curious

in what year can you place your first known ancestor? and where was he or she from?

~1760 (i don't remember precisely, my grandmother had the family tree), friesland (netherlands)

William de Noers (Norris)--Birthdate unknown, Death date sometime around 1110. He was the Steward of William the Conqueror (Duke William II of Normandy), and settled in England after it was taken over by the Normans. He helped William II in the Battle of Hastings, which resulted in William II giving William de Noers a decent chunk of land.

For my wife: birth unknown, died 1563, France
For me: born 1625, death 1694, American colonies somewhere

1552. Denmark. Mennonite.

and now I have a ancestry.com ad

and I really do not know.

How well do we need to be able to trace it? Do we simply need to know we're a descendant? Or do we need to be able to trace it generation by generation?

For example, I know that my surname stems from Clan Kennedy in Scotland. So I can presumably trace myself back to the earliest members of that family. But I couldn't do it step by step.

On the other hand, I know that my Great Grandfather (my Mother's Father's Father) was a Hrabia (roughly equivelant to a Count) in Poland. I know that I can trace his lineage back to at least 1363, when Kristinas Astikas was born.

Which of these counts?

Not that I suppose it matters much in my case... given the amount that European royal familities have inter-married, though, I could probably explore my family tree more and find a direct link to whomever is the earliest known antecedent to any European royal family. Of course, just about anyone here who knows their nearest link to European royalty could probably link themselves to the same individual.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

interesting, nuk. i may or may not address that, shortly.
can you place an oldest line by line ancestor, or is this something you've been told based on your surname? regardless, my family - which settled italy in the 13th century, was originally from normandy as well. you guys went to england sometime around 1052 while we came down with charles of anjou, to southern italy, a couple hundred years later. a dna test has in fact confirmed this diaspora of my grandfather's ancestors - a common line was identified in the 12-13th century between our paternal many times g-grandfather and the paternal grandfather of the american hopkins family. so basically our common grandfather was from normandy and our lines broke off many centuries ago, but we both trace our ancestors back to france with unequivocal certainty.

however, my documented line by line oldest ancestor is really only found in the early 16th century, around 1510. to him i can identify each generation in an unbroken line. he lived in the same properties and held same positions as many of the earlier in this family, in the same location (in the 14th and 13th centuries) but we are missing the direct link. so even though it is certain, and in theory, i do indeed know the name of the original progenitor of this family, in the 12th century, i can only point to the oldest documentable ancestor as the gentleman born around 1510.

in fact, even the borbone (to whom my family was loyal to, even after the unification of italy in the 1852) and the savoia (last Sovereigns of the unified italy, monarchy abolished around 1932 i believe) can only place an oldest documented ancestor around 1300, even if there is strong evidence to link them to the early 'counts' dating back to the 9th century, that their genealogies so often celebrate. anyway, lots to say on that matter but that's a different story all together

atryn, what is the name of the family? if you can link them to the mayflower and any of the early mowayflower hopkins, then we can find a common ancestor in 11th century france :)

diss- are you still in denmark?

qz - very cool, thanks for starting us out. where did your ancestors eventually settle?



red x - it is sometimes interesting to look at history through the scope of your own family. but it's one of those things. if you aren't into it, it's tough to start caring about it all of a sudden. for me, this is the last link to my great-grandparents and an old tradition that does have some good fundamental rooting.

foolmog - perfect timing. i think that's in the above post.
i guess we can identify and qualify both.

Okay, fair enough. I guess as long as we identify the difference between the two we don't need to specify which we're asking about.

Here's another, somewhat related question which I thought of as I was seeing how much of my family tree Wikipedia could trace:

Who is your nearest relative who has a Wikipedia article about them?

On my dad's side, it's my grandfather. On my mom's side, it's my Grandmother's Uncle.

(Extra points for the length of the article)

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

wow, we haven't made that much press in a few generations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Mario_Pagano
poor mario :(



may i see these pages, foolmog?

http://en.wikipedia.org/...nusz_Radziwi%C5%82%C5%82_(1880%E2%80%931967)

That's my Grandmother's uncle through marriage. His spouse (Anna Lubomirska) is my great grandfather's sister. Incidentally, their son married Jackie Kennedy's sister.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cassels

That's my grandfather. He just celebrated his 90th birthday, and Trinity College had a rather spectacular dinner I was able to attend. I don't have any idea how much the wine list was worth, but I imagine it was the most expensive night of drinking I'll ever have in my life.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

my family has italy roots on dad side and on moms side chezk republic how ever they spell it. I do not know how to look up this stuff though

foolmog, that's a very nice pedigree and your grandfather's contributions to math are something to be proud of.

red x, well that's easy. whether it is your dad, or your grandfather or his father. you must start with the oldest known ancestor you have. and you will locate his records, birth records, marriage, death, census, etc ... and from there, slowly work your way, generation by generation, back. it is an arduous journey but rewarding in the end.

We have a database for this fluff. I looked in it just now. I can trace back to 1790. Thought I could go further back. Crap. Maybe in a few years I can see more.

From islendingabok.is
"The database Íslendingabók contains genealogical information about the inhabitants of Iceland, dating more than 1,200 years back. Íslendingabók is a collaboration project between deCODE genetics, a research company in the field of medical genetics, and Friðrik Skúlason, an anti-virus software entrepreneur. The project’s goal is to trace all known family connections between Icelanders from the time of the settlement of Iceland to present times and register the genealogical information in a database.

