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Humphrys genealogy

Genealogy research by Mark Humphrys.
1983 to 2024 so far.

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Blennerhassett problem

Blennerhassett Blog

Blennerhassett To do






HUMPHRYS GENEALOGY

The genealogy site of Mark Humphrys. Genealogies of families connected to me or
to my wife. Mostly in Ireland, England and Scotland, though with some branches
around the world. Includes a number of famous families.
   
 * 41 years of research, from 1983 to 2024.
 * (The start of my research in 1983 was as close to 1942 as it is to today.)
   
   

 * Over 2,400 public web pages.
 * Dense with images, text and links. Containing over 107,000 links.
 * Over 32,000 public images.
 * Maybe over 10,000 A4 pages if ever printed out.
   
   


To get an idea what is on the site:

 * Google image search "site:humphrysfamilytree.com" for:
   * large images
   * medium images






My study in 2023.




  


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INTRODUCTION

I have been researching my family tree since 1983, and my wife's family tree
since 1995. I have over 2,400 public web pages of original research on local and
family history in Ireland, England and Scotland.

This research is driven by personal criteria - by who is related to me or to my
wife - so it is hard to summarise exactly what is here. The detail also varies.
Some families I cover in enormous detail. Other families I merely sketch since
they are covered by others elsewhere. (Some lines here connect to landed, titled
and Royal families.)

I started a website in 1994, but I think I did not start putting genealogy onto
it until 1995. There are surviving archive.org copies of my site from 1999.
(There are no earlier archive.org copies because the servers it was on before
this blocked spiders.)

I think my site is the oldest continuously-running genealogy site in Ireland.
(Paddy Waldron's site is older, but took a break.)



  



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MY FAMILY TREE





My connection with the World family tree.
Blennerhassett Cashel, descendant of Edward III.






This all began in 1983, as research in motoring history, when I began to
research a series of cars built by my grandfather and others in Ireland in the
1920s and 1930s: The "Thomond" motor car. This led on to researching My family
tree in general.

There was a vast amount of family history material to start with because so many
of my family were involved in the Irish revolution of 1916-23. Family members
were arrested, jailed, on hunger-strike, active in underground government, shot,
and even killed. It is a cliché in Ireland that one's ancestors were in the GPO
in the Rising in 1916, but my grandfather Dick Humphreys did fight in the GPO in
1916, and his uncle "The O'Rahilly", one of the leaders of the rebellion, was
the only leader to be killed in action (the others were executed).

I could summarise my family as almost archetypal Catholics made good in the 19th
century in Ireland - after the ending of the repressive laws against Catholics,
when a vast body of Irish Catholics slowly began to work their way up from
nothing through trade, farming and business, to form the middle class of the
emerging state at the start of the 20th century. The O'Maras, O'Rahillys and
Flanagans all rose like this over the course of the 19th century. Indeed, the
writer Kate O'Brien used the O'Maras as the archetypal example of such a family.
My great-great-grandfather Stephen O'Mara was a Parnellite MP. My
great-grandfather James O'Mara, Home Rule MP, Sinn Fein TD, was a member of the
1st Dail in 1919, as was my grand-uncle W.T. Cosgrave, who became the first
Prime Minister of an independent Ireland in 1922. His son Liam Cosgrave (my
mother's first cousin) became Prime Minister of Ireland in 1973.






 * My family tree
   * Surnames
   
   

 * My Royal Descent






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MY WIFE'S FAMILY TREE




   
My wife's best connection to the World family tree.
Augustus Reebkomp, descendant of Edward III.







I never planned to research My wife's family tree as well, but it was too
interesting to resist, and again, a lot of source material has survived which I
could read.

Her family descends from an impossibly romantic story: Augustus "Reebkomp", the
illegitimate son of Henry Herbert, 10th Earl of Pembroke in England in the 18th
century. Reebkomp was the product of an infamous elopement in 1762 that is
referred to in the movie The Madness of King George. He grew up with his
legitimate half-brother (the future 11th Earl), and money came out of the Earl's
family for him and his descendants for almost a full hundred years. Through him,
my wife descends from most of the great old Anglo-Irish families of the Pale of
the last few hundred years, which is of particular interest to me.

Apart from the above, her family history can be summarised as merchants and
traders in Scotland in the 17th and 18th centuries, who rose to the middle class
there centuries before that was possible in Ireland. Indeed, through one line we
see a slow descent from a great family, Skene of Skene, Aberdeenshire (as
opposed to the sudden and spectacular descent of the illegitimate son above).




 * My wife's family tree
   * Surnames
   
   

 * My wife's Royal Descent





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OUR COMMON FAMILY TREE

As you head further back, your lines either peter out, or else you link up with
millions of other people in a vast "Western family tree".



  



MY WIFE'S LINK TO THE WESTERN TREE

Since I met my wife I saw she was on the Western family tree. Through some
gateway ancestors she has a number of Royal Descents. The most recent English
monarch she descends from is Edward III.

This is not that unusual. My most popular web page is my collection of Royal
Descents of famous people, which shows how much of the population of the West
descends provably from medieval European royalty.



  



MY LINK TO THE WESTERN TREE

My story ends in the same place, but it took decades. For 35 years I tried to
establish our link with the Blennerhassett family of Co.Kerry. I was aware that
a gateway to the Western family tree lay behind it. For all those years I was
unable to prove our connection. In 2020, this finally changed. DNA testing
proved that we descend from the Blennerhassett Baronets branch.

See Proof of our descent from Blennerhassett for the proof that we descend from
the Blennerhassett Baronets branch.

I call it as proved that my ancestor George Cashel (born 1807) descends from
Robert Blennerhassett (died 1765) and his wife Frances Yielding. Nothing else
explains the DNA. That we descend from this family is proven, but the exact
descent is unproven. It remains to prove this from paper, to confirm from paper
records what the DNA says must exist.

