VORG, the Ancient One
Over two thousand years ago, our Benedict ancestors were the Sarmatians, a nomadic tribe roaming the Eurasian Steppes, a vast grassland stretching from today’s Ukraine to the Ural Mountains. We follow Vorg, a mythical warrior who was taken into slavery by the Romans, sent to the hinterlands of remote Britannia. His blood line flows into Norfolk, where our earliest Benedict family emerges, who then depart for the New World in 1637.
Parts of this are true, most is just conjecture. But it makes for a fascinating family yarn, weaving together the fabrics of our own history. For as far as I am concerned, Vorg is my family, my 75th great grandfather and that strands of his DNA flow now though my body, 1900 years later.
The Marcomannic Wars 166 – 180 A.D.
Rome’s Frozen Frontier
In the waning days of the second century A.D., Rome faced one of its greatest challenges—not from the east or within, but across the icy expanse of the Danube frontier. The empire’s northern border had long held back the tides of barbarian incursions, but during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the frozen rivers and harsh winters became the backdrop for a desperate and brutal series of conflicts now known as the Marcomannic Wars (166–180 CE).
It began with a breach.
As plague ravaged the empire—brought home by returning soldiers from the eastern Parthian campaign—the northern tribes saw their chance. The Marcomanni, a powerful Germanic people settled in Bohemia, allied with the Quadi, Sarmatians, and other tribal confederations. With the Danube frozen solid in an unusually harsh winter, the tribes crossed en masse, storming into Roman territory in what became the most serious invasion since the days of the early Republic.
In 167 CE, the invaders pushed deep into Pannonia and Noricum (modern-day Austria and Hungary). The unthinkable followed: barbarian forces penetrated Italy itself, reaching as far as Aquileia, sending a shockwave through Roman society. It had been centuries since a foreign army had threatened the Italian heartland.
Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor, had little choice. He shelved his meditations and took up the sword. Alongside his co-emperor Lucius Verus (who would die of plague shortly after), Marcus led successive military campaigns to push the invaders back across the Danube.
Clash on the Frozen Danube
In the dead of winter, the mighty Danube had frozen solid, becoming both bridge and battlefield. Roman legionaries—disciplined, resolute—formed a phalanx on the ice, their shields locked, spears braced against the wind. Across the glimmering expanse, the Sarmatians came thundering forward—horsemen draped in scale armor, lances poised, hooves slipping dangerously on the treacherous surface.
The first charge struck like a thunderclap. Horses skidded, crashed, tumbled. The Roman line held—just barely—as ice shattered under the chaos. Men screamed, some vanishing into freezing black water. But the Romans adjusted, planting spikes and anchoring shields. The Sarmatians wheeled and attacked again, trying to break the formation through sheer speed and panic.
Steel rang, hooves cracked ice, and blood stained the white surface red.
By day’s end, the frozen river was a ruin of shattered armor and broken bodies. The Romans had held the line—but only just. It was not a battle of conquest, but survival.
Hadrian’s Wall 178 A.D.
Rome’s Frozen Frontier
It was bitterly cold, riding along the wall. Dusk was approaching, and Vorg looked forward to the campfire with his fellow Sarmatian warriors. Perhaps one of them had brought down a stag that day and was roasting venison.
Vorg hated this country, what the Roman commander called Britannia. It was always desolate and so far away from his lush hills in the Danube and Tisza river valleys. Once in times past, he and his fellow horsemen were proud soldiers, so fierce in battle, feared by other tribes. They dared to challenge the Roman Empire, sweeping across the Danube eight years ago, invading and plundering the exposed roman provinces to the south. They even killed Claudius Fronto, the Roman governor.
But the Romans pushed back, and hard. Marcus Aurelius , the Roman general, and later Emperor, successor of Emperor Hadrian, was determined to reclaim the lost territories. After several battles, the Sarmatian King Zanticus signed a truce and delivered to the Romans 100,000 prisoners and 8,000 cavalrymen. Vorg was one of the 5,500 shipped out to Britannia, to serve the empire for the remainder of his years.
Clash on the Frozen Danube
Now he and his fellow countrymen were banished to this cursed land, to defend a barren stretch of piled rock, what the Romans call Hadrian’s Wall. On the other side were the fierce clans of Celts, vile people with painted bodies and broadswords. Vorg’s countrymen were equally fierce, being nomads and having a reputation of drinking horse blood mixed with milk. The Romans were clever to abandon this desolate outpost to the protection of the Sarmatian horsemen.
