How many of your ancestors in four gens before you were born married and died in the same place?

Question

Mine are veritable 'travellers'. Have a look at my line:

Me: Born- London UK; Married: Parramatta NSW Aust.

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Father: Born-Auckland NZ; Married: London UK; Died: Westmead NSW Aust.

Mother: Born- Belmore NSW Aust; Married- London UK; Died- Fairfield NSW Aust.

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Grandparents:

FF: Born-Burton upon Stather Lincolnshire UK; Married- Auckland NZ; Died- Auckland NZ

FM: Born- Auckland NZ; Married: Auckland NZ; Died-Auckland NZ (different parts of the city though!)

MF: Born- Brisbane QLD Aust.; Married- Coogee NSW Aust; Died- Randwick NSW Aust

MM: Born- Scone NSW Aust; Married- Coogee NSW Aust.; Died- Maroubra NSW Aust.

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Great-grandparents

FFF: Born-Burton upon Stather Lincolnshire UK; Married: Hull YKS UK; Died-Auckland NZ

FFM: Born: Thealby Lincs UK; Married- Hull YKS UK; Died Auckland NZ

FMF: Born Born- Auckland NZ; Married: Auckland NZ; Died-Auckland NZ (different parts of the city though!)

FMF: Born- Auckland NZ; Married: Auckland NZ; Died-Auckland NZ (different parts of the city though!)

MFF: Born Bristol GLS UK; Married- Melbourne Vic Aust; Died-Sydney NSW Aust.

MFM:Born Newtown NSW Aust; Married- Melbourne Vic Aust; Died- Sydney Aust.

MMF: Born-Scone NSW Aust Married-Scone NSW; Died Scone NSW

MMM: Born- Scone NSW Aust; Married Scone NSW Aust; Died Sydney NSW Aust

So only four of us in 4 generations have managed to be born married and died in the same place. Can anyone better that? Hahaha

Comments

My great grandmother Annie Gill was born and died in Thames. That's it!

Answer 1

Until I started genealogy, I had always been under the impression my whole family came from one town in north Leicestershire. One day my mother mentioned that granny's family came from Banbury, which piqued my interest. Granny's married name was a very common one which had put me off the whole genealogy thing but this new nugget got me started. I found out that granny's ancestors were in the same Banbury area for centuries before her parents' migration, which I put down to the railway coming to their village, making it easier to travel and the fact that getting a living from farming was hard at that time, whereas Leicestershire towns were on the up due to coalmining taking off and mechanisation of woolen processing . Turning to dad's side I found out that the male line (from grandad, back) all married women who were from different parts of the country, apart from dad who married a local. I'm still trying to work that one out but I'm thinking maybe the same phenomenon, ie huge numbers of people travelling to the county for work, meant they all married out of towners, rather than them travelling themselves.

Comments

Love your answer. Thanks

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I have done some more research since then and found that my maternal great grandmother's family of 14 children were born in numerous different places all over England and Scotland as her father was working on constructing the railway system. So much for my belief we all came from NE Leicestershire, lol

Answer 2

I can't beat that at all before I moved country I was still living in the same city where most of my ancestors was from, and if not city the same county.

Me: Leeds, Yorkshire

Parents: Both Leeds, Yorkshire

Grandparents: 3 in Leeds, 1 in Barnsley, Yorkshire (about 40 mins in a car) but later moved to Leeds and married my Gran there.

Great Grandparents: 6 in Leeds, 1 in Ardsley close to Barnsley who married   someone from Surrey in Doncaster (also in Yorkshire) and lived in Yorkshire until he left and his family were Navvies.

2nd Great Grandparents: 9 in Leeds, 2 in Ardsley/Barnsley, 1 in Farnham (about 30 mins from Leeds) but moved and married in Leeds to a girl from Cheshire, 1 from Suffolk but married in Leeds then later moved to Lancashire, 1 who was a navvy so born hertfordshire, married derbyshire and his wife from worcestershire.

So out of 16 Great Grandparents 12/16 always in Yorkshire (9 of whom were from Leeds), 2 who moved there (both to Leeds), and only 2 who did not.

Comments

Great answer, Thanks for joining in.

Answer 3

This topic interests me.  Thanks for posting.  I wish I could find more people from the same area for 4 or more generations who are in GEDmatch.

See

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Autosomal_DNA_Ethnic_Admixture_and_Ancestry

and

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/231911/-unmixed-ancestry---rarer-than-hen-s-teeth-

and

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/245530/how-accurate-gedmatchs-admixture-utility-recent-ancestry

Comments

My English-Scots lines in the US from Revolutionary era moved down the east coast pioneer areas and across the south until they lodged like weeds in SW Texas. They were not going to be contained. My thoughts were at first theirs was search for land, and after the decided end of the US CIVIL WAR (The War against the States), their families' moves were prompted by not being controlled by the Union. These people show up in the SE US today as vocal advocates and voters against government in general. While I do not agree with their credo, I well remember one of my mother's teachings passed on from her father and his mother a dour looking "Granny": She said, "Get a ramrod for a spine!" What an affront. I wonder Did those of Scots heritage generally receive similar messages? At its best, it is a statement of the importance of an individual's strength in adversity. It certainly created many warriors in my Scots-English lines, like two who died in The Alamo in TX in the Mexican-American War.

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What's GedMatch? Is that some form of DNA testing?

