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Genealogy

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A cousin really did the work in our family. Traced them back to England and Wales before 1600. They arrived in the US less than two decades after the Mayflower. They were active in the Revolutionary War, served in the new government, and then migrated to Ohio. One relative was Lieutenant Governor of one of the 13 colonies, another held the same post a century later in Ohio. It is strange that she followed one line back so far but not the other. One wonders what she found.
 
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Steve19 said:
A cousin really did the work in our family. Traced them back to England and Wales before 1600. They arrived in the US less than two decades after the Mayflower. They were active in the Revolutionary War, served in the new government, and then migrated to Ohio. One relative was Lieutenant Governor of one of the 13 colonies, another held the same post a century later in Ohio. It is strange that she followed one line back so far but not the other. One wonders what she found.
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If it was around 1817 that the gap started.. that coincides with TSUN start.. and maybe she found someone went there and was just too embarrassed
 
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Question.... So, my grandmother died a couple weeks back and I went to the funeral. What could be a longer story short, I came across several old pictures of great great grandparents and so on. I've always been interested in genealogy, but in the wake of her death, I decided to look into some stuff a bit more than I otherwise ever had. I came across a website that is run by some french canadian group, and I found a very long and detailed line going through my grandmother's mother's family. Went back 12 generations, I think it was. The earliest birthday I saw was 1612. In any case, the question I have is .... at 12 generations... there are so many great great great (etc.) involved that it almost seems meaningless. What line does one follow? All of them? Is there something I'm missing?
 
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I assume you're back into the European countries by 1612... if it's the Austria/Germany/Hungary/Poland areas the information is usually fabulous and data back to 1200 is possible.. England and Sweden/Denmark are pretty good too

but outside of that, you start having significant issues getting back to 1500s and earlier.. for numerous reasons... natural disasters (the plague, earthquakes), wars (Ottoman and Thirty Years) and the fact last names were not as prevalent... mostly they became significant in the 1500s... before that you'll see more of "so-and-so OF areaX'.. eg Władysław of Varna

My suggestion - see which of the 12 generations gets you in line with the King of some area and thus an heir to a billion dollars and/or 25000 acres of prime land around the Riviera

In seriousness, there's a reason your charts stopped at 1612... the data trail stopped... altho, today is a different time and there is better access IF the data exists.. than just a decade ago
 
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NJ-Buckeye said:
I assume you're back into the European countries by 1612... if it's the Austria/Germany/Hungary/Poland areas the information is usually fabulous and data back to 1200 is possible.. England and Sweden/Denmark are pretty good too

but outside of that, you start having significant issues getting back to 1500s and earlier.. for numerous reasons... natural disasters (the plague, earthquakes), wars (Ottoman and Thirty Years) and the fact last names were not as prevalent... mostly they became significant in the 1500s... before that you'll see more of "so-and-so OF areaX'.. eg Władysław of Varna

My suggestion - see which of the 12 generations gets you in line with the King of some area and thus an heir to a billion dollars and/or 25000 acres of prime land around the Riviera

In seriousness, there's a reason your charts stopped at 1612... the data trail stopped... altho, today is a different time and there is better access IF the data exists.. than just a decade ago
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Yes, a lot of people in France going through my great grandmother's side, as well as my great grandfather, which I forgot to mention. My grandfather's side hails from Luxembourg, but getting the line to Europe in the first place has not been something I've explored yet as I was overwhelmed with my grandmother's line.
 
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Buckeyeskickbuttocks said:
Question.... So, my grandmother died a couple weeks back and I went to the funeral. What could be a longer story short, I came across several old pictures of great great grandparents and so on. I've always been interested in genealogy, but in the wake of her death, I decided to look into some stuff a bit more than I otherwise ever had. I came across a website that is run by some french canadian group, and I found a very long and detailed line going through my grandmother's mother's family. Went back 12 generations, I think it was. The earliest birthday I saw was 1612. In any case, the question I have is .... at 12 generations... there are so many great great great (etc.) involved that it almost seems meaningless. What line does one follow? All of them? Is there something I'm missing?
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Answer 1. No idea what line to follow, but since we're all you, if you could figure it out, we'd appreciate it.

Answer 2. You just said "French Canadian" - I'd start considering something else. Maybe Irish-Dutch-Nepalese. Anything else really. Maybe an Egyptian Pharoah of your liking. Hitler's always looking for people to claim him. Anything without a strategic maple syrup reserve I think would be fine.

Answer 3. How many greats does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? Ask the wise old owl.

(Sorry about your gram, man, lost my last one earlier this spring, and even though she was 92 and had one hell of a life, was harder than I thought.)
 
