AIBU to ask what people mean by calling themselves an old family?

[Iwascupbearertotheking]

I don't understand what this means?

Biologically and historically, we have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents etc etc.

Our foremothers can all be traced back to pre-neolithic eras. This is the case for everyone, not an elite few. And people tend to use their family name rather than creating a new one (yes, yes, there are exceptions)

So what does "an old family" actually mean?

YANBU - I haven't got a clue
YABU - Ah ha, it means this......

They're talking about ancestry. It only really applies to landed gentry and aristocracy.

Have some people really never come across this before?

I definitely know what it means, but I don’t set any store by it.

E.g in my small village there is one old family who have lived there for 100s of years. Not sure how many but definitely since the 1400s. They own and farm half the land, big house, local forest and road named after them (think “Woodman copse” and “Woodman Road”), built the first school, half the churchyard is family graves, plaques inside the church. They can tell you some very interesting things about the village if you ask (where the old bakery was, which house was used to shelter Thomas Cromwell’s men etc).

I don’t think they’re better than me (their kids are at the same school and TBF I couldn’t wait to move away from I was born), but I do find it interesting and to them keeping up the family traditions and maintaining their historical connection with the village is hugely important. I have no doubt that they’ll still have people here in another 100 years whereas lord only knows where my kids will be.

Of course everyone is born from generations of others- that’s just biology- but to me an old family means if someone asks you who your ancestors were in the 1600s and what they were doing you can tell them, not because you’ve undertaken the family history project online but because you or a relative live in the same house and probably use some of their furniture daily!

Land ownership is wealth, however much it might not feel that way to farmers.

Everyone does this though! Look how popular ‘we’re Irish’ is among Americans; or at how popular DNA testing is here, and how people love to brag about having 5% Eastern European or whatever.

People who can’t do this need something to be proud of too, and if that’s having a closer connection to the land then so be it.

‘Old family’ is also about the preservation of the male line and name. Lots of people don’t have that because of a generation where only girls were born etc…

My family name dies with my generation because there are no children that bear that name in the generation below mine. If there was a substantial estate to inherit (and it was 100+ years ago) a distant male with the same name would have been found to continue to ‘family’. Tbh in the case of my family I’m not sure where they’d have found one..

That is definitely a wealth thing!

I've only heard it used by Vampires.

Although The Hunger is set in NYC in the early Eighties, Miriam (the glorious Catherine Deneuve) and John (David Bowie) relationship dates back 200 years (their anniversary gifts must be spectacular!). but in actual flashbacks thirsty Miriam, is seen cavorting in Ancient Egypt... I'd love to know what moisturiser she's using as she looks absolutely fab! Sadly John doesn't fare so well...

on Ancestry, if you can upload family portraits from the 18th century, I would say you are an old family.

Yes, this is right. Also, the way family trees get so intertwined means that within a surprisingly short period of time we are all literally descended from the same people (I believe every European is descended from every European alive around a thousand years ago; it will be even shorter the more local you get). It’s why tv ancestry shows so often turn up royals and so forth.

So the ‘old family’ thing is really about carrying on the specific name, property and traditions of an identifiable family from way back, more than genetics. Because the chances are that, genetically, you’re descended from that ‘old family’ too.

Never heard it before. Probably a House of Lords thing

Posh, monied, self-important, possibly signs of in-breeding. Delapidated interiors to crumbling houses, as Great Uncle Toby lost it all in a bad investment. That kind of thing?

Isn't the phrase ' old money ' and not old family ?
Everyone can lay claim to be in a family for many generations , that's humankind .
But the phrase old money means your family has been rich for many generations and you pass on that status to the next generation ( and usually the big family home , portraits and a house of antiques )

Distemper, incontinence, discovering the family heirlooms are rhinestone, Woolworths circa 1925, crumbling foundation dusted liberally with face power, lead poisoning, out houses, pock marks, spam, primogeniture, primark, Downton Abbey wood Estate, Sarf London... subletting attics to long lost crazy relatives, gravy legs, rabies.

