This is not a deep question. We’ve all had the usual holiday gatherings and celebrations, and may now be ready for some quiet reflection. Or that’s my premise.
And anyway, my furnace is non-functioning as I prepare this the night before, sitting in front of the fire. So deep thoughts on the meaning of life and of genealogy are definitely beyond the scope of today’s diary.
I’d just like to share how I was introduced to the field of genealogy, and of what it’s meant to me to discover that the “facts” haven’t turned out as presented. Please join me below the orange squiggly thingie....
When I was about ten my mother opened the Chinese trunk she kept in her bedroom under the window, and reached for some papers in the upper tray. Some were loose, or paperclipped together, and others were stapled into a report with a blue backing page, on the order of important legal documents. All, I learned, had been prepared for my maternal grandfather by a supposed professional genealogist. And, for whatever reason, my mother had decided that it was time to introduce me to the fact that we had an important family lineage!
I didn’t think at the time about the contrast with my Dad. He’d once told me that he really didn’t have any family. Which was a slight exaggeration, as I’d been included with my parents in a trip to see his first cousin get married after a long spinsterhood. Still, it’s true that he never would have produced a trove of papers claiming descent from any important personages.
But my mother’s father had been a businessman of some note. In later years I realized two things about him that relate to this story. The first was that his prominence had made him a likely target for the “instant family history” the genealogist was peddling. The second was that my grandfather enjoyed seeing what such people came up with, and really didn’t care so much whether it was true so long as it was entertaining. He would have been satisfied, I’m sure, with the uncovering of the proverbial horsethief if it had provided him with sufficient grist for his storytelling -- which he greatly relished!
Now, my mother was different. She was really “into” the family greatness idea. And this day was to be my induction into the solemn fraternity. Or so it seems to me today as I reflect on this personal memory. I can say this with some assurance, because she, her sister, and at least one of their female cousins had taken to wearing matching gold rings supporting the crest of this family, to which they could now lay claim as descendants.
It wasn’t my grandfather’s surname. No, it was the maiden name of my grandfather’s own maternal grandmother. TERRILL. Also seen as TERRELL or TYRRELL, and perhaps other variants. The first male one encounters in the line was my third great-grandfather, the Virginian Dr. Uriel Terrill -- born in Madison County, married in Culpeper County, died In Orange County.
He was an important local figure in his own right, so why it was necessary to go looking for more important ancestors was puzzling to me for many years. Now, with more age (and, possibly, wisdom), I think I know the answer. My mother and aunt were half-German, and were very young when anti-German sentiment from the Great War would have made a huge impression upon them. To summarize, that part of my family had built homes on Berlin Street in St. Louis, only to later find themselves living on Pershing Avenue without ever having moved.
I can now see that my mother and aunt had a motivation, even if unexpressed to me, for finding and promoting greatness from within the ranks of their Virginia ancestors who had arrived in the 17th century. And the Terrill family genealogy was “just the ticket!”
My mother carefully showed the path the family purportedly took.... Back to the earliest Colonial days. Back to merchant brothers in London. Back to clothiers in Reading, England. Back to British nobility. Back to King Edward I. Back to William the Conquerer. And was I the 33rd generation in direct descent? I don’t recall, but that would be close.
Then back to Charlemagne. And on to some fellow who was said to have lived near the Black Sea (I think, or was it Crimea?) two millenia previous to the then-current time, the 1950s. My mother was so proud! I was duly impressed, but even at that age I noticed that as the generations rolled on back the information about them shrunk to mere names on the page. Citations quickly diminished to nothing. It should have been a sign. But ten-year-olds don’t question their mothers about such observations. And wasn’t I now a part of all this reflected glory??
In time those papers that my mother had shared with me became my own, as I was the child who showed an interest in history. But high school and college became of greater importance than possible follow-up, and the papers were stored away and largely forgotten. Other than this one afternoon foray, my second introduction to genealogy would have to wait. And it waited until my maternal grandmother (she of the German immigrant parents) died in 1975.
By this time my wife and I were planning a family of our own, and I was learning that she had age-mates in her hometown who were her fourth cousins. This was difficult for me to wrap my head around, as I had no blood-related first cousins while my wife had at least two dozen of them! In the midst of my exploration of the complexity of her family tree, I suddenly came into a box of newspaper clippings concerning my great-grandfather from Virginia. Now I had several reasons to find out more about genealogy.
From here I began to investigate both my own heritage and that of my wife, but my efforts stopped at the water’s edge. My research was U.S. research, not European. And the more I learned, the more I began to appreciate that the farther back one looked -- the greater the potential for following a false trail.
Then came a trip to Philadelphia for a conference. And, with time on my hands, I wandered over to a genealogical library and had a look around. There was little there to interest me, or so I thought. But then I started browsing through the periodicals, and discovered one I’d seen references to but had never before found on a shelf -- “Terrell Trails.” This is a publication by and for Terrell family members with an orientation to the Deep South.
I was curious if they would make reference to the Virginia Terrill family. But I soon learned they were more interested in jumping past early days in Virginia to the English generations. This they were doing through collaboration with the Tyrrell Family History Society. And, what do you know? -- they’d uncovered the true path of the family! Yes, it went from Virginia to London to Reading. But, no, it had nothing to do with a noble family close to the kings of England. And it had a lot to do with simple farmers. Yup. With “Nobodies!”
One can subscribe to two theories on the question of how things went so far astray. There’s the notion that variability in the spelling of the surname led to simple confusion. Then there’s the thought that someone attempting to sell genealogical “information” to people of means wouldn’t likely eat either well or often if what they had to sell was a story of being descended from simple farmers. I prefer the latter interpretation.
It turns out that my grandfather’s “people” (at least this one line) came from the village of West Hagbourne (formerly of Berkshire, but now of Oxfordshire) and moved to Reading roughly at the time of William Shakespeare. Citations for some of the research conclusions (re-)published by the Terrell family are as follows:
Arthur R.W. Tyrrell, Hon. Research Coordinator, “Richmond Terrell 1624, Reading, Berks., Descendant from Reading or Hagbourne TERRELLs?” Tyrrell Family History Society Newsletter, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer 2000), pp. 44 & 48.
ditto, “The Terrills of West Hagbourne and Richmond Terrell.” Tyrrell Family History Society Newsletter, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Summer 2001), pp. 50-53.
ditto, “Descendants of Robert Tyrrold [d. 1545] and Agnes of Hagbourne,” Tyrrell Family History Society Newsletter, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer 2000), pp. 44-47.
I think my grandfather would have been just as pleased to have the truth. West Hagbourne has few notable features, but it does have a public house by name of the Horse & Harrow. I can, in my mind’s eye, just hear my grandfather relating that fact to his friends and relatives -- and with as much embellishment as if it were a royal castle.
I approve.