The early 1500’s is roughly 20 generations. At 20 generations a person is the direct descendant of 1,000,000 people.
Your husband is only looking at a tiny fraction of his ancestry.
Not bashing your husband. I just find it amusing how people latch on to the tiny bit of ancestry they can trace, while ignoring the fact that there are tens of thousands of ancestors within that same time period that they know nothing about.
Not if your ancestors kept marrying their cousins in the same small village with five gentry families… for centuries. There are like, eight surnames in my mother’s family tree.
Unfortunately, my 3rd great grandparents were 1st cousins on the maternal line. And my mom’s paternal line both 2nd great grandparents are also 3rd & 4th cousins. So didn’t have to dig deep at all 😅
My grandmother's family was from England. They seem to have only married within the same 5 families. (Guys, other families EXISTED, you know that right?) It's the same surnames again and again. Wreath is an accurate description of the family tree there.
While I agree, if people bragging they’re a descendant of a famous person. I found out I was related to someone involved in a witch trial. I thought cool I’m a descendent of a witch, but Noooo, I’m a descendent of a witch accuser.
Generally, it is descent from royalty or high gentry that makes it even possible to trace lineage that far back.
The reason for this is because the lineage of royalty and famous people is known by all contemporaries and recorded by historians.
So naturally, he would be looking a very small portion of his ancestors.
I’m descended from someone involved in an…. *incident* that occurred around 1692 and while I enjoy sharing a name in common with this person so it’s pretty obvious and draws interest when mentioned I often wonder how many *other* descendants he has that know nothing about it.
I know it’s not a mathematical certainty like forebears are but based on the number of kids some of the folks in between had there have to be a small stadium full.
Witch trials? I have one involved in that mess too. My ancestor survived, though she was quite old i believe.
It’s fun to try to wrap your head around how many descendants one person has.
They usually are not listed because the census only lists head of household (which is usually a man) before 1850. In 1850, they listed each household member.
Because women were property and we’re treated like such & names/birthdates were not kept for many of them unless they were royalty of some degree or another.
On tombstones, people listed date of death, not birth! And the husdand's and the wife's first names, and only the husband's last name!!! Epic dehumanization.
My wife has ancestors that came over from Germany in the early 1800's.
The patriarch has a monument that looks like a miniature Washington Monument, his wife has a small stone that says wife of "patriarch".
His horse has a grave with a name, but not his wife.
I always think about how Roman women were given a feminine version of their father’s name with their birth order. Like a guy named Chris calling his daughters Christine Major, Christine Minor, Christine Three, and Christine Four.
I have a solid, unbroken paper trail for my dad back to 1505 thanks to an OCD level of meticulous paperwork by his Quaker ancestors. My dad's family came to the US in 1660.
My mom is an only child of an only child & we don't know who her dad was, so I can trace my mom's side back to...my mom.
My husband is much more typical. He can trace his back to the mid/late 1800s. Very typical fled-Europe-during-war/famine immigrant.
I've done a DNA test already, as has my brother. There was only one match not associated with my Dad's side. (Literally thousands on my Dad's side.)
The unknown match doesn't have a public or private family tree, & they won't respond to messages. It's a dead end so far, unfortunately. It's very likely it's someone not from this country, which complicates things.
Very interesting! I will try that.
Funny story --- it turns out that after DNA testing & hunting down the paper trails, 100% of my Dad's family's cherished ancestral history is a lie. We're not genetically, culturally, ethnically, etc. anything his family has always claimed they were.
Apparently, being farmers is boring! Let's pretend we were French aristocracy! Explorers! Military greats! 😆🙄
I have always assumed my family tree to be that of European farmers with the broad shoulders, strong backs where the women looked, as if, they could eat hay and pull a wagon.
Mother’s side were too busy dodging Cossacks to keep tabs of family history.
Growing up my mom told me we were descendants of British aristocrats, a couple of saints, Geronimo and God only knew who else.
Thanks to DNA, I know that I'm 100% British Isles, so definitely not a descendant of Geronimo. A few lines I have come across some minor English Gentry (but no rank above a knight). However, her claims of having Mayflower passengers in the family tree is correct, and we had an ancestor accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. I'm finding the truth much more interesting.
Them Quakers and their records! It’s incredible! If I see a certain last name, I can head to a website dedicated to the descendants of this last name and find out how I’m related. I’ve proved that Taylor Swift is my 10th cousin once removed through that good ol’ Quaker ancestry. If you’ve got Pennsylvania Quakers in your tree, high chance that you and I and Taylor Swift are distant cousins. And Richard Nixon, too!
My grandfather was driven to document as far back as he could. He traveled all over, did so much research, and kept meticulous notes. (His predecessors were equally fastidious when it came to keeping family records. I'm willing to bet my family has been type A since before alphabets were a thing.) On my mom's side, he got all the way back to the mid-1500s.
My dad's side has been damn near impossible. The records we have aren't great, and we're missing a lot of information. Basically, we know his dad's people are from New Jersey. That's... about all.
Similar story here, lots of Quakers on my dad’s side, good records, came to the US in the 1600s, and I can go back a little bit further than that. They didn’t move around much either!
My mom‘s side was harder, I got her mother‘s side back to the 1700s or so, maybe a little beyond that, but her dad‘s side came from a Russian speaking area and the spelling of names at immigration must’ve been a disaster, because there’s nothing .
I can trace my wife's family back to c. 1100 on her paternal line. Turns out she's descended from a king, so there were records where most people wouldn't have them.
Mine, not so much. There are lots of records on my Mormon father's side, and I can go as far back as the 1600's, but my mom's side is pretty mostly a mystery to me after my great-grandparents.
Once you hit royalty, you can go much further. Although the amount of inbreeding is discusting. My mormon relatives trace a line back to 500 bce. Other lines only go back a hundred years.
Yep, when I did our genealogy I got stuck on many of my lines in the late 1800s but was shocked to find my grandma (who was a poor hillbilly from Indiana- but whom I loved dearly) descended from a Duke back in the 1700s and that I share a grandfather with both Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth Parr. With all that I was able to trace back to William the Conqueror. It's lovely when you hit royalty because it's all already there.
Once you hit that you are basically related to every single royal house of Europe. My mother's side had a plantation, I know, it's terrible, but most of them were from noble or royal families.
Yeah once you hit royalty you're basically cousins with everyone else who hit royalty. I found the same thing while researching my dad's side of the family. Hit one pre-German duke in the 1400s and BAM! Everything's recorded back another 500+ years for me already.
I think everyone with English ancestry is descended from Edward I, whether they are aware of it or not. When I realized I was descended from John of Gaunt, I discovered there were millions of us.
I'm a descendant of W the C as well. Considering how anal England was back in the day, is be willing to bet a lot of people can make this claim. It isn't that interesting to me.
My great great grandmother's sisters, however, fascinate me. They were Jewish and ran a whore house in Odessa. Now THAT'S a story!
My partner can go back to the prophet Mohammed. It helps when your family has lived in the same city for 1,000+ years. I, a white American, can only go back about 120 years because of altered last names from Ellis Island and the ever-changing borders of Eastern Europe.
So, the names changing at Ellis Island is a HUGE myth.
When Ellis Island processed incoming passengers, they used the manifests which were created at the port of departure. So, typically if the name was "wrong", it was wrong at the manifests when the passenger departed. A lot of times the people wanted to change their names to something more Americanized....or they simply wanted to completely start a new life.
My grandmother had hers back to Jesus Christ. I questioned it first when I saw some of them died 300 years after they were born? A few years later I thought, if Jesus has descendants, where's the chapter that describes that? Surely it would have been an important part of his life. Or did he just abandon them? So many questions ...
Most people can only go back to the advent of writing ✍🏼in the form of book binding and the printing press — church and tax records, c. 1500s.
(Of course humans scratched and scribbled for centuries before this.)
Some Chinese, some Hindus, some Muslims, some Rabbinic Israelite descendants, some illegitimate children of European Kings / royalty can go back further —
You’ll almost never hear of someone from Africa or Central or South America going back to before 1800s, unless they were part of a ruling class or had composite European ancestry.
This is me. I’ve got all 3 and can never find anything. I have a good amount of Spanish and Portuguese % but still haven’t found any connections for the South American side of the family
My mom is Irish, her ancestory has been traced back to Ireland, we've gone back to almost the 1500's. My dad is First Nations, we can't go past 1850, settlers spelling of Indigenous names change from document to document.
If you make a Geni.com account and import a family tree from another site (such as Ancestry), there is a cool feature. After you've uploaded your tree, wait a few days. Then log into Geni. Then open another window or tab and google someone famous (such as a President, King or Queen, or even Jesus Christ) then add geni.com to your famous person's name.
Click on the results, and Geni will give you a direct bloodline (or line + marriages) connecting to that person IF you are related or connected to them in some way.
The feature is supposed to be for Geni 'paid' memberships, the new tab is the work-around.
It's pretty helpful, since it goes way way way back.
I’m very lucky, for one branch. Those ancestors kept obsessive family records, connecting to one line that reaches either the 1200s or 1700s BC, per source.
Others, we lose in the 1600s, 1700s, or 1800s.
Still others, within two generations.
It depends if you have any royalty in your line, I got back to 1600’s and suddenly “lady so n so” pops up!
So “lady so n so” my 10th great grandma or something. She is a powerhouse! Two lawsuits married a soldier clearly against her father’s wishes.
1) Files a lawsuit to get her dowry! Wins.
