Just got interested. Traced someone on dads side back to a marriage record from Virginia dated 1806. I am finding less for my wife's family so far. There used to be a tree mom had. Hope it is in stuff down stairs. I do recall one branch was hanged as horse thieves.
I have a letter written from Vance county MO in 187? telling Mr. Peel his son Richard was at their home bedfast 2 weeks with typhoid so they would know. I havent pinned that story down yet.
Another story, if I can find it tells about smallpox going through a town taking whole families, parents leaving orphans.
Family seems to be Iowa, Missouri, Illinois so far.
This endeavor makes ne lonesome

Hit up your local Mormon church. They have people that will help you for free. You can join several different online genealogy sites as well. Some are free, so aren't.

I play around with it some too.

Check out familysearch.org and relativefinder.org after that.

Sometimes you hit a wall that can't be climbed. My great grandfather outlived 3 wives and was married to a 4th when he died. All 4 were named Mary and he had kids by at least 3 of them, maybe all 4. There are no records as to which Mary bore what kids. You only have a 25% chance of getting the right g-grandmother and there are almost no records beyond any of them.

Jeepers, Grandpa was a playa!

I have a tree that dates back to 1714. The time, effort, research and the drawing of the tree had to be incredible.

Second that. Once you can get back a few generations on familysearch, it will likely fill in the rest. I've got some branches going back to medieval Europe. Can't attest to accuracy, but it's probably as accurate as one could expect.

Yes, I've also used familysearch and relativefinder. Also try, I think it's called Obit.com and there is a newspaper.com(?).

I don't even know if I believe this--through people have said the farther back you go, royalty and the rich kept very good records (through the church) of birth, death, marriages--on familysearch.org I followed one branch of my family back to 150 B.C....yeah, like I said, I don't know if I believe it? LOL

Anyway, one question. I'm stuck on a grandfather that immigrated from England, around 1880's. I can't "jump the pond". All record in the U.S. say only, "born in England". I can't find any other notations on place of birth for this grandfather. Anyone know a way to trace him...his wife's info says her was "born at sea". So I'm stuck one both. Any help?

I've traced mine back a good ways. Interesting stuff. One of my distant ancestors was married to a native American woman. Her people named him Man that tells tales. I'm 100% sure I'm related to him.

My wife has had good success with her family in Ireland using the site https://www.findmypast.co.uk. It's gotten her military records of an ancestor serving in the British military in India in the early 1800's.

Amazing. Reminds me of a song....

I'm Mary the 4th I am, Mary the 4th I am I am
I got married to the old guy next door, he'd been married 3 times before
And every one was a Mary, he wouldn't have a Suzie or a Pam
I'm his 4th old gal named Mary, Mary the 4th I am!

My wife has had good success with her family in Ireland using the site https://www.findmypast.co.uk. It's gotten her military records of an ancestor serving in the British military in India in the early 1800's.[/quote]

Thanks, Pugs, I'll take a look at that site.

To the tune of Henry the VIII by Herman's Hermits?

My Mom's side is fairly well mapped out clear back into the 18th century when they came across the Atlantic. One of my cousins has it all archived.

My Dad's side is a fuggin mess with a bunch of widowing, remarrying, and is only really partially tracable to the mid 19th century. They're also not tight knit at all, and spread out all over the country. I remember the only time I really met relatives from his side was at funerals, and they're pretty much all dead up to Dad's gen now. When my Dad's dad died, a great uncle I had never met showed up. My Dad hadn't seen him since the early 60s and didn't even know he was still alive... real tight knit.

A lifetime of study here, I have mine starting around 1650 in North America.

A couple things.....I don't think it matters which Country, Canada/USA, but alot of People lived up here then went to the USA for whatever reason, and vise-versa. I have shared info with people around the USA doing the same as myself.

The Catholic church kept pretty sharp records, but the fur trading companies like...the Northwest company, Hudson bay company, kept impeccable records of their employees, those combined with the Catholic church records (baptisms, marriage) are available to the public online.

We did the DNA thing, found all kinds of family members

The very reason I will not do any DNA tests.

I'm lucky in this regards.....

