Hamilton and Me… Well, How One of His Pals Shaped My Family

Daveed Diggs as Lafayette in Hamilton (left)

My background is in theatre and I love theatre of all kinds, including musicals. I’m sure by now most people have heard of the musical Hamilton if they haven’t seen it for themselves (or listened to the soundtrack on repeat). You don’t need to know the show but it’s a brilliant way of making history accessible and relevant to our current society.

Among the patriots fighting for freedom from English monarchy rule and taxes was a Frenchman named Marquis de Lafayette. He fought in the American Revolution on the side of the colonists. He was a celebrated hero of the war in America for decades afterwards.

A Bit of Bio

Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette was born to a wealthy family in France and commissioned as a sous-lieutenant with the musketeers at 13. He believed in the American war and after spending three weeks with high society in London and being presented to King George III, the young Marquis snuck away to America, defying his French King’s decree that no French soldiers were to fight for the Americans.

To get himself to America he used his wealth to buy his own ship, docking in North Carolina before continuing to Philadelphia. He was 19 when he fought alongside George Washington. Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette was known to his comrades as Lafayette.

After the Revolution, Lafayette returned to France and was a key figure in the French Revolution and the government that came after. In 1824, he was invited to be a guest by President James Monroe at a multi-state celebration of America’s 50^th anniversary. He had initially only intended to visit the 13 original colonies but he was met with such fanfare that he visited all 24 states, meeting up with his old friends from the war. He collected soil from Bunker Hill, the site of an important battle, and took it home to France.

The real Marquis de Lafayette.

When he died May 20, 1834 his son George Washington scattered the soil from Bunker Hill over him. Lafayette was 76 years old. He was sometimes called “The Hero of the Two Worlds.” President Jackson gave him the same memorial honors that had been given to Lafayette’s friend George Washington. Congress urged Americans to follow similar mourning practices for the Marquis. You can tell how beloved he was by the places across America named for him, like Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Lafayette’s Legacy

One of the curious ways in which he was honored was by people naming the next generation of men after him, by his full title. My 3x great-grandfather, Marquis de Lafayette Riddle, was one of those babies. He was born the year after Lafayette’s American tour. I'm hazarding a guess that he went by Lafayette in his day-to-day since that's what he named his son, my 2x great-grandpa, Lafayette Riddle.

When I encountered that name my first thought was, Hey! A Marquis! But then I wondered why a Marquis would be farming in Batavia, NY. I thought there was a story there. I went onto Ancestry.com and plugged in the first name Marquis de Lafayette and left the last name blank.

This is a list of the names that came up on the first search page. I don’t know what are census takers’ misspellings and what are evolutions of the name but I left them as is:

M.D. Lafayette Furby b.1824, New Jersey

Marquis de Lafayette Riddle b.1825, New York

Marcus D.L. Norvell b.1836, Tennessee

Marquis de Lafayet Beall (alive in 1841), Mississippi

Marquis D.L. Branham b.1843, Tennessee

Mercus de L. Corter b.1844, Tennessee

Marquis de Lafaette Munro b.1844, New York

M.D.L. Paddock b.1846, Kansas

Markes D. L. Raynor b.1847, Ohio

Marcus D.L. Burriss b.1847, Kentucky

Margaris de Lafayette b.1849, Missouri

M.D. Laf Hill b.1849, Alabama

Margins D.L. Handley b.1850, Indiana

M.D.L. Dotson b.1850, Virginia

Marcus D.L. Batson b.1850, Michigan

Margais/Marques D.L. Beeson b.1853, Indiana

Margaris D.L.F. Harrington b.1856, Massachusetts

M. de L. Cash b.1857, Virginia

Marquis D.L. Williams b.1858, Missouri

Marquis D.L. Greer b.1859, North Carolina

La Fette D. Ginn b.1876, Georgia

Marquis D.L.F. Gorham (resides in 1889), Indiana

The names must have been passed down through the families over time, as this man was born 110 years after the original Lafayette’s death:

Marquis D.L. Rogers b.1944, California

Trivia fact: My 9x great-grandfather George Bunker owned the famed Hill that would later be part of the Revolutionary War battle (though he died the landowner a good 110 years beforehand), that Lafayette would take soil from for his own gravesite.

