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Lalwendë · 12-21-2011, 06:51 PM

Let me bump this one up, seeing as I've been almost completely immersed in family tree research for some time now and it interests me...

I was thinking about exactly how Hobbits would even begin to go about family tree research, or if they simply enjoyed reading family trees that were already drawn up. Because just looking up a completed family tree is a very different thing to actually doing the lengthy and very expensive research yourself.

To compile a tree, a Hobbit would need lots of accurate records to look up. There must have been some kind of administration in The Shire given that there is a Mayor and it is divided up into regions, but did they register events such as births/marriages/deaths in any way? Did they take part in official ceremonies for these and thus leave some kind of 'parish record'? Or did someone simply record events in a communal book that had been held and annotated by previous generations? Hmmmm...

I do think that a primary concern for Hobbits was inheritance, given that 'headships' of families seemed to be inheritable (even if they didn't necessarily come with any land - see the next head of the Baggins family after Bilbo and Frodo left) and also that in some families they seem to have been restricted to males only. The Baggins 'headship' bypassed several females with a strong claim and went to males only, even if they were distant on the tree, whereas the Sackville line could obviously pass through a female branch of the tree (Otho inherited his Sackville name from his mother).

I say that objectively, as someone who is knee deep in my own research and neither expecting nor hoping to find anyone who was anything more than 'umble. I find pure pleasure in this, and I'm certain Hobbits would too, plus enjoy knowing which neighbours were distant family. But they clearly had important 'legal' (maybe not legal in the formal sense but certainly in the sense of following established family custom) reasons to pursue family history too.

Side note - did they have lawyers in The Shire? What a horrible thought...

As for whether Tolkien himself was interested in this, I wonder whether he was ever successful. If so, then he must have visited a lot of parishes and looked through dozens of dusty books of records. It's quite strange to think that I could sit down now and trace his family tree back through the 19thC just from my computer and it would have taken him months, even years, to achieve that.

12-21-2011, 06:51 PM	#24
Lalwendë A Mere Boggart Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: under the bed Posts: 4,737	Let me bump this one up, seeing as I've been almost completely immersed in family tree research for some time now and it interests me... I was thinking about exactly how Hobbits would even begin to go about family tree research, or if they simply enjoyed reading family trees that were already drawn up. Because just looking up a completed family tree is a very different thing to actually doing the lengthy and very expensive research yourself. To compile a tree, a Hobbit would need lots of accurate records to look up. There must have been some kind of administration in The Shire given that there is a Mayor and it is divided up into regions, but did they register events such as births/marriages/deaths in any way? Did they take part in official ceremonies for these and thus leave some kind of 'parish record'? Or did someone simply record events in a communal book that had been held and annotated by previous generations? Hmmmm... I do think that a primary concern for Hobbits was inheritance, given that 'headships' of families seemed to be inheritable (even if they didn't necessarily come with any land - see the next head of the Baggins family after Bilbo and Frodo left) and also that in some families they seem to have been restricted to males only. The Baggins 'headship' bypassed several females with a strong claim and went to males only, even if they were distant on the tree, whereas the Sackville line could obviously pass through a female branch of the tree (Otho inherited his Sackville name from his mother). I say that objectively, as someone who is knee deep in my own research and neither expecting nor hoping to find anyone who was anything more than 'umble. I find pure pleasure in this, and I'm certain Hobbits would too, plus enjoy knowing which neighbours were distant family. But they clearly had important 'legal' (maybe not legal in the formal sense but certainly in the sense of following established family custom) reasons to pursue family history too. Side note - did they have lawyers in The Shire? What a horrible thought... As for whether Tolkien himself was interested in this, I wonder whether he was ever successful. If so, then he must have visited a lot of parishes and looked through dozens of dusty books of records. It's quite strange to think that I could sit down now and trace his family tree back through the 19thC just from my computer and it would have taken him months, even years, to achieve that. __________________ Gordon's alive!