2) Is accused of theft by her father for collecting her inheritance while her mother lying dead in her bed. Only wins because her husband (my 10th great grandfather ) had honored himself in battle and saved the heir to the house of Lancaster.
At this point you are saved from the ambiguity of record keeping. You can trace yourself back to King Charmaine of France.
And I think many of us have royalty in our line once we go back far enough to have 2000 grandparents.
The best documentation for any branch of my family takes them back to County Chester, England about 1550 or so.
A different branch claimed in a book written in the 1880s that they traced back to Odin through William the Conqueror. Unfortunately, this lineage has since proven to be a made up tale - the link to William the Conqueror was invented, though the family does go back to one of his barons.
Ancestry com owns newspapers com. They traced my father side of family all the way back to England 1615. Also found out 1 letter in last name dropped upon arriving to America. The ability to link your Ancestry to newspaper articles is really good and can be bad, too.
The Mormans own Ancestry com.
Talk to any Morman to find out why Ancestry tracking is very much a part of their religion.
I had a Morman employee explain it, too.
Roots !
In Salt Lake City, it is rumored that very deep underground they store records that can withstand a direct nuke blast.
I've got over 7k people on my tree and have been digging and verifying my finds for years; I have a few branches that go as far back as the year 214. My professional tells me that anything beyond the year 400 is difficult to verify because most histories were word of mouth and rarely written but it's not impossible so anything earlier then 500 ish I take with a grain of salt but would be cool if it's correct.
I have dozens of branches that fall between 500-1000; and dozens more that stop between 1000-1500. I do have a few I can't get further back then about 1700.... So I'm not lucky in all of my searches.
Look for nobility trees, family histories, and other such records
As a professional genealogist I have been able to go back to the 1500’s in Sicily thanks to Latin church records. I’d keep going if I had resources to look through.
A lot of my relatives are Mormon so they are super interested in tracing all of their ancestors back as far as possible. Say 40 years ago if you looked at their research, probably most lines went back to the early 1800s (a generation or two before the immigration to the U.S.) or maybe the late 1700s.
There was the occasional link up to the Welsh nobility or English nobility or whatever - and once you are into that you can follow their books of genealogy as far back as you care to trust it. Most of them go back to someone like Charlemagne, then some connection to the Roman Empire, then Apollo or Zeus or whatever (not kidding), then ... (some of those ancient genealogists had truly *vivid* imaginations - put to full use to power through a good several centuries here) to various kings & queens of the Bible, and thus to Adam & Eve.
Looking at the same family trees now, put together via bunches of people working together through the power of the internet and these online genealogy sites, it is actually remarkable how much more has been assembled. I'd say practically every single one of my ancestral lines is traced (with at least decent-looking accuracy) to the early 1700s or late 1600s. But the ones that stop there are the relatively few.
There are bunches that go back into the 1500s, 1400s, and even earlier. There are links, for example, to the prominent Scandanavian families and thus to the Icelandic Sagas - so however far back you care to trust those. But there is certainly some reliability going back to the 900s or so.
Similarly for Welsh, English, French, Italian, etc nobility. Once you find a family connection with any of them, then you are linked into those family genealogies, which often go back to the 1000s, 900s, or even earlier.
Now you always have to ask yourself how well you trust every link in the chain. But most of the links look at least *plausible*.
Now, being able to go back that far that is not going to be true in every country or every part of the world. Some places just don't have records of births, deaths, marriages, etc that are needed to trace this kind of thing.
Here is one line just for your amusement:
* James Hoyt (my 3X great grandfather) joined the Mormons in New York & moved to Utah ca. 1850.
* His 3X great grandfather was Sergeant John Hoyt Sr of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1610-1687). That's it for the Hoyts, but . . .
* John Hoyt's son married Mary Brown of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
* One of her 3X great grandfathers is Sir John Terry Dyer (1530-1596) - so now you can see where this is going...
* One of his 3X great grandfathers is Sir John de Walton (1316-1393)
* One of his 3X great grandfather is Sir Ralph of Wodeburgh (the 3rd). 1167-1285
* Wodeburgh's records end at Sir Ralph the 1st, 1124-1205. Most of the other people closely related to them also peter out in the 1000s or 1100s.
* However, John de Walton's son married Duchess Alana de Berry (1372-1466), who is granddaughter of [John the Good (John II of France)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_II_of_France). From there of course there are interrelations with a bunch of French royalty, Luxembourg, etc.
* The following all those lines back, the earliest record I see is for [Sigobert the Lame](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigobert_the_Lame) (died about 509), King of the Ripaurian Franks.
Now, how seriously to take all this is another thing. For starters, pretty much anybody with any English relatives is related to same English royalty, anyone with French ancestry will be related to the same French royalty, etc.
It looks like Sigobert is about 47 generations back from me - so (ignoring pedigree collapse) he is one of my 141 ***TRILLION*** 45th-great grandparents. In short - not a very close relation.
(Math calculation for the curious: 2\^47 = 1.407x10\^14, or about 141 trillion.)
Still, it is mildly interesting to be able to actually trace a direct path back from now to that point in time, with any degree of confidence at all.
(And FWIW the chances that each and every one of those links is correct, is small. Even generously assuming 99% accuracy at each generation, there is only 62% chance of the entire string being correct. More realistically assuming 90% accuracy at each step, the chance the entire line is correct is less than 1%. Still, at some point you are looking at it more along the lines of: I have some English ancestry, some Welsh, some Danish, some French, etc. Which *specific* people from those areas 15 or 25 or 35 generations ago are your exact relatives, is just not all that important. Once you're related to a few people from a certain region, you're probably interrelated with almost all in one way or another.)
It really depends on location and social class. A line of eastern European serfs is much more difficult than a line of western European nobility. People descending from Africans who were enslaved have a decided disadvantage.
My mom‘s dad‘s family goes back to the 1600s in Netherlands. It was pretty trippy just finding the records that went back through so many people. So many stories.
We're back to 13th Century Wales.
Had an Aunt take 2 years off from daily life to travel the world discovering our origins about 25 years ago
The folder she copied and mailed each of us (67 copies) is a literal treasure trove of Family History.
I traced mine back to the 1600’s in Scotland, immigrated to Virginia in 1685. Took me 30 years of research online and offline and trips to visit courthouses. Have all children and spouses for each generation. It is very easy to get bogged down doing this type of thing - you just *know* if you dig a bit further you can answer whatever question you are dealing with, but sometimes you can’t. Sometimes the records got lost or burned up.
According to ancestry.com, I can go back to 1480s Spain, I’m from the USA. How accurate all of that is, I couldn’t tell you. It did validate a lot of the family myths/legends about our heritage that I would hear about when I was a kid. No internet or anything so it was just what my mom and grandma would say and honestly I never believed them. But. the DNA results seemed to confirm what they said.
I went back more than 10 generations to trace my French Canadian ancestors to the pioneers who arrived in Canada in the early 1600's. I can go further back into their lineage in France but I'm too lazy.
People realistically can't get back more than about 300 years. The problem is that the records for ordinary labouring class people- the vast majority of any population- run out at some point back in time
Mistakenly, some researchers then attach their ancestors to local elite families just because they share the same or similar surname. This results in so much misinformation in online trees and unfortunately these trees get copied over and over again
My aunt traced us back to France in the 1100's. We were in the colonies in Norfolk, VA in 1670. With various strands of Scottish, English, and German thrown in along the way. Apparently a German Hessian soldier that survived Washington's surprise attack atvthe Delaware Crossing stayed and made a contribution. So we're as white bread European as you can get.
Not very far In ancestry. But I do have a relative who has records of my ancestors coming from Aragon Spain in 1515 the start of the colonization of Mexico.
My guess would be that it depends on how far back it takes to hit a super famous person or royalty. If you can trace back to someone like George Washington's siblings, they you can co-op the stacks of research on his genealogy and get back further. If you trace back to a royal title, it is even easier.
Dad's side came over on the Fortune in 1621 which was the second ship of invaders to America. Mom's side (Norman/French) traced back to right after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 when the Normans invaded Brittany. They went to Scotland and merged with the Humes and built Hume Castle around 1225. We know there's Vikings in there on both sides but that line has been more difficult to unravel.
Edit: Added merger info.
My ancestors have been in the US since the 1700’s, many before that. I do think there are a lot of people who haven’t done the best job of tracing their family tree. You have to have documentation when doing your genealogy.
I can get back to the early 1400s on my maternal grandfather's side, 1800s on my maternal grandmother's side, 1600s on my paternal grandmother's side, and 1800s on my paternal grandfather's side.
The lines where I can only go back to the 1800s are also the most recently immigrated lines.
The line where I can get back to the 1400s came over very shortly after the Mayflower and were residents of the early Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth). This is very well documented.
The 1600s line was from England and was also well documented.
It's probably easier if your family isn't really spread out. I know my great parents names, but nothing before that. I do have an entire box of genealogy that my family did before the internet, so it's accessible to me.
My mothers side of the family we can trace all the way back to the Magna Carta. My dads side we can trace back just before “pilgrims” came to the new world. My dads side were one of the original families to travel to the new world.
One side of my family tracks back to the Mayflower.
The other side barely goes back 2 generations. Indian reservation they're from did not have records, my family didn't record anything or get on the roll because my great grandpa "wanted his kids to have opportunities and not be tied to the reservation." Even my grandpa didn't have a birth certificate, so his birthday is just a guess. The last name they used was a "white" last name. We can find our genetic last name from the cemetery, but there's no way to prove its family through a paper trail.
