supreme power then were the clergy.



So, even if it is true that you are descended from Tristan, you would not be descended from nobility. The poor folks had 2 ways of improving their lives: join the clergy, or become a knight (that is a mercenary in more modern terms. Of course, the third way was to be a bandit or pirate....



The legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table has never been proved, although there is much evidence to lend credence to the story. It is like the story of Robin Hood (I am descended from a Robin who lived in Sherwood Forest...it is always fun to think, Wow! Maybe he was an ancestor! But, again, the story of Robin Hood is just that: a

story. Probably also backed by facts, a real-life person, just not like the stories handed down to us.



If being descended from Nobility is your bag, don't sweat it: you are. No matter where in the world you live, where in the world your ancestors came from, some where along the line you had noble ancestors.



E.g., I am descended from Charlemagne, through 3 different lines that I know of. That means I am also descended from kings & queens in every country in Europe, as well as Roman caesars.



Now-a-days, in the U.S., the poor have the most children. Why not? They do not need to work; the Government supports them. Same with all the Illegals (now more than 60,000,000 living in the U.S. --- www.census.gov), but before, if a poor couple had children, most would die before reaching adulthood. Kings & queens & nobles had dozens, even hundreds, or thousands (just google King Louis, esp. Louis XIV). They had plenty of food, the best housing, and what passed as medical care; most of their children survived.



If you have truly searched your genealogy, you already know this. Until the late 1800s, the most common cause of death for women was childbirth, for men, "accidents" (being kicked by the mule, horse, bitten by snakes, chopping a tree down and its falling on him, etc.)





Read books, such as this one: “Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through Our Genes” by Steve Olson, who claims that everyone in the world is descended from Nefertiti, Confucius, and Julius Caesar. Other genealogists add Mohammed the Prophet.

Answer 2

Fine, I won't say "ancestry.com" even though they are excellent in my opinion.



The way to find out is to begin to make a family tree. Yes, it's tedious. Yes, you'll have to put time and energy into it. Yes, you'll have to be patient while you dig through records and confirm that the records are indeed something that belongs to your family line.



I would go and utilize the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) genealogy database of information. There are also other genealogy sites and blogs. Just Google "genealogy" and "search". They will point you in the right direction and show you how to do the research that's needed here. There's not any ONE source of this type of information. So...



Start with you and then your parents and then your grandparents and so forth. Interview and authenticate the information given to you by your family. Authenticate it by checking with the genealogy databases such as the one that I have mentioned. It is the only way to know for sure if their memory of descendants is correct.



If you truly want to know if you are of Noble birth, then all this work to find out will be well worth it in the end. If, on the other hand, you're just wanting a quick confirmation of your possible Noble birth - you're probably out of luck because such research takes quite a bit of careful checking, interviewing and authenticating. You may find in the end, that there is no clear way to your answer. You may need to hire a professional to help you will your search.

Answer 3

Tristan (Latin/Brythonic: Drustanus; Welsh: Drystan; also known as Tristran, Tristram, etc.) is one of the main characters of the Tristan and Iseult story, a Cornish hero and one of the Knights of the Round Table featuring in the Matter of Britain. He is the son of Blancheflor and Rivalen (in later versions Isabelle and Meliodas), and the nephew of King Mark of Cornwall, sent to fetch Iseult back from Ireland to wed the king. However, he and Iseult accidentally consume a love potion while en route and fall helplessly in love. The pair undergo numerous trials that test their secret affair.

The Tristan Knight as well as King Aurthur and the knights of the round table are legends. There has never been any proof that they really existed. If you type Tristan Knight into the search numerous sites are available, with a lot of information about the Legends.

Answer 4

Ask your dad for his sources. With rare exception, you can't trace a family tree much further than 1650, give or take half a century. The chances of anyone being able to make a credible case for being descended from someone in the 600's is slender.



How you'd check would be to trace your ancestors back to the ones that immigrated from England, then fly there and start poring through church records, histories and archives for THEIR ancestors. Figure 10 years or so, at 40 hours a week.





> I am very eager to know if I am of Noble birth.



If your father is a Duke or better, you are. If not, you aren't.

Answer 5

Oh family stories are great.....................but in reality how would your dad know this to be true? http://familytimeline.webs.com/familystoryorfairystory.htm



If you want to research your ancestry and if this story interests you enough to drive you to, then start with yourself and work back one step at a time http://familytimeline.webs.com/recordsinyourownhome.htm this website will help you



......however bear in mind......... Was Arthur a true, historical figure or only a hero of legend?, No records exist so it is legend and a lovely fairy story that possibly has been passed down generation to generation and embellished on the way each time......................................

Answer 6

If your father says so, ask him how he knows this. Does he know the name of the son of daughter of whom Tristan was the father from whom the line descends? Can he supply any record of an historical family who made the same claim from whom he is supposed to descend?



Family trees, even when written down, are often bogus, just family legends.



I suspect that is the case with what your father told you.



There are some obscure medieval romances in which Tristan is said to have had children by Iseult.



In the Italian romance “I Due Tristani”, Tristan is said to be the father of two children by Iseult when he and Iseult were at the Castle of Tears. See http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/mart/mart178.htm for the story of the Castle of Tears. In this version two children were born, named Tristan and Isolde (Iseult) and the tale tells how this second Tristan was brought up by foster parents and was made King of Cornwall by King Mark, who wrongly believed that this was the son of Tristan, his nephew, by the second Iseult, Iseult of the White Hands. This younger Tristan eventually married Maria, daughter of King Juan of Castile, whom he had saved from the Moors. That last, of course is historically nonsense. No 5th or 6th century Juan of Castile is known and no Moors attacked Spain in that era. Indeed, the first mention of Castile in a surviving document dates to the year 800 and it is ruled by a count, not by a king.



In the medieval French romance of “Ysaie the Sad”, Ysaie is son of Tristan in a post-Arthurian world in which he marries Martha, the daughter of King Irion (unknown in any other tale), and has a son named Marc.



But these tales both seem to be complete inventions. There is NO historical account anywhere of ANY family who claimed descent from the Arthurian Tristan.



The round table itself probably never existed. The Celts ate sitting or squatting around a central hearth and did not even have a word for “table”. The modern Welsh word “bwrd” meaning “table” is borrowed from Old Englsh “bord'' which means “board”, a table being a board set on trestles. In surviving Welsh Arthurian tales, the Round Table is mentioned in medieval Welsh literature ONLY in a Welsh translation of French grail legends called “Y Seint Graal”.



Arthurian tales have been studied by scholars for generations, and there is not sufficient data to even prove to the satisfaction of many scholars that there ever was an historical Arthur from which the legendary Arthur derives. Some think Arthur was always a giant-killing folk hero who was later historicized as a Saxon-killing 5th/6th century British warlord.



No scholar has ever provided PROOF that a 5th/6th century warrior named Tristan or Drystan even existed as one of Arthur's men outside of legend.



In short, unless you can provide hitherto unknown documentation of your claim, and that documentation stands up to inquiry, you have no evidence at all.



Not a SINGLE Welsh or Breton noble family so far as is known EVER claimed descent from Drystan son of Tallwch, Drystan son of Tallwch being the normal form of the name of the legendary Tristan in Welsh tales. Hoel or Hoelin, the father of Tristan's wife in the romances is also not known to exist.



Read the introduction to this book about fakery in ancestral claims: http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029806241 .