Don't Stop Fishing, aka Another Bite on Elsie's Line

When Elsie and I first met. And my brother.

I've posted before about my struggle to flesh out my maternal 2x great-grandmother Louise's family tree, in the blog post "Looking for Emma Louise Burnah," in a blatant hope that somebody, someday, would make the same search and find me. Hoping wasn't enough. While waiting, I have kept seeding genealogy sites with names and dates.

A few months ago, I ran one more search on Ancestry.com, and I got a hint on someone else's family tree! It listed Louise's parents as Samuel Burnah, born in Ste Madeleine, Quebec, and Mary Fortin. I sent a message.

I waited for a month, checking obsessively, to hear back from them. And then I did. We've been sharing information back and forth. I am currently waiting for my new friend to tell me which of my beloved great-grandma's siblings they relate to.

I am beyond thrilled to discover more members of that family tree in the same world with me right now. There is so much more chance that someone has gotten further than me in their research! And, if not, at least I am not on this journey alone anymore. (More cousins!)

You can't stop looking. The minute you do, someone will discover a room of 1890 censuses that didn't burn in the fire and there will be new information available. It could happen. Don't give up!

My Mother's Irish Ancestors

The birds are singing their spring songs outside and St. Patrick's Day marks the turning to the equinox. The days are lengthening and in my little garden, the tiger lilies are peeking out of the earth with bright green shoots. I am thinking about my Irish heritage. I was surprised to discover today that all of my known Irish ancestors are buried beneath my mother's family tree.

The first to step on American soil was my 7x great-grandfather David Calhoun, born in Dongeal in 1690. He settled and died in Connecticut. I feel I have to admit that David's grandfather was from Scotland, so his family blood was Scotch-Irish.

Thomas Riddle, also found spelled Ridel, was born in Ireland in 1739. He was my 6x great-grandfather. He hailed from Tyrone County, where he appears on a 1796 list for Irish flax growers. He fought for the colonies in the Revolutionary War as a Private in 1775.

My 6x great-grandparents John Berry, born in 1762, and Nancy Matchet, born in 1767, came to America from Ireland and settled in a small town called Mayfield, in New York. There are still Berrys in Mayfield.

My other Irish ancestors all immigrated to New York, where the Erie Canal was being planned. The unknown parents of my 3x great-grandfather Thomas Burke came to America via Canada, where Thomas was born in 1832. He is listed as living in Lockport in 1855 with his widowed mother Ann. He was employed in "boating."

My 4x great-grandfather Barney Dowd came over from Ireland with his daughters and their families, including my 3x great-grandmother Mary Dowd, born about 1837 in Ireland, as was her husband, David Conners, my ancestor, too.

My Lockportian ancestors all lived in the areas of Lowertown where the Irish who worked on the canal had set up their homes. So in honor of St. Patty's day, I'll set out a bowl of warm honey and milk over bread, and I'll pour a pint of ale for those who left their homelands for a country where they were treated like vermin, but where they persevered and planted roots.

What the Census Knows, 1900-1940

The information on the census reports for 1900 to 1940 can give you information to better flesh out the lives of your most recent dead. This is a breakdown of each census report, and what the columns tell you, left to right. It’s an interesting read on its own, without ancestral context, simply to see what questions were thought to gather important information as the country developed.

The 1940 Census was released last year. Within months, volunteers had all of the information transcribed onto the internet so that people could search the census files by ancestor name; in the beginning it could only be searched by address. I spent weeks reading every census report for my hometown, looking for the names of my relatives, searching their last known addresses. It was how I discovered that my Great-Grandparents Riddle had left Lockport. Both of their previously known addresses were properties being rented to other families.