Vorg desperately missed his son, the eldest in the family. Vlant had grown strong like his father, able to ride for hours, an excellent lancer and could chant the old family songs. The camp commander had taken notice of the young Vlant and dispatched him to some fort down south, on the eastern shore, at an old Saxon trading post called Branodunum.
Digging in the dirt near Norfolk 2012 A.D.
Dr. Susanne Bentley was digging in the excavation pit, between the marshy shoreline and the rutted service road to the archaeology campsite. It had been a long and wet summer but this was her favourite activity, on the project site, the dig, the excavation. This was real field work, carving through history with each scrape of her hand trowel.
This site was important to her. Situated 130 miles north of London, Brancaster Beach was way out on the salt marshes of the Norfolk County, steeped in the smell of the sea and sounds of coastal wildlife. And the site was turning up interesting finds. Suzanne was working a previously ignored area, outside of the roman fort outline. Various buttons and nails had shown up, but now she was finding buckles and fasteners, intended for leather strops. Yes, she had located a stable, and that confirmed her suspicion.
The Brancaster Fort, known by the Romans as Branodunum, had a cavalry unit. This was very likely the Cohors prima Aquitanorum auxiliary infantry regiment. Originally from Germany, it had been sent to Britannia in 122 AD, along with several other regiments to help in construction of Hadrian’s Wall.
Now Suzanne had evidence of their presence in Norfolk.
The First Benedicts to America – 1637 A.D.
It was growing dark now and the seas took on a long rhythmic motion. The boat had sailed past the Lizard, the most southern point of England and the last glimpse of the old country. Thomas Benedict was leaving his homeland, heading west across the sea to opportunity and freedom.
Thomas checked that Mary was comfortable below decks before heading topside. Mary was his step sister, daughter of his father’s new wife, Grace Bridgham. Now 19 years old, Mary was still one year younger than Thomas. He had been entrusted by his stepfather, John Bridgham, to protect Mary in the long voyage and the difficult life ahead in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Now he strides up the gangway to the main deck, still trying to get his new sea legs to find each rung. Topside, the open air cuts into his lungs, with the cold sea wind of May. Staring aft along the taffrail, he could see the green hillsides glowing in the dying rays of the evening. Now Thomas can turn his thoughts to the future.
Thomas was born and raised in Norfolk County, in the village of Long Stratton, seven miles south of the county seat at Norwich. His father was William Benedict; his mother was Elizabeth Stephin. His father had passed away about ten years previously and his mother, Elizabeth, remarried to John Bridgham, himself a widower with grown children, including Mary.
Like others aboard, Thomas and Mary were Puritans, fleeing a land of damnation and execution along religious lines. Puritans who eventually made their way to New England sought nothing less than the moral renovation over the corruptness of the churches of England.
Driven away by the Catholic King Charles I and his henchman, William Laud, ex-Bishop of London and now Archbishop of Canterbury, the New World Puritans will build a colony far from their persecutors.
Parliament had been dismissed by Charles in 1629 and it would be of no relief to the Protestants. Unemployment, poverty, beggary and crime afflicted the countryside. Such pestilence on the land was deemed God’s punishment for allowing Charles to reign. Now Thomas had joined the twenty thousands of fellow believers looking for the Promised Land. Following the Reverend John Winthrop across the Atlantic, these spiritual voyagers would have freedom to worship, to marry and grow their families.
Thomas did unite with Mary in America and together raised nine children. The extended family continued to grow, eventually spreading across all of North America.
They call us BENEDICT – 16th century
The following is excerped in part from Bob Benedict’s website …
The Primary Source: Saint Benedict
In tracing the name Benedict through history, it is easy, of course, to find its use by clergy, who have routinely taken the names of venerated saints and popes.
This usage primarily dates back to St. Benedict of Nursia, Italy, who lived from about the year 480 CE to about 547 CE. His name in early life is unknown. After living as a hermit in solitude in a cave for three years, he emerged to be recognized as a holy man, and so to be called Benedict. He founded a monastic order that became known as the Benedictines. He was so much an inspiration that many of the later clergy adopted his name.
Since the year 574 CE and up to 1922, there had been 15 popes bearing the name Benedict. In April of 2005, a new pope was elected who took the name Benedict XVI. There have been other Saints Benedict, as well, including St. Benedict Biscop, an English Benedictine abbot who lived from about 628 CE to 690 CE. In our own ancestral line is to be found Benedict, Bishop of Quimper, a town in southern France, living about 950; he was also Count of Cornouaille and an ancestor of the Dukes of Brittany.
