Be able to name all 16 of my great great grandparents

Elizabeth’s maiden name is Nicholls.
I now know all 16 of my great great grandparents.

Now the next step is to complete all 32 of my great great great grandparents!

I have found the following great great grandparents:
Charles Buttle m. Mary Clayton

John Edward Bentley m. Elizabeth Midgley

John Allison m. Elizabeth unknown

George Abel m. Mary Ann Thompson

William Wotton m. Maria Mortimore

Richard Potter m. Maria Treloar

William Henry Windmill m. Rebecca Ann Hawes

James Laver m. Martha Sarah Revening

George Abel I believe is really the father of my great grandmother. I had my doubts before.

Illegitamacy is always difficult to prove but he signed as her father at her marriage and the last of her childrens’ birth certificate says that her maiden name was Abel although the earlier ones say Thompson (the informant is a Ms Abel who says she is aunt to the baby).

Now I just have to find Elizabeth’s maiden name and I’m done.

Here’s the photo I promised of me at the National Portrait Gallery in London standing in front of the painting of Sir Thomas More, his family and his descendants.

I thought I’d be creative by adding in another descendant ;)

I’m descended from 5 of the 6 males in the picture (my 12th to 16th great grandfathers) and two of the females (my 13th and 14th great grandmothers). The painting was done in stages as the youngest was born after the 3 eldest males in my lineage had died.

It’s one thing to be able to put names and dates of birth/baptism and death on people from that long ago but another to be able to see near life sized portraits of them all…

I now know:
2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great grandparents
13 (of 16) great great grandparents (3 new ones)
20 (of 32) 3rd great grandparents (4 new ones)
20 (of 64) 4th great grandparents (5 new ones)
16 (of 128) 5th great grandparents (10 new ones)
11 (of 256) 6th great grandparents (9 new ones)
2 (of 512) 7th great grandparents (2 new ones)
2 (of 1,024) 8th great grandparents (2 new ones)
2 (of 2,048) 9th great grandparents (2 new ones)
2 (of 4,096) 10th great grandparents (2 new ones)
3 (of 8,192) 11th great grandparents (3 new ones)
2 (of 16,384) 12th great grandparents (2 new ones)
4 (of 32,768) 13th great grandparents (4 new ones)
4 (of 65,536) 14th great grandparents (4 new ones)
4 (of 131,072) 15th great grandparents (4 new ones) – Sir Thomas More is one of these
5 (of 262,144) 16th great grandparents (5 new ones)
5 (of 524,288) 17th great grandparents (5 new ones)
3 (of 1,048,576) 18th great grandparents (3 new ones)
2 (of 2,097,152) 19th great grandparents (2 new ones)
1 (of 4,194,304) 20th great grandparents (1 new ones) – grandfather of a woman who died in 1470 over 2 decades after having a family so he must be born sometime in the 1300s

I’m not sure what the population of England was in the 1300s but would be very surprised to hear that it was over 4 million as it was only 1 million in 1086 (this comes from the Domesday Book) and in 1348-49 the Black Death reached England killing about 1/3 of the population.

I haven’t found any cross overs of family lines yet but expect to find it sooner rather than later – esp as 2 of my lines come from villages over the past few centuries.

So far I have found the following great great grandparents:
Charles Buttle m. Mary Clayton

John Edward Bentley m. Elizabeth Midgley

unknown Allison m. unknown unknown

George Abel m. Mary Ann Thompson

William Wotton m. Maria Mortimore

Richard Potter m. Maria Treloar

William Henry Windmill m. Rebecca Ann Hawes

James Laver m. Martha Sarah Revening

George Abel is in red as he married Mary Ann Thompson a few months after Minnie, my great grandmother, was born but they left her to be brought up by her grandparents – the married couple moved out and had their own family. This is sad and strange but then the last of Minnie’s childrens’ birth certificate says that her maiden name was Abel but the earlier ones say Thompson. The unusual thing about this birth certificate is that the informant is a Ms Abel who says she is aunt to the baby. Curiouser and curiouser.

Once I found the link between the family and a particular ancestor – Archbishop William Bernard Ullathorne it was really easy to obtain verified family history going back for a few more centuries linking Archbishop Ullathorne to Saint Thomas More (and his ancestors)

I now know:
2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great grandparents
10 (of 16) great great grandparents
16 (of 32) great great great grandparents (2 new ones)
15 (of 64) great great great great grandparents (2 new ones)
8 (of 128) great great great great great grandparents (2 new ones)
2 (of 256) great great great great great great grandparents (both new)

I have births back to 1740s and a set of one 1740s births parents too!

One of the new 5x great grandparents is related to Bishop Ullathorne and therefore a direct descendant of Sir Thomas More. This has always been a family rumour and seen as a flight of fancy but the new links with the Ullathornes in the same small village seems to show a lot of promise.

How I prove that lineage I have no idea!

I now know:
2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great grandparents (2 new ones)
10 (of 16) great great grandparents (2 new ones)
14 (of 32) great great great grandparents
13 (of 64) great great great great grandparents
6 (of 128) great great great great great grandparents – births back to 1740s

So far I have:
George Buttle m. Mary Clayton

John Edward Bentley m. Elizabeth Midgley

unknown Allison m. unknown unknown

John, Fred or Tom Thompson m. unknown unknown

unknown Wotton m. unknown unknown

Richard Potter m. Maria Treloar

William Henry Windmill m. Rebecca Ann Hawes

James Laver m. Martha Sarah Revening

The new finds weren’t through my hard work and research but through a suitcase of family photos that I was given today that contained a few documents including birth and death certificates and even burial plot orders of the daughter of the two new great great grandparents amongst other documents.

But I am a little uncertain about some of the people between 1750 and 1850 that I found over the weekend. The only way I can know for sure is to visit the national archives in Kew.

And found a few others too

I now know:
2 parents
4 grandparents
6 (of 8) great grandparents
8 (of 16) great great grandparents
14 (of 32) great great great grandparents
13 (of 64) great great great great grandparents
6 (of 128) great great great great great grandparents – births back to 1740s

This list looks like it’s working back but surprisingly I know the parents and children of a pair of great grandparents but don’t know who they are. I found this info by talking to my father’s 2nd cousin who gave me names of her ancestors. We link together at my great great grandparents but that gap is so annoying.
I also have one great grandmother that lived with her grandparents who had only 3 children – all boys – but I haven’t discovered which one was her father.

So far I have:
George Buttle m. Mary Clayton

unknown Bentley m. unknown unknown

unknown Allison m. unknown unknown

John, Fred or Tom Thompson m. unknown unknown

unknown Wotton m. unknown unknown

Richard Potter m. Maria Treloar

William Henry Windmill m. Rebecca Ann Hawes

James Laver m. Martha Sarah Revening

Still looking to see if I’m descended from a Harry Potter ;) – the closest I’ve got so far is a brother of an ancestor called Henry Potter.

And I’ve found 4 great great great great great grandparents (yes that’s 5x great grandparents) and filled out some of their descendants too but not found any more great great grandparents (still on 6 of 16)

I now know:
2 parents
4 grandparents
6 (of 8) great grandparents
6 (of 16) great great grandparents
10 (of 32) great great great grandparents
4 (of 64) great great great great grandparents

This was more luck than anything else – one pair of my great grandparents were shown in the census of 1891 living with her brother which gave her maiden name. What amazing luck.

This has opened up a wider set of searching options and easily led to her parents too (my great great grandparents). Now I also know 4 great great grandparents in addition to the 6 great grandparents.