Edit: I just thought maybe there is some university/scientific level research going on that would ask simmilar things. I know there is interest in Yorkshire DNA I think there interest is in the Danelaw, and there is a pretty big UK twin study that has tested DNA

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GEDmatch is an outstanding free utility for AncestryDNA, 23andMe, or Family Finder testers

http://www.legalgenealogist.com/2012/08/12/gedmatch-a-dna-geeks-dream-site/

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That sounds really interesting especially since so much of my family is Yorkshire based (only other country is Ireland and Wales from 3rd Great Grandparents). But I don't think I can add to your page my family probably wouldn't like me doing a DNA test

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Please, unless you are under 21 and living in your parents' home (highly doubtful), your life choices are yours. If they disapproved, that is their choice only. (Please See my Scots GGm's statement about life, above.)

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PS: It's also to be stated: It's your choice not to test, if you choose not to.

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Probably not best for me to put my age on here but still at home as a uni student : ). Perhaps didn't phrase it right it's more to do with the cost and that those companies can sell your DNA, then being against the idea of it.

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Please accept my apology. Naturally you are operating under normal conditions, but I was ignorant, thinking that no one young would be interested in doing this research (and a lot of it, I see) and had found this site. As a case in point,  ftdna.com (Family Tree DNA) is run on a highly ethical basis, and the testing is done by geneticists who respect the privacy of their members and request that you help protect your information by not giving anyone your member number or password. That company likely has its ethics on its web site. Eventually you'll be independent and can spend only a judicious amount on a DNA test, when you are ready.

I was remiss. I won't respond so quickly and thoughtlessly again. We are from all over the world and of all ages here, and all levels of excellence.

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Don't worry about no need to apologise. I probably am among the youngest. I'll keep that company in mind tho if I ever do in the future.

Answer 4

My Mom's families have lived within a 25 miles radius of Midland, North Carolina since the early 1800s. That a fifty mile range, though, so don't know that it qualifies as the same place.

Comments

Sounds pretty settled to me.

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With families that run to 7 or 8 children each, it's a spider web of double first cousins. The FAN principle (family, friends, associates, and neighbors) can become overwhelming.

Answer 5

On my fathers side I have taken them back to 1490 and on the male side they all were born and died in sussex, so at least 13 gens.

On my mothers side they were all born and died in Nottingham ging back to the 1600s so at least 9 gens.

Comments

That is such a great thing to be able to find unbroken lines like that. I have lines like that on my dad's side, in Lincolnshire. We have a descent from the Langtons, manor lords of Langton by Spilsby, LIN. My last Langton ancestor was in the 17th C, but her line goes right back to the 11th C from there. The present lady of Langton still lives on the land granted to her ancestor Robert of Sempringham in the 11th C, making it one of the longest held land holdings in the UK.

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it has made tracking them easy plus on my Fathers side they are mainly all farmers and on my mothers side they are mainly in the lace industry

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Elaine, I hope you will post photos of some of the lace types they've made. What a joy to see that!

Answer 6

Depends on how you define "place."

All of my ancestors for those 4 generations were born, married, and died in the same country (OK, the United States is a big country).

None of my parents and grandparents were born, married and died in the same U.S. state. However, all four of my great-grandparents on my mother's side had all three events in one state (two in New York and two in Pennsylvania), as did 15 of my 16 great-great-grandparents (five in Vermont, two in Massachusetts, four in New York, and four in Pennsylvania).

Going finer than that, I think that one of the great-grandparents lived in the same city/town/village for all of those life events (in Pennsylvania), but I'm not sure if his marriage was in his home town or in the community where his bride lived. But fully 11 of the 16 great-greats were in the same place -- if rural communities located close to each other count as the same "place" -- for all three events. That's four in Vermont, three in Pennsylvania, two in Massachusetts, and two in New York.

Comments

Ellen, please inform me of the inferences you who are high level genealogists make from such stability in a family's "home-place." I don't recall seeing that in my families, except on a two generation basis (parents and child) so I never thought to pay attention to it as a phenomenon.

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Roberta: These are not families that were in the same place for several generations. These are individual people who had these three major life events (BMD) in the same place. (And in some cases, they lived in other places in between those major life events.)

As for the inferences one can make from this, within my family there have been plenty of (often self-deprecating) witty observations about the reasons people lived where they did. What it boils down to is that people stayed in the same place either because they were satisfied with their lives or because they lacked the ambition or opportunity to leave.

In my ancestry, I've observed that first-born sons were more likely than their younger siblings to stay in the place where they were born. Presumably that's because the oldest son often inherited the family farm (probably a significant reason for him to be satisfied with his life). And one of my great-great-grandfathers whose BMDs were all in the same place simply couldn't imagine a better life than being a farmer in his Vermont hometown. He was a first-born son, but he didn't wait to inherit his father's farm. Instead, as a young man he took a job in a factory in Connecticut for a few months to earn money to buy his own farm back home, then he went home to Vermont -- and never left. His only surviving son, my great-grandfather, disliked farming and became a minister.

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Ellen, thanks for the detailed general-narratives of your relatives Lives! They seem far closer to the real stations of living rather than the glow that I was getting from reading the many other synopsis-narratives before. In fact, they obliterated even the possibility of individual decisions and left them sealed in resonating words like "trapped," "bored," "saw no future" (as in lacking imagination or courage), that often "the common man" is reputed to think. Yet I find with my relatives, none of the ones now deceased stood stagnant in time––and whose lives are stagnant anyway, unless someone's unaware and incognizant of the implications of events, many of them larger than lifesize (like wars, plagues, leaving the homeland)! Your details convince me that "writ small and large," we cannot and should not erase the human struggle that is the life-force behind the names and dates and places we research. The implication of each is enormous. Thank you again for your time, your words, and your serious, thoughtful nature. Each life has a hero of a kind at the center of it, once we address the person who's carrying it.