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Jim Roache's Web Site |
Above you will find our earliest Arms - those of Sir Richard FitzGodebert de Roch(e) - son of Godebert Flendrensis of Pembroke[shire] --- (Pembroch), Wales - reportedly settled there from Flanders by their patron, King Henry I, while Duke de la Roche (Normandy) - c. 1100 AD (if not before). Another version of "the facts" has Godebert born at Roch in AD 1096.
From Flanders - but not necessarily Flemish - any more than later being from Wales (Cambro-Flemish) would make us Irish. We were in Cornwall too - that didn't make us English. Genetics, race and family existed before borders. Six centuries in Ireland never made us Irish - as many an Irish (Gael) will happily take as much time as necessary to make plain, including those of my mother's own family. So I ask these people, "How much of our blood", and one answered, there can never be enough.
We - and it remains to be proven by DNA - might be Anglo-Frisian, Frisian, Saxon or Flemish NW European at least 2,000 years ago, with a lot of milling about in Western Europe and the Isles after that, followed by the Diaspora. Belgae has been ruled out in our case, but not for all Roche families, of whom there are some widely dispersed in Belgium. For now, we are either from the Benelux Confederation and/or NW Europe, prior to arriving in the British Isles. Then it was on to North America, while others of us went to AU/NZ, SA, SA and some are scattered because of military service in very strange places indeed.
I have satisfied myself to the extent possible that we are Frisian (NW & W European). Frisians are ethnic Germanic peoples living in coastal regions of what is now the Netherlands and NW Germany, but concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and in Germany and North Frisia.
We are tall, big-boned, light-haired, blue/green-eyed and we have a rich history and folklore. Those "de Roch" from Wales are most likely "ours" at least racially (but there is no 100% certain scientific proof). We are getting closer, however, thanks to genetics. We are peaceful and even managed to get along with the Romans for a time, but, when taxes became repressive, we hanged their tax collector and defeated Tiberius at the Battle of Baduhennawood.
The Frisii were known and respected by the Romans, who even wrote about us. Tacitus did a treatise on what he decided arbitrarily to be the Germanic peoples in AD 69, describing them, and listing some tribes by name. Of the many tribes he mentioned, the name 'Frisii' is the only one still in use to refer unequivocally to the same ethnic group. But most northern "Frisii" would say they were Saxons.
Certainly the Saxons and Frisians were together and tucked up against the border of Denmark (or if you prefer, the Jutland Peninsula). We can thus safely be considered to have been among those labelled as Vikings, which, as with the Celts, is not a genetic or racial grouping at all, but a convenient label for a diverse number of similar groups - by language, religion, location, habits, allegiance, or simple being "other" from those doing the naming.
The surname itself is found all over Europe in many variants and appeared spontaneously over a period of several centuries in at least three haplogroups (distinct branches on the human genome or racial family tree - R1b, I and E3b.). Ironically, while modern genetics knows exactly what we are scientifically, pinpointing which of the different peoples, tribes or nationalities within which to place us has proven to be a challenge....because there has been so much racial mixing in Western Europe.
Taking the bull by the horns, by process of elimination - running parallel our genetic results with recorded history - haplogroups being the basis of our genetic and genealogical inheritance, sometimes helped match males of the same families or surname/s, and sometimes confirmed there is no connection whatsoever. But match historical dating of DNA with tribal migrations and things become as clear as circumstantial evidence can make them. DNA is nature's blueprint and footprint.
On a broader scale, with a little multi-disciplinary detective work, one can determine where and when a genetic type appears in history. A Haplogroup and what I call a set of "racial characteristics", and, combined with a reliable historical timeline, a high-probability assignment of origin can be made.
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FTM - Family - Short Version |
Sections and Pages are linked so that you can move from one to the other in sequence, or you can jump from here to anything of primary interest. Longer pages are divided into chapters. You can read one at a time, return to the top and pick another out of sequence or leave the site. Throughout, you can move around by preference, simply following the links.
Family History is not all musty libraries and genetics labs - it runs much deeper in many people emotionally and psychologically - perhaps because it had to do with survival and natural selection in the past or because we are not an entirely rational species --- sometimes a good thing. The poems below the section of the political and economic malaise we have laded in at the moment, I hope will resonate with some readers.
Sometimes, I feel surreal doing family history and genetics when external events are the way they are right now. For over a decade, I have tried to alert people that what was happening in the West was not going to be something they would much enjoy - even the dumbed-down and numbed-out credit card-armed might have some clue, I thought.
I did not find an audience - many others of like mind shared the same fate - sometimes this planet reminds me of the old movie "Ship of Fools". Even after the lessons supposedly learned from the Great Depression as well as subsequent bubbles and recessions in the last thirty years, we crashed - right on schedule and according to plan.
Now, we are told the recession is over - happy days are here again! Whatever people are on, I really must give it a try, or is it in the water? Since when isn't debt beyond mathematical possibility of being repaid and annual government operating deficits to the point of near bankruptcy a problem? Since when is leaving fraudsters in charge and giving them tax-payer money to do the same thing again considered insane?
