Hey John....what a great idea...the examples shown look great....it is good to take cool ideas into the classroom to make the lessons more interesting.....I live in the UK and have a very interesting family history...my descendants are the Grimaldi family from Genoa. The Grimaldi's are a branch of the Sovereign House of Monaco, and descends from Obert, Prince of Monaco, Consul and Admiral of Genoa in 1197, who was sent by the Emporer Frederick Barbarossa on a mission to Philip II. of France and Richard I. of England to induce them to join him in the Third Crusade. His second son, Ingo Grimaldi, Lord of Carross, Aymer, Stella and Campastra, one of eight nobles governing Genoa in 1225, and who afterwards Ambassador to Pavia 1229, and to the King of Sicily....the line then follows through until my 7th Great Grandfather, Alessandro Maria Grimaldi, 6th Marquess Grimaldi of Genoa, exiled to London, England. He was born 1659 and was Commander of the Spanish party in Genoa, and, after its surrender to the French in 1685, was compelled by edict of Louis XIV. to leave the city within three days. He retired to London, England before 1699. The family was in Banking and married Dorcas Anderson, an English granddaughter of Sir Francis Anderson, member of parliament for Newcastle on Tyne....their first child and heir, my 6th Great Grandfather Alexander Grimaldi became father of my 5th Great Grandmother, born 1749, Esther Grimaldi... she married an English man and the name Grimaldi for me was gone...the most interesting thing for me personally, is that Esther's brother William Grimaldi, who became male heir of the junior branch of Grimaldi's, was a miniaturist portrait artist....he painted members of the Royal family and became a celebrated artist in the 1700 and 1800's. Many of his works can be googled. Sadly I do not yet own one of his works of art, but maybe one day...the other extremely interesting twist with my Grimaldi family branch, is that the current Grimaldi family sat on the throne in Monaco, historically, by rights, should not be there.....William's son and heir, Stacey Grimaldi became a solicitor and wrote many books, mainly of historical notoriety. In 1834 he published the 'Genealogy of the family of Grimaldi of Genoa and England' showing their relationship to the Grimaldie, Princes of Monaco, to which the following MS addition is made to the copy in the British Museum: " The principality of Monaco is now (1834) claimed from the reigning Prince of Monaco by the Marquess Luigi Grimaldi della Pietra, on the grounds that it is a male fief and ought not to have descended to heirs female, and this pedigree has been compiled to show at Genoa and Turin that the Grimaldi's of England are the eldest branch and have prior claims."....the upshot of it all is that Stacey was forced to retract his claim by the current branches of the Genoan families at that time...subsequent heirs attempted to overthrow the reigning Prince of Monaco and spent and lost vast amounts of money, losing the case each time....what could have been...
Hope that didn't bore you to death...I like to think that perhaps William Grimaldi's artistic talent might have rubbed off onto me a little....his father was artistic and William was also a student of his Uncle, Thomas Worlidge, another famous miniaturist artist. My avatar shows a self portrait of William Grimaldi at about 40 years of age. Now you can see why my Clubhouse name is Grimaldi. My actual name is Antony Halls.
Good luck with the classes.
Ant
