You know me.
My dad, Donald James Duncan, was born in Edmonton, Alberta on 26 September, 1935.
His mother, Mercedes Mary Hill, was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on 21 September, 1911.
Her dad, Albert Audman Hill, was born in Lefroy, Ontario on 8 December, 1879.
His mother, Mary Bailey, was born sometime in the year 1849, in Georgetown, Ontario.
It says that her dad, Isaiah Bailey, was born "about 1819," somewhere in England.
His mother, Anne Ricaby (sic) was born 30 May, 1787. It doesn't say where, but there's a record of a christening on 3 June, 1787, in Lastingham, York, England.
Both Anne and her son Isaiah died in Georgetown, in Ontario, Canada.
Makes you wonder what happened, and how, and why, doesn't it? What gave them the courage to cross over?
We don't know, of course, but the record does show that Anne's father William Rickaby (sic) was born 8, June, 1761, somewhere in Yorkshire, England.
Here's where Matt and I had trouble.
Quillmus Rickaby, William's dad, was born at some point in the year 1715, in Melsonby, in northernmost Yorkshire. Where on earth did that name come from? Well, hang on.
Quillmus's dad, John, was born in the year 1667, which makes him a 48 year-old father.
Were there kids before, or after? Not sure. There's a lot of digging left to do around this particular root.
John was born in Terrington. Is it Terrington St. John, or Terrington St. Clement? Not sure, yet (though the two villages are pretty close to each other)! Either way, the Terringtons are some 170 miles south of Quillmus's Melsonby, in Norfolk.
John the first's father was Edward, definitely from Terrington Saint Clement (Norfolk, England) on an unrecorded date in 1606. Looks like that's the answer to that particular question, though that's a mere drop in the knowledge bucket.
Thomas Rickaby was Edward's sire.
He was also born in Terrington Saint Clement. In 1584!
Thomas's father, wouldn't you know it, was the original Quillmus.
Born Terrington Saint Clement again, sometime in the long distant year of 1565. William Shakespeare, for instance, was one year old.
Suddenly it's not so funny, is it?
What were the Rickabys doing there, in that small community, those five generations? Whatever it was it must have started with (the original) Quillmus's father, Riccardi (sic) Rickaby.
He was the one—unless it was his father, who is too far back in the distance for us to know anything about—who moved down to Norfolk. From Yorkshire! Riccardi was born in Howden, in Yorkshire's East Riding.
Makes you think, doesn't it? We possess our surnames, sometimes proudly, even fiercely. Women marry, still, and give up that name for another. Kind of crazy! We feel that, unless we're like the young gal in our ward who hates her father, and his whole family, and is glad for her new name.
But that makes me think more. Look at these nine generations (!!), these 250 years of this Rickaby family. Not to mention the Foords, the Wards, the Edwards, the Harrisons, the Herrings, the Jameses the Cornells, the Broughs, the Hicks, the Masons, the Webbers, the Browers—who used to be the Brouwers, which is how they spelled it for generations when they lived in Holland, which is where we also get the Bogarduses, and the Stilles, and the Sybrants [and/or the Suybrandts] and the Jacobs and the Hendrickses and the Wallises and the Theunises and the de Piers—not to mention the Smiths, the Deverells, the Browns, the Warrens, the Murphys.
It's a good thing my Grandpa Duncan's line stops short suddenly, at the point of his grandparents, eh? And then we haven't even discussed the Mathiesons Andersons Jamiesons Harts McNees Houstons Murphys Morgans Mackays McKechnies McCaffertys Wypers [appearing to have been changed from Wybar] Hannahs Aitkens Blairs Boyds Griffins McNairs Peffers Browns (again) Simpsons Ronalds Menzies Cunninghames Manns.
Notice those last ones? Not Scots you say, Claire? Then again, here come the Hallidays the Vallelys the McGurks and the Murphys.
What's in a name? asked Shakespeare, intending something different by the question. The name didn't matter, he was saying, as a good thing, or person, is good regardless. Well I guess it's still true that it doesn't matter, though in a completely different sense. That's to say that the one name matters so much less in the face of this astonishing multiplicity. They all matter.
Malachi!
And notice: we haven't even talked about Mum's capacious, much more researched lineage.
Join in, won't you kids?
