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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!

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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.