My first ancestors got off at Jamestowne in 1607, on my grandfather's side... and on my grand mothers side they were here BEFORE 1619 in Virginia also....so a lot of that has been researched for a long time...my mom and her sisters were all both Daughters of the American Revolution, and Daughters of the Confederacy..

I am 17th generation in this country, or both of those sides...others that came into those lines, were here before the Revolutionary War...

My earliest ancestors were here 160 years BEFORE the Revolutionary War...

after that, I am descendent of a lot of people from Scotland, Ireland, Wales that just kicked out of the British Isles...

and sprinkle that with some Scandanavians ( Norway and Sweden), and then Germans... with some Stray French, that actually went to England in 1066, as they were Normans & Vikings...

Heavily Northern European, with one or two Indians and a few Jews, tossed in for Good Measure...Swedish Jews at that...

My ancestorage that got off at Jamestowne, are traced back in general to the Norman Conquest, and direct descendant, earliest with birth records at the local church ( which is actually still in Existence) in 1189 and 1193...

but we still believe we are mostly descended of people who were kicked out of Europe instead of immigrating on their own...

Your a talker eh?😅

My brother was working on the family line. There was a family story that we had some Cherokee in us from some relative marrying into the tribe. I'd have been about 1/32. At the time, being a breed wasn't something you bragged about. My brother then found some evidence, unprovable, that the Cherokee might have been Freedman Cherokee. That's something altogether different and would have been even more disreputable. 5 years ago, I had my DNA tested and no sign of either Indian or Freedman showed up. I guess that was just one of those family legends with no basis for it.

As my father Wisey said,"If we knew it, we are all descended from riffraff, how many left property ,and came to America?"

We read about the Australian penal colonies but America wasn't much different. We had a large percentage of indentured servants in the early days, many from England's prisons. The difference was that American threw out the British and they all became citizens.

Similar in Canada, it was the French who were the first ones used to attempt a new Colony, they were also convicts and expendable, it took awhile before they survived on the Continent.

Family search takes my grandfathers all the way back to Hugh Powell in Wales, father of Captain William Powell, Capt of the Militia, Commander Of Jamestown. Quite the story on wikipedia.

12 grandfathers away or 14 generations I guess.

Kent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Powell_(Virginia_colonist)

Wabigoon
I'm damn proud of my riffraff roots.
That letter I referenced is a stranger taking in a sick person and treating him like family. Extraordinary in some ways, but also a common story among us decent folks.

Rock Chuck:

DNA from one part of your family can sometimes "disappear", especially if you are only inheriting a maximum of 1/32. You inherit DNA unevenly from your parents - not a perfect 1/2 from your mother and 1/2 from your father, so small amounts can be zero amounts when it reaches you from long, long ago.

There is a fairly believable story of my wife having a bit of Cherokee ancestry, but none shows up in her DNA either. My kids would have had a much less expensive college education if it did!

After reading these posts, many have ancestors that helped settle America. We have traced back to England on my fathers side, and Sweden on my mothers side. The first recored record in the Americas is 1635, Virginia area. Some interesting lives people had back in the early days. By 1800 children and grandchildren of the original had established farms around Lexington Kentucky. From there some migrated to Missouri, and settled around Macon. During the war of Northern Aggression, some moved west to Oregon. This research book has almogst 300 pages, compiled by family members across the country. Court records, military records, and many family bible recordings. Too much to go over in a forum post!

.

It might not be worth the bother in my case.

Mom told me I was found under a cabbage leaf, probably the spawn of Travelers or such.

Son who did DNA testing has already had some batschidt crazy alleged "cousin/Aunt/freak" contacting him. Currently, I have all the kinfolk I can tolerate or care to know.

And naturally all the good ones or ones I cared the most about are dead

My ancestors on my father's side came from England in 1632 and settled in what is now Connecticut.
The is a large city in Connecticut that bears the family name.
Ancestors fought in frontier wars, revolutionary war, & civil war, WWI & WWII.
A signer of the Declaration of Independence is a distant relative.
My mothers parents came from Sweden right after WWI. very difficult to gat information on those ancestors.

