The ‘Remembered Family’ and dynastic senses of identity among the English gentry c. 1600-1800

Abstract

This article examines the gentry's understanding of lineage and ancestry in England in the period c.1600–1800. This period has been described as one of intense elite interest in genealogy and ancestry, spurred by social mobility into the gentry and accompanying impulses towards integration and differentiation. However, this article focuses on informal memoirs and family histories to argue that the much more truncated ‘remembered family’ (the lineage based on stories told by parents, grandparents and great‐grandparents’ generations), created a stronger, more detailed dynastic self‐identity among the gentry than formal genealogy. The ‘remembered family’ featured colourful personal, behavioural and moral details that gave life to faceless ancestors, and ‘embodied’ the recent lineage, in ways that were regarded as more ‘authentic’ and resonant than the works of heralds, which were regarded with growing suspicion.