One thing I like about the E.U. is their media - The Independent and der Spiegel, for example. They call it as they see it. And looking at the economic mess, they talk about what went wrong - they bell the cat. They even understand that it is not a failure of Capitalism, but is the result of Criminal Actions on the part of Corporatists. These "geniuses", using loopholes in regulation and law, put there by their lobbyists and bribes, caused so much trouble the mind goes blank in attempting to comprehend the number of zeros in lost money.
The problem originated in financial services, not the real economy. In fact, these are now severed in respect to their historic relationship. What was and is still being done is simply not Professional, it is the complete reverse. It is based in a thirty-year old ideology that surfaced at the time of Reagan and Thatcher at the University of Chicago. It's adherents are as mindless as any fanatic. What they did came within a hair's breadth of crashing the Western or First World Economy - their solution, do it all over again and bvelieve they will get a different result. That is fanaticism, the most disturbing symptom of ideology.
No Professional Manager could 1. believe the Numerical Theory that has been fed people for three decades and 2. for sure, no Professional Manager would be party to it. It would be beneath them, and everything they stand for - not only ethically and legally reprehensible. Why - because it is simply bad for business, the economy, the country and the West. Any qualified Professional Manager saw where the intransigence of those in Financial Services would lead the real Economy. Some of us have done everything within out power to stop it.
My god, even Henry Ford knew that his employees and potential customers needed money to buy his products and services. Short-term thinking to any real manager is by definition absurd. But Bay Street & Wall Street are not in the real economy - their customers are not buying goods and services - they demand instant results.
Finance evolved into a Casino, a Mirage, and those who run "the house" - with a few rare exceptions - are not professional anything; they are organized criminals, cartels or unqualified morons chosen to manage new IT technology that really runs the system on automatic pilot backed by out-dated economic theory and mathematical abstractions. The miracle is that this monstrosity lasted three decades....it would have been the envy of any snake oil salesman in history
Are you Ready for THIS?
Goldman Sachs - CEO, Lloyd Blankfeinn has his own Vision of Banking.
He told The London Sunday Times:
"Banks have a purpose, and they do "God's work".
When did God (any God) decide to bring about another financial Recession of this size and scope; and when did She whisper in our leaders' and central bankers' ears to give them trillions in taxpayer dollars for an encore, while virtually nothing was done to help the real economy. It must be an Old Testament God - all fire and brimstone - whose sanity would be clearly in question were he put on a psychotherapist's couch.
I thought we had gotten that monkey off our back during the enlightenment. Then She pops up again in any number of fundamentalist groups - my personal favourite being idiots called "The Family" who offer cheap rent to US Congressmen and Senators near the Hill and tell them to out source their extra-marital sex lives. They can do that, which is no concern of mine really, but much more because they are "Chosen" to be "Leaders" and rules that apply to "normal" people do not apply to them.
Apparently the rules of Economics do - because some of these people are writ large in bringing us this to this impasse, and they continue to lead us onward to the predictable encore at this very moment.
And they think fundamentalist Muslims are our problem??? I don't know a lot about Sharia banking, but I haven't heard of any of them getting up to this kind of mischief. Kuwait - it borrowed from western banks for its Disneyland on the Beach. Go figure. So here we have a group of people, Greenspan included, who spent a good part of their lives analyzing the Great Depression. But once in positions of power, they do more-or-less the same sorts of things that caused so much trouble then.
This might be an interesting psychological study - as in why do human being do things that they know will end badly? Why do human beings who have great difficult running a country or an empire, try to rule the world - as in a New World Order? Why can anyone convince us we are special and due certain privileges not available to normal people, the masses? Even though there is much more to what is happening than psychology, it alone is basis enough to stop them NOW.
They are clearly insane! And "clawing back" bonuses just doesn't cut it! Some blame the Banks; some blame the Government; blame the class - the elite, the oligarchy - from which these maggots emerge from their cocoons every generation. Forget the bandaids - this is a job that in the old days would have required a pick handle - thin this generation we need an army of hackers and MBAs who understand the real economy! One they get to work, we can leave financial services in splendid isolation to play the stock and bond markets (using all their "creative capacity" where they can do no harm.
When did we abandon Common Sense & WHY?
Click, Listen, Return.
Click these links and return: Even though I haven't believed a Government Number since Economics 101 in the early 70's, here's our official debt clock just for fun - I'm betting it's much worse - call me a pessimist if you must - remember this is just federal, not provincial, municipal or personal:
Canadian Debt Clock
Canada is not much better, regardless of what we are told, than the U.S. A hundred of our highest paid CEOs pocketed an of average $7.3 million in 2008, the same year Canadians were hit by the worldwide recession that some of the high-earners helped cause. This data is from a new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Economist Hugh Mackenzie, who authored the report, said that this rate of average income for this elite is:
174 times more than the average Canadian wage.
Average earnings for the top CEOs outpaced inflation by 70% for a whole decade - 1998 to 2008; working middle class people earned an average income lost 6% to inflation in that time and earned (full-time) $42,305 (national)," Mackenzie said. That's a ratio 174/1.
