Can any of you trace your ancestry beyond 150 years ago?

Question

i'm just wondering... rule: you can trace it if you know first and last name of each level of the ancestry tree

Answer 1

the older your grandparents are the better of a chance you know your geneology.  I have mine back as far as the beginning of their names in Edinburg Germany, and Olten Switzerland

Answer 2

Yes I can... from both sides of the family. One from Spain, one from Italy. We have even visited our ancestors' old homes that are still standing... the churches where many have been baptized and married... and cemeteries where they are buried....

Answer 3

yes

Answer 4

Yes it is very possible.  My family history has been traced all the way back to scotland and england in the 1600's.  I even found out one of my ancestors was in jamestown.

Answer 5

I got lucky researching my mother's side of the family.  There is a web site called Smoky Kin and also a web site just for the Whaley family.   Now, if I could trace back my father's side... Naturally, I am most curious about them!   Also, the D.A.R. was very helpful and sent info regarding ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War.  That was way cool!   Are you enjoying your search?

Answer 6

Consider the reality (which surprises many people)... RECENT info is harder to find that historical info.  That is due to privacy limitations.  Once you get into the 1800s, information opens up. Each generation that you get back, the HIGHER your odds of tapping into someone else having already researched your family (more generations = more possible descendants).

Re "you can trace if you know first and last name"- actually, no. Starting researching, you DON'T know those names and details.. the process is to find what you did not know, before, by using a variety of sources. The challenge is learning more about what sources there are.

150 years is standard.. once you learn something about which records are there, and how to find them (without expecting all of it to be online).  If you are serious about research, you normally can go much further.

edit- best I have in my personal lines is 1066, some brothers who came over with William the Conqueror.

Answer 7

Yes.  One of the interesting things I found was a deposition given by one of my ancestors, who came to NY. from Paris in 1623.  She talked about trading with the Native Americans.  She said that Ye Indians were gentle as lambs.  I think that the best part of family research is when you get a glimpse of what an ancestor actually said and thought about and what was happening more than 300 years ago.

Answer 8

I have traced all of my mother's direct ancestors (1, 416 of them) back at least ten generations, to the 1600s and some earlier. Haven't done nearly so well with my father's side of the family ... I've identified his mother's parents, grandparents and one great-grandfather (born 1769); my paternal grandfather, who migrated to the US from Prussia about 1889, is a mystery prior to his arrival.

Answer 9

My mother's family goes back to the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, my father's family is French, English, Irish, and German. The English side can be traced back to c. 1040 A.D.

Answer 10

UK answer.

On my mums side I am back to 1615 on my dads side 1633, I have hit a massive brick wall with both of them now, so I have put it aside for now and will go back and look again with *fresh eyes* we call it.

Answer 11

On my mother's side, yes. The oldest record we have is of someone coming to America from England in 1636. Although, it takes about 5 generations after that to get into more than first names (birth/death dates, spouses, locations, etc.). We also have records of our family in Sweden from the mid-1800s (about 150 years back).

Answer 12

Yes, I can, but it took a lot of hard work and using a large variety of research, and of course there is more work to be done. My maternal grandfather descended from British colonists who settled in Massachusetts and Connecticut, so there were many resources and lots of previous research done for many of those ancestors. The oldest ancestor I claim with a great deal of confidence and full research on that side was born in 1584.

My maternal grandmother descended in part from British and Dutch colonists (with some overlap on ancestors from my maternal grandfather's line) as well as a line where I have hit a brick wall which extends to North Carolina and Virginia in the late 1780's.

Answer 13

Yes, I have proven my paternal line back to 1685, and most of the branches to a similar period.

Answer 14

Yes, but I didn't do it through knowledge of first and last names.

Tracing requires documents, so that you can put names in context with their families and the locations in which they lived.

There are way too many John Duncans or Sam Taggarts, or Hannah Smiths. Carefully linked documents and documentary evidence are more useful than names alone.

The names are only a hint of where to look, and where to find documentation. Start with what you know, then work backwards into the depths of time, grabbing evidence upon the way.

Happy hunting. It's a long journey, but keep it real, and it will pay rewards.

Answer 15

Yes, I am a ninth generation Texan on both sides of my family.  They came to Texas when it still was part of Spain, then later Mexico.  One side of my family can be traced back to three different colonists who came over on the Mayflower in 1620, the other to two brothers from Wales who came to what is now North Carolina in the late 1600s/early 1700s..  Farther back than that, we have traced our family tree back to the 1300's in various countries in Europe.  I also have Native American ancestors, but since there are no written records really to trace them with, it is hard to give any dates.  Obviously, they were here in the Americas 12,000 to 14,000 years ago.

The most important thing is finding out the names of your ancestors (both the women's maiden names and the married name of the couple).  

Ships' passenger records, tax roles, various certificates that are saved by the state, such as birth, marriage, and death rolls are very useful.  Many of these records are online and free to use.

Answer 16

The Chedder man can!

Answer 17

Sure can.  On my father's side I can go back 10 generations (200 years, roughly) with specific names and dates. I am also related to MacBeth, so that goes even further.

Answer 18

150 years ago is merely my grandparents parents. My grandparents were (3 of them) born before the Civil War; the other grandparent was born during the Civil War. THEIR grandparents were born before or during the Revolutionary War. On my Dad's side, the furthest back I have gone is the early 1400s in Germany. (SIX HUNDRED YEARS AGO!) On my Mom's side, I have gone back to Charlemagne (through 3 different paths) and on back to Before Christ.

P.S.

By the way, although most people scorn the idea, my DNA tests match the paper trail quite closely.

Answer 19

I have gone back further than that on my mother's side. I've spent more time on that, and the records seem to be helpful going step by step. We have been lucky finding parent's names on death certificates of one generation that enabled us to go back another step. One time we had a last name and had stalled out for months on finding anything, and while searching for something for someone else in the local genealogical library as a volunteer found a personal ad in a bound family newsletter that we had NO IDEA had anything to do with US! The ad was 5 yrs. old, but turned out the number was still good. We found a whole BRANCH of our family in another state and were able to put our records together and go back even further. You just never know where one link will lead next.

Answer 20

Yes that can be done with the right information you are only talking about in some cases one generation and at the most 2 generations. my dad was 80 when he pasted away so that would only leave the other 70 yrs to trace which would be more like my grandparents i don't even think i have to trace that small of a gap i know them it's when it goes to great great grandparents that get harder to trace because yrs ago there was little to no records on births and the names get all mixed up too

Answer 21

I've got back to 1708 in Oxfordshire (England) on my dad's side - I've got first names, surnames, wives' names and siblings, but with a lot of help from a sixth cousin I met on Genes Reunited! It's interesting what you find out from oral interviews though. My latest brick wall is learning that my grandmother's grandmother was a foundling (abandoned as a baby)!

My mum's side however is proving to be a lot harder. Her family are from Belgium and Switzerland. But my grandfather did a lot of research there, and he's got the names and birth years of ancestors back to the 1850s in Belgium. The Swiss side only has about 100 years worth of names, but I'm working on that one. I think I'd better learn German first though!

How about you?