Ancestry Thread

[Asher]

Since I got the genetics testing results back yesterday, and talking with a couple of people identified as 4th/5th cousins on the site, I got really interested in researching the family tree. I knew almost nothing offhand.

My dad's side I still know almost nothing about. But to my complete shock, googling my full name returned me as part of an EXTENSIVE family tree for my mom's side. Whoever did this must've spent many years mapping it out. He last modified it in 2001, but it contains 8021 descendants for 16 generations.

Through it, I've discovered...at least for my mom's side...we've been in North America since ~1630. 3 Brothers left Yorkshire, England for the new world, and settled down in Boston.

They stayed in New England until ~1850, when they moved to Canada.

I'd been told the family's been here for many, many generations but I'd really no idea.

I need to start digging around for my dad's side now.

Anyone else interested in this stuff?

[Japher]

Your ancestry doesn't concern me... so, no.

[Asher]

Yours, stupid.

[MOBIUS]

I'm related to the French side of the Bourbon family, so basically all the kings of France etc - but then being largely French is not really something to brag about on poly, so I keep it secret.

[Dr Strangelove]

One of my relatives was a cabin boy on Christopher Newport's expedition. Hoping to find gold he elected to stay at Jamestown, along with all the other cabin boys. When the resupply expedition arrived the next year he was the only cabin boy left alive. He returned to England. A few decades later one of his sons got exiled to Barbados, then after ten years was freed and allowed to emigrate to Virginia as a Quaker missionary. He built one of the first roads leading west of the Tidewater region.

[Ben Kenobi]

Anyone else interested in this stuff?

I've got an uncle who's really big into doing this. He's found the original home for pretty much everyone on my mom's side.

English/German/Anglo-Irish and Norwegian.

[Cort Haus]

I'm interested, but much of mine tends to disappear in the chaos of 19th century London. I suppose I haven't looked too hard but one great-grandfather first appears as a child in the Islington workhouse in North London, with no documented parents. They were French immigrants according to verbal history, but little more is known. Another branch appears for the first time as German immigrants in Bethnal Green, East London.

I hope to find out more some day, but I seem to be a mixture of English, German, French, Scottish and Welsh ancestry. This kind of mix is probably typical for many Londoners.

[Japher]

Apparently I'm related to Rachel Jackson, Andrew Jackson's wife. It's on my mom's side. Seeing as they had no kids there is no lineage.

[Al B. Sure!]

I am curious about my heritage but I know nothing and I expect that since my family has only been in America within the past 50 years (with my father's side still not here) that it would be difficult if not impossible to find more information. You Anglos are lucky.

[Riesstiu IV]

I am Hitler's grandson.

[SlowwHand]

My cousin-in-law researched my dad's side. They got here from Ireland in 1796, in Tennessee. I'm Irish/Scot heredity.

[Dinner]

1/2 Scottish*, 3/8ths English, and 1/8th French Canadian. I don't know what is worse being part French or being part canuck.

* = There is likely a slight amount of Irish in the early 19th century or late 18th century due to my paternal grandmother's last name. We don't talk about that though especially since my father's parents are Scottish protestants who grew up in the 1910's-1920's when there was a lot of Catholic-Protestant troubles.

[Asher]

My cousin-in-law researched my dad's side. They got here from Ireland in 1796, in Tennessee. I'm Irish/Scot heredity.

We share a heritage, except you are a recent immigrant.

You're lucky we let you in, son.

[SlowwHand]

You're lucky we came to save the day.

[Asher]

You even came after the war of independence. You came back just in time to lose the war of 1812.