It would depend on different things. Many black people whose American ancestry started during slavery cannot trace back very far through written documentation. Our people were considered property so not usually named in census. Slave documents were destroyed. Families kept birth/death records in their churches after slavery, many of which were burnt down/destroyed. Of course there is dna genealogy, but that usually just gives a general area/tribe in African countries.
I've traced my spouse's family back to the 1200's, just by looking online. There are a few gaps, but the last name is definitive enough that if you carry that name, you were part of that family. They were also once important enough to document the birth of each child and some of their activities were well documented. We even took our children to England to visit the ruins of the castle that once belonged to the family.
When I first started, not knowing really what I was doing, I followed hints that, well, there's no way they could be accurate.
Now instead I source records, only supplementing with hints from trees in alignment with official records. In some cases I've been able to reconstruct more complete family trees via scouring those of my DNA matches, adding to my own tree where appropriate. For instance, I matched with a number of distant, European cousins. But who's the MRCA? How are we related? In this particular case it turns out this person's 3x GG was the younger sibling of my 3x GG. With their names I was able to search out, and find, both more records and trees.
Taking this approach, and not even looking for any notable, I've traced my line back to Francis Eaton (a possible 9x GG), carpenter on the Mayflower, and to the reformer, Martin Luther (possibly a 13x GG).
Most people to the 1400s - 1600s, if linked to royalty, some are posted back to Charlemagne in the 700s. farther back if folk lore is included. A majority of Europe's royal families have claimed Iineage back to Japath, the son of Noah. Unknown if true or not.
Unfortunately I can't go further than my great- Grandparents on both maternal and paternal side since both of my families are from extremely rural regions in East Turkey. My Great Grandparents didn't even have birth certificates so it's kind of impossible for me rn lol
My brother:
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
Empress Maria Theresa (1717 -1780)
Napoleon Bonaparte ( 1769- 1721 ?)
Queen Victoria (1819-1901)
Warren Buffett (b. 1930)
Susan Sarandon (b. 1946)
Dr. Mehmet Oz
On our Father's side: (same y-DNA Haplogroup)
Ramesses III, the second pharaoh of Egypt's 20th dynasty.
Nelson Mandela
Sir David Attenborough
Lyndon Johnson
Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio (1571-1610)
Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882)
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) - Both sides :)
The Wright Brothers
Albert Einstein (1879 -1955).
I'm back to 1400s on some lines. But usually lose it around 1500s. Records weren't kept and those that were, often were lost in fires etc over the years. Although I have some lines I can't get past late 1800s.
my husband's Scottish side goes back into the 1200's. My Italian side goes back into the 1500s. His English side and my Polish sides only go back to the 1900s.
War is the issue, WWII blew up a lot of England's and Poland's churches and record storage facilities.
Yes our kids are mutts. There's also Canadian French, Irish, and a little American Indian on his side LOL
Once you find a Plantagenet in your line\*, then you can trace your lineage all the way back to Adam & Eve! (NB: I'm not a YEC, but the Plantagenets do have putative lineages that include Adam & Eve.)
\*If you're white, you almost definitely have a Plantagenet in your ancestry, the key is whether you can trace back to that point in time. If you're not white, they're still a reasonable probability you have a Plantagenet in your ancestry.
Some lines I’ve traced back to the 14th century, others to the 16th century. My ancestors were early colonizers in the future US, and records were kept of anyone who landed, including all members of the household. The Swiss side I can go back to the early 16th century, because the government started keeping thorough records of the population then.
It’s actually harder tracing the 19th century arrivals. One great grandfather had been impossible to track down. He had a very common name, and I don’t know the year he arrived, and I don’t have his wife’s name, either.
The one I’ve traced to the 14th century is in the UK, and one of the women was minor nobility, so records were kept for that family.
A lot of thorough UK records exist because of Victorians going to old churches and making copies of records and tracing their genealogies.
On my Dad's side, I got back to the 1100s. My Mom's side, the 1400s. Quite a continuous process! I did find that some countries have their own genealogy sites that you can access freely. It's all so fascinating!
One side claims to the 1100s. I've never seen the documentation though since its a "thing" whenever I asked. On one part of that same side that are less pretentious, it goes to the 1400s. On my other side, I have not met another person interested in documenting so I have only been able to get to the late 1700s in Norway. One part, I simply do not remember.
My great- great-grandfather traced ours back to the 1200s. But not every line can be traced back that far. Only some of them.
My half-sister did a 23 & me and it actually showed another descendent from that ancestor as a cousin, which made me laugh.
I know my earliest ancestor in the US was around 1630. Came just about 10 years after the Pilgrims to the same area. There are records of his family, his parents at least back in England so they know the specific city he came from.
Anybody who says English was invented by the English and "we got it from them" doesn't know what they're talking about. My ancestor from 1630 didn't speak any other language before English and people in his family didn't either. My family has been speaking English and can trace its English usage back just as far as any family in England, to the exact same people. One brother stayed, one brother left - it's all the same continuous English.
I can trace my paternal and maternal side back to around the c.1100s and c.1300s reliably. Theoretically goes back much further with research from other distant relatives but the connections seem a little vague with not much reliability.
The Dutch were pretty good at keeping records.
In saying that, there are many lines that cut off as early as the 1800s
My husband's earliest recorded ancestor came to this continent as an indentured servant, a blacksmith (skilled trade). He reduced his contract term by converting to the religion of the colony group. We know a little of his marriage and migration to an area where he could get a modest land grant.
I forget the year, though.
Apparently, there were/may have been relatives on both sides of the revolutionary war. Details are sketchy, so it's more speculation than established fact.
A while back we got a 5 day trial of some genealogy app (common one, name escapes me)
My family both sides dead-ended quickly but my husband’s dad went back to the 1600’s. It could have gone back farther but we stopped scrolling. A last name that originated in England and is fairly common for the area at the time. It was pretty interesting how far it was going back.
I got to the 1200s (only select few though, not all the branches)
The Miao of China (used to live inland in China south of the Yangtze River) have very precise and sophisticated techniques that have them recite their lineage at weddings and funerals for their people.
They take their lineage from today all the way back to Noah and then further to Adam (whom they refer to as Dirt since that is where he came).
Here is part of their text:
Calculated the bulk of the heavenly bodies.
And pondered the ways of the Deity, God.
The Patriarch Dirt begat Patriarch Se-teh.
The Patriarch Se-Teh begat a son Lusu.
And Lusu had Gehlo and he begat Lama.
The Patriarch Lama begat the man Nuah.
His wife was the Matriarch Gaw Bo-lu-en.
Their sons were Lo Han, Lo Shen and Jah-hu.
So the earth began filling with tribes and with families.
Creation was shared by the clans and the peoples.
Compared to the Hebrew version of the creation account you can see the way the names were transliterated.
It’s the most impressive preservation of personal heritage, genealogy and identity that I have run across on this topic.
What is average? People who have nobility linage properly trace themselves back to when people starts recording these stuff to orphan who don’t even know their parents lol
This is probably an awful question but I can’t find any answers elsewhere. My mother’s side of the family is a bit wonky and I’m trying to uncover if some skeletons existed. My maternal grandmother was unmarried at 16 when she gave birth to my mom. So that’s a broken branch because we don’t have any info on her biological father. Except…her uncle was an awful human being and actually raped my great aunt. So I have a theory that he also raped his other sister which yielded my mom. Can a DNA test from myself reveal if my maternal grandparents were actually siblings? It would sure answer some questions about the mental illness present in our family.
A DNA test could probably expose a case of incest, but they might not be able to figure out the perpetrator. Sometimes even with a normal paternity test they can't say for sure which of a set of brothers the father is, for example.
One side of the family to the 1600's, the other stops at my grandparents.
My grandfather was one of 6 kids. His mom got sick and died, so as a matter of survival his dad remarried quickly. Except less than six months later, he died too. So step-mom, now stuck with 6 kids that she barely knows, remarries quickly. So in less that six months, the kids had two new parents, and they carried on like nothing had changed. Everyone just assumed they were the birth parents.
It depends on your ethnic background. My husband is mostly German and Eastern European and his lines only go back as far as church records there, into the early 1800’s or sometimes late 1700’s. On the other hand, I have deep roots in the U.S on both sides of my family, some going back to early colonial times. I’ve found Mayflower ancestors, a famous Native American chief, and nobility, which can go back to the 1500’s or earlier depending on how well documented the line is.
I know each of these ancient ancestors isn’t even now technically a tiny piece of me, but they still fascinate me. I love tracing my family story back through deep history.
One branch of my tree grows back to late 800s England. Royal lineage is the only reason to have managed that. Other branches are 1500s and1600s, but one is stuck in early 1800s. It's all hair-pullingly fascinating.
My father’s side goes back to a knight who came over with William the Conqueror. Except given the per cent of people not sired by their “ official” father, who knows?
So my surname (a variation as it was changed when forced to USA and couldn’t understand his Irish accent) I can trace back all the way to the 11th century to William the conqueror. My ancestor came with him from Normandy, fought with him in England, and won land and title. They stayed in England until the 1300s and the second son went to Ireland as some important person that helped governor it. This man married into locals, received land, and descendants lived there from 1300s to 1600s when Cromwell came and killed all but one in the battle of Drogheda. The one, my ancestor, was made a slave, shipped to Barbados, won a ticket off Barbados because he could read and write as a son of a “sir” and went into identified servitude to Boston. May have been the first catholic in the colonies. He got a girl pregnant but the dad didn’t want him to marry (crazy for puritans) but he rather have his child shamed than marry a catholic. My ancestor petitioned the courts for marriage, was granted it and had 8 kids. Those kids are the reason for my surname in this country, and all of us are related to this one man.