When I inquired with my family about where they might have been, I was told that they had owned a general store in Franklinville, NY for a while, while my Poppa commuted back and forth from the Harrison Radiator Factory in Lockport. And that they had a small farm in Somerset, NY just before that. The family story goes that they were having financial difficulties due to a delinquent son (who later went to prison for bank robbery in San Luis Obispo, California), which forced them to move. I found them on their farm in Somerset.

When I discovered their 1940 census from Somerset, I was suddenly reminded of a conversation my Grandpa and I had one night. His job had brought him down to the SUNY school where I attended college and we went out to dinner, which would have been when he lived in Franklinville. I was talking about high school as if he had attended the same one I did in his youth and he told me how he had gone to high school in another town, because they had moved for a while. That evening of conversation came flooding back to me, the snippets of his life he had shared. Knowledge is wonderful, and the census information is amazing; slivers of time like samplings of the past. But the memories that surface in the hunt for the past are the true treasured gifts for the living.

1900:

·         name of street; house number

·         dwelling houses numbered in order of visitation; families numbered in order of visitation

·         name of each person whose place of abode was the family

·         relationship of each person to the head of the family

·         color (white, black, mulatto, Chinese, or Indian)

·         sex

·         date of birth with month and year; age at last birthday

·         whether single, married, widowed or divorced; number of years married

·         number of children born to mother; number of children still living

·         place of birth; place of father’s birth; place of mother’s birth

·         year of immigration to the US; number of years in the US; date of naturalization

·         profession, occupation or trade of each person, male or female over 10 years; number of months person has been unemployed

·         whether attended school within the census year

·         whether can read; whether can write; whether can speak English

·         home owned or rented; whether owned free of mortgage

·         living farm or house; number of farm schedule

1910:

·         name of street; house number

·         dwelling houses numbered in order of visitation; families numbered in order of visitation

·         name of each person whose place of abode was the family

·         relationship of each person to the head of the family

·         sex

·         color or race

·         age at last birthday

·         whether single, married, widowed or divorced; number of years or present marriage

·         number of children born to mother; number of children still living

·         place of birth; place of father’s birth; place of mother’s birth

·         year of immigration to the US; whether naturalized or alien

·         trade or profession of each person; general nature of industry or business; whether an employer, employee, or working on own account; whether worked April 15, 1910; number of weeks unemployed

·         able to read; able to write

·         attended school anytime after September 1909

·         owned or rented home; owned free of mortgage

·         farm or house; number of farm schedule

·         whether a survivor of the union or confederate army or navy

·         whether blind; whether deaf and dumb

1920:

·         name of street; house number

·         dwelling houses numbered in order of visitation; families numbered in order of visitation

·         name of each person whose place of abode was the family

·         relationship of each person to the head of the family

·         owned or rented home; owned free of mortgage

·         sex

·         color or race

·         age at last birthday

·         whether single, married, widowed or divorced

·         year of immigration to the US; whether naturalized or alien; year of naturalization

·         attended school

·         able to read; able to write

·         place of birth; mother tongue; place of father’s birth; father’s mother tongue; place of mother’s birth; mother’s mother tongue

·         whether able to speak English

·         trade or profession of each person; general nature of industry or business; whether an employer, employee, or working on own account

·         number of farm schedule

1930:

·         name of street; house number

·         dwelling houses numbered in order of visitation; families numbered in order of visitation

·         name of each person whose place of abode was the family

·         relationship of each person to the head of the family

·         owned or rented home; value of home owned or cost of monthly rent

·         whether or not the family owned a radio set

·         does this family live on a farm

·         sex

·         color or race

·         age at last birthday

·         marital condition; age at first marriage

·         attended school; able to read and write

·         place of birth; place of father’s birth; place of mother’s birth

·         language spoken before coming to the US

·         year of immigration to the US; year of naturalization

·         whether able to speak English

·         trade or profession of each person; general nature of industry or business; class of worker; whether actually at work on regular working days; if not, number of unemployment schedule