Given that China is trying to develop a middle class and that the EU is doing everything in its power to preserve theirs, does this not raise a question about the US, and, therefore our trilateral strategy to eliminate it? Each Canadian family is already in debt 140% of their income, what happens when interest rates rise? Good-bye Middle Class! And that's the plan. South America is an oligarchy, a few rich at the top and everyone else at the bottom - no middle.
Look at Latin America. The medium-term plan is Transamerican Unity. Their politics and economies have, with a few exceptions, been a disaster. It is the lack of a Middle Class that has made it impossible for South America to "get it together." Brazil gets lots of headlines, but its development is Chinese. Argentina has Russians and Chinese. The gruesome violence that pervades their streets contrasts with it's lush habitats and colonial architecture. Even Mexico is no paradise, with the exception of a few tourist enclaves.
Latin culture masks power in the language of purpose and esteem. But, like us, you now have to invert whatever you are told by our political and economic elites to grasp the truth, e.g. we were recently told that Canada had budget surpluses. Called on it by the Opposition, the government subsequently admitted the reverse was true.
Trust in and commitment to our leaders and institutions, inclusing main-stream media, no longer exists, except by those who want to slop at the trough of public largesse. Like our southern neighbours with their drug and gun running, we are the white-collar crime capital of the world. There are actually policy papers which justify allowing this on the basis that, while dirty money is undesirable in the first instance, once the first transaction is complete, money is money. Down the road, the game plan is to integrate SACN (the South America Community of Nations) which was called the SPP until the name was changed. The strategy, however, remains.
The bottom line as our moronic leaders see it is for us to change to make merging more easy - to balance the growing power of China and the EU. 174/1 is a good start. But totally bankrupting (through easy credit, too much debt and then raising interest rates), plus manipulating the financial services sector so that investors lost almost all - the second dip will get the rest - should make merging look as appealing as any other option.
The problem, income disparity, combined with corruption, can only have one result. Our "elites" think they can live in compounds, protected by the police and military, just like Latin America. Astounding really - when you consider what Latin America could be - its potential - and consider what it is. The rich never know when they will be killed or kidnapped, and there are regular uprisings, who would want to live like that? Our elites - seemingly???
Well, the recipe for living like that is 174/1 - Leonard Cohen is right - I have seen the future and it is Murder. Look around - the present is stupid, lazy, corrupt, on-the-make and on-the-take. Money is the means; power is the goal. Are those stupid SOBs who run things ever in for a nasty surprise? The answer, of course is morals, ethics or values, but they have as much chance of understanding those concepts as I do grasping why they think turning the rest of North America into Miama is a great idea.
U. S. Bankruptcy Clock
Note the clock says $12 trillion - the real number is approaching $120 Trillion.Social Security, Veterans' Benefits and Medicare are NOT Funded. Real Debt is just short of $120 Trillion USD. If the US paid a Billion a Day, it would take about 350 Years to pay it all back - provided no new debt was added. Oh, by the way, Unemployment is 25%, not 10! Yes, governments fib!
$1 trillion USD - 5 acres of $100 bills stacked 6 feet high. Stack them 120 times and DC will have them paid back in 350 years or so. "U.S. now laughing stock of international finance,The Int'l Forecaster.
Even though it gets tiresome being told by friends that I'm a pessimist, how they can look at these data and still dance the night way is beyond me? Of course, that has happened in every major crisis in modern times, so I suppose I should be flattered by their idiocy. Click on the link below, then the PLAY Icon and check out the unemployment numbers.
U.S. Unemployment
Canada & the U.S. are joined at the hip, and we must deal with the same reality (to scale). Our corrupt financial services system and mounting debt (toxic assets) are out of control. Our Courts are now Corrupt. That will lead to social unrest, a clampdown and politicians with a single option - One World Government.
But they - politicians - won't be running it. It will be the Corporatists. If you think you've been suckered, just wait till our politicians find out what the elite has in store for them. By now, I think most people get it; some are in denial; but they get it. There is an answer to all of this - we just have to catch up to globalization and managing the technology which made it possible. Sadly, we are simply not that highly evolved. At this point, we will make a total bollix of it.
General Rule: USD down, Gold Up; USD up, Gold Down. Insurance only - for what's coming - you'll need it! This one very good canary in the coal mine. Just don't bet the farm: George Soros said at Davos recently : "When interest rates are low we have conditions for asset bubbles to develop, and they are developing...the ultimate asset bubble is gold." Gold prices last month reached having risen around 40% last year. Investors are piling into the metal amid fears of potential inflation and fading faith about the stability of safe assets such as government debt. However, the chairman of Barrick Gold, the world's biggest producer, Peter Munk, said he expected the metal's upward march to continue. That little can icon speak volumes.
The U.S. could be a change factor in the global system. But the US is not top banana anymore and the light had better come on in somebody's head quickly. Even the Federal Reserves interactive maps are frightening - take a look - Point, Click and Return - if you don't have an anxiety attack:
We are witnessing the elimination of the middle class and the transfer of real wealth to the top. That means - at a minimum - totalitarianism (regional or global) - total power over the rest of us by a few who think they have all the answers. We have seen it before in history. Never works, but invariably makes one hell of a mess of things!