Be careful, the FamilySearch.org database was corrupted by the merging of Ancestry, 123 and Me, etc.

My family tree, after having been researched and confirmed through 95 years of work by various relatives suddenly showed one of my daughters having been born of my parents. My only granddaughter was listed as my daughter from 1st marriage, and my parents marriage as non-existent.

When I complained about this to the folks in charge, I was told I should address them with more respect. Eff that! If they blew up the last 3 generations, WTF could have happened to the previous 300 years worth??? No answers for that, of course. I erased all entries on my side of the family and unsubscribed. Effing losers.

One of my brothers has put together quite a bit on our genealogy.
Has around 10 5" binders full of various info and pics.

I would guess that many of us with ancestors arriving in the New World 300-400+ years back are of some distant kin.
My paternal famdamily came over fairly early[mid 1600's] and quickly migrated to what is now Orange Co. VA, on to Fincastle and then Montgomery County.

Maternal side[grandmother] settled N.E. North Carolina about the same time and are mostly still there and far S.E. Virginia
A GGGG something fought in Bacon's Rebellion in E. VA

One of my joys as a child was attending a family reunion where the oldtimers would sit out on the porch and tell stories of "their" childhood.
Uncle M. (my great uncle) told a very interesting story.

As a small boy, Uncle M. was placed on a steamship somewhere in North Carolina and shipped to Houston, Texas.
Upon his arrival, Houston was mostly a tent city, mud streets and little, if any, development.
From there, he was placed on a steam "packet" (a small steam boat) where he traveled up the Trinity river. Pre 1900, it was controlled by locks and dams to make it navigable.
Well up the river, he got off at Magnolia Ferry. Today, Magnolia Ferry exists as no more than a bend in the river.
From there, he was transported by horse drawn carriage to Palestine, Texas.
At that time, Palestine had boardwalks, civic bands, a thriving businesses, a railroad and a locomotive (steam) works.
That lineage seems to disappear with a lady named Nancy Epps in North Carolina
Uncle M. passed in 1973 at 98 years of age. That was my mom's paternal side.
Her maternal side is in a book that traces lineage back to the 1300's in Germany. Not a lot of royalty. 😜
Dad's lineage comes from England and appears to begin with a stowaway on a ship from England that changed his name upon arrival in America. Somewhere in the late 1700's, early 1800's. He would have been my grandfather's, great grandfather. Not much but hearsay and "some" oral history until my grandfather's grandparents.

There's a good many factors that can eff up
your ancestry searches
Some of my ancestors were various injuns
but back in days past, you didn't advertise
being Indian or part Indian.
Not if you had kids you wanted to send to
school, or if you wanted to attend church,
or hold a job outside of the farm, or trade
at any stores, etc.
There is also the problem of the mortality of
people back then. My mother's side had several
relatives that had died from epidemics and
various farm accidents and such, and had
children that were orphaned.
My mother and her sister were raised with
cousins that were taken in when the family
had died during an epidemic that went through
the area. The way I understand it, several families
each took one of the children to raise as their own.
The government didn't interfere in such matters
back then, and it's debatable as to whether
that was the right thing or not.
I'm sure the census takers back then
had problems back then keeping that kind of
stuff straight. Then there's the issue of people
just abandoning their kids much like happens
today. A late friend of mine was more or
less abandoned by his parents who didn't
feel like they had time to be messing with
any children that might interfere with their
allocated debauchery time. IIRC some kindly
neighbors or friends or someone raised him
as their own child.

Lots of twists and turns trying to trace any
family lineage

Geuss it is important to inheritance baby types.

Made my own fuuucking way and never looked back...


Rather be a black sheep and hurt fuuuucking feelings, especially the french fugg side of my family. Than a azz kissing fugga waitin to ride on others coattails and achievements after they die...

Sorry for the French, letting you down, whats to be expected?🤔. As for riding coattails, no one I know has had that pleasure! Maybe my children will have some input, after I kick the bucket! I am the black sheep of my family. Maybe the black sheep thing runs with campfire members!!!

I was sure after talking to older relatives that I was 1/16 Sioux, but after a lot of searching and a DNA test, it turned out that I have zero DNA to back that up. Apparently my distant ancestor married the Indian woman who was full blood Sioux but she passed away before they could have kids.

