How far back have you traced your family history?

I've been dabbling in this lately, or taking an active interest whilst my girlfriend does, it's been fascinating seeing how the dots connect when going through old family members across the world.

Does anyone else do thier family tree? Anyone had much luck getting past the 1800's?

CX.

I've gone as far back as my Mum & Dad

On my Mom's side we found that we are direct descendants of king Charlemagne. That was quite a surprise. Also have some native American blood rom Canada. The tribe was almost wiped out by another tribe and ended up joining with native American indians.

To adam and eve. jk

2nd

Never really been interested enough to do a family tree but I did have a great uncle on my mother's side who was doing one and was apparently asked (hearsay from family members so I don't know how true this is) by British authorities to stop looking .... Don't know why or what that might mean, if it's even true, but like I said I'm not interested enough to find out ....

reply to post by CX


My Mum has done this as a hobby for years, she sometimes writes for UK Family History Magazine. I remember her saying she hits a wall at around the civil war (1600's) as many records were destroyed during. It's not very often she will get back this far but with nobility involved its possible to get back to the dark ages.

I believe she has traced her side of our family to the late 1700's. Before 1837 in the UK official registration didn't exist so all you have to go on are parish records. Some are very good, others aren't.

Ummm Just out of curiousity, does anyone here have any friends or know any history of people with the surname Moo?

On my dad's side we can go as far back as when my great great great grandparents came to America from Sweden to Elise Island and then they worked their way down to Virginia, but we cannot go any further back than that because of a possible last name change upon arriving here.

On my mom's side it's a little easier, my great grandparents came over from Ireland and went straight to Virginia, then on to West Virginia. My grandmother married another Irish immigrant, but my mom and siblings branched out from there. No one can find any paper work, and of course neither are still alive. On my mom's side of the family no one bothered to talk to them about their past. I am told that they were not the most friendliest and warm grandparents.


My husband's history is very interesting to me. His great grandparents and both of their kids (his grandfather) went straight to Pennsylvania from Syria. His grandfather married an American woman and had two kids. His dad then married his mom whose grandparents where from Germany. I have been trying to get him into getting to know his Syrian roots and understanding the culture and things like that. It's amazing how even though the genes have been "watered down" a bit he still has very dark eyes, skin and hair color.

When you really think about it America really is one giant melting pot and after so long it gets very hard to tell where anyone came from. It surprises me so much that racism is still such a big problem when there is such a mixture going on.

My father's side was basically a mystery. But I contacted my brothers mother and she sent me what info she had. I'm not sure how far back it went off the top of my head though.

Can't get far on my moms side, might be because it's American Indian after her father.

I love family trees, I'm just not good at it

Only back to great-great-grandparents on one side unfortunately. I don't know how to search for genealogy on the internet. Anyone know of a trustworthy site?

Can't trace mine back too far on my dad's side, because they were all slaves or sharecroppers after "emancipation" so yeah, that's always nice to know. I especially know that I will never know what African tribe my people on my father's side came from either. At least on my mom's side I have found out a little more but black people never get a big picture of their lineage like other folks can. Maybe that is a conspiracy...

On my Grandpa's side to General Nathaniel Greene. He fought in the Revolutionary War and served along side George Washington.

reply to post by CX


My brother in laws Aunt and my sister have been doing our family tree. Back to around 1300 at the moment but getting rather difficult getting further back than that. Disturbingly they have found the families have been linked by marriage at least 3 times during that period! Probably explains my webbed feet and my second head!

I am a proper Northern England bod too - a couple of additions from Scotland / Ireland but basically the families have been tied to Yorkshire / Lancashire / Cumbria throughout history!

Makes sense though, my surname is either very old Anglo Saxon or very old Norse and that would certainly fit this region.

Originally posted by Grifter81
reply to post by CX

 

My Mum has done this as a hobby for years, she sometimes writes for UK Family History Magazine. I remember her saying she hits a wall at around the civil war (1600's) as many records were destroyed during. It's not very often she will get back this far but with nobility involved its possible to get back to the dark ages.

I believe she has traced her side of our family to the late 1700's. Before 1837 in the UK official registration didn't exist so all you have to go on are parish records. Some are very good, others aren't.

edit on 12/4/2012 by Grifter81 because: (no reason given)

It depends on what records you are looking for and where you are searching. Many parish churches have records going back to Norman times (if the church is old enough). That in itself is not really a help though as you have to know who you are specifically looking for. For example, many very early entries are John, yeoman, 30 years old, etc - rather than full name and date of birth, etc.

I got mine back as far as a woman named Dorothy Bogs (born in 1637, Kent England) and her father Thomas Bogs (born/died?). The most interesting person I've come across in my past is a guy named Trammel. He was the brother of my great great (more greats?) grand father. The guy may have been a pirate, thief, horse smuggler and gambler. There is even a town that came into existance because of some gold he may have stolen and buried, it was never recovered. This link gives the story a little better.

www.texasescapes.com...

So if I were to ever win 10 million dollars, I'd spend some time there hunting down the gold that my less than stellar reletive stole. That, or go to Oak Island and do a little digging.....

My great great Grandfather eloped with a Tunisian princess and dodged assassins for a while. It is amazing what you find out.

P

on my moms side i have gone back to the 1300's all it says is clan of. On my dads side we have traced it back to Francis Marion the Swamp Fox. I also have family members who were part of the Immortal 600.

I got back to the Habsburg reign and still going. I come from the Albright line. Luckily a family member had started the research and I could follow his along while I did mine.

*WARNING* please don't be easily sucked into Ancestory.com's little leaves that link you to others research. It is not always correct and can lead to major frustration in the end. It seemed easy at first to just click that little leaf and let the computer do most of the work until I further researched only to find out it was all wrong.

Usually many people's family history are quite mundane.

These shows they have on television like Who Do You Think You Are, never really mention the famous people they reject because there was nothing interesting in their history.

Michael Parkinson the famous chat-show host was set to be on the show a couple of years ago but had to drop out because they couldn't find anything interesting.

I've noticed how a lot of Americans seem to claim they're descended from great nobility or great historical figures.

Just because somebody happens to have shared the same surname doesn't mean you're related in some way.

Somebody lived in my house in 1911 with the same surname, but they're of no relation.

reply to post by CX

Yes, my uncle, who was a software coder, wrote a gemology program for his computer. He is a Maternal uncle, and he was able to trace our family back to 1732.