·         whether a veteran of US military; what war

·         number of farm schedule

1940:

·         name of street; house number

·         number of household in order of visitation

·         home owned or rented; value of home or monthly rent

·         does this household live on a farm

·         name of each person whose place of abode was the family

·         relationship of each person to the head of the family

·         sex

·         color or race

·         age at last birthday

·         marital condition

·         attended school or college; highest grade of school completed

·         place of birth; citizenship of those foreign born

·         in what place did the person live April 1, 1935

·         whether at work in private or non-emergency government work March 24-30; whether at work or assigned to public emergency work the week of March 24-30; if not, whether they were seeking work; if not, whether they had some other job; number of  hours worked in week of March 24-30; duration of unemployment

·         occupation and trade; industry of employment; class of worker; number of weeks worked in 1939

·         wage and salary income received from the last year; did person receive income from sources other than wages

·         number of farm schedule

The census reports for 1940 were released in 1912 and it will be another 10 years before the 1950 census is released, in 2022. In order to protect the privacy of the people listed, they are only released to the public after 72 years.

The Eulogy I Wish I’d Given

Grandma Donna & Grandpa Dick

After he passed, I realized that I was not sure what my Grandfather’s spiritual notions were. He was raised Roman Catholic and we all attended Sunday mass with my Great-Grandmother when she came to visit for the summer. But I spent enough Sundays with him to know he didn’t attend any church regularly. So, when my Grandpa died, we requested the minister attached to the funeral home to reside over a simple service.

It was humorous. The poor retired minister was so excited to be behind a podium again that he threw every bible story he could into discussing death, including Jonah and the Whale. Yet he couldn’t keep my Grandpa’s name straight. The minister meant well, but he lost me when he started talking about how death was like the small white dead skin cells that fall out of your socks at night. I’m sure everyone behind me thought my silent laughter resembled tears. I hope my Grandpa would have been amused at the absurdity, too.

I was so overwhelmed with the loss, I didn’t even think about talking. It never crossed my mind that I might look back later and wish the moment had been more personal, more about my Grandpa. He was the reason we were all there. One of my cousins spoke for him but I wish it had been more than just another funeral. We were just trying to get through it though; a strange service held behind stranger walls.

A teen Dick in front of his parents store.

Richard James Riddle

December 23, 1931 – March 25, 2004

My Grandpa was everything to me. He was every Saturday lunch, every holiday meal. He used to come over at noon on the dot. He would tease me with, “What’s for lunch this week?” and then feign surprise when I answered with the same statement every week; bologna, cheese, mustard and potato chip (salt and vinegar was the best flavor to add to the combination).

He and my mom would sit in the kitchen together, the only time the smell of coffee permeated our house. He had his own stash in our cupboard, waiting for his weekly visit. I loved listening to them discuss the world, the way it worked. I loved the way they talked their way into hope. My Grandpa tried the best he could to see the bright end of things.

Me & Grandpa.

When I was a little girl, I remember lots of summer afternoons at their house, playing in the cool basement and watching Grandma and Grandpa work their garden in the back yard, Grandma in her terrycloth one-piece and Grandpa in his shorts and sunglasses. In my memory they are summer, fresh vegetables and warm afternoons filled with the fragrant smell of roses. They were the spirit of growing things.

We would often have family dinners together and I believed my Grandpa to be an accomplished baker. Grandma cooked dinner and Grandpa cooked dessert. After each meal he would pull out his latest creation and go on about how he had even put it in a special box that he found, to make it nice for us. I was a bit innocent as a child and didn’t notice what a handy coincidence it was that he happened to have a Sara Lee Coffee Cake box the same day he made us one.

I’m not sure the grown-ups had any idea I was buying it. But my Grandpa could do anything. One night, He pulled out a cantaloupe and started telling us that he had grown it all up in one day, just for us. It was the first memory I have of recognizing the impish twinkle in his eye when he was teasing or pulling my leg.