So I am basically Scottish and English. Boring lol

javascript:quickReply(17318156) Except for the Jamestown bit, I could have written the post above. All of my ancestors came into Virginia or South Carolina .I have been working on Daughters of American Revolution applications for my wife and daughters. It look like my wife has 3 ancestors who fought in the Revolution. My side has 12 I have found so far.
As some one said earlier, many of the family trees online have undocumented listings, so be careful about believing it. The funniest one I have seen traced their family tree thru King David, Solomon, Adam and Eve and even listed God!!! lmao

Pretty bland mixture here: English, Danish, Scottish, etc., with one exception. Powhatan was my 12th great grandfather, through his daughter, the woman we call Pocahontas, my 11th great grandmother. If I've done my math right, that makes me 1/1024th Native American. That's better than Elizabeth Warren's claim. Not that it makes any difference, but it is fun to know.

Given that my four grandparents spoke very little English, came over via Ellis Island and my parents, the youngest in their family, learned English in school I am pretty confident of my lineage. And yeah, they were from northern Italy.

My brother in law got his done at one of ye olde world shoppes in Disney World

He aint too bright. He got his supposed family Coat of Arms. It was a mickey mouse ears with two hatchets and some other stupid chit. On parchment.

He paid like $100 for it. I laugh my ass off. He got pissed at me.

😄😄😄😄😄
I remember you telling me about that In law coat of arms from Disney.
Holy schit!!!
LOL!!!

Some of the stories you told me about him and what Nana used to do to him.


🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

The number is quite higher than 1/32 as bits of DNA shift from one half of each DNA strand to the other during meiosis.

Still the dilution over time does occur.

A lot has been learned about DNA and genetics since I last had a college genetics class in the late 60's.

It seems that just about everyone in KY and TN claim to be part “Indian”. My family had that legend. So far 5-6 in my immediate family have tested and have no indication of Native American blood. I’d bet that most family legends get shot down on the “Indian” claim. You would think that even with dilution more of these would be substantiated if there had been that many Cherokee women around for marriage.

I should be more concerned about being a good ancestor, than worrying about mine.

Yep! Can't change where we've been, only where we are going...

My experience also.........

Everyone claims the legend, and not once does Native American show up..... in the blood!

My wifes G.G.G.Grandfather had a child with a Javanese woman, he was a sea captain.... she still retains DNA from 'the region'........... albeit small..

I agree that many claiming Native American ancestry probably have none but while these popular Home DNA ancestry tests can be interesting and fun they are far from being definitive, conclusive means of determining accurate ancestral lineage.


My Grandmother Was Italian. Why Aren't My Genes Italian?


Indigenous American DNA

Yep. Somewhere it will show up. My family still believes the legend. I love ‘em but we ain’t Indian. Even a little bit. So far my geneology is English Northern Europe (German), Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Scandinavian in that Order

With cattle pedigrees, it's said going back more than three generations does not mean much.

I'd think it'd be that way with people as well.

Yeah, I've heard that all my life too. I was born and raised in Cumberland County Ky. There's stories of my family having some Native heritage too, on my mothers side. But, I don't know if anyone in the family has had it checked out.

My mother did a very good job researching our ancestors. She went all the way back to England on her side, but my fathers side,only went back to Italy three generations. All the records were lost in a big flood.All we know is they were from north of Milano

Everybody and their brother around here claims to be "part Cherokee" (probably because that's the only Indian tribe they know). I personally never understood this strong desire to claim to be part Injun. I also don't understand why people today think being of homogeneous heritage is "boring" (actually, I do know why. Thanks "pop culture"..)

I'm German and English (and the English are German too), and I think that's a good thing.

If you find a little dark humor in pissing them off get your dna checked.

You lose it fast....

Of my first cousins, the one that I share the most DNA with is still only 10%.....

I have an aunt, dad's sister, she and I share 25% the same DNA, that's the mostest of anyone that has taken the test..........

If you want to watch the funniest schit since Jimmy Carter, check out "Our Father" on NetFlix.