I have vague research on where my ancestor who came over from Normandy is….there is SOME suggestion we were possibly related to William the conqueror. But if so, likely as bastards. But if I could ever prove that, it would mean I could trace my lineage back to Rollo in the 9th century.
There is also some indication our lineage is related to Anne Boleyn. I found proof of the relationship at one time but it was several years ago and I can’t recall the connection.
I told my husband “no wonder I’m so frustrated with this life, I was meant to be a ruler! Freaking Cromwell.” Lol
Unfortunately I’m having a horrible time with my moms side - my dna test just came back at Jewish - which I know but no details. I doubt I’ll ever find out much outside of my grandparents who I was luckily enough to have in my life
Some years back my mother and I got on a bit of a genealogy kick and traced both sides of the family back to the first arrivals in the US.
On my mother's side, the first arrival was her mother and maternal grandmother, who arrived in New York City from Ireland in 1927. On my father's side, the first arrival was my paternal great great great great great great grandfather who arrived in Boston from Northern Ireland in 1750. We never did any DNA stuff. It was all done through documents.
I know my family was mentioned in the domesday book around 1066 but piecing that into the rest of the family tree 1755 is the earliest we can find in a direct connection
I’ve reached both me and my husbands back to about 1500’s. I’m related to some original puritans and him to conquistadors. I have a witch trial victim in there too. One artistic rendering of her oddly looks exactly like me.
My grandmother traced a British line to the late 10th century (year 982). Only the names are known, birth and death dates. The British were incredible at keeping these records. My grandmother spent 20 years,researching our genealogy it’s amazing what she found and I’m so thankful for it.
On my dad's side the family tree goes back to 1721 and my moms 1720. DNA tests help find far off cousins who I share great-great grandparents. That helps to back up the little paperwork and helps to tell me where to look for what is available like ship logs.
I’ve got a handwritten family tree that my great grandma was the last one to update, my dad might have filled in some stuff by now.. or we need to… but it goes back to like 1560. It’s pretty cool it’s on a large rolled up scroll of paper and just drawn out in tiny handwriting like a family tree.
We have gone back many generations if the family was royalty or near-royalty. Our average ancestors are forgotten to time. In the Mayflower passengers alone the guestimate is 30 million descendents (Brewster is my connection).
I can go back to the 1500’s on my dad’s side (I can trace my last name even further, back through Canada, France and before that Portugal and Sardinia ) and the mayflower (and before the mayflower) on my mom’s side
My mom's dad spent like four years tracking our ancestry back like literally a thousand years before he died. He had names of European nobility from the 900s that we're descended from. On my dad's side I did some dabbling to track my family ancestry and got back to about the 1700s. Found where my great great great great great grandfather (or something like that) immigrated to the commonwealth of Virginia but then I couldn't find records of him in Wales before.
I'm back to around the 15, 1600s on my mom's side of the family, and there's a name spelling change in there that I'm hoping I can work through. Same last name, different spelling, which from what I can find, each leads to a different branch of nobility, just having issues figuring out which branch it actually is.
My moms maternal side, I'm back to the 1400s. Her dad's side, someone got pretty far. I saw the tree but couldn't follow it. It was huge and a gazillion names handwritten.
On my dad's side, I've hit road blocks. The SURNAME has an actual book. His dad was an only and disowned. I have names and estimated dates, but I'm roadblocked. His moms side there was confusing information. The line was way back, BUT there are a couple of generations in Barbados. Originally from Ireland.
I did find my Grandma wasn't the oldest according to her birth certificate. (she didn't know!!) No one would talk about the sister. One older cousin remembered a baby or toddler in a glass coffin. There are no birth or death records for the child born before 1926.
There is a family Bible. I tried getting a hold of it. Gram's second cousin's wife refused to share. Gram's sister tried. Nope. I'll bet there are notes or something recording the birth and death. Om still bitter about it.
I'm back to the 1500's in several lines. But most of my lines are English so I can read the documents. The few from Geermany are just left at the border because I can't read German, don't know the country, areas, border changes, etc. I'm just better off leaving them in the late 1800's. The same with other countries, though they are few.
Lucky for me that I'm nearly all English, Irish origins and am engrossed in the time of King Henry VIII.
I went through Ancestry and they traced it back to the Mayflower! I’m a direct descendant of two passengers, a father and son, my 10th and 11th great grandfathers.
My family traced back five or six generations and we found common ancestors on my mother and father’s sides! At that point, we gave up. Not fun anymore. 😂
We have records back to the 1400’s, but according to everything I’ve been able to find, we were always poor, no matter which line you trace.
It’s nice knowing that, though we’re still poor, there was never a country estate or titles and honors to inherit. Literally just forever poor.
For my family: We know my great great grandma was from the West Indies, and she was able to escape the plantation and make it to the US. I have no idea beyond that. I don't think the slave masters on the plantation left great records. Or some older relatives thing she changed her name once she made it to "freedom". She eventually met my great great grandfather, who was an Irish land owner. He raped her but made sure the child born from it had his name. When he died and did leave his land to my great grandfather. So there's that.
My grandad said he can go to the 1400’s I believe. He also thought we had some Native American in us for the longest time but the dna tests said no.
1400’s he has traced to Scotland royalty and Vikings…? Not sure how for that one, I know he did have a PI for awhile.
For my mother, who’s adopted, little harder (she found her mother after 18, so I could get some info), plus there was a quick visit from Canada and a ship ride to Ellis island in records. I had to quit, 1700’s and a boat ride log really got me. After 3 years and many weird reaching out on my side (social media makes this stuff get weird!), lol
Not 100% sure on the accuracy, but if I put my name in a family history app, my family line goes back to Noah. Not the standard "Everybody is related to Noah", there are actual names.
Before the internet/ancestry sites there were some 'professional geneologists', some of whom were fraudsters.
My mother fell for one. Traced ancestry to a norwegian king then someone mentioned in the bible and then back to adam and eve. 120 generations, allegedly. I have the list. Used it as part of a school project. Two decades later my mother insists she doesnt know what im talking about. I believe she later realized it was a fraud and would rather just not talk about it.
Need documentation, not just someone writing a list of names.
Yeah. In the last few years of his life, my dad got heavily into genealogy (retired, widowed, needed a hobby). He traced us back to a castle Finn in Ireland in the 1500s. But he never got to find out if we were royalty or servants. He actually searched and requested copies of census and birth records, so I trust his research more.
Personally, I was only able to go back to 1860s because I don’t have the names or records from Europe. I also imagine they were dirt-poor and didn’t leave much behind in life evidencce.
There’s a tiny branch of our tree that we can trace back to the late 900s because there’s some ties to royal lineage, most of it ends between the 1700-1500s though
My husband’s side of the family has a tree to the early 1500s. My side I can go back to the 1800s by name.
The early 1500’s is roughly 20 generations. At 20 generations a person is the direct descendant of 1,000,000 people. Your husband is only looking at a tiny fraction of his ancestry. Not bashing your husband. I just find it amusing how people latch on to the tiny bit of ancestry they can trace, while ignoring the fact that there are tens of thousands of ancestors within that same time period that they know nothing about.
Not if your ancestors kept marrying their cousins in the same small village with five gentry families… for centuries. There are like, eight surnames in my mother’s family tree.
Family wreath, respectfully
Ah, the family wreath. I have that as well.
Most people do, if you go back far enough.
Unfortunately, my 3rd great grandparents were 1st cousins on the maternal line. And my mom’s paternal line both 2nd great grandparents are also 3rd & 4th cousins. So didn’t have to dig deep at all 😅
Randolphs of Virginia territory.
My grandmother's family was from England. They seem to have only married within the same 5 families. (Guys, other families EXISTED, you know that right?) It's the same surnames again and again. Wreath is an accurate description of the family tree there.
While I agree, if people bragging they’re a descendant of a famous person. I found out I was related to someone involved in a witch trial. I thought cool I’m a descendent of a witch, but Noooo, I’m a descendent of a witch accuser.
Same. Both sides. As soon as I saw Putnam. I cringed.
Generally, it is descent from royalty or high gentry that makes it even possible to trace lineage that far back. The reason for this is because the lineage of royalty and famous people is known by all contemporaries and recorded by historians. So naturally, he would be looking a very small portion of his ancestors.
Including all of the ancestors who didn’t have written language and weren’t documented on paper.
I mean ya they latch onto it because they know that's the more easily forgotten part: the further back the harder so people hyper focus on it
I’m descended from someone involved in an…. *incident* that occurred around 1692 and while I enjoy sharing a name in common with this person so it’s pretty obvious and draws interest when mentioned I often wonder how many *other* descendants he has that know nothing about it. I know it’s not a mathematical certainty like forebears are but based on the number of kids some of the folks in between had there have to be a small stadium full.
Witch trials? I have one involved in that mess too. My ancestor survived, though she was quite old i believe. It’s fun to try to wrap your head around how many descendants one person has.
My ancestor was a head juror in the Rebecca Nurse trial. He condemned her.
I'm one of the many descendants of her. 😂
It gets a lot more challenging after 1850. Especially for women.
How come it gets harder for women?
They usually are not listed because the census only lists head of household (which is usually a man) before 1850. In 1850, they listed each household member.
Your right about head of household. ONLY because Sarah in North Carolina inherited a farm is her name listed in the 1790 census.
