Who's your gateway?

I can see different ways of looking at this, but I picture the gateway like an hourglass on a vertical family tree. Below the gateway profile are million of her descendants whose only ascent is through her to millions of people in earlier centuries. They don't have to be royal, but that's probably who most of us would like to find. It would seem that contemporaries (movie stars et al.) are not gateways just because one of them is a distant cousin to one of us. It would also seem that Charlemagne is not a gateway but rather a common ancestor. Rigorists claim that they can verify only ten ancestors of his, so he doesn't "gate" to much of anything ;-)

Thanks, Justin! I think for those of us who are not professionals, a more personal journey of discovery is what we're aiming for...not to take away the importance of the big tree, in the least. Personally, I'm only working with grandparents - goodness knows there are enough of those to sort out!

The gateways from colonies to England are probably the most important to be correct. I have been on a track and quite confident about a couple and their relatedness based on fathers name. DERRRR in Australia, fathers name is often filled in as who witnesses the death. SO both had daughter James, so I was looking for James as father to both husband and wife.

Added as a warning of common error :(

Think I'm doing something wrong: went to "Actions", add profile, typed in "William Brewster" & name disappeared. Tried with 3 other names with same results. Haven't done this, before. Should I have copied in the Geni profile number - although, it asks for first/last names??
Thanks!

Sometimes it's just easier to do it from the profile page. Use "add to project" from profile view, actions menu in the upper right hand corner.

Erica, that "double cousin kind of stuff" isn't freaky at all. It's unavoidable if you go back far enough. It's called implex, and a lot of articles have been written about the inevitability of implex in every person's ancestry. Wikipedia defines it: A genealogical coefficient of a given genealogical tree; defined as the difference between the number of theoretical ancestors of a person and the number of his/her real ones in a given generation.

You just can't have a million different ancestors at the level where there are that many names across the tree. I only have to go back eight generations above my mother to find four couples from whom she is descended in two lines. That's implex.

Forget WV. In the last couple of hundred years the Bourbon kings married nieces and first cousins. That's why the recessive gene of hemophilia resulted in the death of at least one royal heir.

Yes, in a way it's freaky, but considering rich people, royalties,
farmers, they all wanted their heritage to stay in the family hand,
then there are the second reason, war, epidemics, starvation etc. with the result of lack of candidates and finally the third reason, some people have made it a part of their culture, endogami, as a way of securing their culture.

Don't forget "double grandparents", either! I've got several cases where a couple had children, one spouse died - the other re-married & had children - & I have grandparents from the offspring of both marriages.

The visigoths in spain during 600 AD, put up the rules that soon more or less all of europe followed when they engaged in christianity, regarding what was proper or not, resulting often in deathpenalties for people that had to close in family sexual relationship, roughly taken from the books of Moses. In Sweden during the perild of 1600-1900 nearly 1 person were executed per months due to sexual felony. You could argue that this was due to the principle of talion, but in fact it is the same as sharia law, not to close away of what the talibans had in mind not long ago.

Katherine isn't the only Hamby (Hanby) who's a "gateway ancestor" in the wider sense.

There's also her third cousn Richard Hanby, of Northampton, and the descendants of her first cousin twice removed Constance Marsh. (The latter include one Michelle Obama, surprise surprise!)

Jerome, the hemophilia thing can't be blamed on Bourbon inbreeding - it was cross-breeding with the descendants of Queen Victoria, the most notorious hemophilia carrier in modern times.

The Bourbons got the Spanish throne in the first place because the Spanish Habsburgs inbred themselves into extinction (the last heir, Charles II, was so inbred that his parents might as well have been opposite-sex clones), and Louis XIV was in a position to shove his younger grandson (Charles II's nephew, incidentally) onto it and make it stick.

Interesting! Constance Marsh is my 11th GGM & Michele Obama's 12th GGM, making her my 9th cousin 1X.

Interesting question and project! It has kept me busy all afternoon adding some of my gateway profiles based on immigrant ancestors who connect me to the people on this list - http://www.magnacharta.com/moc/crusaders-and-gateway-ancestors/ and I'm still only as far as Ba(ynton)tt Anne Batt has kept me pretty busy trying to merge different profiles for her and her husband into the big tree. I initially found information on their family at https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=sTE3AAAAMAAJ&printsec=f... and have tried to get things straightened out here and in my head with a few merges. I would take the Thacher information at that link with a grain of salt and just go by the will proved information.

based solely on my geni connection to the husband of Anne Batt Christopher Batt and his inclusion on the gateway list, I would guess that his correct parents are Richard Batt, II and Agnes Batt

living Cooley, what makes you believe that the two Christopher Batts that you merged together are the same person- especially since they are shown with quite different parents?

