How Far Back Can You Trace Your Lineage?

[mjmooney]

am I the only one who is more interested in where I am going rather than where I have been????

 

That's a good point. 

 

I'm going to start researching my descendants. 

[legov]

Do you have any cousins named Mohammed, Ivan?

After all, if Mohammed is the most common forename and Lee is the most common surname, then there must be millions of Mohammed Lees!

 

[jonno_2004]

As far back as Scandinavian on my father's side; he has a genetic trait to match the blood line.

 

There's a good story, also on my father's side, about our great-great grandmother being the illegitimate daughter of a well-to-do lady and an Irish gardener...

[dont_do_it_doug.]

I'm all the way back to the 17th century on one grandparents side but really struggling with the other three for various reasons. Though I'm 99% sure we have origins in Yorkshire, Wales and Ireland.

I'm waiting on a bit more real world info. I'm almost certain my 2nd Great Grandfather, Harry Plant, was a land baron of sorts. But I'm yet to provide a solid link from him to my Grandfather. It's tough when my ties to that side of the family are more or less severed.

It's a fascinating and rewarding hobby.

[stewiek2]

on my dads side the furthest back we've traced is the year 1023 in Lanarkshire.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

on my dads side the furthest back we've traced is the year 1023 in Lanarkshire.

Wow, that's awesome. How did you manage that? Records tend to stop around the 17th century from what I can gather. The people of the Middle Ages weren't known for their book keeping. There must have been some relative 'fame' (or even better 'infamy') in your bloodline to go so far?

[Risso]

My great granddad was a milliner from Willenhall.  I've seen the census record that shows him, my great-grandmother and their three kids (including my granddad, who was the Villa fan) and their servant living in a house in Blackheath, Rowley Regis.  The posh black country buggers.

[mjmooney]

I wonder if I'm the only VTer who had grandparents who lived in the Victorian era? 

[leviramsey]

My paternal grandfather was born in 1893... graduated twice from high school (when he was in 11th grade, Virginia defined that as the end of high school and the next year, they added 12th grade, which he elected to take), served in WWI before going to law school in Boston and marrying an heiress (which is something that two of his five sons became good at...). Dad was born in '42, and I was born in '82.

[leviramsey]

/me now quickly looks up Queen Victoria on Wiki to make sure that 1893 qualifies as Victorian... I'd look like a right fool if Vicky was already in the ground by then!

[leviramsey]

Indeed, I likely have the earliest born great-grandfather of any VTer (as mine was born 1853).

3 consecutive age differences of give or take 40 years between father and son in my line... and I'd probably bet on me continuing that trend...

[Ghost]

My great granddad was a milliner from Willenhall.

 

For some reason I read that as Milfner. Had to do a double take.

[mjmooney]

Indeed, I likely have the earliest born great-grandfather of any VTer (as mine was born 1853).

3 consecutive age differences of give or take 40 years between father and son in my line... and I'd probably bet on me continuing that trend...

You could be right. 

 

My maternal great-grandparents were born in 1864 and 1866. 

 

Paternal great-grandparents, I don't know (Irish records problem, see upthread). 

[Risso]

My paternal grandad Leslie Isacke Rissbrook was born in 1899 so was just about Victorian, and his dad (a milliner) William Clement Rissbrook was born in 1861.  His dad, Louis Richard Rissbrook was a brass padlock manufacturer born in 1813.  Disappointingly he wasn't from the West Midlands originally, but Suffolk.  Five generations in 200 years.  I know families in Wigan who manage that in a third of the time!

[leviramsey]

Maternal grandmother's line: various English and Welsh Quakers in the 17th century (the Taylors, Copes, and Evanses came over with Billy Penn)

This indenture made in the year of our Lord 1681, and in the thirty-third year of the reign of King Charles the Second over England, between William Penn, of Worminghurst, in the county of Sussex, Esquire, on the one part, and Oliver Cope, of [modern spelling: Avebury; original spelling was Awbry --LR], in the county of Wilts, tailor, on the other part, witnesseth that the said William Penn, for and in consideration of the sum of five shillings of lawful money of England to him in hand paid by the said Oliver Cope, the receipt whereof he doth hereby acknowledge, hath bargained and sold, and by these presents doth bargain and sell unto the said Oliver Cope the full and just proportion and quantity of two hundred and fifty acres of land, * * * * situate, lying, and being within the province of Pennsylvania

Combined with other purchases from Penn, it then turns out that my great^n-grandfather owned most of Birmingham [Township, Pennsylvania], as well as pieces of Aston Township...

...and, since it was William Penn's custom to bundle a lot in the city of Philadelphia with the country lots, Cope also got the north side of Arch Street between 5th and 6th St.

Edited May 5, 2013 by leviramsey

[legov]

According to my mom, my maternal great-grandmother was an imperial concubine who escaped the palace

[villaajax]

What annoys me is that you have to pay to find out anything, like the 1911 census is now available to the public... after you pay to actually see it. You shouldn't have to pay to research your own family history.

[JamieZ]

I've got a pretty good head start as my father is an avid genealogist. I spent a fair bit of time in my youth tagging along on trips to local cemeteries, libraries, town halls, and Mormon churches. We've got several threads traced back through European royal lines (once you've managed to do that, you're golden, as that's all been done for you, generally), but a lot of other lines run cold in their respective countries of origin. That said, most of my ancestral lines have been in North America for a long time, with the exception of some of the Germans, who arrived in the late 19th century (my last name is Ziegler, which is the German word for brick-maker). There aren't a lot of cool stories, but it's helped to create a pretty coherent picture of my ancestry, to a point. One of my ancestors, though, a guy named David Fletscher Wiedericht, was an Alsatian German who was conscripted into Napoleon's army, went to Russia, survived, made it all the way back, and said, "Eff this, I'm going to North America." And in that respect, I suppose I think that's one of the coolest things I can think of about being an American—that at some point along every ancestral line, there was somebody, somewhere, across an ocean—in my case in Germany, the Low Countries, Northern France, or the British Isles—who said, "Eff this, I'm getting on a boat, embarking upon a journey I don't know whether I'll even survive, and going to some place I've never even seen before to start over. That's how much I'm sick of these windmills (or cows, or sheep, or Catholics...)." And that's pretty cool.

I also think the DNA analysis stuff is really fascinating, although it's dangerous to be too simplistic or to read too deeply into that in certain areas. But in my case, it was interesting A) in a big picture perspective, in that both my maternal and paternal lines are very old, pre-Indo-European lines that each have a population locus about 13,000 years ago in a place called Doggerland, a land mass that connected the British Isles to continental Europe during the last ice age and is now buried underneath the North Sea. When temperatures started to warm, people moved to the north and south into neighbouring areas, like Lower Germany and the Low Countries and the British Isles, and that phemomenon and behaviour corresponds with my prior knowledge of where my ancestors came from. And it's been useful in disproving family rumours of potential Native American bloodlines due to strange adoptions or even gypsy blood in the mix (the German word for gypsy is "Zigeuner," and when lots of gypsies came to the States, they changed their name to "Ziegler."). But nope, nothing funky in my genetic profile, just a bunch of honkeys.

Anyway, I think it's all really cool.

[Paddywhack]

My cousin researched our family tree a few years back. It turns out my great, great, great, great, great grandfather lived in Jiggins Lane in Bartley Green; about a 2 minute drive from where I live. Well traveled, my family.

 

He also burned to death in a brick kiln in Weoley Castle. All they found of him was his boots.

[legov]

All they found of him was his boots.

 

He might still be alive