How far back can you trace your family history?
 

If you were to create a family tree right now, how far back could you go?

greek or biological? :D

My dad does genealogy stuff for fun, and he was able to go back to the late 1800s on his side of the family. My mother's side would be a little bit more difficult, though, because of where she's from.

ETA: I guess I should have asked that question, RA :p

biological.:)

I can trace my mom's side pretty far, because it's mostly in Greece, but my dad's side gets kind of complicated.

My mother's aunt traced that tree of the family back to the Lewis & Clark expedition.

1650 on my paternal father's father's side
1756 on my paternal father's mother's side
so far

^^^ That's amazing. I wish I could get information from that far back, but AA records and history weren't documented too well until a certain point.

Maternal Grandfather: 1500s to France, at least that is what I have been told. I have never seen the tracing.

Paternal Grandmother: late 1700s to Pennsylvania. We have a bound book that lists everyone back to that time and a single ancestor, along with interesting stories along the way. I am 9th generation.

Others: hasn't really been tracked

Roman Catholics actually track everything from your church of baptism. Say you get confirmed in another church and move and get married in a third. All of your information gets put on your original Baptismal certificate in the church of origin. That's actually where we lost track on one side. There was a fire and the church lost it's records.

Hard documents or family legends?
Documentary-Mom's side AD1490 Normandy. Before that family tradition has it that we wandered down from Denmark (maybe with Hagar the Horrible?).
Documentary-Dad's side AD927 East Prussia into Brittany and then Scotland. Before that there are lots of family stories. Not that Dad's side is arrogant but I think they half believe they were present at the Creation to give advice and guidance.

I'm told we had family members on the Mayflower, but I haven't seen the tree. I do know we were also the royal family of Ireland at one point long ago, when they had royals.

That's interesting! It makes me wanna go back and look at all that information to trace my roots.

My earliest relative came over to America from England in 1623. My mom has the tree somewhere. Yep, she's a DAR.

Dad's family is not as well documented, so with the exception of one line, it's only traced to my great-grandparents from the (assorted) Old Country.

My Sigma family? I can go from my great-great grandbig to my great-great grandlittle... damn!

My maternal grandmother, who compiled a pretty extensive geneology claims that she traced us back to Roman times. I think that's a crock, personally.

She does, however, have complete family records going back to the old country, which for us, is apparently, the Netherlands primarily, then a bunch of other stuff. I'm darkly complected, a fact which my grandmother claims is my "black dutch" ancestory.

I never have had the opportunity to figure out what the hell she means by that, but a Wikipedia search says that in the Oklahoma Territory, a place my ancestors settled, natives would call themselves "black Dutch," and invent ancestries in order to avoid their native American status, which in turn allowed them to do things like purchase land. So maybe I'm Indian and half of our genealogy is just made up?

If you figure out a tribe, the tribe will help you out with the rest. That's what my husband's aunt is doing right now.

My grandmother used to swear up and down that our family cemetery in Ireland is the same family cemetery of the Spencers, as in Princess Di.

I haven't been to the cemetery, but my dad's working on our family history right now and I'm sure he'd find it.

Yeah, but there's some legitimate Dutch lineage there as well, so it'll be tough. Apparently, I'm not-so-distantly related to Former Associate Supreme Court Justice, Willis VanDaventer. That's probably legitimate since the family mostly came to the Oklahoma territory from Indiana, which is where Justice VanDaventer was from.

1600s - both sides
Court of Henry VIII - maternal Jernigan line

Depends on the branch. One branch of my family tree was only traceable to mid-1800s, but another, I was able to trace back over 1,000 years.

We can trace my mom's side back past the Mayflower. When we went to Plymouth when I was little, we met the woman playing our relative who came over on the Mayflower. I think my aunt scared her a bit...

My dad's side of the family is a bit harder, but he has roots to Spain and Armenia that we know go pretty far back, as well as Dutch roots.

Look up Melungeons.

I can get back to the 1700s with my mother's side. It gets a little confusing before that, but I could probably go back to the 1600s. I with RaggedyAnn. Most of our information before 1750 is from the Catholic records.

My dads is a little harder. We can get my great grandparents, but they were immigrants. My dad died when my dad was young, so that side was pretty much lost. My grandmother hated my great grandmother who hated my great great grandmother so that side is really tricky. Plus my grandmother is a little racist. Okay, more than a little and refuses to acknowledge certain aspects of our heritage so we can't determine if she is just being racist or if we are actually not from certain places.

On my mother's side, I can go back 4 generations. She and most of her ancestors are British, but I have a Goanese great-great-grandmother.

On my father's side, I can go back 3 generations - that's the generation that immigrated from Poland.

