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Duryee - Harald Blåtann

2nd Nov 2022 in

So, I've been working with my DNA at WikiTree, building out my family tree. I've been dealing with my dad's side of the family which goes back about 10 generations to the early 1600s when our ancestor Joost DuRieux was born. His family faced religious persecution in France for being Protestant, so they migrated to Holland. From there, Joost and his family took a ship named the Gilded Otter to New Amsterdam. Then about 50 years later New Amsterdam changed its name to New York.

Pretty impressive right? Lots of history and a long family tree. Well, I'm almost done doing what I can with my dad's side of the tree, so I entered the generations of my mom's side of the family back to her great-great-great-grandfather on her dad's side. From there, her tree got pulled into the thousands and thousands of other people's DNA GEDCOMS, and her side of the family shot 63 generations back to the year 10 A.D. Yes, that's the year 10, "ten", of the Common Era. Hundreds and hundreds of people make up my mom's history with countless branches. It's an astounding find with so many twists and turns I'm sure I'll be immersed in it for years to come. Most of the tie-ins have to do with the fact that her family was in the ruling class in England for a couple of hundred years. But also, there are Vikings, French royalty including Clovis Hlodowig Franken, founder of the Merovingian Dynasty, as well as generations of Muslims involved. This entire thing is one of the most amazing things I've ever happened across.

I was particularly surprised to find I am a descendant of Harald Blåtann Gormsen (Wikipedia page), king of Denmark and Norway in the late 900s. In Norwegian, Blåtann means "blue tooth". His name is where the modern network name Bluetooth comes from. You might recognize the Bluetooth logo:

The logo is actually made of Nordic runes, and they are the initials of my 32nd great-grandfather Harald Blåtann Gormson VIII (WikiTree link, minor spelling variation in Gormson vs. Gormsen). Here is where the logo came from:

In the Younger Futhark runes, the H, for Harald, looks like this: 

The B for Blåtann, looks like this:

The two initials combined make up the familiar logo we see today. Here's the story from Bluetooth.com of how the name was initially decided on:

In 1996, three industry leaders, Intel, Ericsson, and Nokia, met to plan the standardization of this short-range radio technology to support connectivity and collaboration between different products and industries.

During this meeting, Jim Kardach from Intel suggested Bluetooth as a temporary code name. Kardach was later quoted as saying, “King Harald Bluetooth…was famous for uniting Scandinavia just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries with a short-range wireless link.”

Bluetooth was only intended as a placeholder until marketing could come up with something really cool.

So, here is my family tree going back to Harald Blåtann Gormson VIII, born ca. 925 CE, and died ca. 988 CE. It's not a direct line, there are six or seven branches, but the relation is there. Each woman's name is a branch to a different family, but it's a distinct line back to Harald Bluetooth.

Image of relation of Kent Duryee to Harald Bluetooth
Kent's relation to Harald Bluetooth - click/tap for large image

Ancestry of King Harald Blåtand Gormsson VIII to Kent Duryee and his daughter and children, ca. 925 CE to 2022 CE
  1. Harald Blåtan Gormsson VIII Thyra Haraldsdottir - Harald's daughter
  2. Thorgils Sprakelg Stybjornsson - Thyra's son
  3. Gytha Thrgilsdatter - Thjorgils' daughter
  4. Harold G. Wessex - Gytha's son
  5. Gemhild Haroldsdohtor - Harold's daughter
  6. Matilda Bretagne - Gemhild's daughter
  7. Ralph Deincourt - Matilda's son
  8. Walter Deincourt - Ralph's son
  9. John Deincourt - Walter's son
  10. Oliver Deincourt - John's son
  11. John Deincourt - Oliver's son
  12. Edmund Deincourt - John's son
  13. Isabel Deincourt - Edmund's daughter
  14. Thomas Fitzwilliam - Isabel's son
  15. Thomas Fitzwilliam - Thomas' son
  16. Thomas Fitzwilliam - Thomas' son
  17. Thomas Fitzwilliam - Thomas' son
  18. William Fitzwilliam - Thomas' son
  19. Katherine Fitzwilliam - William's daughter
  20. John Doughty - Katherine's son
  21. John Doughty - John's son
  22. Franciscus Doughty - John's son
  23. Francis Doughty - Fransciscus' son
  24. Ellias Doughty - Francis' son
  25. Jacob Doughty - Elias' son
  26. Abigail Doughty - Jacob's daughter
  27. Joseph King - Abigail's son
  28. William F. King - Joseph's son
  29. Elizabeth King - William's daughter
  30. James L. Ackley - Elizabeth's son
  31. Lawrence J. Ackley - James' son
  32. Kent L. Ackley - Lawrence's son
  33. Margery Ann Ackley - Kent's daughter
  34. Kent Duryee - Margery's son, "Me" 🙃
  35. Grace Steel - Kent's daughter
  36. Isaac Steel - Grace's son
  37. Edith Steel - Grace's daughter

 

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