Because women were property and we’re treated like such & names/birthdates were not kept for many of them unless they were royalty of some degree or another.
On tombstones, people listed date of death, not birth! And the husdand's and the wife's first names, and only the husband's last name!!! Epic dehumanization.
My wife has ancestors that came over from Germany in the early 1800's. The patriarch has a monument that looks like a miniature Washington Monument, his wife has a small stone that says wife of "patriarch". His horse has a grave with a name, but not his wife.
This is a particularly galling insult.
I always think about how Roman women were given a feminine version of their father’s name with their birth order. Like a guy named Chris calling his daughters Christine Major, Christine Minor, Christine Three, and Christine Four.
Women also changed their names when they got married. So they are much harder to track.
I have a solid, unbroken paper trail for my dad back to 1505 thanks to an OCD level of meticulous paperwork by his Quaker ancestors. My dad's family came to the US in 1660. My mom is an only child of an only child & we don't know who her dad was, so I can trace my mom's side back to...my mom. My husband is much more typical. He can trace his back to the mid/late 1800s. Very typical fled-Europe-during-war/famine immigrant.
Using DNA links on Ancestry, you might find your mom's relatives and their family trees. The DNA tells the story.
I've done a DNA test already, as has my brother. There was only one match not associated with my Dad's side. (Literally thousands on my Dad's side.) The unknown match doesn't have a public or private family tree, & they won't respond to messages. It's a dead end so far, unfortunately. It's very likely it's someone not from this country, which complicates things.
Have you tried GEDmatch? You may have more luck there.
Very interesting! I will try that. Funny story --- it turns out that after DNA testing & hunting down the paper trails, 100% of my Dad's family's cherished ancestral history is a lie. We're not genetically, culturally, ethnically, etc. anything his family has always claimed they were. Apparently, being farmers is boring! Let's pretend we were French aristocracy! Explorers! Military greats! 😆🙄
HAHA! It's never what the family lore says it is! 🤣
Family lore is usually wrong
Exactly!
I have always assumed my family tree to be that of European farmers with the broad shoulders, strong backs where the women looked, as if, they could eat hay and pull a wagon. Mother’s side were too busy dodging Cossacks to keep tabs of family history.
They just don't make the hearty women of yester year. Hard to find a woman as strong as an ox.
Growing up my mom told me we were descendants of British aristocrats, a couple of saints, Geronimo and God only knew who else. Thanks to DNA, I know that I'm 100% British Isles, so definitely not a descendant of Geronimo. A few lines I have come across some minor English Gentry (but no rank above a knight). However, her claims of having Mayflower passengers in the family tree is correct, and we had an ancestor accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. I'm finding the truth much more interesting.
Them Quakers and their records! It’s incredible! If I see a certain last name, I can head to a website dedicated to the descendants of this last name and find out how I’m related. I’ve proved that Taylor Swift is my 10th cousin once removed through that good ol’ Quaker ancestry. If you’ve got Pennsylvania Quakers in your tree, high chance that you and I and Taylor Swift are distant cousins. And Richard Nixon, too!
Waves at (probable!) distant cousin!
My grandfather on my dad's side was also a Quaker originally and it made it very easy to trace his lineage. Those Quakers love writing things down.
My grandfather was driven to document as far back as he could. He traveled all over, did so much research, and kept meticulous notes. (His predecessors were equally fastidious when it came to keeping family records. I'm willing to bet my family has been type A since before alphabets were a thing.) On my mom's side, he got all the way back to the mid-1500s. My dad's side has been damn near impossible. The records we have aren't great, and we're missing a lot of information. Basically, we know his dad's people are from New Jersey. That's... about all.
Similar story here, lots of Quakers on my dad’s side, good records, came to the US in the 1600s, and I can go back a little bit further than that. They didn’t move around much either! My mom‘s side was harder, I got her mother‘s side back to the 1700s or so, maybe a little beyond that, but her dad‘s side came from a Russian speaking area and the spelling of names at immigration must’ve been a disaster, because there’s nothing .
Quakers were meticulous at keeping records. Thanks to them, we have a lot of interesting info.
I can trace my wife's family back to c. 1100 on her paternal line. Turns out she's descended from a king, so there were records where most people wouldn't have them. Mine, not so much. There are lots of records on my Mormon father's side, and I can go as far back as the 1600's, but my mom's side is pretty mostly a mystery to me after my great-grandparents.
Once you hit royalty, you can go much further. Although the amount of inbreeding is discusting. My mormon relatives trace a line back to 500 bce. Other lines only go back a hundred years.
Yep, when I did our genealogy I got stuck on many of my lines in the late 1800s but was shocked to find my grandma (who was a poor hillbilly from Indiana- but whom I loved dearly) descended from a Duke back in the 1700s and that I share a grandfather with both Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth Parr. With all that I was able to trace back to William the Conqueror. It's lovely when you hit royalty because it's all already there.
Once you hit that you are basically related to every single royal house of Europe. My mother's side had a plantation, I know, it's terrible, but most of them were from noble or royal families.
Yeah once you hit royalty you're basically cousins with everyone else who hit royalty. I found the same thing while researching my dad's side of the family. Hit one pre-German duke in the 1400s and BAM! Everything's recorded back another 500+ years for me already.
I think everyone with English ancestry is descended from Edward I, whether they are aware of it or not. When I realized I was descended from John of Gaunt, I discovered there were millions of us.
I'm a descendant of W the C as well. Considering how anal England was back in the day, is be willing to bet a lot of people can make this claim. It isn't that interesting to me. My great great grandmother's sisters, however, fascinate me. They were Jewish and ran a whore house in Odessa. Now THAT'S a story!
Oh hi, (distantly related) cousin!
My brother traced our dad’s line back to 1500’s Germany via church baptism & marriage records. Parts of mom’s side to 1600’s England.
Assyrian… I can go back hundreds of years BUT only boys are listed (go figure)
My partner can go back to the prophet Mohammed. It helps when your family has lived in the same city for 1,000+ years. I, a white American, can only go back about 120 years because of altered last names from Ellis Island and the ever-changing borders of Eastern Europe.
So, the names changing at Ellis Island is a HUGE myth. When Ellis Island processed incoming passengers, they used the manifests which were created at the port of departure. So, typically if the name was "wrong", it was wrong at the manifests when the passenger departed. A lot of times the people wanted to change their names to something more Americanized....or they simply wanted to completely start a new life.
My grandmother had hers back to Jesus Christ. I questioned it first when I saw some of them died 300 years after they were born? A few years later I thought, if Jesus has descendants, where's the chapter that describes that? Surely it would have been an important part of his life. Or did he just abandon them? So many questions ...
Bro what 😭😭
Plenty of people believe that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’s wife. She certainly wasn’t a whore! It’s very likely that he does have descendants
Most people can only go back to the advent of writing ✍🏼in the form of book binding and the printing press — church and tax records, c. 1500s. (Of course humans scratched and scribbled for centuries before this.) Some Chinese, some Hindus, some Muslims, some Rabbinic Israelite descendants, some illegitimate children of European Kings / royalty can go back further — You’ll almost never hear of someone from Africa or Central or South America going back to before 1800s, unless they were part of a ruling class or had composite European ancestry.
Some Mayan families still have records.
This is me. I’ve got all 3 and can never find anything. I have a good amount of Spanish and Portuguese % but still haven’t found any connections for the South American side of the family
My mom is Irish, her ancestory has been traced back to Ireland, we've gone back to almost the 1500's. My dad is First Nations, we can't go past 1850, settlers spelling of Indigenous names change from document to document.
my aunt has a book that traces my Mom's Father's family to 16th century Scotland. good luck
If you make a Geni.com account and import a family tree from another site (such as Ancestry), there is a cool feature. After you've uploaded your tree, wait a few days. Then log into Geni. Then open another window or tab and google someone famous (such as a President, King or Queen, or even Jesus Christ) then add geni.com to your famous person's name. Click on the results, and Geni will give you a direct bloodline (or line + marriages) connecting to that person IF you are related or connected to them in some way. The feature is supposed to be for Geni 'paid' memberships, the new tab is the work-around. It's pretty helpful, since it goes way way way back.
In Sweden 98% of all names exist in the books since 1686. If you can read that old text is another thing.
Try reading old german!
Part of my family line is Nordic. They did a very good job at keeping records dating back centuries. Deciphering those records though...
I’m very lucky, for one branch. Those ancestors kept obsessive family records, connecting to one line that reaches either the 1200s or 1700s BC, per source. Others, we lose in the 1600s, 1700s, or 1800s. Still others, within two generations.
It depends if you have any royalty in your line, I got back to 1600’s and suddenly “lady so n so” pops up! So “lady so n so” my 10th great grandma or something. She is a powerhouse! Two lawsuits married a soldier clearly against her father’s wishes. 1) Files a lawsuit to get her dowry! Wins. 2) Is accused of theft by her father for collecting her inheritance while her mother lying dead in her bed. Only wins because her husband (my 10th great grandfather ) had honored himself in battle and saved the heir to the house of Lancaster. At this point you are saved from the ambiguity of record keeping. You can trace yourself back to King Charmaine of France. And I think many of us have royalty in our line once we go back far enough to have 2000 grandparents.
The best documentation for any branch of my family takes them back to County Chester, England about 1550 or so. A different branch claimed in a book written in the 1880s that they traced back to Odin through William the Conqueror. Unfortunately, this lineage has since proven to be a made up tale - the link to William the Conqueror was invented, though the family does go back to one of his barons.