One of my MIL's hobbies is genealogy, and she's traced both her family and her husband's family pretty far back. She has also tried to trace my father's genealogy - she is on a quest to find some Jewish ancestors for me, but I'm afraid she'll have to go back nearly 2000 years for that :p

My mom's brother drew up a family tree. I don't remember how far back he'd gotten, but I think it was only maybe four generations. I think my brother may have a copy of that family tree, but it's all in Chinese. I think my paternal grandfather had written a bit about our genealogy in his journals, but once again everything's in Chinese. My aunt wanted to take the journals to China to get them translated, copied, and bound into nice books for us kids. However, my grandfather fought for the Nationalist Party, so there may be some stuff in there denouncing the Communist Party.

Welp, I think I posted something similar around here somewhere a few years back, but I don't know...

Aside from wanting to do the DNA Anscestry.com stuff, my side of the family can trace--especially my paternal lineage can trace to 2 slaves and 1 freed slave. My maternal lineage traces her to 1 freed slave.

On my grandfather's maternal grandmother, we think she was not Black, there is strong evidence that she was an immigrant from Eastern Europe. Because her children has wirey hair, there was an attraction between African Americans and these "new Eastern European" children. The last name was Zeigler... In fact, family members that come to the reunions have a light complexion and fine straight, but wavy hair... The only children that do not clearly look Black are my niece and nephew at this time because their mothers (yeah, that is what's going on) are White.

My grandfather's paternal grandmother was a 300 lb slave, never freed who was "married" to a biracial Native American/Irish man who had red hair... My grandfather's father did not have the red hair, but my grandfather inherited the ultra red hair--like "Bozo the Clown" red hair... My grandfather's father was a "rolling stone" he wound up with 63 children from various women, but he was married to my grandfather's mother...

On my grandmother's side, she said she met an uncle who was a emancipated slave who lived until he was 106 years old. However her great-grandfather was a freed-slave that decided to leave the plantation and ran into the Cherokee nation (allegedly). Due to the "fugitive slave act" at the time, he married one of the women and had quite a few kids. One of them were my grandmother's grandmother named Honey. One day, a judge came by the house and said to Honey's brother, that he'll take that gal off his hands... And the brother gave Honey to the judge... She was like 12 years old... They had quite of few children, all except one could "pass for being white"--except my great-grandmother--who looks much more beautiful that J-Lo--even when my great-grandmother was old...

On my mother's side, her biological father was Irish of the last name Dunn. He had 2 families: one Black, one White... I guess folks can figure out who he was married to... And in the middle of segregated, post-Civil War era Georgia... Well, guess what happened to my mother's family?

Interestingly, my mother just found out that a maternal ancestor of hers was a former emancipated slave that attempted to fight for civil rights and unionize various activities who was lynched in the early 20th century... Apparently, the old folks in the family never spoke of what happened to pass it on to the young...

<----- plans to make genealogy her second career.

On my mother's side, we're back to Jamestown (finally!) and starting England on the one lineage. Others go back to the 1600's, and we need one more proof for the Mayflower. We belong to several lineage societies, including First Families of PA and of Western PA, DAR, UDC & ( are applying to) First Families of VA.

On my father's side, I didn't think we'd get back very far, but then received an email from a man who is a distant cousin. I assumed he was a Mormon, as the family legend was that my ggg-grandmother's brothers became LDS. For those who don't know, doing their genealogy is part of their religion. This cousin turned out to be in England, living on the same street as where my ggg-grandmother was born! So, we have his lineage back to 1713.

There has been a lot of genealogical threads in the past. Try:
Daughters of This & That
DARs on GC
Colonial Slave Links
for starters, or just use the search function for genealogy.

One of the most important things I've learned about genealogy is "NONE of us had anything to do with our ethnicity, but EACH of us has everything to do with our attitudes about it!" I don't buy into the "my genealogy is better than yours" bit, as frankly, I had nothing to do with the wheres & whys I was born. I do enjoy researching it, though.

Wow. We need to remember these things, so they don't happen again. FWIW, my cousin's grandmother, who was the daughter of a former slave, had the most amazing blue eyes I've ever seen. Such a beautiful woman, inside and out.

A friend of mine has light brown eyes. In her immediate family, there were a few siblings who had the same, but her mother and her mother's family did not have those eyes. My friend did not really know her father's family--however she found out he was from Belize. So when she visited the "remnants" of her paternal lineage, she immediate saw ALL KINDS OF EYE COLORS!!! From light brown to greens to blues... It's rather interesting genetics there... At least to me it's interesting genetics...

I have been able to go really far back on both of my sides.

I have found both sides to be First Families of VA. I have Rev. War, Civil War, War of 1812 vets in the family. I have also traced back to England, Italy, Ireland, Scotland, France all to at least the 1500s. I have found ties to the Tudors of England, Taliaferros of Italy, Campbells of Ireland and Scotland, and French royal ties linking to Catherine de Valois.