And the Europeans are left to clean up a mess that they feel the American dropped in their laps. They are not happy. The link below shows what our ''financial creativity'' has wrought for them:
E.U. Interactive Map.
What the Hell are People Thinking?
Corporatism is not Capitalism- We have been attacked by Suits with Computers...not by Professional Managers
Canadian John Ralston Saul, stated in his book, The Unconscious Society that corporatists are linked by a religious devotion to "the market" and an inability to see government as a justifiable protector of the citizenry. That, plus their inability to see human beings as anything "other" makes it impossible for them to conceive of a [just society] society, an actively organized movement motivated to act in terms of the public good.
This whole charade is about power, not money - money is the means, not the end. Whenever this has been attempted in history, the outcome has been dire. Human beings have simply not yet evolved to the point at which they can handle so much power. Unless geneticists have been working at spawning some super race (eugenics), we are in trouble.
We are clearly at a tipping point in history at which global corporations, because of modern technology, have amassed wealth and power that governments have only in their dreams. They have no limits, no borders, no jurisdictional constraints and governments are their todies.
Chinese, U.S. and E.U. politicians think they have strategic plans for a new world order, but without the ability to reign in the global corporations, they have nothing - just castles in the air. To the Corporatists, governments and their institutions are a sad joke.
In the past, I had dismissed such thinking as immature, illiterate and stupidly grandiose - bordering on megalomania and sociopathy. However, just as they over-estimated their abilities; I had underestimated their lack of them. If this nonsense is a precursor to any such "Grand Design"; New World Order by Corporatist, it shows just how limited our elites an be. Clearly, once they have used the military and police - to try to perpetrate their dream world - they will end as did Hitler and Mussolini.
Democracy Out --- Imperialism In --- Total Control by the Few of the Many. World Empire. What do you think?
It's Decision Time!
But now, if I may, I'd like to get back to what really interests me - Family History and Genetics. You can simple point and click on the Site Map to move around.
Courage came to me from the height of the mountain, and with it came the dignity of manhood, and knowledge of the Tree of Life, for now I was a branch, running with the vital blood....and had brought forth sons.
I saw behind me those who had gone; and before me, those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front, to see my son, and his son, and sons upon sons beyond.
And their eyes were my eyes.
As I felt, so they had felt, and were to feel, as then, so now, as tomorrow and forever. Then I was not afraid, for I was in a long line that had no beginning and no end.The hand of his father grasped my father's hand, and his hand was in mine, and my son took my right hand, and all, up and down the line that stretched from Time That Was, to Time That Is, and is not yet.
They raised their hands to show the link, and we found that we were one, born of Woman, Son of Man, made in the Image, fashioned in the Womb by of the Universe.
I was of them, they were of me, and in me, and I in all of them.
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It is useless to puzzle yourself any longer over what is utterly illegible; the letters worn past all hope of deciphering a single sentence.
Come away. And thus ends the last effort of poor humanity to perpetuate its cherished sorrows, or to display its pompous boasting, in the sight of posterity.
That old, mossy stone, with its half-shadow of a cherub's face peeping out from the broken outline of a pair of wings; its green and yellow patches of corroded surface, where the long inscription once appeared; and its slanting position, bending forward while it sinks sideways into the soil, that is the sole surviving memento of--what?
It is a memento; it says Remember ; but who or what is to be remembered?
All the wit of all earth's wise ones cannot discover. Nay, though, right under the cherub's chin, we may trace the course of the 'His jacket,' by knowing where it should stand; still no more is communicated than bare existence in that place made known.
It is a grave - its inmate long-tenanted in the silent dwelling - and here our information ceases.
Is it, then, idle and vain so to mark a spot, endeared, perhaps, to some fond breast far beyond all residue the globe contains?
No!
It is comely and befitting our nature so to do, a natural impulse, one among the multitude of unregarded evidences afforded of the doctrine of the mystical revealed to man from earliest times.
They are not only a sepulchre, preserving the human body after death to a pitch of perfection at which modern science can only gaze and wonder, when unrolling from its delicate wrappers the corpse of two or three thousand years' unchanged.
It bespeaks conviction that the spirit would re-animate its earthly tenement, yet in total ignorance of the Power that would gather up the scattered dust and say,
In each family there is one who is called to find the ancestors. They put flesh on their bones and make them live again to tell the family story, and to know that somehow they know and approve. Doing genealogy is not just gathering facts but breathing life into all whom have gone before.
We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: ''Tell our story.'' So, we do. And, in finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before and felt at home? I have lost count. How many times have I told my ancestors, ''You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us''? How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I sense ''the old ones'' give birth or marry or die and I do feel afraid - they become real because they were real.
Genealogy goes to who am I and why do I do what I do? It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference, and saying ''I won't let this happen''. The bones here are my bones and the flesh is my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors accomplished - they succeeded and failed; they struggled; they survived. How often have I heard hammer ring on anvil and armour and tackle rattle in the dark - not once have I been afraid.
