How many generations or years can you trace your ancestors?
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Anonymous
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I’m very distantly related to Princes William and Harry through an American ancestor of their mother. Here’s a fun article about her American ancestors written shortly before she married Charles. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1981/07/10/lady-dianas-american-cousins-38/e9ee96ae-86eb-48ba-a70c-7e13cf16ebdf/
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Anonymous
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I can trace to great-grandparents on both sides as they were the ones who emigrated to this country, around WWI. But we don't know what villages they were from, and those villages likely wouldn't be there anymore either - destroyed in the Holocaust. Luckily most of the great-grandparents' siblings came over too but there hasn't been a great push to stay in touch. I know a few names of what must be 3rd or 4th cousins but not where they live or how old they are.
DH's family, same story, except in his case it only goes back to grandparents on one side and great-grandparents on the other. For one grandparent, he knows the city he came from. But unlike my family, his relatives came over without their siblings, and most of those siblings perished in the Holocaust. So basically we can trace back to about 1910-1920 - about 100 years. Pretty typical, I think, of refugee-type immigrants of all religions and nationalities. If you fled your home country and came here with almost nothing, there aren't likely to be great records. |
Anonymous
So, you have a lot of cousins? |
Anonymous
| I can get to 1823 on my dads side. A little before 1900 on my moms. |
Anonymous
| We have children few and far between. My grandfather was born in 1888. We can get to the 1700's on all lines fairly easily. The ones prior to that are thanks to good record keeping in churches throughout England and UK. Most of my family came to the US in the late 1800's and early 1900's. |
Anonymous
| Nope. I don’t even know the maiden names of my great grandparents. But I have never searched it out and have no interest in looking up names of dead people |
Anonymous
| About 600 years on my mom's side. We're Korean so the eldest male usually keeps the family records, and I remember one of my mom's brothers mentioning it to me when I was a teenager. |
Anonymous
| My side....1780s due to immaculate church records in a Western European country, DH side goes all the way back to the American Revolution ancestor found through the DAR records. |
Anonymous
There are better records than you might think, although some countries are better than others. It does take a lot of time and research, though. I am the Jewish person who does genealogy from upthread. There are several documents that can give you clues to where they are from. One is if your ancestors became citizens. Their petition for naturalization has lots of information on it, including where they were born. Another document is the ship manifest that usually shows town they were born in and from which town they came. If your ancestors happen to be from Poland, there are a lot of birth, marriage, and death records online from JRI-Poland. Many are indexed in English, but even the original record is fairly easy to read. Other countries also have some records online and more and more become available all the time. For relatives who were in the Holocaust, YadVashem has an excellent database. The Holocaust Museum in DC does, too. As far as towns being destroyed, most of the Jewish population of the town may have been murdered and/or left, but the towns themselves are often still standing. There are other records, too, that I am not mentioning, along with living relatives who sometimes know information - even if it's just a clue. I won't say it's easy. It's a hunt/treasure map type search. You look for one clue - perhaps a gravestone in the US of your grandfather that lists his Hebrew name and his father's name. Then you look for his Naturalization record that tells his town of birth and ship he came over on. Then you look at the ship manifest and look for him - it's always in his "original" name not his Americanized name. Then you can look for records in the old country. Or perhaps your grandfather had an uncle who came over. Find his gravestone which lists his father's name or his death certificate which might give both parents' names. And voila, you have names from another generation. Doing DNA can also sometimes assist you in matching up with relatives, although it's much more difficult in Jewish families due to endogamy. I have been able to go back to my third great-grandfather on one side of my family, having originally known nothing but my grandparents' names when I started. I have also learned the names of all 16 of my 2nd great-grandparents (some just first name). It was a combination of finding US records online, sending away for death certificates, talking to relatives, collaborating with distant relatives, going to cemeteries, doing DNA, etc. It is a lot of work but very satisfying. |
Anonymous
| Due to my sister’s genealogical research, we can trace back to Jamestown, and in some cases even prior to that. Before her research, we could only go back a few generations. |
Anonymous
It’s amazing how many there are. I have a few ancestors who were in Jamestown, on who came to Jamestown, went back to England, and then came over on the Mayflower! Apparently he is the only person to have been part of both the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies. |
Anonymous
Why? It’s interesting and fun. And no one’s responsible for the sins of their ancestors. And every one of us has ancestors who have done some horrible things. |
Anonymous
Probably for the same reasons that others are proud of their heritage. |
Anonymous
There is paperwork. One line of my family can be traced to the 900’s. |
Anonymous
No one should be proud of their heritage. It is just a question of which set of vaginas your ancestors popped out of. It doesn’t make you any better or worse. It is what you do in his life that counts. Also, even if you are a descendant of Charlemagne, you probably share zero genes with him. A child will inherit all of a segment of a gene from an ancestor, and in other cases, the child will inherit none. In some cases, they will inherit half or a portion of the DNA from an ancestor. In reality, the DNA segments are very seldom divided exactly in half, but all we can deal with are averages when discussing how much DNA you “should” receive from an ancestor, based on where they are in your tree. Therefore, any one ancestor’s DNA is probably not be detectible at 5, 6 or 7 generations, because it was lost in the generations between them and you. |