Only then did my rational mind inform him that you couldn’t grow a cantaloupe in one day. In the moment that the grown-ups realized I had just accepted his stories all along, there was some well-earned laughter at my expense. One of my favorite desserts is still a quarter of cantaloupe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream using it as a bowl. After dinner we’d play the card game Scat together. He would lend my siblings and me pennies from his jar and at the end of the night, we’d pay him back what we started with if we won and the rest was ours.

Early generational- I'm the baby.

My Great-Grandmother Elsie spent her summers with my family and we would take generational photos while she was with us; her, my Grandpa, my mom and us. He adored his mom, as did everyone who ever knew her. We spent days at the Riddle cottage in Olcott on Lake Ontario. I remember the laughter, so much laughter, love and togetherness. It’s what I thought the world would be like when I was a grown-up. I know it’s possible, to be surrounded by that joy and love. It’s the greatest gift my family gave me, that he gave me. I won’t settle for less than that. I look for the spirit of my Grandfather in the hearts of the people I meet. I like to think that he would approve of my friends, just as easily as he took to my mother’s friends.

Grandpa Dick also had a beautiful Cadillac. I loved riding in it with him. Sometimes when he was watching us, he’d take us to his favorite diner for breakfast. All of the waitresses knew him and chatted him up. He’d happily introduce us and we’d hear how often he’d talk about us. I knew my entire life that my Grandpa loved me, even when he wasn’t with me. It’s such a thing we take for granted sometimes, but now that he’s gone, it means everything.

When his cancer came back, I went home to spend some time with him. I asked him questions about his parents, pushing through the awkward moment of both of us knowing I was asking him because he was dying. Because he might not recover and then there would be no answers. I picked up his prescriptions and took him some groceries one night, after copying old family photos. That was the night I learned that we shared a favorite flavor of ice cream… Black Raspberry.

He was every Christmas morning, all of my life. The very last Christmas we had together, I was 27. My nieces were opening presents and the youngest said “Thank you, Great-Grandpa!” To which the middle child said, “Don’t call him that. It’s rude!” My Grandpa smiled and said, “Why? That’s what I am.” And that’s who he was.

Dick & Donna's wedding.

Richard James Riddle was born in 1931. He had a brother and a sister. His parents owned a small store. He was a young boy when World War II began. He spent some time in the military. He was married twice, had one daughter, and three step-children. His second wife, my Grandma Donna, was the love of his life. He outlived her by three years.

He was the father of my mother and father to my aunt and uncles. He was a father to my own and to all of their friends. I heard stories all my life of him dropping in on my mother’s friends and helping them out. He was a good friend to one of my favorite high school teachers, who lived a stone’s throw away from him after he moved.

I see the ripple of his time on this earth stretching out in the wake of his loss, still. And when I sit quietly in the woods, I can hear the sound of his voice in the wind that blows through the trees. What is remembered, lives. What is remembered never truly dies.

When Anniversaries Come Around

Luna

Sunday marked two years since the day our beloved cat Luna died, only 9 years old, from a very fast and aggressive cancer. I can’t believe it’s been that long already. I can’t believe it hasn’t been longer than that.

I am still absently haunted by the moment I held her head, held her gaze at death. Her eyes widened that last instant, when she felt she was dying. I am haunted by those two seconds still. But being with her in the moment of her death, at the end of the day, means the world to me.

On Sunday afternoon we made a small altar with her food bowl, her ashes, her favorite cat toy and the bowl our friend crafted for us, including some of her bone and ash kneaded into the clay. I might not have done it if the day passed with ease, but I felt the pull of loss and missed her. So we made the altar and we lit candles and we cuddled our remaining cats closer and spoiled them with lap, treats and catnip.

Remembering her makes it easier to miss her without feeling that stab of pain in my chest. She lived, she was loved, she changed my life and I will not be the same because of what we shared. I am a better human for the experience she gave me with raising a kitten and sharing a house with another independent thinker.

