I've traced one side of my family back to 1470. That's before Shakespeare, yo.
All four of my grandparents have ancestors in Ireland, Scotland, or both.
It's the side from the Netherlands that goes back to 1470. They seem to have damn good record-keeping.
My grandma told me I was eligible for Daughters of the American Revolution. I found out I am... on both sides. A surprising number of my ancestors lived in the U.S. before it was the U.S.
The most recent immigrants all came from Ireland during... well, do I even have to say it? The very most recent was Rodger Charles Ryan, who arrived from Ireland on April 17, 1880.
Number of slaves I thought my family had owned = none. Number of slaves they actually did = some. I haven't checked all the census data, but I found one guy who owned ten. Yes, this disturbs me.
Almost all of my ancestors lived in Pennsylvania at one time.
The oldest ancestor I can trace is my great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather, Gerrit Van Gameren. (That's 16 greats.)
A quick survey of only my great-great grandparents and above reveals births in fifteen American states.
I was truly surprised at the number of people who had more than ten children or who had children well into their forties. My mom pointed out the no-birth-control thing (I know, duh, but didn't they even have the rhythm method?), but I honestly thought that with their shortened life expectancies they would hit menopause earlier, too.
Also, my grandma did a ton of genealogy research for decades. She traveled, studied books, and read the shaky handwriting in the records. Using Ancestry.com is about as hard as double-clicking. I feel a little disloyal every time I so easily stumble upon someone she never found, or change a Susannah to a Sarah.
Finally, the numbers of people multiply exponentially (for every generation, double just the number of people, but if you add all the siblings, there are probably already thousands of people on my chart). I want everyone I know to do one of these so we can compare and see if we're distant cousins. I suddenly feel as though I could be related to anyone I encounter.
It's been really interesting.
3 comments:
I found another revolutionary war soldier on my mother's side of the family. Most of the family on her side goes back to the late 1600's (at least that's as far as I've gotten).
That is so awesome. I want to do that research, but I know a lot less of my family's names.
Des, you might have more luck than you think. If anyone else on the site has researched your family, you can just add their research to your own tree. We found tons of other people who had researched branches of our family. Plus there are military records, census records, passenger lists with immigrants' names...
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