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Serjeant William Lovelace, ca. 1527-1577

Serjeant William Lovelace in 1576

Back in 1247, the Lovelace family settled at Bethersden, in the Weald of Kent, and in 1367 purchased the property that was to become Lovelace Place. Two members of the family, possibly brothers, joined Cade’s Rebellion in 1450; another allegedly played a crucial role during the Second Battle of St. Albans in 1461 by withdrawing his Yorkist contingent from the fight. It was probably that man’s son, Sir Richard Lovelace, who served as marshal of Calais under Henry VII and was knighted after the Battle of Blackheath (1497).[...] read more

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Alice Wilson’s Ahnentafel

The first Ahnentafel, published by Michaël Eytzinger in Thesaurus principum hac aetate in Europa viventium, Cologne, 1590

An Anhentafel (German for “ancestor table”)  is a scheme for numbering ancestors in strict sequence so that one can easily calculate relationships. The base person is number 1. Each father is assigned a number exactly double that of his child. Mothers are assigned a number equal to that of their husbands, plus 1.

So to navigate through the list: pick any person, note the assigned number, and you can find his or her father by doubling that number. The mother, if known, will be one digit higher and right next door. Likewise, to find anyone’s child, halve their assigned number and ignore any remainder. (Numbers missing from the sequence mean that we haven’t found that ancestor.)[...] read more