The trick to living, to surviving loss, is to learn tools to help us honor those days that are difficult and painful reminders (because they do come) without succumbing to a dark room, a pint of ice cream and all-day pajamas (personal experience). Emotion is not rational. We can endeavor to understand it and we can explain it away, but it lives in a separate part of our bodies. It is connected to our animal selves. We need to grieve.

Everyone experiences loss in different ways. The only sameness is that we all need to find a way to let ourselves feel what we’re feeling because it’s the only way we can process through it. Some do that in groups of people, some do it alone. Some do it all at once and some do it a little at a time, with ten minutes here and ten minutes there. But memorializing a day and putting too much focus on “this is the day to grieve” is against our animal instincts.

We’re animals. I’ll say that a lot because it humanizes us to remember it.

Grandpa Dick

Spring is a strange mix of happiness and sorrow for me. Following Luna’s death date by two weeks is the day my Grandpa died, eight years past. It seems impossible that a man who was such a vital part of my life has been out of it for so long. I miss him every time I think of him. But I am grateful for his part in my world. And when I miss him too much and wish I could talk to him again, I do. I talk to him out loud to get the things I want to say off my chest and my mind.

Anniversaries don’t affect everyone the same. Neither does death or grief. But for some people, the date can carry heavy emotional context for those left behind. It’s true that death occurs every day, but the ones that affect us happen more infrequently, if we’re lucky. So those days mean more, matter more because it’s personal.

To the world, March 25 is a Sunday, a day of rest. For the first years, it was a return of the day my family sat vigil and watched my Grandpa die. It was as if I poured all of my pain and sorrow and sadness into the date, giving it magical power over me. If that was true, I thought, I could take that power away. I could change the affect the day has on me. So I did.

My Grandpa was a man who enjoyed life and the world he lived in. He did his best to keep moving forward after my Grandma died, even after he got sick. The best way I can honor him is to live my life. I opened my world, saying yes to things I haven’t tried before, like circle dancing, Thai food, and singing solo in a bardic circle of strangers.

They may not be big leaps, but I keep pushing out the edges of my known universe, literally expanding my horizon, in honor of the love I have for him. I push myself to be open to new things so that I may become a better person, in honor of the life that they are not living. It’s not penance. It’s embracing my life because I love them. Because they loved me and it’s what they would have wanted for me.

*Make an altar with gifts, photos and other items that remind you of them.

*Have mutual friends over and share stories about them.

*Find a karaoke bar and sing their favorite song.

*Do something you heard them say they always wanted to try.

*Make their favorite meal for your family.

*Write a story about them. Tell it to your children.

*Plant their favorite flowers or vegetables in your summer garden.

*Do something you have always wanted to do.

The possibilities are endless. Our culture is so removed from the process of death that we lost the tools to grieve. We have to learn to honor the death, feel the loss and honor the life again in living our own. Every breath you take, every act of kindness you commit, every shoulder you give and every smile you share is a gift you offer, and it speaks to the effect that your loved ones had on the person you have become. It is the best way we remember them.

Ancestral Migrations

2011-1820: New York, United States

My mother is the last Riddle in our line, according to how the Western world understands genealogy. The truth is that the blood will continue to travel down in the lives of my nieces and nephew, and their children, and their children. Just because the name will fall out of use on our tongues doesn’t erase the blood.

It always comes back to the blood. Over a century, Riddles moved westward from the Massachusetts coast into the unsettled lands of Western New York. They were soldiers and farmers and family men.

1820-1759: Massachusetts, America

In America, we can trace the Riddles back to Thomas Ridel who married Rebekah Moulton in Monson, MA in 1759. He emigrated from Tyrone County, Ireland. Beyond that, there is no documentation as to who his parents were or when he actually came to America (barring a trip to Ireland to hope to root through old documents). I could have assumed this was the end of the trail, which it is, if the names of my ancestors are the only goal I am concerned with.

