The Slovak Yankee

The False Royal Line of Thomas Gardiner b.ca. 1531-1590 of London, England

Occasionally I google the names of ancestors who are dead ends to see if someone else has broken through or is working on them.  I happen to descend from Thomas Gardiner and Katherine Benbowe of London, England.  They are covered in the Visitations of London and Essex where Katherine is given as Benbowe or Dembowe.  Their son Christopher married Jane Topp.

Thomas Gardiner is given as the son of a Robert Gardiner and grandson of a John Gardiner.

I found Thomas and Katherine today on a webpage with ancestors.  I was curious. It is called McCay/Stevens  Genealogy Pages.  Well, the red flag went up right away.  Katherine Benbowe's father is given as Richard Donbolde Benbowe born say 1530.  No one in England had middle names in the 16th century (and earlier). 

Thomas Gardiner is given as the son of John Gardiner and Agnes Hornsey and grandson of a Richard Gardiner.  That Richard was the son of a William John Gardiner b. 1459 and Helen Tudor.  Again a middle name in the 15th century.

Well, Tudor is quite the name to come across and indeed she is the illegitimate daughter of Sir Jasper Tudor, the Duke of Bedford and uncle to Henry VII of England.  Sir Jasper is the second son of Owen Tudor and Katherine of Valois, first Queen to Henry V and daughter of Charles VI of France.

Well, be still my beating heart.  What a line.  It took almost no time to tear this up.  Helen Tudor is indeed the illegitimate daughter of Sir Jasper Tudor.  She married a William Gardiner, citizen of London.  She had five children, one son and 4 daughters.  The son became a monk (Thomas Gardiner) and the Gardiner name dies out there.

So some enterprising genealogist has concocted a way to get from Helen and William to another Gardiner family, citizens of London.  I would have liked a Tudor line.

Descendants

I have a myriad of known ancestors and twice that many unknown ancestors.  But genealogy can go up or down.  I don't have descendants and without fear of successful contradiction, I will never have descendants since I am 61 and not married to a female.

But there are these creatures who share my ancestry partly and who are not my descendants.  I have six nieces and nephews (3 of each).  I just went to the wedding of the eldest of them and got to spend some time with my  four Key nieces and nephews.  They are quite exceptional (at least to me).  Since I'll never have children on which to dote, I can call out my nieces and nephews.  The one who got married is a doctor of physical therapy.  The second one is a writer in L.A.  The two youngest are still in college a senior and a sophomore and both pre-med.

Luckily I am leaving Florida for Delaware where I will be only two hours from some of them and since I will be living in a beach town, they may visit.

I know stories of my grandparents' grandparents (my great-great-grandparents).  I can now pass those stories down to my nieces and nephews and their children who will be learning about their great-great-great-great-grandparents from a second hand source.

Slovak Ancestor Collapse

I've shown on this blog that I descend from several New England families more than once such as the Coffin, Hayes, Hull, Heard, Hall, Clough, and Burnham families.  We all descend from the same people multiple times thanks to the theory of ancestor collapse.  Ancestor collapse posits that at some point back in time, the amount of people you need to descend from will be more than the world's population.  King Charles II descends from Queen Victoria twice, once from his mother and once from his father.  He is the poster boy for ancestor collapse.  By the time he has 1,o24 ancestors there are only 500 different people filling the 1,024 slots.

My Slovak ancestors work the same way except that the records don't go back far enough for me to prove double descents.  I have two Chodur lines that marry each other and likewise two Valuch lines that marry each other.  I have two Szowiss lines that would make my great-great-grandparents cousins and two Zabka lines that would make my grandparents distant cousins.  Other double families include the Krc, Holic, Witek, and Valassek families.  This is not surprising.  I have four Slovak great-grandparents that came from four adjoining villages.  My Sobotiste ancestors have Vrbovce roots and my Tura Luka ancestors have Myjava roots.  People were marrying from the neighboring village.

I would like to connect one of those families to show double descents but the records just aren't there.  My Chodurs could be first cousins or fifth cousins.  No way to know.

 

 

Charlemagne and my father

I have always known that my mother was a descendant of Charlemagne in thousands of lines of descent.  Somewhere I've published my closest descent from Charlemagne.  It has been conjectured that anyone who lived 1,000 years ago (or more) and left living descendants are the ancestors of everyone living today (that is of European descent).  So I always believed that that was not true because my father descended from Slovak peasants and there was no way that his line could stretch back to Frankish royalty.

But the discovery of a German ancestor (Jacob Shultz) in my ancestry has altered my view.  Now I can see that in 900 years (roughly 800 to 1700) there could be a line that connects Charlemagne to my Jacob Shultz and then down to my father and to me.  I think Europe was a bit more active than I pictured it to be with people remaining in their home village for generation after generation.  There was movement west to east and from all directions to the other.

