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Not King Arthur but Edward I better known as Longshanks from Braveheart fame. Go figure

I guess that makes us cousins....................

My uncle was looking for his ancestors and he reached a dead end. Mom had told us the real spelling of that side's family name. When I told my uncle, I added it likely got changed over the question of the ownership of a horse. He did a lot of huffing.

Research is interesting......... the older the women got the more they lied about their age.

And spelling of names was often at the mercy of the census taker it seems.....

That's me. Dad spent years and years tracing genealogy on HIS side of family and that primarily his mother's lineage. Bound it in books and distributed among kids and cousins. I have a copy around here somewhere. I have never opened it.

In the first place, absent DNA tracing, who knows if I am actually related to those people.

Second place, they have nothing to do with me becoming who I am.

Looks like

Mother's paternal side limey from Halifax England in the 1830's. Well educated and literate and kept detailed notes on the most trivial stuff California gold fields after the Mexican war. Served the CSA. Donated land for public use later in life .Some ancestor between then and now kept all the money. Some Indians and hillbillies in the mix between then and now. Father's side supposedly allegedly were from Spain and were 3 brothers who were ship captains and brought an Italian guy over here in the late 1400's.. The rest of his side's story is kinda fuzzy, but there's towns all across the south with the name. state park and small town in Tennessee named for one. A lot of folks in the old days that had Indian or "objectionable " ancestry didn't discuss it back in those days, not if you wanted to attend some churches, or attend school, or trade at the store That's just the way it was. Also, a lot of kids were taken in by different families for different reasons without benefit of what we'd call adoption in these days. They just did it for whatever reason and raised 'em. My mother had a cousin raised with her family when something happened to the cousin's parents.

My mama was a pistol, I'm a son of a gun!

Pretty much ^^^^^^ the best answer of all

Some groups like the English nobility or the Mormons have thing about ancestors , or areas , like Germany, that kept good records makes it easy.

When I heard about the Mayflower, I had a good laugh.

Thanks for posting that link Butch!
Since Mom passed away two years ago I had been trying to do some research on her father’s side of the family.
I signed up for that site and the Mormons had tons of information.
I was able to trace her father’s side of the family back to Switzerland in the 1500s where I found that they were winemakers in the lake Geneva area. One of them I found out was a captain in Napoleons army. They then moved to Germany. And then landed in America, via Philadelphia, and settled in Pennsylvania in the early 1700s were they fought in the American revolution, then moved down to Georgia via South Carolina where they fault in the Civil War on the Southern side. And then came to Texas in the 1870s. Was able to trace my great great grandfather’s grave which is only about 70 miles south of here where I suspected it was. Even found a photo of his tombstone online. I will be visiting soon.
I always thought they were Germans, as their last name was Whisenhunt. They had changed it from Visinand when they came to America!

I knew about my Scotch / Irish / English / and Dutch descendants on Dad’s side, and my Irish /Cherokee/ Comanche heritage from Mom’s Mother’s side, but never new I had any Swiss heritage until today!

My family tree.....pops came over on a boat.
Moms side traced back to Revolutionary War.
My ol lady came over on a plane.


There be 'coons on one branch of the tree (cousin's branch).
My guess is 9mm and teen years will act as arborist.

2nd cousin on mom's side had all the pioneer stuff, back to Rev war.
Think not much before coming to this land.

My middle kid tried to do my dad's side, but records not much in the old country.
War kinda trashed stuff.

Did find some form of cousins in NY and across the pond.

I don't get trying to expand the family in knowing 2nd and 3rd and ?? cousins.
Don't give a flip.

Hell I can barely keep my 1st cousins names remembered. Let alone their spouses and kids names.

There are some that take on the family history tree duty, and that is cool.
My 2nd cousin was a hillbilly but accepted that duty and did a good job.
I am appreciative of it.

He wasn't asked, just something he was passionate about and he did well. Good for him.

Big time geneology center I guess in Ft Wayne IN.

Family to me means wife and kids. Outside of that, DGAF.
Am actually a content type of person.

Seems that too many looking for extended family, tend to not be well grounded with the one surrounding them.
Theyre searching for something, and they aint never gonna find it.

It's a lot better to do the DNA test to build your tree.I first tried searching through records and spent a lot of time searching for census records and really found a lot of dead ends around 1800.I was on Ancestry the other day and checked the DNA ThruLines link and it built my DNA trees from both my Father's and Mother's sides all the way back to Mid 1700's 5x Great Grandfathers and 5x Great Grandmothers.Found out one of my 5xGreat Grandfather was a Cpt in the Revolutionary War and his Son fought in the War of 1812.Two of my 2x Great Grandfathers fought in the Civil War.Find a Grave is another good site too.Sometimes you can collect information there too.The trees are not complete on the DNA,but as more people do the DNA,the better the trees become.I know one of my Grandfathers had twelve Brothers and Sisters.The family trees is only going to show the DNA link of the family members who have taken the DNA test.This is what I found on one of my 5xGreat Grandfathers.This also led me to another site called GENI

https://www.geni.com/people/Capt-Moses-Guest/6000000003669768191

DNA links is how they are catching killers, rapists, etc from many decades past now.

Found on GENI a lot of close relatives and I knew about and some details I was unaware of like Grandama Rose had 15 kids, 10 of which grew to adulthood.

^^^ This was fairly common back in the day. especially female children when the mother died or for whatever reason no longer actively present in the home.

Back in the late '60s a very nice, well kempt older woman doing church visitations stopped at our house. As we talked it turned out that she was a distant cousin on my dad's side of the family. She said she was just a toddler when her mother died, had several both male and female siblings all older than her and after their mother passed other two parent families took in the girls and very youngest boys and raised them as their own. Over the passing years they wound up scattered all over the country. She said it took years to eventually locate them all again.

The thing about geneology is, it tracks family names, not actual parentage. In other words, it ignores the reality that for a lot of people, odds are good that there was some hanky panky going on through those generations, and there were no DNA tests back then.

Your family NAME may trace back to Richard the Lionhearted, but your actual DNA may trace back to Sam the Milkman...

found out last year I am kin to a NC governor who was good friends with George Washington.

We're mostly German and French. Mom had a distant relative who actually flew with Baron Von Richtofen. He was an ace with 5 kills, and subsequently killed in action. Dad was mostly French. His family homesteaded a beautiful valley south of the Youngstown Ohio area. We still have relatives out there but the valley has long ago been subdivided and sold off. They settled out there before 1900. Supposedly the last bear killed in that area came off our family's land, and there was a still running there during prohibition. I've found several different old cabin sites with bottle dumps out there and wondered if they were my distant relatives.