It goes to respect what they were, who they were; their hardships; their losses; their never giving in or giving up, their will to go on and build a life for us. It goes to deep pride - they fought to make and keep us what we are - the best of us at least. It goes to a deep understanding that they were doing it all for us - that we might be born and be who we are; that we might remember them. And so we do - with love and gratitude and pride - recording each fact of their existence because we are them and they are us.
So, as a scribe, I tell the story of my family. It is up to the one called in each generation to answer the call. I had no choice. It was merely inevitable. And so I took my place in a long line of family storytellers. That is why I do family history, and that is what compelled me to do it. I know others will be called in turn to stop, reflect and restore flesh to bone; life to those at rest.
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King Diarmait MacMurchada of Leinster
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Note: Weis-Sheppard's Ancestral Roots, Seventh and later Editions, 1992-99 and Complete Peerage (CP) 10, p. 356, state that Eva/Aoife was the daughter of Diarmait, son of Donnchad MacMurchada and one of his wives, Mor, daughter of Muirchertach Ua Tuathail.
MacMurchada gained a Norman King's off-handed permission, and began recruiting. No Englishmen had the slightest interest. Diarmait soon realized he would have to "up the ante", and he moved on to Wales to find de Clare - knowing a likely target when he saw one.
The Earl, who had not even then been confirmed Earl, was one step from being in Diarmait's shoes. But even Strongbow was not interested in money; he had his mind set on land and land alone, a title and the revenue it might produce. Anything else was simply icing on the cake.
Princess Aoife was none too pleased to be offered up to de Clare, but had no choice. When he died, she wasted no time in advising the man in whom she did have an interest, and her choice of language, showed little love or respect for the Earl.
However, she was the means to make de Clare heir apparent to the Kingship of Leinster, under feudal law [not under Brehon Law]. In fact, as Diarmait well knew, and de Clare may not have known, this arrangement was something that flew in the face of Irish tradition. As presented, it was of irresistible appeal to the Earl who may not have known that Diarmait had set him up. After Diarmait died, a few years after these seminal events, de Clare learned that the Irish could be big on principle and he spent the rest of his life fighting them over succession.
But he had agreed to raise an army and reinstate Diarmait as King of Leinster for life - with himself in direct line of succession - Brehon (Gaelic Irish) Laws notwithstanding. It was the marriage of Irish Princess Aoife (Eva), likely an illegitimate daughter of the King of Leinster, that the dye was cast.
This Cambro-Norman Earl arrived at Waterford in August AD 1170 - he finally showed up a year after his men had landed, and he helped in taking and sacking the town. Were he and his men alone? Hardly. Diarmait's army of several thousand Irishmen, not to mention the "flower and the youth of Wales," were with them.
A political and military alliance, sealed by marriage, a custom of the times, meant there was no turning back --- it was do or die for Diarmait's Irish, Strongbow's mongrel Normans and their Welsh and continental allies. And the rest, as they say, is history - admittedly muddled - but there it is!
Despite the occasional shot across my bow in doing this project, Keating's "History of Ireland", written in AD 1758, by Abbe MacGeoghegan, and translated in AD 1831 by O'Kelly and Dineen in three volumes, ends with an interesting and gratifying comment.
Describing some of the kindly temperaments of the Roches in various parts of the country, he describes them as being rewarded by God for avoiding acts of treachery and performing many good deeds . He suggests their vast holdings and great numbers of descendants thriving in many parts of Ireland were blessings earned . God, however, seems to have later left us to our own devices.
MacGeoghegan had previously (Ch. 34) named five men who did more evil than all the Gaels put together from AD 1169 onward - Richard FitzGilbert de Clare; Robert FitzStephen; Hugh de Lacy; John de Courcy and Henry's man, William FitzAudelm .
He notes that many Roche heiresses, who left Ireland through marriage, could well have made claims against family lands, especially in Wales or Ireland, but they had moved to England, and made no such claims. He singles out for special commendation several family members, including those in the Wexford Branch who endowed the Church with Bergerin Island in Wexford Harbour in remembrance of their father - Rodbert - Adam, David and Henry de Rupe .
To see that honourable, charitable, generous and spiritual instinct recognized even by someone who might begrudge an enemy any type of acknowledgment feels good. I must admit that during my own prolonged visit some years ago, it was quite striking to see what the Roches had contributed to the Republic, not the least of which were their personal contributions and sacrifices to the cause of Irish freedom.
I would be the first to admit this was not, nor could it be, a consensus. But there seems, in general, more that is good associated with the name than many today are willing to acknowledge. Perhaps it is no accident that this was the time (c 1830) that my own pre-Famine ancestors joined the Diaspora. There was little more they could do for the Irish that they had not already done - 1798 and 1803 were really the endgame for us.
An AD 1247 List of Knights includes the names of new ''owners'' of grants promised by Diarmait, and later confirmed with some modifications by Henry II during his visit. Some even refer to that as an Invasion. It was not. Someone had done Henry the "favour" of murdering Thomas a Beckett at Church, trying to read the King's mind and win favour.