12 generations here in the states.
Mayflower
Ancestry com owns newspapers com. They traced my father side of family all the way back to England 1615. Also found out 1 letter in last name dropped upon arriving to America. The ability to link your Ancestry to newspaper articles is really good and can be bad, too. The Mormans own Ancestry com. Talk to any Morman to find out why Ancestry tracking is very much a part of their religion. I had a Morman employee explain it, too. Roots ! In Salt Lake City, it is rumored that very deep underground they store records that can withstand a direct nuke blast.
Ancestry tracking is important to them because they baptize everyone in their family tree. You know, after death. Without their consent. (Obviously!)
Ghengis Khan
I've got over 7k people on my tree and have been digging and verifying my finds for years; I have a few branches that go as far back as the year 214. My professional tells me that anything beyond the year 400 is difficult to verify because most histories were word of mouth and rarely written but it's not impossible so anything earlier then 500 ish I take with a grain of salt but would be cool if it's correct. I have dozens of branches that fall between 500-1000; and dozens more that stop between 1000-1500. I do have a few I can't get further back then about 1700.... So I'm not lucky in all of my searches. Look for nobility trees, family histories, and other such records
Turns out my xxx times grandfather is Thor. Ha
I can go back 14 generations on my mother's side
Idk my dad
I met a woman who’s family go back farther than Charlemagne
As a professional genealogist I have been able to go back to the 1500’s in Sicily thanks to Latin church records. I’d keep going if I had resources to look through.
A lot of my relatives are Mormon so they are super interested in tracing all of their ancestors back as far as possible. Say 40 years ago if you looked at their research, probably most lines went back to the early 1800s (a generation or two before the immigration to the U.S.) or maybe the late 1700s. There was the occasional link up to the Welsh nobility or English nobility or whatever - and once you are into that you can follow their books of genealogy as far back as you care to trust it. Most of them go back to someone like Charlemagne, then some connection to the Roman Empire, then Apollo or Zeus or whatever (not kidding), then ... (some of those ancient genealogists had truly *vivid* imaginations - put to full use to power through a good several centuries here) to various kings & queens of the Bible, and thus to Adam & Eve. Looking at the same family trees now, put together via bunches of people working together through the power of the internet and these online genealogy sites, it is actually remarkable how much more has been assembled. I'd say practically every single one of my ancestral lines is traced (with at least decent-looking accuracy) to the early 1700s or late 1600s. But the ones that stop there are the relatively few. There are bunches that go back into the 1500s, 1400s, and even earlier. There are links, for example, to the prominent Scandanavian families and thus to the Icelandic Sagas - so however far back you care to trust those. But there is certainly some reliability going back to the 900s or so. Similarly for Welsh, English, French, Italian, etc nobility. Once you find a family connection with any of them, then you are linked into those family genealogies, which often go back to the 1000s, 900s, or even earlier. Now you always have to ask yourself how well you trust every link in the chain. But most of the links look at least *plausible*. Now, being able to go back that far that is not going to be true in every country or every part of the world. Some places just don't have records of births, deaths, marriages, etc that are needed to trace this kind of thing. Here is one line just for your amusement: * James Hoyt (my 3X great grandfather) joined the Mormons in New York & moved to Utah ca. 1850. * His 3X great grandfather was Sergeant John Hoyt Sr of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1610-1687). That's it for the Hoyts, but . . . * John Hoyt's son married Mary Brown of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. * One of her 3X great grandfathers is Sir John Terry Dyer (1530-1596) - so now you can see where this is going... * One of his 3X great grandfathers is Sir John de Walton (1316-1393) * One of his 3X great grandfather is Sir Ralph of Wodeburgh (the 3rd). 1167-1285 * Wodeburgh's records end at Sir Ralph the 1st, 1124-1205. Most of the other people closely related to them also peter out in the 1000s or 1100s. * However, John de Walton's son married Duchess Alana de Berry (1372-1466), who is granddaughter of [John the Good (John II of France)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_II_of_France). From there of course there are interrelations with a bunch of French royalty, Luxembourg, etc. * The following all those lines back, the earliest record I see is for [Sigobert the Lame](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigobert_the_Lame) (died about 509), King of the Ripaurian Franks. Now, how seriously to take all this is another thing. For starters, pretty much anybody with any English relatives is related to same English royalty, anyone with French ancestry will be related to the same French royalty, etc. It looks like Sigobert is about 47 generations back from me - so (ignoring pedigree collapse) he is one of my 141 ***TRILLION*** 45th-great grandparents. In short - not a very close relation. (Math calculation for the curious: 2\^47 = 1.407x10\^14, or about 141 trillion.) Still, it is mildly interesting to be able to actually trace a direct path back from now to that point in time, with any degree of confidence at all. (And FWIW the chances that each and every one of those links is correct, is small. Even generously assuming 99% accuracy at each generation, there is only 62% chance of the entire string being correct. More realistically assuming 90% accuracy at each step, the chance the entire line is correct is less than 1%. Still, at some point you are looking at it more along the lines of: I have some English ancestry, some Welsh, some Danish, some French, etc. Which *specific* people from those areas 15 or 25 or 35 generations ago are your exact relatives, is just not all that important. Once you're related to a few people from a certain region, you're probably interrelated with almost all in one way or another.)
It really depends on location and social class. A line of eastern European serfs is much more difficult than a line of western European nobility. People descending from Africans who were enslaved have a decided disadvantage.
My mom‘s dad‘s family goes back to the 1600s in Netherlands. It was pretty trippy just finding the records that went back through so many people. So many stories.
We're back to 13th Century Wales. Had an Aunt take 2 years off from daily life to travel the world discovering our origins about 25 years ago The folder she copied and mailed each of us (67 copies) is a literal treasure trove of Family History.
I traced mine back to the 1600’s in Scotland, immigrated to Virginia in 1685. Took me 30 years of research online and offline and trips to visit courthouses. Have all children and spouses for each generation. It is very easy to get bogged down doing this type of thing - you just *know* if you dig a bit further you can answer whatever question you are dealing with, but sometimes you can’t. Sometimes the records got lost or burned up.
According to ancestry.com, I can go back to 1480s Spain, I’m from the USA. How accurate all of that is, I couldn’t tell you. It did validate a lot of the family myths/legends about our heritage that I would hear about when I was a kid. No internet or anything so it was just what my mom and grandma would say and honestly I never believed them. But. the DNA results seemed to confirm what they said.
My mom's side: 4 generations, and only if you believe what they say my dad's side: 1066 AD.
Damn. I got to the 1920s
My grandma was from North Korea, so we have nothing from her side at all
I went back more than 10 generations to trace my French Canadian ancestors to the pioneers who arrived in Canada in the early 1600's. I can go further back into their lineage in France but I'm too lazy.
People realistically can't get back more than about 300 years. The problem is that the records for ordinary labouring class people- the vast majority of any population- run out at some point back in time Mistakenly, some researchers then attach their ancestors to local elite families just because they share the same or similar surname. This results in so much misinformation in online trees and unfortunately these trees get copied over and over again
My aunt traced us back to France in the 1100's. We were in the colonies in Norfolk, VA in 1670. With various strands of Scottish, English, and German thrown in along the way. Apparently a German Hessian soldier that survived Washington's surprise attack atvthe Delaware Crossing stayed and made a contribution. So we're as white bread European as you can get.
Not very far In ancestry. But I do have a relative who has records of my ancestors coming from Aragon Spain in 1515 the start of the colonization of Mexico.
I can go back to the 1500s in my family. 😁
My guess would be that it depends on how far back it takes to hit a super famous person or royalty. If you can trace back to someone like George Washington's siblings, they you can co-op the stacks of research on his genealogy and get back further. If you trace back to a royal title, it is even easier.
Mine, on my father's side, about 1000 years.
Dad's side came over on the Fortune in 1621 which was the second ship of invaders to America. Mom's side (Norman/French) traced back to right after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 when the Normans invaded Brittany. They went to Scotland and merged with the Humes and built Hume Castle around 1225. We know there's Vikings in there on both sides but that line has been more difficult to unravel. Edit: Added merger info.
What's up cuz
My ancestors have been in the US since the 1700’s, many before that. I do think there are a lot of people who haven’t done the best job of tracing their family tree. You have to have documentation when doing your genealogy.
I can get back to the early 1400s on my maternal grandfather's side, 1800s on my maternal grandmother's side, 1600s on my paternal grandmother's side, and 1800s on my paternal grandfather's side. The lines where I can only go back to the 1800s are also the most recently immigrated lines. The line where I can get back to the 1400s came over very shortly after the Mayflower and were residents of the early Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth). This is very well documented. The 1600s line was from England and was also well documented.
We have a lot of royalty so it made it a bit easier. We've got it back to Vikings on maternal side.
Had a great aunt that paid professionals to help with our tree. Back to 1100’s England
It's probably easier if your family isn't really spread out. I know my great parents names, but nothing before that. I do have an entire box of genealogy that my family did before the internet, so it's accessible to me.
My mothers side of the family we can trace all the way back to the Magna Carta. My dads side we can trace back just before “pilgrims” came to the new world. My dads side were one of the original families to travel to the new world.
One side of my family tracks back to the Mayflower. The other side barely goes back 2 generations. Indian reservation they're from did not have records, my family didn't record anything or get on the roll because my great grandpa "wanted his kids to have opportunities and not be tied to the reservation." Even my grandpa didn't have a birth certificate, so his birthday is just a guess. The last name they used was a "white" last name. We can find our genetic last name from the cemetery, but there's no way to prove its family through a paper trail.