In the creation of the Íslendingabók database we have used various sources and both unpublished and published documents. Most of the genealogical information comes from sources such as church records, national censuses, inhabitants registers and other public documents, but in addition to these sources there are chronicles, books of convictions, various publications on genealogy, books about individuals within specific occupations, lists of descendants and ancestral records as well as memorial articles to name but a few."

ONE OF MY GREAT GREAT GREAT GRANDFATHER'S BROTHERS DIED BY SETTING HIS SOCKS ON FIRE WHILE RIDING A HORSE HOME FROM A PARTY.

I can trce back to first settler fleet to aus on my father's mother's side, and back to not long afer on my father's father's side, can't remember exact dates though :/

http://www.nfl.com/...sonwitten/2505629/profile

close enough to wikipedia? second cousin, grandson of my grandfathers brother. I still hate the cowgirls.

documented family is originally from wittenberg, germany, but unfortunately the only records I have access to go back to 1700ish(could be 1800, its been a long time since I've seen them)

mine should be around 1500s I think... I've been back to the province where my ancestors hail from and I've seen the Genealogy book.

Anyways, SOL is ranked too high.

I traced mine back to the father of John Locke. Locke himself had no kids but I am a direct descendent of his brother and father.

Hrm..was just talking about this to someone the other day. Should ask for the family trees from my parents. My mom can trace back a few generations to Canton and old Malay royal warrior ancestry from the state of Perak (Malaysia). On my father's side about 10+ generations back in Hadhramaut (Yemen), probably can't trace my javanese/bugis (Indonesia) side though :(

1794 mine was a Jailor (Arrestforvarer)

another one im trying to find out if im in family with is this dude:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Milan

It's pretty much a line-by-line ancester tracing. I say "pretty much", because there were A LOT of people who had brothers by the same name, fathers by the same name, and/or sons by the same name. It's like the middle ages sucked out the concept of originality, so it's kinda hard keeping track of who's relative to who and how.

Also, the confirmed trail of ancestry gets broken at about 1235 (some dude named Richard le Norreys), and anything before that does have supporting documentation (somewhere), but not enough to actually prove anything. AFAIK, there hasn't been a DNA test done to see exactly who I may be related to before that time.

I have read that some of us went straight from Norway to England, while others settled in Normandy for a hundred years or so, then came over after the conquering.

Ehhh my Grandma's Chinese so...China! Other than that the rest of my ancestors are probably originally from Indonesia. I can't trace it back any further than that since no documentation exists and the people in my family who would know that kind of stuff are mostly dead...lulz.

Great-Grand father fled russia prior to the Russian civil war/WW1 minus any records and settled in Sasakatchewan as part of the Canadian government's efforts (at the point winding down) to stop Americans settling the praries Texas style. Any part of his life prior to that is more than likely long since destroyed.

On the other side, probably part of the English settlers in MOntreal after the British annexed it:P

Oldest documentable by my surname was born in 1856 in Hanover, Germany.

Oldest documentable so far was born in August 31, 1774 in Germany.

We all migrated from Africa, so look there for our oldest documented ancestor. And yes, when I say "our", I do mean everyone :P

got the papers to back that up LI?

It should be on stone somewhere as a painting maybe ;)

now trace back every generation to that stone

Vic I am curious your background in genealogy. I am a professional genealogist and do part time work online from home for a well known online genealogy group, plus I volunteer for the USGenWeb too.

My family stayed in friesland/holland until 1948 heh; and "eventually" settled in canada :) haha

Adam and Eve.....

Year 0, god.

5BC 4BC 3BC 2bc 1bc 0 1ad2ad 3ad 4ad 5ad?


Yes, no, maybe so? If that is year 0, who cave before your great great grand dad god?

Would be more believable if you said "jesus" hey-zues 1968 mehico

late 1800's my great, great grandparents came over from Austria

Same here :/

My dad's really into ancestry research, and has traced direct lines back to a lot of interesting families, and some cool background stories have come up. I think the furthest back he's traced is sub 1000, but I'm not exactly sure

I do know that william the conquerer was my 29th grandfather, which is pretty sweet

It's also pretty fascinating seeing the one point in that line my relative was a girl instead of a boy, leading them to be royalty instead of a king, then the next generation noble , and on and on until you're a minor lord. Pah!

Nukevil we were apparently getting down and killing things since way back

Hahahahaha! This made me LMFAO, made my day! Lol

don't know, don't care.

My mother is hugely into this and claims to be able to get us to Charlemagne 3 different ways. I wouldn't know.

Nowe Passhier Noel
Birth 1520 in Oost-Vlaanderen Belgium
Death in Leiden, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands

It's on my Mother's side.

1998, Biotech Labs, Long Beach CA.

wish I knew

get with the times, have to say bce and ce now to be politically correct, just like how a US gov is trying to call a christmas tree a holiday tree, even though it has nothing to do with the rest of the holidays :P you know, just like how all the commercials say holiday but only have christmas "likeness" such as santa, reindeer antlers, christmas lights, etc :P

they can hire a translator if they need to be able to interpret my word usage in the Politically Correct language. it'll help the economy.