Here is a simple quiz to determine if you had an ancestor who served in the hundred year’s war:
1. DO YOU HAVE ANY BRITISH OR FRENCH ANCESTRY?
If yes, you did have ancestors in the 100 years war. In fact, you are descended from most of the soldiers who served in the war on whatever side your ancestry fell.
Assume one new generation every 25 years. (For medieval times, that may be to0 long a time period, but we’re being conservative here.) We would thus have about 27 generations since 1347.
How many ancestors does one have 27 generations back? Two to the 27th power is about 128 million, which is far larger than the population of England and France of the time. The estimation for the entire population of Europe in 1347 was 75 million. About a third of those died in the black plague shortly thereafter.
Of course, you would be descended from some people in multiple ways and others not at all. But the overwhelming odds are that you would be descended from most of the people alive in 1347 from your ancestral country.
i have ancestors from both areas. i have traced my grandfather’s family all the way back to charlemagne. richard the lion-heart was something like my 22nd cousin, 40 times removed. crazy!
My ancestors fled France when the Edict of Nantes was revoked (they were Huegonots). After several hundred years in Prussia they immigrated to the Republic of Texas in the 1840’s.
I found hits on three surnames so far. One thing to keep in mind is that spellings often changed over time, for example the surname Strode evolved into Stroud. This spelling change is even more exaggerated when French names became Anglicized.