It would be curious to see who the common ancestor was behind my mother and father.  That is lost to time.

 

Left Hanging in History

The emergence of a German line behind my Slovak ancestry has changed the way I have always viewed my father's ancestry, which was 100% Slovak.  My mother had some diversity but not my father.  I can see that has changed.

I've done further work on my German line and have pushed it back to this couple:

Jacob  Shultz born c. 1706 and died 25 November 1769 at Verbovce, Slovakia (which was then the Austrian Empire).  He was married to Anna Belany born c. 1713 and died 21 September 1783.  I have both death records.  Their daughter Susanna married under the name Sulc to Jan Witek. I've posted the line in a previous posting.

But I can't go further back.  The church records don't exist.  I'm left hanging wondering how this man with a German name came to live in a village in  Slovakia.  He was Protestant and certainly that might be the main reason we find him in a predominantly Protestant village.  Perhaps his grandfather moved there after the 30 years war in 1648 when Europe divided between Protestant and Catholic.

Sadly Shultz is too common a surname to investigate further.  But now I can wonder if records were as rich in Slovakia as they are in New England, if I couldn't go back further and find other ethnicities behind my father.

 

Three Marriages

My ancestor Pavel Chodur was born in 1817 in Vrbovce, Slovakia to Jan Chodur and Anna Chodur (her maiden name).  I have now abstracted the marriage records from Vrbovce from 1783 to 1816.  It yields three possible couples:

 

1.  Jan Chodur of Sobotiste married Anna Chodur of Vrbovce 22 October 1792
   
   2. Jan Chodur and Anna Chodur 23 January 1797
   
   3.  Jan Chodur and Anna Chodur 21 November 1803

 

I think the 1803 marriage is the right one.  But just imagine in one small village the overuse of Jan and Anna can lead to three marriages.

Valuch Family

I have been abstracting the Vrbovce church records from 1783 to 1815.  During the beginning of that time all names pronounced "v" were written with a "w" and hence I was abstracting Waluch each and every time.

In 1804, the scribe makes the shift and suddenly the name is Valuch:

Thomas s. Jan Valuch and Elizabeth Brkala godparents Martin Nochta and Maria ? 17 November 1804

I have two Valuch lines to research.  They join in the wedding of Jan  Valuch-Malarik and Elizabetha Valuch on 31 January 1848 in Vrbovce.  Thus far I can't connect them.

 

St. Prince Vladimir the Great

Prince Vladimir the Great of Kiev (c. 958 to 15 July 1015) is now a saint in the Orthodox Church and his feast day is today.

 

1. Prince Vladimir the Great
2. Yaroslav the Wise m. Ingegard Olofsdotter (daughter of the King of Sweden)
3. Anna Jaroslavna m. Henry I King of France

 

3. Agatha of Kiev m. Edward the Exile of England

4. St. Margaret of England m. Malcolm III, King of Scotland

 

3. Vsevold I Monomakh m. Anastasia

4. Vladmir II of Kiev m. Gytha of Wessex (Daughter of Harold II King of England)

5. Mstislav, of Kiev m. Liubava Zavidich

6. Euphrosyne of Kiev m. Geza II, King of Hungary

7. Bela III King of Hungary m. Agnes of Antioch

8. Andrew II King of Hungary m. Gertrude of Meran

9. Bela IV King of Hungary m. Princess Marie of Byzantium

10. Stephen V, King of Hungary m. Elizabeth of Bosnia

11. Marie, Princess of Hungary m. Charles II King of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem

12. Marguerite, Princess of Sicily m. Charles Valois, Prince of France

13. Jeanne of Valois m. William III, Count of Hainault

14. Philippa of Hainault m. Edward III, King of England

 

There's three descents from the Saint.

 

Catherine Chodur

From the Vrbovce church records of 1799:

 

Catharina d. Paul Chodur and Anna Walek godparents Joannes Maracek and his wife Catharina Matula 31 May 1799

Catharina d. Paul Chodur and Catharina Kadlicek, godparents George Hiza Szab. and his wife Anna Macek 19 June 1799

Catharina d. Joannes Chodur and Catherina Ondryska godparents Joannes Kutalek and his wife Elizabeth Czernekova 21 July 1799

 

Good luck untangling that.  Didn't they know each other?  Why name a girl the same name as two others?

History was Made

I just spent five days in Montreal and didn't need to change any money into Canadian currency.  I also didn't need to withdraw funds in Canadian currency.  Everything was Apple card or Visa Card from each meal to the subway rides.

Unbelievable to think of world where you travel and needn't need to change money.