Norfolk, England: the Ancient Seat of the Benedict Family
Benedict as a true surname (i.e., in the form “given name/ surname”) was said to be “in general use in the reign of Edward II [1307-1327]; the ancient seat of the family was Norwich, England” [Holmes, Frank R., Directory of Ancestral Heads of New England Families (1923)]. This is borne out by Bloemfield and Parkins, The History of Norfolk, who list an early George Benedict in County Norfolk (no dates or town given, however).
The earliest recorded Benedict in Norfolk is George Benedict, born about 1518 and died in 1575. He was the great grandfather of our Thomas Benedict who left for America [LaRue Olsen, The Connecticut Nutmegger, v. 39 No. 3, Dec. 2006].
A church dedicated to St. Benedict is in Norfolk, just off of St. Benedict’s Street. The church likely dates from the 11th century. After it was bombed in 1942, only the round tower remains. It is conceivable that our ancestral family lived on the street and were known as George of St. Benedict [street], which evolved into the given name-surname common form of “George Benedict”.
The DNA Discovery
2011 A.D.
Family history research has become a hugely popular hobby these days, what with the Internet, websites like Ancestry and My Heritage and Family Search, and so many publications. Today’s amateur researcher has a wealth of tools at her fingertips. Even the technology of forensic labs has reached the common family searcher, with male line and female line DNA tests. A fellow can trace his male lineage way back these days, as long as other members of the same surname have joined in.
Bob Benedict is such a researcher. He grew up in the same area as where Thomas and Mary Benedict established their family in Connecticut, now lives in Colorado and is a direct descendant as I am. Bob is a consummate digger, uncovering the links to the past and recording sources. Back about a decade ago, he started up the Benedict DNA Project and encouraged us Benedicts to submit our saliva samples.
It is referred to in DNA lingo as the G2a1a haplogroup. As a result, all true male descendants of Thomas Benedict now have a common reference within our DNA strands. This handy label tells us of our really ancient ancestors, going back tens of thousands of years, back to the first branch of haplogroup G of Homo sapiens from Africa. As more and more mutations occurred in the DNA string, one can follow the migration paths of G2, then G2a, and then on to G2a1a, our branch.
“Interesting,” thought Bob, that the DNA of the Benedicts had almost no presence in Britain. In fact, the G2a1a strain was far more prevalent elsewhere. The highest occurrence was found in the remote mountainous region of southern Russia near the Black Sea, now known as North Ossetia, and strongly identified with the clans of the Sarmatian horsemen.
The Sarmatians were noted as wanderers, moving their camps with the seasons and game. They eventually drifted around the Black Sea, invading the country along the Danube River.
But that was more than two thousand years ago. Roads were primitive rutted cuts through forests. Territories were fiercely defended by kingdoms and armies. Weather, seasons, rivers and the English Channel all hindered travel to Britannia. How could these nomadic barbarian tribes in southeast Europe become the ancestors of Englishmen?
Today
This has been a long tale, some two millennia, even more. Parts of it are true, most is fabricated, just conjecture. But it makes for a fascinating family yarn, weaving together the fabrics of our own history. For as far as I am concerned, Vorg is my family, my 75th great grandfather and strands of his DNA flow now though my body 1900 years later.
Tomorrow
We have just begun to understand what science can do for genealogy studies. As advanced as we may think DNA studies are today, these will be just primitive tools to our grandchildren.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Bob Benedict in Colorado for his extensive research and collaboration on all aspects of Benedict but especially on insight into ancestral DNA.
Our gratitude to LaRue Olsen, who devolted many weeks of digging into archive files in the Norfolk region, finding original documents on the births, marriages and deaths of our original family. Her work was published in 2006 with the Connecticut Society of Genealogists.
My appreciation to the members on the discussion forum of the Guild of One-Name Studies, for their thoughtful insights in the writings of this article. The Guild of One Name Studies has been an inspiration and technical resource for this pursuit of the Benedict family line
There was a real archaeological dig near Brancaster Beach, Norfolk, that turned up evidence of a Roman cavalry regiment. It is not known if implements or equipment belonging to any of our Benedict ancestors were found there.
Bob Benedict’s “The Benedict Topics Homepage” website
“The English Origins of the First Thomas Benedict of Long Island and Norwalk, CT” published in The Connecticut Nutmegger, Vol. 39, No. 3, Dec. 2006, pp 353.
The Guild website: one-name.org
Branodunum Roman Fort dig