Laura Knight Jadczyk

Genealogy, Essays and Photographs

Welcome to my personal website! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Laura Knight Jadczyk, and I am married to Theoretical Physicist Arkadiusz Jadczyk. I am an amateur historian and writer, the author of eight books which can be found at Quantum Future Publishing. I am also the author of numerous articles in print and on the Internet. You might enjoy reading my blog: Postcards From the Edge of Reality. I founded and still occasionally edit, the popular International News and Commentary Signs of the Times - but note that I say "occasionally." We have an international team of writers and commentators who scour the web daily to bring you the REAL SCOOP of what is going on here on the Big Blue Marble. Our Pentagon Flash Presentation has been viewed by over 500 million people to date, with an average of 25 thousand new viewers per day.

Readers who are familiar with my Cassiopaea Website will find this one to be quite different; it is entirely personal. Here I am going to revive my genealogy pages that used to be on the web five or so years ago. The database has grown since then, and I am always happy to hear from "family." (You can contact me by writing in care of sott(at)signs-of-the-times.org.)

The genealogy project was a strange period in my life. As I frequently tell people, I actually got into it quite by accident. I had received an email from an old school friend I had not heard from in almost twenty years. In her update of what she had been doing with her life, she mentioned her hobby: genealogy. I thought to myself "well, that's nice that she has something to occupy her time other than watching soap operas." I wasn't terribly interested because, after all, I knew who I was and a lot of detail about my family going back about 5 or 6 generations. Who needed to know more than that?

In any event, I politely inquired of my friend just how she went about her genealogy hobby. The answer came back that there is a lot of genealogy material on the Internet, but that a person still has to go out and do "field work."

"That's nice," I thought to myself.

And so, one memorable day in 1997 I was sitting at my computer and I just idly decided to see if any of MY ancestors were actually on the Internet. I typed in "Knight genealogy" and was surprised to find that my great-grandfather on my father's side was actually part of someone else's database. What was even more interesting was that this database went way back to before the American Revolution. It was rather exciting to read about land grants and passenger lists of ships coming to America. With an already well-developed passion for history, this little window into the past made it quite personal.

I didn't know it then, but I had been bitten by the genealogy bug.

I tried to resist. After reading about some of my ancestors on that particular line, I closed the web-browser and went back to my regular research work... After all, I was busy, I had too much to do to mess around with genealogy.

But soon, I wondered "what about my mother's family? What if there is something about them on the net?" After all, how easy could it be to just key in a search term and have all that information just downloaded?

So, I was back on the Internet... "Meadows genealogy", "Young genealogy", "Colson genealogy", "Pearce Genealogy." At some point, on a Pearce genealogy page, I found my grandmother's grandmother. I kept clicking the links backward in time and they kept going and going and going. Soon I recognized a name: Henry "Hotspur" Percy! Oh my! That was exciting! To know that I was descended from a man who became a character in one of Shakespeare's plays!

I was, at that point a "goner," as they say. For me, the historian, it was the history that excited me! I could participate in important events of the past vicariously through my very own ancestors! What's more I, the Writer, could possibly make some use of this research!

And so began a project that was to occupy me for ten to twelve hours a day over a period of several years. It was easy, at first. There truly is a lot available on the Internet, though more and more lately, it is being commercialized and you have to pay for access. It wasn't long before I hit some "brick walls" and I soon learned what "field work" was in genealogy. Having something of a "Sherlock Holmes"-combined with a bull terrier nature, I could not rest as long as I did not make progress in tracing a line. I invested in books, CDs, microfiche and a microfiche viewer; I bought entire blocks of public records; I wrote letters; visited cemeteries; and discovered some surprising skeletons in the family closet that caused quite an uproar!

I had become an amateur genealogist!

There are still lines that are "brick walls." That is one of the reasons I am restoring the family file to the web: in hopes that someone will have the data I need to complete some of these lines.

There are a lot of "royal" characters in this database. On my mother's side, I descend from the Percys of Shakespeare fame. On my father's side, I descend from the De Ferrieres. There is also a great mystery about the "First Knight" that I have solved creatively, though it is only a theory. I suspect that it may prove to be correct, but it's going to take some field work to nail that one down. In short, I have found evidence to suggest that Isabelle of France, wife of King Edward II of England, may have had a child with Sir Edmund de Mortimer while in the Tower of London, and that the child was smuggled out and became the "First Knyght." The time is right, the places fit, the named connections fit... and there are some ancient documents that suggest that there was such a child.

I know there are errors in the database, but I am working as often as I can to fix them (which isn't that often!), and to find new and better sources of data. I will update the database as often as I can, and if any readers have contributions or corrections to make to the genealogy project, please email me.

I will also be adding photographs to the genealogy pages as time permits, as well as a series of photo essays and commentary on life in general. It will take time to develop these sections of the website, so do come back and visit the Genealogy, Essays and Photographs page often.

I want to acknowledge the painstaking research of a cousin, Margaret Pearce Pasteur who labored "in the field" for many years before computers were even invented. I will also be thanking various other contributors to the database on the pages where their work was most important. All will take time, so thank you for being patient!

Now, without further ado, you may want to begin by checking the Index of Persons and the Surname Index. The Photo Essays links are at left. I update them often!