They failed, and Henry was in big trouble with Rome. He thought the only way to get back in the Pope's good graces was to do penance in Ireland, bring the Church there within the Roman sphere, and ensure the collection of a property tax, "Peter's Pence" for Rome. His visit worked like a charm...with great support from the Church.
By this time, Henry did not trust the Normans and instead brought an English Army, so they would not be tempted to "go over" to Strongbow. All he did was make a show of force - by virtue of the size of his army. Then the Church and civic officials - under threat by Rome - paid homage to Henry.
Strongbow did likewise, had some of his gains removed to avoid future problem with him, and when done, with the exception of a few trusted officials left behind to keep an eye on things, Henry took his army and left Ireland never to return. The one exception was that he left some to re-populate Dublin simply because Diarmait and his allies had run off or killed off the Danes there.
Cambro-Normans and others left with holding as originally granted by Strongbow were: de Prendregast (Prendergast), de Rupe (Roche) , de Heddon (Hayden), Howel, de London, de Bosco, Chever (Cheevers), Le Brun (Browne), Ketting (Keating), Purcell, de Wythay (Whitty), Cod (Codd), Deverous (Devereux), le Poeur (Power), Synod (Synott or Sinnott), Hey (Hay or Hayes) and FitzHenry [and this is not a full list].
Attitudes became negative towards the "Old English" during and after the Reformation - guilt by association - with those then running England and trying to commit genocide against the Gaels. We had too much self-respect to stay around for that, just as we had too much to engage in the behaviour that led to some of their above-named allies to act in a way that would ensure we would live on in infamy.
John F. Kennedy, visited the John Barry Memorial, Crescent Quay, Wexfordtown - 27 June 1963 (photo below). Kennedy, then President of the United States, saw his ancestral home at Dunganstown near New Ross. His great grandfather had left Co. Wexford in 1848, and settled in Boston. They were Famine Irish. By that time, we were long gone from the same area, but later migrations largely by-passed Newfoundland.
No matter, everything he spoke about and the location from which he sprang resonated of the same distant tradition. Our big weakness is that in important matters, we are too ethical - this can be seen in General Roche's Address of AD 1798. We expect the same from others. Some see this as weakness. It is naive of us to do so, and will always keep us "one down", yet the alternative, living our lives by the rules of the others - is too horrible to contemplate. That has been and continues to be our karmic dilemma.
The key seems to be not to rise too high – where integrity and credibility can be perceived as liabilities – to stay in the middle of the pack, do the right thing and not get found out. So far, it has worked for us on this side of the Atlantic.
The Kennedys are R1b genetically, but that is as far as it goes. We would never try, because we are never so inclined, to affect a relationship with the famous. I once asked, quite seriously, on an online medieval discussion list, why people do that - considering that the morals, ethics and behaviour of such people have often left so much to be desired.
A lady responded, taking grave umbrage, saying I must be either 17 or 71, i.e. childish or senile, to ask such a question. I still consider it valid. What is the attraction? I truly don't understand in most cases. Were I related to someone "worthy" by any reasonable standard, I might feel differently. But most rich, socially prominent and politically powerful people - because of their behaviour - I would not want to be linked with in any way.
I am content to be from a long line of honourable yeomen and lesser knights, who practiced their craft or ran their holdings to make a life for themselves and for the betterment of the community. They would, of course, as one writer has said, willingly leave the plow and take up the sword, when required. That I understand, and people of that sort are good enough [some might say too good] for me.
I would, nevertheless, like as many males of our surname as possible to do a genotest for matches - and I confess that is based on the fact that it would be nice to follow our line further back than paper records can take us. Provided there is some sort of supporting oral or documented data to help verify the findings, it would be worthwhile, no matter who might be hiding in the closet.
It would be a dull and lifeless family that did not have something they might have wanted kept quiet at the time. But these days, who cares? There has never been a better time to have a look backwards - I don't expect many saints in my line - but with luck - there won't be any homicidal maniacs either.
So please do consider it - men of the surname Roache - by any spelling - in any language - and of any race, creed, or colour. If you have hit a brick wall of your own in your family research, DNA testing has helped some find their long-lost roots.
There are several pages and many links on this Site. You will find Family History and a DNA Project, which has added considerably to group history, if not our personal family history. It has developed that our DNA is quite rare in Ireland. Gaps in the written birth, marriage and death records, especially in Ireland, and caused by the Penal Laws and "the troubles", leave us to pin our hopes on science.
But Roches - whether Haplogroup R1b [like us], I or E3b - can all be so ornery that people can be forgiven for thinking we are all related. We have people who have matched genetically - three in one case under R1b - all from Cork - and they don't talk to one another in any way that would be helpful??? Another is in the same haplotype we are, but migrated later and can't seem to grasp that there might be a way to fill in the gaps without doing unnecessary and irrelevant additional DNA tests.
Others have moved and not left contact information. And others, when they try to work together, just can't. One of my techniques - given that I can't possibly remember all the family data of the people I deal with fairly regularly, is to occasionally link 4-6 who appear to have something in common.