This means that I too connect to the World family tree. I too have a Royal
Descent. The most recent monarch I descend from is Edward III.



  



OUR COMMON TREE

This means that my wife and I are related. Hence three sections: My family tree,
My wife's family tree, and Our common family tree - the families we both descend
from.

Much of this earlier part of my site, such as my sketches of medieval royalty
and other well-known families, is not original research, nor intended to be, but
is merely a kind of extended Ancestors Chart for my wife and I.




 * Our common family tree
   * Surnames
   * Common Descent
   
   

 * Family History in our Wedding Service







My family tree



 * Surnames
   
   

 * People
   
   

 * Royal Descent
   
   


My wife's family tree



 * Surnames
   
   

 * People
   
   

 * Royal Descent
   
   


Our common family tree



 * Surnames
   
   

 * Common Descent
   
   

 * People
   
   

  


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Thomond motor car



  


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Surnames

Ancestors



  


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Blog

To do

DNA testing



  


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Blennerhassett problem

Blennerhassett Blog

Blennerhassett To do

DNA testing for Blennerhassett

  


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Help



 * Conventions
   
   

 * Abbreviations
   
   

 * FAQ on Privacy
   
   

 * FAQ on Adoption
   
   

How to read these trees

Help on Search

Sources

Links



  


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Hypertext and Genealogy

Royal Descents of famous people

Common ancestors of all humans







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GENEALOGY IN GENERAL

I have made some more general contributions to genealogy.





HYPERTEXT BURKE'S PEERAGE PEDIGREE FORMAT

I think I was the first to really argue for a hypertext version of the Burke's
Peerage format as the ultimate way to draw family trees, especially complex
interconnected trees. I think I was the first to highlight the advantage of
variable resolution:
 * "Hypertext Indented Narrative" pedigree format: Adapting the Burke's Peerage
   format for the Web, Computers in Genealogy 7(1):26-46 (Mar 2000). This paper
   shows how with hypertext it is possible, really for the first time in
   history, to draw large family trees by hand. Quite a strong claim - when
   people have been drawing family trees for centuries. But I believe hypertext
   adds something genuinely new to this ancient debate.
   
   

 * Hypertext for 1-name studies v. Hypertext for family histories: A reply to
   John Bending, Computers in Genealogy 7(3):121-8 (Sept 2000).
   
   

 * Publications
   * History publications







ROYAL DESCENTS OF FAMOUS PEOPLE

My most popular page is my collection of Royal Descents of famous people.







MOST RECENT COMMON ANCESTOR OF ALL HUMANS

My Royal Descents of famous people page seems to suggest that almost everyone in
the West descends from Charlemagne. There has been a lot of further recent
evidence (notably computer simulations) that this is true, i.e. that the most
recent common ancestor of all of humanity (or at least all of the West) may be
not in pre-history but actually in historical times.

This new theory is explained at my popular Common ancestors of all humans page.

 * See my article: Ryan Tubridy descends from Brian Boru. And so do you. Mark
   Humphrys, Irish Times, 1 Dec 2010.






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PROMINENT FAMILIES

My most useful original contributions - families of universal interest, that are
done in detail - are:
 * The famous and eccentric Flanagans of Dublin
 * The prominent O'Mara family of Limerick city
 * The revolutionary O'Rahillys of Co.Kerry and Dublin
   
   

 * Blennerhassett of Co.Kerry
   
   

 * The Viscounts Fitzwilliam of Dublin
 * Herbert, Earls of Pembroke, of Wilton House, Wiltshire






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HELP

 * Help
   
   

 * How to read these trees
   
   

 * Why I use a hypertext narrative to draw these trees
   
   

 * See detailed paper: "Hypertext Indented Narrative" format
   
   

 * FAQ - What is the point of family trees?
   
   

 * FAQ - Remove me from your family tree!






COPIES OF THIS SITE:

If this site is ever down, temporary copies of the files will be at the search
engines:
 1. Google cache (click on arrow - "Cached")
 2. Microsoft cache (click on arrow - "Cached")

And permanent copies of the files will be at the Internet Archive.
This entire site (including images and video) is being archived there:

 1. Home page (http)
 2. All pages (http)
    
    

 3. Home page (https)
 4. All pages (https)






The holy grail of my genealogy research: 35 years I spent trying to establish
the Blennerhassett descent implied in the notes of my grand-aunt above.
In 2020 I finally proved it.



Sometimes things are easier. From this single sheet found in an old tin box
could be reconstructed and corroborated a descent of one of my wife's ancestors
from the great Scottish family of Skene, leading ultimately to a Royal Descent.







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"I spent the whole evening reading over a parcel of my own letters, addressed to
my sisters which they fancied worth preserving. What a strange creature is man,
more strange still woman! I am as different to what I was 15 years ago, as I am
now to an entire stranger. My letters must have been amusing at the time they
were written but the subjects were so personal that now when time has shown me
those persons in a different point of view, and changed the whole face of
things, they appeared to me highly ridiculous, and my own compositions not worth
reading again. I threw the whole bundle into the fire"
- Diary of Ann Gibbon, Sun 23rd Jan 1820.


"One happy day in my life"
- Charles Morris, 1891.



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Donation Drive

Please donate to support this site. I have spent a great deal of time and money
on this research. Research involves travel and many expenses. Some research
"things to do" are not done for years, because I do not have the money to do
them.
Please Donate Here to support the ongoing research and to keep this website
free.

Help       Conventions       Abbreviations       How to read the trees

Privacy policy       Adoption policy       Image re-use policy       New 250 G
VPS server.

41 years researching the family tree. Started 31 Oct 1983.