I unmerged them for now, awaiting more info:
Sir Christopher Batt, Sr.
Christopher Batt

You're right David Lee Kaleita. These are two completely different people and family lineages.

One is my 7th cousin the other I'm not related to in any way. Just some random connection.

@ David Lee Kaleita - Sir Christopher Batt, Sr. and his current spouse Anne Batt have all of the children listed in the will of Anne cited from probate records in the Lineage of the Bowens of Woodstock, Connecticut document I cited in my first post: https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=sTE3AAAAMAAJ&printsec=f... The second Christopher Batt I found here through a death date search, based on information contained in that same document. At the time I started merging profiles, he had a spouse who matched closely with the Ann(e) Baynton profile. Made sense to me to merge them at the time...

@ living Cooley, One is showing no kids and completely different brothers and sisters as the other Christopher Batt as well as a different wife.

But also seems some things are mixed up with each other. Such as one showing a smart match which matches the others "death date".

Could be or couldn't be. Obviously needs more investigating.

Yes, when I found them yesterday, both Christopher Batts were shown married to the same Anne Baynton. If we have established that the children shown were indeed Anne's, then we need to find confirmation for which Christopher (son of Thomas Batt and Ms. Byley, or son of Richard Batt and Agness Daniell) was the father of those children.

David Lee Kaleita - unfortunately, that Google document I mentioned doesn't say anything about Christopher's parents so no help there. This document: https://dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE1244611 has Christopher's parents as Thomas Batt and Joane Byley and also lists his death date as 10 AUG 1661 and has his children with Anne Baynton. The same death date for the other Christopher is likely to be a mistake unless it is a very odd coincidence (not out of the question of course).

Two of my gateway ancestors are Dr. Richard Palgrave and Samuel Appleton.

She is my 34th great grandmother. I love reading all of the comments posted here. It's very educational.

I have a couple of recent gateways since the 1840's. If you go down my mother's line about four or five generations you will come upon one family of eleven children. One of the girls is the mother of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy. That is on her mother's side of the family. If you go down her father's side of the family about the same amount of generations you will run into a Colonel Durnford. If you saw the movie "Zulu" he was played by Burt Lancaster in that movie.

Can you add the profiles you mention to the project?

I agree -- very educational comments.

I can't even think of who a unitary gateway would be. When I was a kid, my eldest cousin on my mom's side researched things back as far as a bunch of folks who came over from England - and once you get back that far, people show up in a LOT of other people's trees.

Wish I could get anywhere near that kind of headway on my dad's side.

Always a lopside .... :)

Isn't the concept of a Gateway based on personal bias? Example: In the US we focus on immigrant ancestors... We could look at cultural forces just as easily... for example of religious or economic factors in society that fostered such immigration.
What I am attempting to convey here is that I feel we are all just cogs in different wheels of our own imagination.

Here's a personal list for me, one that expresses a directly Quaker bias:

George Fox (a founder of the Society of Friends):
George Fox
George Fox is my 10th great aunt's mother's 2nd husband. > not a blood relative

WIlliam Penn (colonized PA & NJ):
William Penn, Founder of Pennsylvania

William Penn's Father (the admiral who financed his son's American experiment):
Edward Penn, the Planter
Admiral Sir William Penn, MP is my first cousin 11 times removed.

Elizabeth WIldman of Tatham:
Elizabeth Wildman, Quaker Martyr
Elizabeth Wildman of Tatham is my 8th great grandmother
She died incarcerated for refusing to pay tithes to the Church of England, turned in by her parish priest

Elizabeth WIldman's son Martin (who emigrated to America): Martin Wildman of Croasdale Grains
(my immigrant ancestor)

I would be at my wit's end to prioritize these people in some kind of order in my family's history... vis a vis the Gateway concept.

Michael,

This is an interesting topic. I'm actually trying to do it from the immigrant on down but that is huge since so many came in the 1600 but then there is attrition because some are just lost and the family line isn't attached to my tree very long. But I'm mixing that with Quaker backgroung too and Martin Wildman is a great grandfather of mine too. So it is nice to meet you. I have done nothing on him yet. He waits in the wings. I'm working on the Scottish Quakers, Laings, Edgars and Websters at the moment.

I have quite a few, illegitiamte as well as legitimate. The first example is my 5th great grandfather Count Christian Heinrich August Hardenberg-Reventlow. Another example is my 6th great grandmother Heinine Christiane Sturup. Yet another example is my 7th great grandmother Barbara Rebecka Gärffelt, as well as my 9th great grandfather Ernst Laxmand von Rahden and my 8th great grandmother Barbara Kinnaird. They all connect to the World tree, if that is what you mean with "gateway ancestor".