Genealogy Chat

Afternoon All

Of late while browsing family-trees' have seriously wondered how on earth people can trace their trees back to time dot. Have also come across many a family-tree with the likes of ...Saxe-Coburg 17?0; Duke of Bla-Bla; ...of Denmark; Saxe -Meiningen etc, but this is just an example. And no, this is not about envy & i'm sure that there are members here at GR who have taken traced their family-trees' back to times dot. I have to wonder how this is possible , as its taken me 6/7 years to get most of my family-lines (safely) to 1775..
Would be very interested in your thoughts!

Cheers K :))

I've managed to get my family back to 1665 all sourced and my friend's tree back to 1602 using parish records. I'm sure I can take my friend's back further using parish records but would have to do a one name study to identify positively his line. He's happy with what I've found so am giving it a miss

I have most of my lines back to late 1700s, anything before that is guess work with the common surnames, so not really bothered with it....also they did'nt have any money :-D

My maiden name which is more unusual I have back to 1669 but I would'nt know for a fact that it is correct past 1798 when 3 x gt grandfather was born who can be found on the census's

There are a few heavily researched or very well documented groups. Examples include descendants of the Mayflower settlers, descendants of the early habitants of Quebec, the European royal families, or almost anyone from Iceland. If you make a definite connection into these groups, then it's comparatively easy to find out what's known - in the case of Iceland this could easily take you back to the 12th century.

A few years ago, my mum, sister & I went to Suffolk to do some genealogy research.
We went to Sweffling, where we knew our Cattermole family came from. There were two churches, we went in to one, where we found two lovely ladies doing the flowers. We asked about the parish records - and were told a copy was kept at the church :-D
One of the ladies went to get them from us, whilst the other declared that, during the civil war, 'this' was the Royalist church. The one over the road was where the roundhead supporters went.

Well, we found g g grandma Cattermole's baptism, her parents marriage, and, through various changes of spelling, we arrived at the Kackermoulles in 1543!!!
Unsual name, copies of records in relevant church, stayed in the same village for generations - that one was easy!!
AND we found out they (agricultural labourers) were Royalists :-D

That's a bit strange maggieinwinchester. Sweffling was supposed to be Parliamentarian like most of Suffolk. It was Rendham, over the river, that was Royalist.

The key is to follow the money rather than just parish registers and such.
There are all sorts of documents - wills, rent and lease payments such as "Yorkshire Fines", taxes, court disputes, records at the Old Bailey, property transactions. Accounts are always a real treasure but difficult to read for the modern eye.

And lots more. You won't find any of it on GRU though. Ancestry has quite a bit and the National Archives more and then of course there are lots of excellent resources in trade and guild archives, East London archives and so on. Army and navy records go back a long, long way.

Sometimes documents such as the "Registers of North Luffenham" have survived moth mildew and war and then you really are in luck. If any of your ancestors had a link to the aristocracy then you may find them in one of the Herald's Visitations - or not as some of the grander families would not let the herald's through the door lol.

However like an iceberg at least 90% of the documents are not on line.

The Original Record site is good. Cyndy's List is a good catalog of sites with all sorts of stuff.

The hardest part is 1640-1660 when the country was in chaos due to the Civil War. Also if any of your rellies ended up in St Giles area of London tracing further back can be very difficult.

Another tough area are non conformist records. The easiest online resource is Dr Williams Library. After that there are good burial archives and the Quakers etc have quite good records of their own.

good luck

Thank you all for sharing your experience & knowledge. I have more confidence in moving to the next stage now, have always worried about having cases of mistaken identity; which becomes obvious pre-1775. Nevertheless...Thanks & very much appreciate your feedback & many many ideas, i'm sure other members have also been enlightened. :))