~ancestors~

i think you all know me enough to know how important my past is to me...not my own particular past but the past that reaches back in time.
the past that incorporates the blood of my ancestors from all branches of the tree that is mine.

some people do not take too much notice of their past, do not find it important, do not feel thay need to honour people they never met and so feel no connection to.

i am so not that person.

i think of the blood running through my veins are the same that has run through that of my ancestors going back...how long?

my irish ancestors i am still tracing, i have only been able (so far) to go back to the 1800's (irish records are so very difficult).
 however i have just been linked up with a cousin~decendant of my own great grandpa john gaul's brother thomas robert. i have had my e-mail passed onto thomas roberts own granddaughter and i am hoping to find out some new information on the family.

my williams ancestors of county durham/wales are still proving to be incredibaly difficult (even more than the irish!)

however it is my family from the south that i know the most about and it is these that really connect me to this area and it is these that i think of when i read about this...


and


and this


okay i hear you say, we kind of get what you are saying here...but...get to the point!

i will, just let me ramble for a bit!

my ancestors have been in this area for hundreds of years.
by this area i mean this one

written records only take us back so far with tracing our own personal tree and so a degree of imagination is needed to think beyond the written records.

i have traced a branch of my ancestors, the lywood, martin, barter, francis and kinsman's to a group of small villages~steeple langford, barford-st martin, south newton and compton chamberlayne~in wiltshire to the 16th century

the 1500's~good king henry, the virgin queen, shakespeare, the mona lisa is painted, the reformation in germany...

knowing the names of these people i am directly linked to through blood, walking about their tiny villages when all this is happening in the world just blows my mind!

but think a bit harder...way back then people did not travel the way we travel now, their whole world was usually a smallish area with their village being the centre of it all.

i have this dream in my mind that my mind goes way, way further back than this...to pre-history.
given the area i like to dream that my blood goes back to pre-history and that my distant ancestors maybe saw the creation of nearby stonehenge and avebury.

now to the point, i didn't mean to become so sidetracked...

the burial of the ancestors, or rather re-burial of the ancestors.

can you imagine the outcry if it was decided to exhume people from their graves and display their bones in museums?

so why is there no outcry at the display (not only display but also stashing remains in boxes) of the ancestors?

the ancestors burials were much more symbolic, they had a better evolved link with the spirits of the ancestors, the afterlife etc than many people do today and to tear their remains away from their resting place is heartbreaking.

i shall return to this topic soon~right now i need to get packing.
we are off to caln today, the base of our yearly stonewylde gathering.
a friend is getting handfasted among the stones at avebury on saturday and next week we will be making our usual trips to glastonbury, avebury and west kennet long barrow again (not so busy during the week!)
i may well post on tumblr so please check to see if i have...the link is to the left on a photo of a tree lined lane!