Academic Area of Specialization

Gosh the Byzantine empire sounds intriguing. Thank you so much for describing it to me. You should be a teacher. I even love the word. I love Etymology. Just looked it up and it said it’s Latin. Latin is a very interesting language. I love the vocabulary of medicine because of all of the Greek and Latin words. I just read that Constantinople is now Istanbul. I remember seeing a BBC series where they went underground in cities that was about Istanbul. It was absolutely stunning. I think Islamic architecture is so interesting. I had no idea that the Roman’s had Egypt!?. 

The dark ages in Britain sounds fascinating too. I wonder why nothing was written?. Gosh with the birth of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish nationalities being born I’m intrigued to know what that looked like. I love accents. Was shocked to discover I’m welsh. None of my family knew they were either. 

Amazing to hear about your grandfather. My nan told me a lot about her life but my grandma died when I was 8. What I find fascinating is that I don’t think my mom or aunties asked her about her life. I’m sad about that I’d love to know what t was like. She was born in 1901. Her daughter my nan used to look after me a lot when my mom was working though so she’d tell me about her life. I think I mentioned this in another comment but my nan grew up surrounded by horses. Traveling on her dad’s horse and cart. She’d tell me how it would take a day to travel somewhere. Apparently her dad was a coal merchant why he had the horse and cart and committed suicide when cars were invented because he refused to get rid of his horses. 

According to a pedigree created in 1913 by Charles Bernau, one of the founders of the London Society of Genealogists, I am Winston Churchill's 9th cousin once removed. However, the pedigree might not be entirely reliable - but it does exist, I have a scan of a version of it drawn up in 1933.

On surname distribution maps, I can see when the family of one of my gt grandmothers moved from London to my home county, just before the 1871 census. This is because the name count goes from zero to being the third most populous in the whole country. There were 8 of them!

The Byzantine Empire is often thought of as beginning around 641 AD when the great Arab/Islamic conquests took Syria and Egypt from the East Roman Empire, though earlier dates have some validity, it ended with the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Sultan Mehmet II the Conqueror (who then took the title Kayser-i Rûm, "Caesar of Rome"). Lots of things happened in between, the most culturally important being the conversion to Orthodox Christianity of the Bulgarian, Russian, Georgian and Serbian peoples. The Dark Ages in Britain began around 410 AD when Roman rule in Britain ended, and ended in the early 700s when the Venerable Bede started writing narrative history in and concerning Britain again. It is a fascinating period because there was so little written at the time, so many uncertainties exist and it was the period when the English, Scottish and Welsh nationalities were being formed.

My grandfather worked with horses in WWI, I have two photos of him in his uniform and spurs. His family were all coachmen or otherwise connected with horses, so he became one of the wagon drivers (there were 11 in each infantry battalion) that brought supplies to their comrades in the trenches and evacuated the wounded. They were often singled out for artillery and machine gun fire as they were large targets. He was invalided out of the army in 1917 after being gassed on the Western Front in France, one of his comrades won a VC in the same action.

I didn’t know that, thank you for explaining it to me. I am female, I don’t really know what I am. I think I’m different though. Apparently very rigid I keep being told. And keep losing jobs. I really like the academic discussions here. 

Oh interesting. What defined the Byzantine and dark ages? What notable things happened? 

Sad thing I heard on A House Through Time the other day was how hundreds and thousands of horses died in WW1. So sad. 

I need a Tardis first ^^

It sounds like you've done a lot of studying! You should become a teacher I bet you'd be a really fun teacher and make history really cool for kids :) 

I would love to see famous buildings being built I bet that would be so cool!

Thank you :-) 

I've worked with animals, done a biology degree, and managed my own messy chronic illnesses- at this point I'm probably the least squeamish person you'll ever meet!

I often find the attitudes more distressing, actually. The ways that marginalised people have been treated in the name of medical progress have been awful sometimes.

Skilled trade, very sought after. Have you any idea how much your average ship cost? It was a fair bit.. 

Shipwrights? Interesting. 

Mine were humble farmers in the Scottish Lowlands... Exotic!

You'd have lots of fun time traveling by the sound of it! 

I spent 2 years studying, amongst other things, Vikings - feel like that's done. Horrible Histories were the best go to for Vikings, imo! 

Victorian- I know a lot about Victorian London...

Buildings, probably... I'd like to see what some buildings or places looked like

See if I was right! 

My surname, in its entirely, can be tracked down to a single area about 200 years ago, from that point backwards they were generation upon generation of shipwrights..

My antecedents were Scottish.. I traced them back to a nowhere place currently inhabited by a National Treasure of the  acting world... 

Bizarrely. 

DeSpereaux said:

There are only about 20 families in the UK with my name.. it would be a piece of cake to zero in on me

Same with me but I suspect that there is no-one in the world with my surname ....

Exactly..

If you could time travel where would you go?

Here's a thread I made earlier

https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/30113/what-era-would-you-like-to-live-in-and-why

Cake? 

Where?

There are only about 20 families in the UK with my name.. it would be a piece of cake to zero in on me..

I know Pegg, I know you’re not like that.. .. I meant self-doxxing..