Young Family

Once upon a time I sent the Boone family history to my cousin, Kris. I used my research as well as the information collected by the Boone Historical Society of America and the DeBohun Historical Society in England. Now those two societies definitely do not agree.

The thing Kris saw right away and probably what the American Society objects to is the lineage goes all the way back to Adam and Eve.

Now at the Bates reunion Rhonda brought up the name Clement Bates as the first Bates in America. I had our line back to Joseph, the son of Joseph, the son of Joseph, but short of Clement. So I went looking for the leads that Rhonda had given.

Then I took another look at the Young line. Remember them? John Wallis Bates, the father of Martin Van Buren Bates, was the son of William Bates and Margaret Young. For years I had known that Margaret was the daughter of Robert & Mary Young and the granddaughter of John Young and Elizabeth Lnu. I think Lnu is such an unusual name, but we have it in several lines.

This time I was able to go back on John Young. His parents were Andrew Lamont Young and Mary Adair. The next in line was Sir John Lamont and Mary Young. And guess what? It went all the way back to Adam and Eve.

But...

This time I got a reason for it. Most Irish families come from a small group of Irish who were ruled by Kings, so most families go back to Kings. They did not just become King by birth. It had to be the best person (or the one who survived the battle or bloodbath) to be king. There were different kingdoms around, but some tried to lay claim to being the King of Ireland as a whole territory. Part of their custom was to memorize their lineage. They would not write it down and certain people were set aside to accompany Kings in Battle to be able to report how they performed and who survived. They never wrote the history down. Here is what the article by Kate Montressor said:

Traditionally, most Irish families sprang from a small number of Irish chiefs.
As families multiplied, each person was required to know his relationship to the
ruling family. The oldest Irish names were personal names, later becoming
surnames. The Seannachies (the clan bards or storytellers) were the official
keepers of genealogical data. They didn't write anything down, for fear the
knowledge would get into the wrong hands and be used against them. For hundreds of years, their legacy was oral, committed to memory and passed down through the generations. This was a coveted task and taken very seriously; death was the penalty for mistakes.

I don't know if they let women be Seannachies, but I think that's where I would have fit in the past. Maybe I was in a past life and that's why I have the urgency to know everything that I can about every generation.

Ya think?