No. It's definitely "old family".

I thought it was odd when I read the book as a child but assumed I would know when I grew up and carried on reading.

Turned out I was wrong and had to wait for the internet to be invented in order to find out!

Yes, obviously.

The way in which society has been structured means the ancestors of Jane Bloggs are the ones who did all the labour, quite possibly had their share of the commons nicked too and who weren't considered important enough to record. It is a reflection of what happened.

Though actually, probably just as common in the UK is that Jane Bloggs' ancestors had no choice but to rock up to one of our stinking, dangerous, Industrial Revolution cities at some point in the 19th century and at that point lost touch with the land where they'd been subsistence farming. We were the earliest society in the world to proletarianise.

On asking online it's the same thing really . Here's the definition :

The terms "old family" and "old money" are often used interchangeably, but they have distinct meanings:

• Old Family: Refers to families that have been wealthy for several generations, typically over a century or more. These families often have a long history of wealth and have maintained their financial status through inheritance and successful businesses.
• 2
• Old Money: Specifically refers to families with inherited wealth that has been passed down through generations, often associated with a sense of aristocracy and privilege. It contrasts with "new money," which represents wealth acquired more .

I’m surprised this is being attributed to Americans since European aristocracy boast about their ancient families. The Grimaldis can trace back to the 11th century and the Borommeans roughly the same. It seems especially important since many of the European titles are now largely defunct.

i have never heard the expression
unless
old farming family, perhaps

It's a nonsense term used by people who think they are better than you.

I am a professional genealogist and have only ever heard this term used by Americans from the US who mean "some of my ancestors were here before the revolutionary war in 1776". In a UK context I would take it to mean a family with deep roots in the same part of the country - my paternal line was in the same part of the world for as far back as anyone can trace but weren't in any way aristocratic.

They would also adopt a child from close family and change his name or marry a daughter to someone who was willing to take her name. One of Jane Austen's brothers was adopted in this way and it made a huge difference for all the family financially.

It’s used by people who know they wouldn’t survive in the real world as they don’t have the resilience or brains.

Because of this they use the last thing available to them “oh my great great great grandad was <insert name of someone who got rich or famous off the back of someone else’s misery”, you must suck up to me.

I’ve seen this play out so many times working in London and living down south. They’re about as useful as a chocolate teapot and have the brains of an amoeba, but their name opens doors. When the company realise they are a liability in the law firm or investment bank their name got them into, they’re shipped off to Hong Kong/Singspore/Dubai to work because they can’t be fired because their dad went to boarding school and is mates with someone high up.

Seen it loads and been involved in many hires and transfers of them.

It’s outdated, but it still exists in our society.

Definitely used by CS Lewis

Good replies on this thread, I should say. I think what the term gets at, at least in Britain, is that there’s a difference between ‘family’ as in your relatives (which obviously we all have), and ‘family’ as an organisation which has property, titles and traditions of its own and different from other ‘families’.

Most of us have the latter, but to a fairly small extent—the surname, jewellery passed down, half-remembered stories of a hereditary trade—and those fade away or get absorbed into others in a generation or two. But an ‘old family’ can trace its own back for centuries; and is also the organisation which absorbs others.

The royal family is the best example obviously. Even though the Normans, the Stuarts, the Tudors and so on will have millions of descendants by now, we think of those traditions as all belonging to the modern Windsors.

It only became mandatory for all parishes to record all births, marriages and deaths in the reign of Henry VIII. And quite often the parish records from that far back don't survive. It's usually only people from aristocratic families who can trace the family tree back further than the c16, because they did their own genealogies; illiterate peasants didn't. It's uncommon for those who aren't from an upper-crust background to be able to get any further back than about 1600, usually - depends how lucky you are in the survival of parish records and other family documents, legal documents etc. I've got a relative who's into family history and she's traced one line (the wealthiest one - they were quite big landowners and businesspeople in their area, and also had a rare name, which helps) back to the 1590s, but after that it's a dead end. All the other branches, she can't get any info pre about 1680.