It’s just as important to me to know where my people came from, where they travelled, what they struggled through. I ran a search for the “history of Riddles in Tyrone County Ireland.” In the 1700s, many Presbyterian Scots were pushed to move out of the country, resulting in five great migrations of Scots-Irish to the New World. I assume one of the first four migrations were when Thomas came over:

• 1717-1718 (drought)
• 1725-1729 (poverty)
• 1740-1741 (famine)
• 1754-1755 (disastrous drought)
• 1771-1775 (poverty)

1759-1687: Tyrone Co., Ireland

The Riddles who settled in Tyrone Co. did so during a time in Europe when William and Mary, Protestants, were fighting the Catholic King James to keep England from falling back under Catholic rule after he gave birth to a legitimate Catholic heir. Protestant landowners began seeking out others willing to move to Northern Ireland and push out the Catholics there. The Riddles settled in Ulster and Tyrone Co. and for just over a century, taking on the description of Scots-Irish.

1687-1100: Lothian, Scottish Lowlands

The people of the lowlands were not Scottish, nor were they English. They did not wear kilts, speak Gaelic and they didn’t live in clans. They were descended of Viking blood, the children of Normans who interbred with Scottish families.

They were Northmen who became Lowlanders, existing in between political and geographical countries in lands that were difficult to farm and subjected to multiple cattle raids that eventually left them no option but to attempt the same. The Ridels were among the first Normans to hold estates in Scotland.

In 1125, Walter Ridel received the oldest charter gifted from a King to a layman, in the lands originally called Lilliesleaf. They were called by the name Riddell in the 1400s. Because of this original charter, Riddell became a denotation of lands held by families not of Scottish heritage (i.e. Cranston Riddell and Glen-riddell).

Walter Ridel was thought to be a brother or nephew of Gervasius/Gervase/Geoffrey Ridel, both of whom travelled to Scotland with David I, Prince and Duke of Cumberland. They were both favored friends of the court. Gervase was appointed High Sheriff of Roxburghshire in 1116. The Ridels lived in the lowlands for generations.

1100-1066: England

Where did they come from, if they weren’t Scottish or English? Thanks to historians, I found an answer. The Sieur de Riddel, and his brothers, accompanied William the Conqueror in the Battle of Hastings and was a man of importance to William, who appointed him Lord-Chief-Justice of England. They were Norman invaders, come to conquer the island. Gervase was granted lands there, perishing at sea in 1120 on return trip to France. His sons stayed on in England.

1066-940: Normandy, France: Land of the Northmen

In 910, the Viking Jarl, Thorfinn Rollo the Ganger, invaded France. Rollo is considered to be the first great Norman invader (and is an unverified paternal ancestor of mine). The Vikings were explorers who began their raids in search of food. When they discovered the fertile lands of France, some of the Scandanavians decided to stay. My ancestors were among these men.

940-unknown: Rugdale or Ryedale, Scandanavia

The Ridels were Scandanavians who are believed to have originated in Rugdal or Ryedale, known as the Valley of Rye. It was thought that the spelling changed in the pronunciation of Rye-dale on the Scottish tongue. Another theory is that the meaning of the name never lost its original meaning.

A riddle was a tool, or instrument, used to clean and winnow rye and other grains. The surname Ridler or Riddler denoted one who winnowed grain.

Variants of the surname are: RIDEL, RIDDELL, RIDDLE, RIDDEL, RIDALL, RIDDEL, RIDDAL, RIDAL, RIDALE, RIDDELLE, RIDDELS, RIDDLETON, RIDDLEY, RIDELEIGH, RIDLAND, RIDLE, RIDLER, RIDLEY, RIDLON, RILLY, RUDDELL, RUDDLE, RUGDAL, RYDDLAND, RYDLEY, RYEDALE

Ancestral Migrations

How many other families would find themselves traced back to the same Scandanavian people? The lesson in this for me is that we cannot afford to define ourselves by who we are- all those labels and boxes- because we all were the same people at some point in time. Remember that the next time you are walking about your city, and look around at your human kin.