Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Who Is the Earliest Ancestor in Your Paternal Tree?

Hmm, I need to figure out how to complete the exercise for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  Today's challenge is to answer the question "Who Is the Earliest Ancestor in Your Paternal Tree?"

2.  Tell us about your earliest paternal ancestor in your family tree on your own blog post, in a comment here, or on your Facebook page.  Be sure to leave a link to your report in a comment on this post.

[Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!]

Okay, so I know who the earliest ancestor is in my paternal tree.  It's Peter Gaunt, the earliest Gaunt in Peter Gaunt 1610–1680 and Some of His Descendants by David L. Gauntt, published by the Gloucester County Historical Society.  (Even though I almost definitely also descend from Charlemagne, I don't have that documented.)

It's showing the line of descent I'm having trouble with.  I don't have all the information from the book entered into my family tree.

But the entire line has been entered into FamilySearch's Family Tree.  So I'll use that for my reference after my personal tree has petered out.

1.  Janice is the daughter of Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. (1935–2019).

2.  Lynn is the son of Anna Gauntt (1893–1986).

3.  Anna is the daughter of Thomas Kirkland Gauntt (1870–1951).

4.  Thomas is the son of James Gauntt (1831–1899).

5.  James is the son of Hananiah Selah Gaunt (1795–1852).

6.  Hananiah is the son of Hananiah Gaunt (1762–abt. 1799).

7.  Hananiah is the son of Joseph Gaunt (1740–1806).

8.  Joseph is the son of Hananiah Gaunt (1707–1792).
(Up to this point I have been using what I have entered and documented in my family tree program.  After this I'm taking the information from Family Tree, but as far as I know it was taken from David Gauntt's book.)

9.  Hananiah is the son of Daniel Lester Gaunt (1688–1721).

10.  Daniel is the son of Hananiah Gaunt (1646–1721).

11.  Hananiah is the son of Peter Gaunt (1608–1680).

I will mention that the Gaunt line does go further back on Family Tree.  I know the book by David Gauntt is well researched and documented, and I trust the information there.  At the front he included a list of other Gaunts in Lancashire, England at the time of Peter Gaunt but whom he had determined were probably related but had to be from collateral lines, not direct lines.  That notwithstanding, I discovered that several years ago someone had added two of the names from that list as the father and grandfather of Peter Gaunt in the International Genealogical Index.  Since I don't have my copy of the book handy, I can't check the names that are currently connected as Peter Gaunt's father and grandfather against the list in the book.  Given that, I'm choosing not to include them, and I'm stopping at Peter.

I decided to look further up the line that is posted on Family Tree.  Seven generations past Peter, the line goes to John of Gaunt, who didn't have any children who had Gaunt as a family name; they used the name Beaufort.  So I'm definitely not trusting what is posted there.  I guess I'll have to do the research myself.  (Or check with David Gauntt to see if he has continued his own research!)

(As an amusing side note to inaccuracies in Family Tree, my great-great-grandfather James Gaunt is entered as James Kirkland Gauntt and includes a photograph — of my grandmother's brother James Kirkland Gauntt, who lived 1905–1949 and looks quite a bit like a rakish gangster, with the same photo as is posted for his grandfather.  There is a surviving photo of my great-great-grandfather, but that ain't it, and I have never seen his name as James Kirkland Gauntt anywhere but in Family Tree.  It was just James Gaunt.)

This means that while Randy has a line back to his 33rd-great-grandfather, I have to stop at my 9th-great-grandfather.  On the other hand, I am confident in my information.