How far back can you go in your family tree?

[ScottA]

The little boy on the far right is my Grandfather. That makes the others my Great Aunt, my Great Uncle and my Great-Grandparents. This was taken before the birth of their 4th child (my other Great Aunt). I can go back at least 3 more generations from here. My guess is this was taken around 1910 or so. This is one of my favorite pictues.

[Fire Marshal Bill]

Very cool picture Scott! My father was working on our family tree at one time, i need to check in with him and find out how far back he has gone so far.

[boynightwing]

My Grandfather was born in 1896. He came to Canada from England as an orphan with his brother. His mother was still alive at the time but his father had passed away and she couldn't raise 3 kids herself so she sent the boys to Canada and kept the girl in her care. My Grandfather was able to reconnect with his mother and sister in person after the first world war since he was in England at the time with the army.

I have a cousin who did a crazy amount of research on our family and she was able to go back to the late 1700's. I don't remember exactly which year. She published a book about it for the family. I know my dad has a copy.

Here is a picture of my Grandfather during WW1.
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[Mikey]

The farthest I can go back is 1905 when both of my grandparents (both sides) came to the United States from Galicia (today Poland)

[Adam West]

This is a great subject. I worked extensively with some second cousins about 10 years ago. We have been able to take it back to my great,great,great grandfather and found some documents dating from the early 1800's. The trail is cold from there. Unfortunately, census documents going back that far don't contain much information (generally head of house by name along with age brackets check marked with males, females, etc.). We found an old genealogy book with another branch of the same name lineage dating to the 1930's that mentioned him by name (and it is him for sure) saying he was a native of Scotland. We have been scouring ship documents but can not find him anywhere. Now the general consensus is that the Scotland reference might just be a reference to his origins (not that he was 1st generation). We know for sure he was a ship builder for the Navy in the early 1800's and were told by historians that there is no way he would have been allowed to have work in the shipyards at that time if he was a first generation Scot since we were at war with England.

[megoscott]

Charlemagne, baby. My mom did a ton of geneology.

[Adam West]

There is another member with the same last name who is the family expert and has spent an enormous amount of time and money researching this. He told me that there was a family branch known to go to Scotland but it is all traced back to an original family in England. He has been able to take it all the way back to the Middle Ages and somewhere along the way found out that I'm related to Lady Godiva!!! On my mom's side, it's pretty well documented. The only thing in debate and probably will never be known for sure without mitochondrial DNA analysis is that the first known decedant was said to be a ******* son of Richard III. It's pretty well documented that he did make a claim to the throne but we don't know for sure.

[BOTZWANA]

I'm the last Botzwana there will ever be....I am the only surviving member of my family left.

[jwyblejr]

My dad's father's side has been done quite a ways back by a distant cousin. No idea about his mom. My mom's side I've been doing myself. Her dad's side I've hit a brick wall but on her mom's side I've got quite alot done.

[Hotfoot]

The first and fifth Governor of North Carolina and Revolutionary War Veteran
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Caswell

The 26th Governor of North Carolina and President of UNC from 1835-1868
David Lowry Swain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Tyme2tyme]

1726 when they got off a ship from England (on my mother's side). Not very far on my dad's side.

[Rallygirl]

My family is Dutch, Dutch, and even more Dutch. I am now only ten people short of my target genealogy goal, which is eight generations back from each of my grandparents. Why eight? Eight fits perfectly on an 8x10 sheet of paper. LOL! I intend to have four trees, one for each grandparent, all nicely framed. Most of this eighth generation falls somewhere in the late 1400's to the late 1500's.


Now, my husband's family, on the other hand,...
They could have crawled out from under rocks in the late 1800's from as much as I can learn about them. His father's side was Cezcho-Hungarian and his mother's side was Jewish Russian. But whatever they were, those countries all became communist at some points and records and be difficult to find, to say the least.

So far, between our two families, I have 11,386 people in my genealogy program. We joke about how many distant relatives I can pull from our local newspapers obit section every day. Seldom a day goes by that I cannot snag at least one.

[Hector]

What a great thread!

Great pictures too!

We can trace our family tree to around the early 1800's.

Here's a scanned picture of my maternal grandparents on their wedding day (taken in the 20s)...



My maternal grandfather was part French...he was a tall individual too...notice the different sitting heights of the chairs between him and my grandmother (she herself was taller than the average Mexican woman)...I guess that's where my height comes from...lol.

I also have a picture of my paternal grandparents...but at the moment...it's in an album somewhere around the house...can't find it right now...lol.

My paternal grandfather was part Lebanese.

So yeah...I'm your average mutt...

[alex]

My dad is very much into our family history and has actually created a history family site, if anyone is interested.
Pilewski - Family History of Ancient Prussians

[jimsmegos]

My dad is very much into our family history and has actually created a history family site, if anyone is interested.
Pilewski - Family History of Ancient Prussians

That is remarkable work Alex. Big bravo and props to your Dad! Simply Wow!