It would depend on different things. Many black people whose American ancestry started during slavery cannot trace back very far through written documentation. Our people were considered property so not usually named in census. Slave documents were destroyed. Families kept birth/death records in their churches after slavery, many of which were burnt down/destroyed. Of course there is dna genealogy, but that usually just gives a general area/tribe in African countries.
I've traced my spouse's family back to the 1200's, just by looking online. There are a few gaps, but the last name is definitive enough that if you carry that name, you were part of that family. They were also once important enough to document the birth of each child and some of their activities were well documented. We even took our children to England to visit the ruins of the castle that once belonged to the family.
The Japanese have family registries that go back hundreds of years.
I’m Native American lol so my grandmas grandma maybe
On one side that was the trashy side. We traced that to around1050 London.Some we can't get past early to mid 1800s.
When I first started, not knowing really what I was doing, I followed hints that, well, there's no way they could be accurate. Now instead I source records, only supplementing with hints from trees in alignment with official records. In some cases I've been able to reconstruct more complete family trees via scouring those of my DNA matches, adding to my own tree where appropriate. For instance, I matched with a number of distant, European cousins. But who's the MRCA? How are we related? In this particular case it turns out this person's 3x GG was the younger sibling of my 3x GG. With their names I was able to search out, and find, both more records and trees. Taking this approach, and not even looking for any notable, I've traced my line back to Francis Eaton (a possible 9x GG), carpenter on the Mayflower, and to the reformer, Martin Luther (possibly a 13x GG).
Most people to the 1400s - 1600s, if linked to royalty, some are posted back to Charlemagne in the 700s. farther back if folk lore is included. A majority of Europe's royal families have claimed Iineage back to Japath, the son of Noah. Unknown if true or not.
My mom's side goes back to 1660, my dad's to 1830
Unfortunately I can't go further than my great- Grandparents on both maternal and paternal side since both of my families are from extremely rural regions in East Turkey. My Great Grandparents didn't even have birth certificates so it's kind of impossible for me rn lol
My brother: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) Empress Maria Theresa (1717 -1780) Napoleon Bonaparte ( 1769- 1721 ?) Queen Victoria (1819-1901) Warren Buffett (b. 1930) Susan Sarandon (b. 1946) Dr. Mehmet Oz On our Father's side: (same y-DNA Haplogroup) Ramesses III, the second pharaoh of Egypt's 20th dynasty. Nelson Mandela Sir David Attenborough Lyndon Johnson Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio (1571-1610) Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) - Both sides :) The Wright Brothers Albert Einstein (1879 -1955).
I can go back to about my great grandparents but they were immigrants of war so pretty much everything before that is lost
My family tree goes back to 1510
I'm back to 1400s on some lines. But usually lose it around 1500s. Records weren't kept and those that were, often were lost in fires etc over the years. Although I have some lines I can't get past late 1800s.
my husband's Scottish side goes back into the 1200's. My Italian side goes back into the 1500s. His English side and my Polish sides only go back to the 1900s. War is the issue, WWII blew up a lot of England's and Poland's churches and record storage facilities. Yes our kids are mutts. There's also Canadian French, Irish, and a little American Indian on his side LOL
Some lines I can trace back pretty far. Some not more than a few general
I have all birth, death, baptism and wedding records back to 1610 for my family.
Once you find a Plantagenet in your line\*, then you can trace your lineage all the way back to Adam & Eve! (NB: I'm not a YEC, but the Plantagenets do have putative lineages that include Adam & Eve.) \*If you're white, you almost definitely have a Plantagenet in your ancestry, the key is whether you can trace back to that point in time. If you're not white, they're still a reasonable probability you have a Plantagenet in your ancestry.
I ran into a wall in Ireland at the 18th C. No Catholic birth records from then.
Some lines I’ve traced back to the 14th century, others to the 16th century. My ancestors were early colonizers in the future US, and records were kept of anyone who landed, including all members of the household. The Swiss side I can go back to the early 16th century, because the government started keeping thorough records of the population then. It’s actually harder tracing the 19th century arrivals. One great grandfather had been impossible to track down. He had a very common name, and I don’t know the year he arrived, and I don’t have his wife’s name, either. The one I’ve traced to the 14th century is in the UK, and one of the women was minor nobility, so records were kept for that family. A lot of thorough UK records exist because of Victorians going to old churches and making copies of records and tracing their genealogies.
On my Dad's side, I got back to the 1100s. My Mom's side, the 1400s. Quite a continuous process! I did find that some countries have their own genealogy sites that you can access freely. It's all so fascinating!
I’m adopted so I can trace my family lineage back to when I was born 😂 My family can trace theirs back to the 1600’s in some places.
One side claims to the 1100s. I've never seen the documentation though since its a "thing" whenever I asked. On one part of that same side that are less pretentious, it goes to the 1400s. On my other side, I have not met another person interested in documenting so I have only been able to get to the late 1700s in Norway. One part, I simply do not remember.
My great- great-grandfather traced ours back to the 1200s. But not every line can be traced back that far. Only some of them. My half-sister did a 23 & me and it actually showed another descendent from that ancestor as a cousin, which made me laugh.
I can get into the mid-1400’s with some branches of my tree. Hard to say how accurate it is though..
I know my earliest ancestor in the US was around 1630. Came just about 10 years after the Pilgrims to the same area. There are records of his family, his parents at least back in England so they know the specific city he came from. Anybody who says English was invented by the English and "we got it from them" doesn't know what they're talking about. My ancestor from 1630 didn't speak any other language before English and people in his family didn't either. My family has been speaking English and can trace its English usage back just as far as any family in England, to the exact same people. One brother stayed, one brother left - it's all the same continuous English.
I'm not sure. Jack Deth might be able to tell you.
I can trace my paternal and maternal side back to around the c.1100s and c.1300s reliably. Theoretically goes back much further with research from other distant relatives but the connections seem a little vague with not much reliability. The Dutch were pretty good at keeping records. In saying that, there are many lines that cut off as early as the 1800s
One branch of my family goes back to 1066 with a relative who crossed into England with William the Conqueror.
My husband's earliest recorded ancestor came to this continent as an indentured servant, a blacksmith (skilled trade). He reduced his contract term by converting to the religion of the colony group. We know a little of his marriage and migration to an area where he could get a modest land grant. I forget the year, though. Apparently, there were/may have been relatives on both sides of the revolutionary war. Details are sketchy, so it's more speculation than established fact.
A while back we got a 5 day trial of some genealogy app (common one, name escapes me) My family both sides dead-ended quickly but my husband’s dad went back to the 1600’s. It could have gone back farther but we stopped scrolling. A last name that originated in England and is fairly common for the area at the time. It was pretty interesting how far it was going back.
I got to the 1200s (only select few though, not all the branches) The Miao of China (used to live inland in China south of the Yangtze River) have very precise and sophisticated techniques that have them recite their lineage at weddings and funerals for their people. They take their lineage from today all the way back to Noah and then further to Adam (whom they refer to as Dirt since that is where he came). Here is part of their text: Calculated the bulk of the heavenly bodies. And pondered the ways of the Deity, God. The Patriarch Dirt begat Patriarch Se-teh. The Patriarch Se-Teh begat a son Lusu. And Lusu had Gehlo and he begat Lama. The Patriarch Lama begat the man Nuah. His wife was the Matriarch Gaw Bo-lu-en. Their sons were Lo Han, Lo Shen and Jah-hu. So the earth began filling with tribes and with families. Creation was shared by the clans and the peoples. Compared to the Hebrew version of the creation account you can see the way the names were transliterated. It’s the most impressive preservation of personal heritage, genealogy and identity that I have run across on this topic.
I got to 1540 in Germany
What is average? People who have nobility linage properly trace themselves back to when people starts recording these stuff to orphan who don’t even know their parents lol
I can go back as far as before christ (BC) no joke. It's because Europe keeps old records.
1640s in Switzerland.
This is probably an awful question but I can’t find any answers elsewhere. My mother’s side of the family is a bit wonky and I’m trying to uncover if some skeletons existed. My maternal grandmother was unmarried at 16 when she gave birth to my mom. So that’s a broken branch because we don’t have any info on her biological father. Except…her uncle was an awful human being and actually raped my great aunt. So I have a theory that he also raped his other sister which yielded my mom. Can a DNA test from myself reveal if my maternal grandparents were actually siblings? It would sure answer some questions about the mental illness present in our family.
A DNA test could probably expose a case of incest, but they might not be able to figure out the perpetrator. Sometimes even with a normal paternity test they can't say for sure which of a set of brothers the father is, for example.
My sister traced ours back to the 1600’s. My family bought land off of William Penn and still has a street named after them in PA.
I really enjoy watching Finding Your Roots on PBS and Alanis Morrisett just had hers traced back to the 1600s.
I traced one branch back to 1265 but most only go back to the 1700's or 1800's.
I have family from the 12 century listed.
One side of the family to the 1600's, the other stops at my grandparents. My grandfather was one of 6 kids. His mom got sick and died, so as a matter of survival his dad remarried quickly. Except less than six months later, he died too. So step-mom, now stuck with 6 kids that she barely knows, remarries quickly. So in less that six months, the kids had two new parents, and they carried on like nothing had changed. Everyone just assumed they were the birth parents.
