How far back have you traced your ancestry?

[jamie_01930]

It ain't gonna be easy but can't hurt to try.you will find many dead ends but push on.

I found my grand parentS listed but THEIR PARENTS they were from Sciliy Italy

 

[PerpetuallyHard312]

This is very interesting...my father is trying to trace our family ancestry. I suspect that he'll have the same problems as you huntneo.

 

[Aaron]

On my mom's side I have information to my great great grandparents, but that's it.

On my dad's side I have gone back about 14 generations to France. My dad's family is from New Brunswick, and came to North America in some of the first colonies. They were Acadians, and I have some MicMac in me as well.

 

[The_Reaper]

I don't really know too much...

My mother was adopted, we know her birth name, but she's never pursued getting in touch with her biological parents or anything of the sort.

As for my father's side, I can go back to maybe my father's father, even though I don't know his name, I know he was a farmer near my father's child hood town...Outside of that, no one's really tried to keep track of the family history.

 

[kevbo]

I've been told my ancestry, and it includes many different nationalities. I've only been able to confirm one of the nationalities - Swedish - through tracing...

 

[justsimon]

My family's heritage is a little tricky as my great grandmother on my dad's side fled her country as a very young child. None of the older generation are very forthcoming with information, but my aunt is trying to track down information.

 

[Swellegant]

Back in the 80s, my Grandmother spent several years working on her family tree with her niece and her aunt. They spent a lot of time in the genealogical library at the Mormon Temple here in Oakland, and in correspondence with various courthouses in the south and midwest, and found some colorful ancestors about whom they started talking as if they knew them personally.

Between them, they traced their family all the way back to William Bradford and the Mayflower. Most of the threads backward were lost in the Civil War, when many courthouses and their census records were burned. The rest would be lost when they reached an immigrant who'd come from some very unspecific location (extinct small German states, mostly) with a misspelled and/or woefully common name.

My grandfather can only be traced back to his father, who came from China in 1870, nobody who was still alive by the time anyone thought to find out remembered even where in China he came from... all anyone knows is Canton, but not whether that was the city or the province. One of my cousins is working on that, he lives half the year in China (though in Shanghai) and has worked out some leads.

My maternal grandmother also had a family tree from her mother's family, who were MacDonalds, but I never saw it. Like just about any Scots family, they claimed descent from Robert the Bruce. I've often wondered what was so hot about RtB that everyone wants him on their tree.

Family trees are interesting, and they serve to put yourself in a context of history, a bud of a much larger tree, and make you feel less alone in time. But there's not really much point to knowing who your ancestors were, particularly knowing who your blood ancestors were, except as dinner conversation. I mean, knowing that I could belong to the Mayflower Society if I so chose doesn't do a hell of a lot for me.

 

[Knucklehead]

Double post.

 

[Knucklehead]

I never really had much interest in the ancestry thing.Or thought I didn't..

However,my Uncle much into geneolaogy and before his death had traced the family on my Dads side at least, back to the early mid 1750's.It was pretty cool stuff.

He had photcopies of Census of Ireland documents from way,way ,way back. It was kinda cool how they did them back then.Apparently,they just knocked on your door and took down the info from everyone in the house. Who was the head of the house, who was a servant,who was this ,who was that..

I guess his work was made easier by the fact that the family hadn't really moved around much in or out of the County Kerry.He made several trips from his Bronx home to Salt Lake City,to use the extensive resources available to all at the Family History Library.It's part of the Mormon Church,and they seem to have the best inventory of records anywhere in the world.If your serious about geneaology, you'll eventually end up in Salt Lake.

 

[cklover]

I've been able to trace my ancestors back for more than 200 hundred years. Some family have been hard to trace before the 1770s because they were United Empire Loyalists and it seems all records of any family in New England are nonexistent for UEL. I have to wonder if the records were deliberately destroyed if they just never exitsted in the first place.

I can't trace my ancestors in Ireland back beyond 1800 because a lot of Irish records in the country's archives were destroyed by fire.

 

[floorrunner]

I've been able to so far trace my Italian ancestors back to the early 1800's, my Swedish ancestors back to early 1700's and my German ancestors to 1632.

 

[Dashriprock3172]

1300. Took 10 years

 

[grantt]

18th century for my mother's father's side.

Most of my extended family died in the Holocaust and their records vanished with them.

That's too bad, Matt. I have friends that are trying to go beyond the Holocaust but they have european cousins to help.

 

[BeMused]

Older relatives know, I don't. I just know that Dad's side came from Düsseldorf in the 1905ish years and my Mum's came from Lombardy and Sicily respectively. I don't think they were particularly important people in Europe, or they wouldn't have emigrated, so I doubt it's particularly interesting

 

[relaxin13]

I just remembered, there is something National Geographic is doing called the Genographic Project:

https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html?fs=www5.nationalgeographic.com

It allows you to trace where you're ancestry is through your DNA, allllllllllll the way back. My parents got this as a Christmas gift one year, and it was pretty neat. I don't know where they keep the info now, but I remember the packet of info was pretty interesting.