NEw Worlders, whose family has been here longest?

[Dinner]

OK, so someone with Native ancestory will beat me but I can trace my mother's side to Quebec in 1687 with the Royal French government conducted a census of its New World holdings. The known parts of the family tree ends in the 1580's in Bordouex, France where they were peasant farmers. I can only trace my dad's side back to the Scottish-English border region in the early 1700's and they didn't get to America until 1946. Who knows their family line back further and whose family has been in the Americas longer?

[Asher]

Early 1800s on both my mom and dads' sides.

[Boris Godunov]

1620 on mom's side.

[Seeker]

sometime in the 1200s the ____s , along with many people, are forced to take a family name, which appears under a wildly different spelling. The live in a vague region (livonia? lithuania?) but are ethnically german, arriving as servants/retainers to a knight to kill barbarians.

1300s a crest is granted, lily of the valley with arms

1600s our branch of the family goes under a more recognizable spelling to to the 'Palatinate' region. They are proestants, and have been hired specifically for their catholic slaying, pilaging abilities, which during the crisis finds great application.

later 1600s with current spelling, british crown hires some ____s to go to Ireland and take up habit of fighting catholics, rewarded with lands.

1740 ship manifests show Cosimo _____ and fam arrive in New York, where they have been granted land by the crown in return for being catholic slaying mercenaries in Ireland, where they fight first indians and later french catholics, keeping up great tradition of looting, raping, killing.

1760s big family feud between cosimo and brother, brother leaves to Georgia, creates "American Branch" of ____s.

1770s Revolution breaks out. New York branch becomes Loyalists due to many years service to crown, Georgia branch Rebels due to bastardliness.

1790s first gravestones of ____s in Ontario near Stayer, Ontario.

1800s ____ become high ranking masons and also virulent Orangemen, and are effectively 'Anglicized".

1960s present generation marries catholics, Italians and Irish, causing big family split

1970s weird ****ed up **** going on everywhere

2005 me

[SlowwHand]

My family got here in 1796, but...

Virginia Dare the first English child born in the Americas. She was given the name Virginia because she was the first Christian born in Virginia.
www.britannica.com/eb/article-9028765 -

[Lul Thyme]

First dude with my dad's name came (my actual ancestor through the paternal line) came in the early 1600s near Quebec City.
(my dad would know the date).
Same on my mom's side (they are both from near Quebec City)

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Seeker
sometime in the 1200s the ____s , along with many people, are forced to take a family name, which appears under a wildly different spelling. The live in a vague region (livonia? lithuania?) but are ethnically german, arriving as servants/retainers to a knight to kill barbarians.

1300s a crest is granted, lily of the valley with arms

1600s our branch of the family goes under a more recognizable spelling to to the 'Palatinate' region. They are proestants, and have been hired specifically for their catholic slaying, pilaging abilities, which during the crisis finds great application.

later 1600s with current spelling, british crown hires some ____s to go to Ireland and take up habit of fighting catholics, rewarded with lands.

1740 ship manifests show Cosimo _____ and fam arrive in New York, where they have been granted land by the crown in return for being catholic slaying mercenaries in Ireland, where they fight first indians and later french catholics, keeping up great tradition of looting, raping, killing.

1760s big family feud between cosimo and brother, brother leaves to Georgia, creates "American Branch" of ____s.

1770s Revolution breaks out. New York branch becomes Loyalists due to many years service to crown, Georgia branch Rebels due to bastardliness.

1790s first gravestones of ____s in Ontario near Stayer, Ontario.

1800s ____ become high ranking masons and also virulent Orangemen, and are effectively 'Anglicized".

1960s present generation marries catholics, Italians and Irish, causing big family split

1970s weird ****ed up **** going on everywhere

2005 me

Is this for real?
It almost sounds as though you've been playing CK/EU2 a bit too much?

[Seeker]

Yes. I researched Cosimo and the New York part (there are on-line ships manifests from the period), my uncle researched Ontario history, and my grandmother told me the older stuff.

I am a also a regular poster on a geneaology web site.

Great Difficulties we encountered: The modern version of the family name also exists in Ireland and in Brittany, however the germanic name, which was ours, existed in a much different form (completely different spelling).

Thankfully, several factors helped: the preservation of grave markers in New York, Ontario and Ireland. The preservation of letters and deeds to property.

The important preservation of a vital document inviting the _______s to Ireland from "Germany" which was authentic as far as we could tell. The oldest section was simply based on the first historically recorded usage of that family name, why it came about and who used it, and the granting of a crest is also recorded. The name of the village where the lived is only in family tradition.

Another important factor is that the eldest male of the ontario branch, who were masons, were also extremely geneaologically minded, especially my great-grandfather Norman, who wrote extensively on the subject in the 1910-1920 period when there seems to have been a fashion for geneaology.

Of course, the most treasured documents where those showing the granting/measuring of land in New York, for obvious reasons, since the first generations of Loyalists in Ontario had great hopes of getting this valuable property back or at least recieving compensation, especially during the 1790-1815 period.

The later generation of Ontario ____s who were Masons and Orangemen also maintained these deeds and the fancy looking letter granting lands in Ireland (the lands granted in Ireland were much earlier), and even mounted and framed one, as a sort of late 19th century Canadian protestant 'thing', to show sons that we had always been Loyal to God and the English King, particularly the older Irish one which included a kind of fancy 'thank you note' from the english government for killing lots of Irish and other catholics instead of just a land grant.

[notyoueither]

Amish in Pennsylvania on my mother's side and the founding of Quebec on my father's.

I always have a laugh when told to go back to Europe, where I belong.

[Bosh]

I can't trace my last name back father than my Russo-Japanese war draft-dodging great-grandfather who game from a godforsaken swamp in western Belorus. But apparently the name is more Ukrainian than Belorus, so maybe they moved to western Belorus because that's where the border was or something, dunno.

Still got some distant relatives there who my grandparents met (descended from my great-great uncle who died in a tragic carriage accident upon returning to the old village)

[KrazyHorse]

First wave in Quebec on my mother's side. One of my ancestors was one of a couple of dozen people (the city was that small at that point) who owned a team of horses in Quebec city at some time in the early 17th century.

[KrazyHorse]

Funny thing is we used to call my grandfather "bonhomme". Then we were looking up the lineage on that side and it turns out the name of the family got changed from "Bonhomme" to "Beaupré" a couple of hundred years ago.

[KrazyHorse]

My father's side is assorted Scottish and Irish trash that came over in the mid- to late nineteenth century.

[Drake Tungsten]

1620, same as Boris. I think Dr. Strangelove beats us both, though.

[Richelieu]

1654 on my Mom's side. I'm prettty much certain that it's around 1660 on my Dad's.