The Known Unknowns
The family history is remarkably
complete. We explore here where it has been necessary to rely on the most
probable narrative where certainty has been impossible
|
The Observation of Donald Rumsfeld
Recognising
what we know and what we don’t know. |
From
science to story telling
Genealogy
begins as a scientific enterprise. Whilst the first step in a genealogical
journey begins by gathering stories from relatives, it quickly becomes
necessary to build increasingly complicated family trees. The primary tools in
that exercise are records of births, marriages and deaths, made possible by the
start of parish records in the mid sixteenth century, and cross checking these
with census records, which show how families relate together, and where they
lived. Modern search resources, such as those provided by Ancestry
and Find
my Past, mean much of the work can be done from a home computer.
However the
listing of names and how they relate to each other is only a first step. In
themselves, family trees are not very interesting. What is more interesting is
the stories of the individuals who make up those trees. The more interesting research begins when the
family tree is complete, or as complete as it can be, and the time comes to
turn to other records, like military records, medieval records of freemen or
poachers and by turning to newspaper articles, with an exploration of the
history of the places where groups of the family lived.
Rory
Stewart’s 2024 podcast on BBC Sounds, The History of Ignorance,
is a call to combine the scientific approach with imagination and an artistic approach, to
complete the narrative. Genealogy becomes most interesting, and more useful,
when it is a roadmap through history, and a source of inspiration and pattern, building
upon
Standards
of proof
In 2002
Donald Rumsfeld made his well known observation that as we know, there are
known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known
unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But
there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know.
It becomes
increasingly obvious in genealogical research that it is possible to find known
facts from written records, but it is inevitable that no genealogist, nor
historian, is able to tell an entire history with certainty.
Parish
records from the sixteenth century allow many families to be assembled to a
near complete family record from that time, though inevitably with gaps where
records no longer exist. From the nineteenth century, census records provide
the additional information which makes the exercise much easier, but census
records are also not always complete. Where there is a record of an individuals
birth, marriage, death or circumstances in a census year, it is possible to be
pretty certain of that fact.
Even before
the sixteenth century, the richness
of medieval sources, means that significant elements of a family story can
be synthesised with perseverance.
Sometimes
the known facts can be glued together with other facts, to build up the matrix
of the family story.
It is
generally impossible to achieve absolute certainty about a family story, but it
is still possible to use intelligence and imagination to fill gaps and to build
up the picture of the whole.
The known
unknowns in the Farndale Story
Generally the Farndale Story and the underlying
details of Family
Lines and individual records, for the period after 1560, is now based on a
pretty solid historical record. Much of the picture for this modern era of the
Farndale history meets the test of known knowns. There are errors and many of
them are recognised, needing more work to steadily make the history more and
more accurate. In a genealogy of this size, there will inevitably be mistakes.
The most
significant known unknown in the story of the modern Farndale impacts on the Ampleforth Line and all those
who descend from it. That large section of the family descend from Elias Farndale
(1733 to 1783) who lived in Thirsk and whose son moved to Yearsley. The trouble is that I have not been able to
find a birth record and can’t therefore put his parentage beyond doubt. My
preferred theory is that he was a son of William Farndale
of the Brotton 1 Line. William
Farndale married Mary Butrick in 1724 and their son, George Farndale was
born in 1725 at Stainton, southwest of Middlesbrough. That would reconcile with
a window between say 1727 to 1735 during which time Elias might have been born
to that family. Weighing up the facts that are available, that seems to be the
most probable explanation. The analysis might need to change in time, or it
might be correct.
I have similarly
pooled the historical evidence concerning Nicholas
Farndale and Agnes
Farndale, and their children William Farndale
and Jean
Farndale, to explain the most probable course of events that led our family
who seems to have been living around Campsall north of Doncaster in 1564, but
probably moved north to Cleveland shortly afterwards. There is also still some
uncertainty that George
Farndale, through whom the line then descends, was William and Margaret’s
son. If I am correct then all modern Farndales descend through a common
ancestor in George and Margery, and then back through William and Margaret, and
then Nicholas and Agnes, back to the Farndales of Campsall and Doncaster. This
analysis is based on a probable interpretation of the evidence, but it could be
wrong. More evidence might still come to light to cause an adjustment to this
narrative.
The
narrative of the family story before the sixteenth century is necessarily based
on the most probable interpretation of evidence. From a significant weight of
medieval evidence which is available, I have compiled the earliest family tree of
the family. It is inevitable that it will contain errors. Yet the exercise is
helpful because it provides a likely narrative for the family story. The facts
upon which the family tree is based are known knowns, based on historical evidence.
It is very likely that the early family tree provides a relatively good picture
of how these known stories, and the individuals who were their actors, relate
to each other and to the modern family.
Before the
thirteenth century, it is impossible to identify individual people who might
have been our ancestors. Yet the relationship of the place where they first
adopted the name to an estate which was an area of stability and agriculture
back to Roman times, means that by telling the story of the place, we are
almost certainty continuing our family story.
We start
with known knows, and as we pass back through history, it is inevitable that we
encounter the unknown. That does not prevent the story from continuing, but it
means that there are more gaps to tell, in weaving together the family story.