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From: "Leo van de Pas" <>
Subject: Reasons why some people are "interesting"
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 09:54:02 +1100


I find this subject awkward as it is so multifacetted. Sometimes a "boring" medieval person becomes fascinating because he/she is an ancestor of President Bush, Prince William of Wales, Rachel Ward, a Gateway Ancestor and so on.

Personally I wished Gateway Ancestors were extended to those going to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South America, as well. But as most members (I believe) of this group are in North America, those Gateway Ancestors get, understandably, preferential treatment.

At the moment Nat and John Ravillious have started a great series, crusading ancestors of President Bush. Bush, really, is outside our scope but at least it limits the number of contenders. The same applied a while ago when I tried to make a list of ancestors of Prince William of Wales who were killed at Flodden.

Trying to record all Crusaders would be an impossible task, and therefor limiting them to ancestors of one person, President Bush, seems sensible. They could have chosen crusading ancestors of Prince William, but, perhaps, there are more Americans sharing crusading ancestors with Bush, I don't know.

By having to select common ancestors of one person, even if that person falls into the OT region, doesn't really matter as long as the people discussed are medieval. Personally, I am grateful to John Ravilious of having made a list of crusaders as such lists for me are very hard to find.

By pinpointing crusading or other type of ancestors for people today in America (or wherever) we assist them and we make gen-med more interesting and more relevant for participants. Some times subjects can be boring (for some) because they are technical but important.

I am sure many will agree with me, if only-----if only we had access to Muslim genealogies. They are so important and so tantalising closely linked to 'western' genealogies. I hope that people also agree with me that the Muslims involved in the crusades were much more civilised than most of those barbarians we call crusaders.

Best wishes
Leo van de Pas
Canberra, Australia

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