The strangest thing I have found is that way back when (we're talking early settling of Tennessee), I have tied my husband's family to mine. I have also tied my maternal and paternal lines to each other. It seems MANY of the families intermarried.

We still are having trouble on my paternal side, though. It seems NO one wants to talk about being Melungeon or having Native American roots, although I find it awesome.

There's a Melungeon thread on here somewhere. Seems like Carny's family is Melungeon, too. I carry a lot of the typical traits.

My dad's side has a genealogy chart too and I'd like to have it translated for me when I get married. I think it would be nice to have. I don't know much about my mom's side - my great grandfather (my maternal grandma's dad) was an orphan and was raised by a much older sibling. Also, I'm not too sure if these journals will tell the whole picture - are women actually listed in these charts, or are they given the title of "wife" or "daughter"? And do the women fall off the charts once they marry?

I think these charts/journals go back several centuries.

I always thought the intermarriage bit was a little strange, too - have you ever heard of anyone with one Mayflower ancestor? Then I heard a lecture about intermarriage - there was only a small pool of people from which they could choose a spouse. Sometimes there was a long time between new people coming into a new area, so they did what they could.

The rest is pretty amazing - did you do all the research yourself? It's really fascinating!

No. I cannot take the credit for most of it... I have used the Mormon site a lot. Good internet research has led me to find common ancestries with great researchers.

I am currently gathering info for DAR, S&DoftheConf., and Dof1812. I have multiple Rev. War veterans in my lines.

I am lucky in that most of my family followed the same pattern -- VA to NC to TN. Some went PA to TN. But, once they got into TN, they all settled in a two county area, where I was born and raised. So, going back over eight gens is nothing, b/c all of your relatives, records, cemeteries, etc. are pretty much in one place.

The trick has been to find that one person who first came to TN. After that, it's been easy.

Now, I am in the process of getting the actual paper copies of everything.

My grandmother was forced to do a school project in HS of a family tree. So, if I was stuck on verifying someone, I could usually find a sibling's info online. And, our area has had a lot of written histories, so it's not been as hard as I thought it would be. But, then again, I have been working on little bits here and there for about five years.

That happened with my husband's side as well. They just narrowed down the tribe. His grandmother didn't want to talk about it and I believe it was her mother that was traded, so the wounds are still too fresh. Slowly but surely pieces are being put together though. Also, if you go back a couple of generations, it was something people didn't talk about because of prejudice.

I have tried tracking down my family history before, but it's so hard separating what is true and what is rumor told so often everyone just thinks it's true ... Maybe I'll try again one day. As far as can be determined, my family on both sides has been in America since around the time of the Revolutionary War, and pretty much in Georgia ever since arriving. There's some combination of English, German, and who really knows what else all mixed together. (According to my grandmother, we are also part Creek and Cherokee. Every white family in the South will quite insistently explain any slightly darker ancestor as some sort of "Cherokee royalty". Amazing how many white Southerners have Cherokee royalty in their families.)

I think the farthest my grandmother got on my mom's side is like the 1800s. My dad's side would be more difficult. All of our names are really common too and I have seven different nationalities in me so it would be really interesting to find relatives. I'm sure we have some in Canada, France, Ireland, and Vermont that we never talk to on my dad's side. I'm also pretty sure there are still some in Yugoslavia (or whatever it's called nowadays) on my mom's side. I've always been interested in researching more but just haven't.

Not far on my mom's side, but my dad knows his side all the way back to the first male relative to make it to America. It stops there though...since he was given a slave name, we can't trace back the original surname to our ancestors in Africa. But we know what part of Africa he came from so maybe we'll hunt them down one day. :D

1774 with an ancestor who possibly was from VT or elsewhere in New England. He appears in Oneida County, NY, by 1820. We do not know where he is buried (1843), but a daughter is buried in the old Quaker cemetery in North Bridgewater, NY. 6 steps down the family chart is ME! All this great research thanks to a Mormon relative.

On my dad's side: 1400s in Austria. One of my uncles did most of the research, and he used church (Catholic) documents. Supposedly one of my cousins found our ancestor's grave while backpacking through Austria 10-15 years ago.

On my mom's side: Sometime in the 1700s, Cherokee. My great-great grandfather was a storekeeper in Oklahoma in the late-ish 1800s and kept detailed journals, written in Cherokee (The Cherokee language is really f'ing hard). They were mostly business ledgers, but he also wrote family stories and history in them. Someone had read them to my family so we could get a general idea of what was in them, but last I heard one of my great aunts was working with Cherokee tribal officials to get the journals translated.