Meerkat Prompts: Gypsy Blood
Time for something personal. A few years ago, between the curiosity of my daughter, and the fascinating work one of my aunts carried out on the subject, I decided to check out my family history. As I dug into it I began to find all sorts of amazing details, and characters from my family’s past that I could not have conceived, even if I let my imagination run wild. Among the highlights, I have a very distant connection to former US president Bill Clinton, I might be distantly related to King Edward III (and via that relation, a distant connection to the actor Danny Dyer). Via the siblings of my great-great-great-great-great grandfathers and grandmothers, I have learned of far-flung family, across the USA, in Australia, and in New Zealand, as well as plenty of previously-unknown relations right here in the UK.
The further back in time you go, the foggier the window gets, but nonetheless, thanks to the tireless work of so many to come before me, records and details exist and have been preserved, that have granted me a remarkable view into my own blood. I could go off on several tangents, each as compelling to me as the last, but what I will focus on with this post is my gypsy history.
Going back to my fifth great-grandparents on my father’s side, we come to a powerful union. Two gypsy families roamed the border of England Scotland during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Blyths (sometimes spelt as Blythe), and the Faas. They did not always meet with acceptance from society-at-large, and sometimes gypsy families would clash, but the wedding between Charles Blythe and Esther Faa, in February 1796, united two clans, and established, in gypsy terms at least, something of a dynasty. The Faa-Blythe gypsies had a large following, and big families, and at one stage there was even an informal form of Royal Assent, so to speak, when King James V of Scotland issued John Faa (back in 1539 and again in 1540) writs to self-govern his people.
Such grants did not mean that the gypsies were free from prosecution for misdeeds. Several members of the Faa family were exiled to the Americas for their crimes, and others were executed. Some of the family would eventually settle in the small village of Kirk Yetholm, where a ‘palace’ (in reality a cottage) was established, and they would conduct their affairs in as quiet a manner as they could. Generations of Faa-Blythe gypsies would come and go, and the crowning of Charles Faa Blythe in 1898 marked the last official coronation of a gypsy monarch. He passed away in 1902, leaving the title vacant. Alas, I am not directly descended from that particular Charles Faa Blythe, and therefore have no claim to the crown, not that I would particularly want it!
What I would like to do is visit Kirk Yetholm one day. To me, it would be a sort of pilgrimage, a remarkable opportunity to look upon a piece of my personal family history. What makes this all so amazing is that all of this, the gypsy ancestry and the stories of some noteworthy, if distant relatives, all stems from my paternal grandmother. In other words, just one branch of my family tree has unveiled some wonderful new information about my family. What secrets might the rest hold? Ancestry wasn’t something that particularly intrigued me, but it most certainly does now!
