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| edward_i_butler_morres_and_lodge_families [2021/03/17 11:27] – judith | edward_i_butler_morres_and_lodge_families [2021/03/17 11:28] – [1. Royalty] judith |
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| With hindsight, this fad suggests antipodean ambition in a British colony where there were few members of the British aristocracy. Nineteenth century Britain was permeated by its strong class system and it is understandable that some Australian colonists saw themselves as potential candidates, should the opportunity arise, of filling the vacancy near the top of the social pile. There is a further significant factor in TLM-P and others of the family emphasising their family history: the colonies were places where many migrants reinvented themselves, shedding marriages and giving themselves a leg up the social scale.((E.g. Daisy Bates, [[wp>Daisy_Bates_(Australian_author)]]; Kirsten McKenzie, //Scandal in the Colonies: Sydney and Cape Town, 1820-1850//, Melbourne University Press, 2004.)) Other colonists like TLM-P needed to prove their family’s ‘gentry’ status to establish that his bona fides were genuine – it also helped to present them in the most advantageous light possible. | With hindsight, this fad suggests antipodean ambition in a British colony where there were few members of the British aristocracy. Nineteenth century Britain was permeated by its strong class system and it is understandable that some Australian colonists saw themselves as potential candidates, should the opportunity arise, of filling the vacancy near the top of the social pile. There is a further significant factor in TLM-P and others of the family emphasising their family history: the colonies were places where many migrants reinvented themselves, shedding marriages and giving themselves a leg up the social scale.((E.g. Daisy Bates, [[wp>Daisy_Bates_(Australian_author)]]; Kirsten McKenzie, //Scandal in the Colonies: Sydney and Cape Town, 1820-1850//, Melbourne University Press, 2004.)) Other colonists like TLM-P needed to prove their family’s ‘gentry’ status to establish that his bona fides were genuine – it also helped to present them in the most advantageous light possible. |
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| The colonial/post-colonial fad for tracing descendants back centuries to discover royal ancestors is culturally understandable, but today it doesn't pass the 'so what' test, unless one has a poor grasp of maths and genetics. Your number of direct ancestors double each generation – you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents etc. By the time you go back 10 generations, you have up to 1,000 direct ancestors (probably less as it's likely some appear more than once). That means that ‘at five generations, you are likely to have only 3.125% of each ancestor's genes, and by seven generation, you are likely to have less than one percent’. It's ‘biologically insignificant to have distant illustrious ancestors’.((Given how DNA is inherited, it is possible, for example, for third cousins to have no DNA in common.)) It is also arbitrary to follow one particular line of descent among so many and varied ancestors. In the case of the Murray-Prior genealogies showing royal descent, they alternate between male and female ancestors, dodging down the family tree to reach the desired outcome. In this history, we put aside genetic fantasy to explore the more direct and recent members connected with TLM-P’s family name. | The colonial/post-colonial fad for tracing descendants back centuries to discover royal ancestors is culturally understandable, but today it doesn't pass the 'so what' test. Your number of direct ancestors double each generation – you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents etc. By the time you go back 10 generations, you have up to 1,000 direct ancestors (probably less as it's likely some appear more than once). That means that ‘at five generations, you are likely to have only 3.125% of each ancestor's genes, and by seven generation, you are likely to have less than one percent’. It's ‘biologically insignificant to have distant illustrious ancestors’.((Given how DNA is inherited, it is possible, for example, for third cousins to have no DNA in common.)) It is also arbitrary to follow one particular line of descent among so many and varied ancestors. In the case of the Murray-Prior genealogies showing royal descent, they alternate between male and female ancestors, dodging down the family tree to reach the desired outcome. In this history, we put aside genetic fantasy to explore the more direct and recent members connected with TLM-P’s family name. |
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| ==== 2. An Aristocratic ‘Air Castle’ and the story of the lost baby: the Butlers ==== | ==== 2. An Aristocratic ‘Air Castle’ and the story of the lost baby: the Butlers ==== |