Our family has a similar tree consolidation problem. A continuous line from about 950 to 1640 and another from 1700 to present. The bit around the Civil War period is there but a bit sketchy. If we can prove the line, we'll have a continuous family history from the Danish invasions to the present day. Don't know yet whether the family was Royalist and dispossessed during the Civil War, or Parliamentarian and dispossessed in the Reformation. On one side of the Civil War, the Kirby family had land in the Leicestershire/Rutland area, on the other they were parish clerks on the same land. All members of the family have been able to read and write from 1700 to present.