LOL

Jesus was descended from King David. I believe the bible lists 27 generations between David and Jesus. Any idea how many grand parents Jesus had in King David's generation? It was millions except there weren't that many Jews in Israel then so there was a bunch of double dipping. Every Jew in Israel is a descendant of King David and therefore cousins. My wife and I both have Scottish genetics. Considering the population of Scotland post bubonic plague we have to be cousins. My 3X great grand parents settled in north Louisiana in 1810 and produced 7 boys and 7 girls all of whom lived to be adults. That makes me kin to almost all the white folks in north Louisiana and probably half the black ones. I have the farm inventory from 1836 and 1851. The slaves were getting yellower in complexion and they owned only one adult male. He was 60 years old.

Thanks affirming every southern joke.

Penned or spoken.

Fixing to read about one of my ancestors.

Popeye the sailorman, I yam what I yam.

Thanks, Pugs, I'll take a look at that site.[/quote]

My dad’s side is from Ireland, I’ll check this out.

Something I never understood was why is it almost always Cherokee when several other tribes such as the Chickasaw, Delaware, Mosopelea, Shawnee, Wyandot, Yuchiin were fairly well represented and active in and around the KY/TN areas?

"We're not Romanovs, we're descended from thieves and whores."

Mine came across the Atlantic in 1909 and 1911 from Italy. Heard some interesting stories from my Dad and Grandfather, before my Dad passed I got with him and wrote a lot of it down. Hard to trace very far back in the small towns in southern Italy. Did the DNA thing and found that I was 3% Mordovian, and I said WTF is Mordovian? Must have been a Mongol in the woodpile.

Same here re: GA, AL.... no one that I am aware of claims to be part Creek............

And most don't know that the phrase '...Good lord willin' and the Creek don't rise...' has NOTHING to do with water over the road!!!

I just wonder how many family rifts will come about as folks do DNA testing and find lineage does not include both parents.

I wonder about that too

Many family trees contain grafted branches.

Hell all the cousins married to each other in our line that damn tree looks like an old sweet gum. That first branch ain’t up there for quite a while!

Ever heard of “double cousins”?

My grandmother was from Missouri, her maiden name was Shelton, my brother was named Shelton to honor that but he didn't want to be called Shelly, he wanted to be called his middle name, Dave, like Davey Crockett... anyway my grandmother's Parents were both named Shelton, before getting married... first thing out of her mouth was, they weren't related!

I'd say... Moms, that was her grandmother name... Moms, it was Missouri, a little inbreeding never hurt anyone... No! she was adamant. They weren't looking it up, her Dad was a poor Shelton and her mom from the rich, they disowned their daughter, he became an engineer and died shortly after his wife was sick and died, died of a broken heart. Durango Colorado, my grandmother was 17.

Kent

My maternal side traces its American roots back to 1621. Two relatives, William & Susan, came to America on the Ship "Fortune". Williams brother was already in American. My mom came from mostly Dutch, English and Welsh stock with a little Norman French.

According to research done in the late 1800's, Roger Williams (Future governor of Rhode Island) was the captain of the ship and there were 35 passengers. They landed at Plymouth Massachusetts on November 7, 1621. According to family archives, they stayed the winter and the next spring hired an Indian for a guide and walked in a south-westerly direction for 48 days to what is now near Bristol, Rhode Island. William died there June 4th 1672 and Susan died May 3, 1671.

I apparently had a relative who was a historian that taught at Brown University and wrote a book in the 1890's about the family history so if you want to believe what you read, The book has a lot of detail, including transcripts of letters that were passed down with a family bible printed in 1585 describing the journey across the ocean and what life was like in the early years. One anecdotal story was about a relative in the 1700's that escaped from Indians after being taken prisoner. He witnessed the Indians burning other captives alive the night before but they got too drunk to burn everybody. He was probably going to get it the next day. He escaped and ran for 3 days east out of the wilderness to get away.

They had some coin. The letters from the bible relate how much gold coin and jewelry they brought with them. (Not a huge amount, but they were probably considered rich)

My dad's side were all illiterate Irish escaping the potato famine of the 1830's.