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@NJ-Buckeye So, I decided to do some research down my grandfather's line and got to my great, great, great, grandfather who was born in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany. You indicated that German records are fairly good, but where do I go from here? Ancestory.com? Just curious if you know of any resources (preferably free) that I could use. Thanks in advance
 
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Buckeyeskickbuttocks said:
Question.... So, my grandmother died a couple weeks back and I went to the funeral. What could be a longer story short, I came across several old pictures of great great grandparents and so on. I've always been interested in genealogy, but in the wake of her death, I decided to look into some stuff a bit more than I otherwise ever had. I came across a website that is run by some french canadian group, and I found a very long and detailed line going through my grandmother's mother's family. Went back 12 generations, I think it was. The earliest birthday I saw was 1612. In any case, the question I have is .... at 12 generations... there are so many great great great (etc.) involved that it almost seems meaningless. What line does one follow? All of them? Is there something I'm missing?
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I think you follow whatever line you want, or all of them. Maybe you just want to trace your surname as far back as it goes, or maybe you want to find every single ancestor to suss out all those unique little life-stories from your past. Whether you are going up or down a family tree, it pretty much expands out indefinitely. Or you could just track each line back to when they came into the US... I have a kind of hazy plan track each of my branches back and east with colored lines or stings on a map, you know, for the kids.

The French-Canadians are interesting, I was following my dad's birth name which spent about 300 years in Quebec, also extensively documented by genealogical groups. Probably because they're so Catholic, and churches keep good records? Ancestry.com has a lot of info, tons of primary source databases, but I think their foreign records are part of a more expensive subscription.
 
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Buckeyeskickbuttocks said:
@NJ-Buckeye So, I decided to do some research down my grandfather's line and got to my great, great, great, grandfather who was born in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany. You indicated that German records are fairly good, but where do I go from here? Ancestory.com? Just curious if you know of any resources (preferably free) that I could use. Thanks in advance
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Going back to your earlier question, I tend to agree that it seems rather meaningless to follow one individual line. Once you get to ancestors three or four generations back, you have so many different genealogical lines Contributing that it all seems irrelevant. And uncle of mine traced back one line of our family back to King George. But at that point he was one of 1000 contributors to the my lineage, so......what about all the other lines...and why bother.
 
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Buckeyeskickbuttocks said:
@NJ-Buckeye So, I decided to do some research down my grandfather's line and got to my great, great, great, grandfather who was born in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany. You indicated that German records are fairly good, but where do I go from here? Ancestory.com? Just curious if you know of any resources (preferably free) that I could use. Thanks in advance
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First thought.... Google "birth records Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany"

whole bunch of links.. pages and pages...

tried to use Buckeyeskickbuttocks as the surname.. none exists.. then I thought, Oh wait, he goes by 74 different names... so I got stuck
PS tried to use the german word for Buckeyeskickbuttocks .. it translates to AKAK.. no surprise
 
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BayBuck said:
I think you follow whatever line you want, or all of them. Maybe you just want to trace your surname as far back as it goes, or maybe you want to find every single ancestor to suss out all those unique little life-stories from your past. Whether you are going up or down a family tree, it pretty much expands out indefinitely. Or you could just track each line back to when they came into the US... I have a kind of hazy plan track each of my branches back and east with colored lines or stings on a map, you know, for the kids.

The French-Canadians are interesting, I was following my dad's birth name which spent about 300 years in Quebec, also extensively documented by genealogical groups. Probably because they're so Catholic, and churches keep good records? Ancestry.com has a lot of info, tons of primary source databases, but I think their foreign records are part of a more expensive subscription.
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My Frenchies were also in Quebec for a long time. Then, they all packed up and moved to a small town in Minnesota... I joked as I gave the Eulogy that as a kid, it seemed like everyone there was related to me... turns out, that was pretty much factually true. lol.
 
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I wasted 25 years of genealogy work by focusing on an area (probably 75 miles in diameter) in southern Italy that I suspected my family came from... because I found a significant number of same surname...
turns out... the topography of the area made it almost impossible to navigate more than about 12 miles by mule... coupled with invading armies that prohibited travel since that could result in collusion and overthrow...
so virtually all my current tree (which is 35 ft wide by 3 ft tall document.. in 10 pt font) came from an area that you can basically see with your eyes from the top of the mountain my village is on...
did not know any of this until I visited the town... and everything came to light... I still have blood relatives in that village... as well as finding out there are very close blood relatives 45 minutes N of me, Phila and Quebec...
none of us knew each other...

Probably have pretty complete trees of 20+ families with same surnames.. that are not connected... at least not after 1632...

Hit major roadblocks in the 1980s when trying to speak with people about family information... the Pittsburgh/Youngstown/Austintown family was sure I was FBI and investigating mob and mob hits... seriously.. wouldn't tell me nothin'
 
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