Often they fail to see what I see or are simply uncomfortable sharing information. Why someone would do family history and/or DNA testing and behave like that is totally beyond my understanding. All I ask is that they keep me in the loop in case the data will help someone else or match with other information in my files. Then I remember they are Roches, have a good chuckle, and get on with whatever I'm doing.
If you know your family history, you likely take a lot for granted. If you have lost touch with your origins, you know it leaves a "hole in the soul" that can make life more difficult. Some have yet to discover the emotional and psychological value of "ROOTS" - which have biological and behavioural implications - only recently understood and appreciated.
For others, the spelling and meaning of a surname are most important. People feel theirs MUST be "right". Some in my own family "feel" this way - subjectively - rather than through conscious effort, and a variant - no matter how legitimate - can evoke a profoundly negative response.
I would simply ask that such people offer others the courtesy they demand. I know of few, if any, surnames with only one spelling. We are all adults - and supposedly live in a "free" society - so we should be able use the spelling we prefer...without interference from opinionated and emotional relatives or others who happen to share the surname and to think there is only one spelling.
This issue is discussed at length on our Family History page...much of it "tongue in cheek", as I'm doing here. But, I see people who are so close to matching their data, and then back off, that I don't know whether to laugh, cry or ignore it. I think you can guess what my most common reaction is :-)
Being an alpha male - I confess, I am results-oriented. Holding to one spelling can make it impossible to do successful research. There is a simple explanation that summarizes the most commonly accepted (and fiercely defended) spellings in what is now our mother tongue:
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Roache=
My Surname |
Roach=
Fish |
Roche=
Rock |
Roch=
The First - Wales |
De Roch is NOT Norman (it is NOT de la Roche], although often confused with it, because of intermarriage or other associations. Depending on whether spoken in hard or soft Gaelic (P or Q) , (understood or misunderstood) it was associated by the Normans with the surname ROCK (Modern English).
ROCH, common in Wales, even today - Normans heard it with a soft ending and thought "de la Roche"; when they heard it with a hard ending (as in Loch Loman), they translated Roch (k) into French so, again, it was "de la Roche". Irish writers, getting one over on the "invaders", have always written that it meant by, at, near or on a rock. The informed ones know better!
Often any name was based on the towns in or near which people lived. The placename often preceded the surname. It arose spontaneously all over western Europe during two centuries. The three Roachs on our arms some say was a pun on rock. Well, there are other Roche arms that have only lions, in various stances. What does they have to do with rock? Roche (various spellings) was, according to Reitstaps Armorial General, used earlier in France, Poland and Switzerland. With the Diaspora, it is, of course, now used worldwide in one form or another. One spelling - hardly. There are no hard and fast rules for ANY NAME.
I use the ROACHE spelling because it includes ALL English-language variants, English - being the modern "lingua franca" --- RO(A)CH(E) --- inclusive --- I like it. That's all - and that's enough - as it is for you too.
The thing that surprised me was the use of the same name in any of our three haplogroups ... only one includes us . We are R1b1b2g* (NW & W European/British Isles a.k.a Anglo-Frisian) - the asterisk means they have not fully classified us ... but they are satisfied that when the next SNP (snip) is found, it will confirm our placement on the genetic tree as 2g [also named R-U106] for convenience.
We are then most likely to have been located in Northern Germany-Scandinavia - with a possibility of being Saxon, Flemish or Dane (as in Jutes from the Jutland Peninsula) during the last two millenia at least. There is a small probability that we could be from some smaller, but related, tribe located in the same area - from the Danish border to Belgium, the British Isles, and spreading out from there. A surprise was that it is a rare type in Ireland, [our kind of R1b that is], and our first forebears in North America claimed to be from Co Wexford.
It's not about spelling or nebulous genetics; it is the name that is important. But you need to understand that behind that it is something within or beyond nationality, and then a much broader human inheritance. We are all part of the human race - no monkeys, apes, cavemen or little green men from Outer Space!
As for the Myths of Creationism (seven days and voila!) or Evolution with all its gaps and illogical transitions (given enough time, anything can happen) - if you can handle either, and you're an adult, Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy should come easily. Why not go the whole nine yards and accept that life is a mystery?!
You can find out how by using the Menu above, and some might like to know there was an ancient Gaelic name similar to ours. There's a story in Celtic Mythology about a raiding party from Connacht (variously spelled) and one from Ulster.
Led by a warlord named Medh, it was under King Conchobhar from the royal centre of Emain Macha. Both sides fielded the best warriors from among their aristocracy. Among Conchobhars fighting men were the likes of Ferghus mac Roich and Conall (Con) Cernach. They were headstrong and young, like the main character, Cu Chulainn.
So we have Roich , but we don't have is the rest of the story. DNA tests have proven we are not Gaels, but there may be Roichs (now Roches).
Over six hundred years, my family may have been in Ireland; I don't like that British notion of "more Irish than the Irish", but I know we did become Hibernicized. You can blame the Irish women who liked the look of a big swaggerin' Frisian. But our family can relax - we are not Gaelic Roich (we just act like it from time to time!!!):
From ancient Rome to the present (possibly because of the crowds at football "matches"), the real nature of the Celts has been hidden by a tangled web of stereotypes. But being a Celt is like being a Viking, an Indian or an Afro-American. These are over-simplified and generic terms that cover a multitude of peoples and/or tribes, often quite different from one another. Just keep that in mind.