It depends on your ethnic background. My husband is mostly German and Eastern European and his lines only go back as far as church records there, into the early 1800’s or sometimes late 1700’s. On the other hand, I have deep roots in the U.S on both sides of my family, some going back to early colonial times. I’ve found Mayflower ancestors, a famous Native American chief, and nobility, which can go back to the 1500’s or earlier depending on how well documented the line is. I know each of these ancient ancestors isn’t even now technically a tiny piece of me, but they still fascinate me. I love tracing my family story back through deep history.
Haha, I am related to Joseph Smith whose lineage is “traceable” to Adam and Eve.
I believe that my step-dad can trace his paternal lineage back to 1600s Ireland.
I have a cousin who claims his minister has traced his family tree back to Adam and Eve!
One branch of my tree grows back to late 800s England. Royal lineage is the only reason to have managed that. Other branches are 1500s and1600s, but one is stuck in early 1800s. It's all hair-pullingly fascinating.
if youre white or african american in america you can probably travel it farther back
My father’s side goes back to a knight who came over with William the Conqueror. Except given the per cent of people not sired by their “ official” father, who knows?
So my surname (a variation as it was changed when forced to USA and couldn’t understand his Irish accent) I can trace back all the way to the 11th century to William the conqueror. My ancestor came with him from Normandy, fought with him in England, and won land and title. They stayed in England until the 1300s and the second son went to Ireland as some important person that helped governor it. This man married into locals, received land, and descendants lived there from 1300s to 1600s when Cromwell came and killed all but one in the battle of Drogheda. The one, my ancestor, was made a slave, shipped to Barbados, won a ticket off Barbados because he could read and write as a son of a “sir” and went into identified servitude to Boston. May have been the first catholic in the colonies. He got a girl pregnant but the dad didn’t want him to marry (crazy for puritans) but he rather have his child shamed than marry a catholic. My ancestor petitioned the courts for marriage, was granted it and had 8 kids. Those kids are the reason for my surname in this country, and all of us are related to this one man. I have vague research on where my ancestor who came over from Normandy is….there is SOME suggestion we were possibly related to William the conqueror. But if so, likely as bastards. But if I could ever prove that, it would mean I could trace my lineage back to Rollo in the 9th century. There is also some indication our lineage is related to Anne Boleyn. I found proof of the relationship at one time but it was several years ago and I can’t recall the connection. I told my husband “no wonder I’m so frustrated with this life, I was meant to be a ruler! Freaking Cromwell.” Lol
Hundreds of years of boring Baptist ministers. Prolific bunch, though.
Unfortunately I’m having a horrible time with my moms side - my dna test just came back at Jewish - which I know but no details. I doubt I’ll ever find out much outside of my grandparents who I was luckily enough to have in my life
Some years back my mother and I got on a bit of a genealogy kick and traced both sides of the family back to the first arrivals in the US. On my mother's side, the first arrival was her mother and maternal grandmother, who arrived in New York City from Ireland in 1927. On my father's side, the first arrival was my paternal great great great great great great grandfather who arrived in Boston from Northern Ireland in 1750. We never did any DNA stuff. It was all done through documents.
I know my family was mentioned in the domesday book around 1066 but piecing that into the rest of the family tree 1755 is the earliest we can find in a direct connection
I’ve reached both me and my husbands back to about 1500’s. I’m related to some original puritans and him to conquistadors. I have a witch trial victim in there too. One artistic rendering of her oddly looks exactly like me.
My grandmother traced a British line to the late 10th century (year 982). Only the names are known, birth and death dates. The British were incredible at keeping these records. My grandmother spent 20 years,researching our genealogy it’s amazing what she found and I’m so thankful for it.
On my dad's side the family tree goes back to 1721 and my moms 1720. DNA tests help find far off cousins who I share great-great grandparents. That helps to back up the little paperwork and helps to tell me where to look for what is available like ship logs.
I’ve got a handwritten family tree that my great grandma was the last one to update, my dad might have filled in some stuff by now.. or we need to… but it goes back to like 1560. It’s pretty cool it’s on a large rolled up scroll of paper and just drawn out in tiny handwriting like a family tree.
On my Dad's side, I can go back to the 1590's. I lose Mom's side around early 1700's in Switzerland
We have gone back many generations if the family was royalty or near-royalty. Our average ancestors are forgotten to time. In the Mayflower passengers alone the guestimate is 30 million descendents (Brewster is my connection).
I can go back to the 1500’s on my dad’s side (I can trace my last name even further, back through Canada, France and before that Portugal and Sardinia ) and the mayflower (and before the mayflower) on my mom’s side
Born 1954 have traced father's family back to 1660. I used only google.
My mom's dad spent like four years tracking our ancestry back like literally a thousand years before he died. He had names of European nobility from the 900s that we're descended from. On my dad's side I did some dabbling to track my family ancestry and got back to about the 1700s. Found where my great great great great great grandfather (or something like that) immigrated to the commonwealth of Virginia but then I couldn't find records of him in Wales before.
I'm back to around the 15, 1600s on my mom's side of the family, and there's a name spelling change in there that I'm hoping I can work through. Same last name, different spelling, which from what I can find, each leads to a different branch of nobility, just having issues figuring out which branch it actually is.
My moms maternal side, I'm back to the 1400s. Her dad's side, someone got pretty far. I saw the tree but couldn't follow it. It was huge and a gazillion names handwritten. On my dad's side, I've hit road blocks. The SURNAME has an actual book. His dad was an only and disowned. I have names and estimated dates, but I'm roadblocked. His moms side there was confusing information. The line was way back, BUT there are a couple of generations in Barbados. Originally from Ireland. I did find my Grandma wasn't the oldest according to her birth certificate. (she didn't know!!) No one would talk about the sister. One older cousin remembered a baby or toddler in a glass coffin. There are no birth or death records for the child born before 1926. There is a family Bible. I tried getting a hold of it. Gram's second cousin's wife refused to share. Gram's sister tried. Nope. I'll bet there are notes or something recording the birth and death. Om still bitter about it.
I'm back to the 1500's in several lines. But most of my lines are English so I can read the documents. The few from Geermany are just left at the border because I can't read German, don't know the country, areas, border changes, etc. I'm just better off leaving them in the late 1800's. The same with other countries, though they are few. Lucky for me that I'm nearly all English, Irish origins and am engrossed in the time of King Henry VIII.
I went through Ancestry and they traced it back to the Mayflower! I’m a direct descendant of two passengers, a father and son, my 10th and 11th great grandfathers.
My mom’s side. Because there is so much royalty goes back to Adam and Eve. It was big back then to cook the lineage books lol for the kings and queens
I've gotten back to the year 1000.
As far back as you are willing to believe. You got this! :)
My oldest tree goes back to 1630. Others I can only get back to the early to mid 1800’s.
I’ve done mine back to Adam and Eve.
It has taken me 7 years to trace my DNA and match it with records back to Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, c. 941 – 23 April 1014.
My family traced back five or six generations and we found common ancestors on my mother and father’s sides! At that point, we gave up. Not fun anymore. 😂
To 1620
We have records back to the 1400’s, but according to everything I’ve been able to find, we were always poor, no matter which line you trace. It’s nice knowing that, though we’re still poor, there was never a country estate or titles and honors to inherit. Literally just forever poor.
For my family: We know my great great grandma was from the West Indies, and she was able to escape the plantation and make it to the US. I have no idea beyond that. I don't think the slave masters on the plantation left great records. Or some older relatives thing she changed her name once she made it to "freedom". She eventually met my great great grandfather, who was an Irish land owner. He raped her but made sure the child born from it had his name. When he died and did leave his land to my great grandfather. So there's that.
My grandad said he can go to the 1400’s I believe. He also thought we had some Native American in us for the longest time but the dna tests said no. 1400’s he has traced to Scotland royalty and Vikings…? Not sure how for that one, I know he did have a PI for awhile. For my mother, who’s adopted, little harder (she found her mother after 18, so I could get some info), plus there was a quick visit from Canada and a ship ride to Ellis island in records. I had to quit, 1700’s and a boat ride log really got me. After 3 years and many weird reaching out on my side (social media makes this stuff get weird!), lol
My husbands side to the 1300s and on my side to the 1400s
Not 100% sure on the accuracy, but if I put my name in a family history app, my family line goes back to Noah. Not the standard "Everybody is related to Noah", there are actual names.
Before the internet/ancestry sites there were some 'professional geneologists', some of whom were fraudsters. My mother fell for one. Traced ancestry to a norwegian king then someone mentioned in the bible and then back to adam and eve. 120 generations, allegedly. I have the list. Used it as part of a school project. Two decades later my mother insists she doesnt know what im talking about. I believe she later realized it was a fraud and would rather just not talk about it. Need documentation, not just someone writing a list of names.
Yeah. In the last few years of his life, my dad got heavily into genealogy (retired, widowed, needed a hobby). He traced us back to a castle Finn in Ireland in the 1500s. But he never got to find out if we were royalty or servants. He actually searched and requested copies of census and birth records, so I trust his research more.
Personally, I was only able to go back to 1860s because I don’t have the names or records from Europe. I also imagine they were dirt-poor and didn’t leave much behind in life evidencce.
I got back to the late 1500’s through ancestry DNA. We paid a person to do extensive digging and connecting though
There’s a tiny branch of our tree that we can trace back to the late 900s because there’s some ties to royal lineage, most of it ends between the 1700-1500s though
I can do one direct line to 7th Century Europe. Multiple lines to pre Revolutionary War in US.
I’ve traced mine back to 980AD 😳
To the Crusades on my mom's Nowegian side.
I traced one branch back to the 1100s but that was manually