It's No Excuse!

Well, I've been at this family tree lark for over 15 years now, and the family tree as it stands, with both my side of the family and the wife's side combined, has around 12,000 individuals. I never intended to create anything so huge, it simply snowballed as soon as I first put the tree on to a few Internet sites. Suddenly I had all these descendants of Scottish emigrants from various parts of the globe, contacting me, saying they were related.

Well, that's all well and good, but I still haven't come across anyone particularly well known. The nearest I've come so far is a Northern Ireland International rugby player and TV broadcaster / sports commentator, who unfortunately died in a hotel fire just as his career was really taking off. I don't doubt some famous (but distant) relatives will turn up. The odds of not finding at least one must be very slim. It would also be nice to make some noble connections working back the way, and although there are suggestions of royal descent, finding evidence is difficult, especially as records in various places were badly kept or non-existent. My Irish forebears from Drogheda and Ardee might as well not have existed, such is the dearth of information about them. Even 100 years ago, there's virtually nothing.

I have noticed though, that thise families which departed the shores of this sceptred isle, tended to do very well for themselves, through luck, endeavour or accomplishment. I suppose starting again somewhere new will always supply the motivation to succeed. It seems to me that very few of those who started new lives far from home, ever met with failure or disappointment. That's something I may well bear in mind when faced with a similar choice myself. That day may not not be too far distant!

My Ancestors Built Newgrange!

Continuing from yesterdays megalithic coverage, the image shows the Megalithic Passage Tomb at Newgrange in Knowth, Ireland. My parents went to the site 2 years ago, on a holiday in Ireland, but it was raining so they stayed in the nearby Bru na Boinne visitor centre, something for which I roundly chastised them, knowing as I do a little bit about the significance of the place.

Anyone who's read "Uriel's Machine", will no doubt hold the same fascination with the location as I do, enhanced in my case, because my ancestors lived in the vicinity, certainly at Ardee and Drogheda (5 miles away), and for all I know may even have numbered among the builders.

The site is especially significant as, being built (allegedly) around 3200 BC, Newgrange is older than the Great Pyramid (600 years older), although there are no signs of a large community ever having lived there, perhaps never more than 300. We're speaking about a period in which the average life expectancy was 25 and metal tools were non-existent (again allegedly). That shows how commited they must have been, and over generations. Consider that another 2 ruinous mounds of similar dimensions lie in the vicinity also. Like the pyramids and other ancient structures, Newgrange was previously considered to be a burial mound, but it was plainly a religious structure, like the pyramids, with corpses being added later, when the religious significance had been long forgotten.

The roof space of the passage is grooved so as to make it water-proof, and the passage is lined up diretctly with the Winter solstice. These guys who built it weren't stupid cavemen. The fact that megalithic cultures rose up independently of each other, all over the World, surely testifies to the fact that all of them were somehow connected to each other. It's almost as if they were part of one ancient race, which had been scattered across the face of the Earth, by some global catastrophe, and wherever the survivors found themselves, they sought to recreate what they had known before. Am I talking about Atlantis? Figuratively, yes! Call it what you like, but an ancient race with advanced technology clearly existed, and it's only a matter of time before conclusive proof of that fact comes to light. the truth can't be hidden forever!