On site, there is information about our family matriarchs: Cullen, Allen, Lawlor and McCauley. I was once accused of being a sexist swine for not having done them credit - when I was working on the page as it happens! These ladies certainly contributed to the diversity of our genetic code, and I wanted to do them justice. Other links are more general and will help anyone with an interest in history, as well as information about other surnames.
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I do not want to mislead people with that Icon -
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The volume is just too high each day. What I can do is offer advice; suggest ideas to put aside (because they will make your search more difficult); and share a few tricks I have picked up over the years. The hard work, you do, as I have done - or you pay professionals to do it - always an option - and one I have used myself with varying degrees of success.
So Relax, Enjoy and Learn.
But please feel free to use your browser's Forward or Back Icons to escape!
Now. a little personal information, so you will know something of the source of the information here....
I had always thought of myself as Irish[-]Canadian . But our great-great grandparents, John Roach(e) and Jane (Culle[i]n) are proving elusive. After all, their forebears likely arrived in Ireland 1167-72; earlier or later --- no time at all in the Irish mind.
Before that, they were likely in Wales - for less than a century (although some stayed longer) - or on the continent - likely wherever Saxons, Flemish, Frisians or Danes had settled.
I am a retired broadcaster and civil servant; and have lived and worked all across Canada. We were promised a "home" in Ireland. It never worked out....just the "blarney'' of an Irish King; the damage compounded by what was done later by Henry VIII; Elizabeth I and Oliver Cromwell during the reformation.
Now, we are at the four corners of the earth -- with few complaints and no regrets!
Here is forever, a lifetime, and I'll bide awhile.
The struggle for place was hard and wild - but, look closer, you can see my smile?
Olde Ireland
A spectre that haunts; an essence that comforts....
A land of shattered dreams; yet a magical isle.
There lived myth and fable and whimsy!
The dream, like all dreams, held for a time.
Things have all changed now, and for me that's just fine.
Now who would have thought......3 September 2009 - they're Europeans. You never know what a Gael will do next :-) With one leap to the east, can they leave the "the troubles" behind.Seems it's time to turn the sword into Euros....How can they Not now!? The decent thing is to wish them well, and we'll do that. Here's hoping today's decision works out well for all!
We of the rock, the fish, the lion and the name --- neither recognized nor acknowledged --- wherever we are around the planet were in fact globalists before anyone thought of the name - we were and are everywhere. It has worked well for us; we can only wish the same for the new Europeans.
It will take a little getting used to thinking in those terms of course. But time marches on, and it is best to be resigned and accepting of whatever the Fates hold in store....but ready to deal with the good and the bad. So the European Union it is then!
So be it. We remember.
We'd mourn,
Were she to flounder.
After all is said and done.
Only the Best for Ireland,
Now Our Day is Done!
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Like most countries, we are ruled by the rich, arrogant, cynical and remote. They constantly tell us, and their message is parroted by the media, that Canada is strong. They blame the U.S. for our "Made-in-Canada" problems. If only.....
Is This A Country You Want to Lose by Default?
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But I'd rather NOT!
Some things never change ... they are cyclical ... like us come to think of it ... creating an illusion of change. That's neither negative nor positive; it is simply a fact. To think otherwise is to fly in the face of the history.
There's only one real problem in the universe - it walks upright on two legs - you have to be vigilant, but not paranoid. There were, are and always will be those from the dark side, but their meager doings are utterly futile in the vast sweep of the history.
Life goes on - passing us all by. Don't sweat the small stuff - and it's all small stuff!
A Warning about the Internet
Misuse of the Web provides an excuse for those who want to "protect" to "regulate" and to "control". So knock it off!
Find people of like-mind to protect all that is good online. If we don't, it will be co-opted for nefarious purposes by the powerful, the criminal and the moronic.
Free speech is the lifeblood of democracy. We are now poised to slip into totalitarianism by default. I hoe people wake up before it's too late - but it unlikely.
Rights and privileges are paid for in blood; then squandered and returned to those from whom they were rightly taken in the past. We tried to change the world in the 60s, and failed....because we couldn't change people....even ourselves. Canadians have given up.
In their spare time, they could read a little history. Find me one example where surrender proved was a viable option!
Freedom has been considered ours by divine right. Planet Earth calling! That is not how things work. There is much that needs putting to right in Canada; much that is wrong and unjust; and fixing it won't happen by magic or by itself. It definitely won't happen if the people surrender their power to government.
Remember the old ones - now gone. If we fail to grasp the torch and hold it high, we aren't worthy of the blessings the fates and our forebears won for us. That leaves three options - adult, childish and aggressive:
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What we have - Simply A Miracle |
Global Warming - Beyond Us |
Most Likely - Given Our Nature |
So Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign! Do Something - Anything is better than Nothing!
Presented to James F. Roache in special recognition of his outstanding patience, intelligence, wit and warmth
by [the late] Mary (Roche) Carella, N.Y.
Award was commissioned by
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