Genealogy

I have been researching my families genealogy on and off, for the last year or so. It's interesting and there is an incredible number of ancestors to look at. I have many lines of my ancestors, who can be traced back to the thousands. You have close to a billion potential ancestors a 1000 years ago. Most are of course the same people. There was not even a billion people alive back then. Many of my family lines have records back to the Battle of Hastings and to the First Crusade. Most of my further back relatives, that there are records of, are emperors, kings, dukes, barons, earls, clan chiefs, sheriffs, knights, lords or the female equivalents, probably because those were the people who records were kept on.

My research has found that I had dozens of ancestors in the US in the 1600s. The earliest I can find came in 1630, which is just 10 years after the pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock. At least 9 of my many great grandfathers fought in the Revolutionary War. Two more, who were Quakers, were recognized by the Daughters of Liberty, for donating large amounts of money to the Continental Army. I just started looking at the War of 1812 better and at least 3 of my many great grandfathers fought in it. At least one many great grandfather fought in both.

Last night, I was looking at the Beeson line of my family, who I am related to though by my maternal grandfather. Private Thomas Vandever Beason, one of my many great cousins, who is named for one of my many great grandfathers, died on the ramparts of Fort McHenry on 9/13/1814, defending the Star Spangled Banner as Francis Scott Key watched and was inspired to write the poem, that became Our National Anthem.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/34422499/thomas-vandever-beeson

Knowing that I had ancestors and relatives at important historical events, makes history much more interesting.

Do any of you like researching your genealogy too?

Keith

I too have been studying my genealogy, but I limit it pretty much to ancestors in the United States. My earliest were Quaker settlers in Maryland in the mid 1600's.
On my mother's side I can trace my ancestry back to the Dutch in New York. I am very proud of my forefathers and find genealogy fascinating, however dead end road blocks
are frustrating.

My moms side had a bible going back to the 1600s with all the names, dates of birth, locations etc and my grandma insisted on giving it to my uncle because he was the oldest and being the Jerk he was he burned it.

https://www.familysearch.org/search

https://www.findagrave.com

https://www.geni.com

https://famouskin.com/

Have all been very useful free sites. I have not been using the paid sites like Ancestry.com. It seems wrong to have to pay for your own personal information.

If you're related to anybody more recently famous, in many cases there is a huge number of ancestors listed, that go way back, because lots of talented people already researched them. For instance, I am related to all the presidents, except Harding and fairly closely related to 4 presidents, so once I follow my family tree back to their's, I can go really far back, often to Charlemagne and beyond.

For instance President Hoover is at least a double great cousin of mine and probably many times more. We have correspondence from him, where he apologizes for missing a family get together because of his recent election. His paternal grandfather is a many great grandfather of mine and we share at least another grandfather, a little further back.

https://famouskin.com/famous-kin-menu.php?name=15650+herbert+hoover

Fisherman, I have at least a dozen plus Quaker ancestors from Maryland, so there is a pretty good chance we are related. Everyone on Trapperman assuredly shares some genetics, if you go back far enough. I bet most of us are not many degrees apart.

Keith

1 out of 5 Europeans is related to Otzi-the Neolithic man found in the ice in the alps.
Many English people can trace their ancestry back to cheddar man.

11% of the men in Ireland are descendants of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the former owner of St. Patrick and 8% of the white men in New York City are his descendants. Some of my family pedigree stuff goes way back past Niall. A lot of the older stuff is probably fictionalized quite a bit. I bet a high percentage of us here are many greats grandchildren of Niall. The people in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Nordic countries, France and Germany got a lot of his DNA in their royal lines.

I think Genghis Khan beat Niall in number of descendants by quite a bit, but most Trapperman members are not related to him.

Keith

Either way u look at it , big bang or God we are all related.

My Niece has tracked my Mother's side of the family back to 1600's Denmark. I knew my Grandmother came to America from Denmark, as a teenager, and my Grandfather was born here to Danish immigrant parents.

She is working on Dad's side, who were German, and Bohemian (they call themselves Czech now).

Probably why I'm so big and ornery. Viking and Kraut heritage.



Charlie

One of the first things I learned when I started looking at my family history was they may have come to America for religious freedom .But they where not always very religious .

My uncle did a search a few years ago. Big undertaking!.
I however really have no interest in reading the story. Maybe I'm wierd but..?
Have cousins while as kids, we were real close but some now I haven't seen/ talked to in over 30 years.
Their lives are not important now to me and mine is not to them either.

Found out I was 2% Swede and the rest Brittish. Wife has some crazy stuff.

no royalty here.

as an older man (42 years old); my great, great, great, great grandfather fought the British in the American Revolution.

What’s up my brothers!!!!!!

Yes, I still live on a part of the family farm that was established after a relative relocated to this area from another part of NC east of here after he fought in the revolutionary war. Have found two relatives that fought for the CSA, one died at the battle of Cedar Creek, Va, and didn't make it home, another made it back and traces directly to me. It is an interesting subject for sure, and thanks for the sites to check out. When I hit a paywall on a site, I'm out , I guess I am cheap, lol.

We have a really neat finding in out family history.
A man named Antonio Molina or Molini depending on source who changed his name to Anthony Mullins to fight in the Revolution.
He migrated here from Italy in 1773, Joined the Militia in 1777.

There is a book about him that has may grandfather listed as one of his many 1000s of living descendants.
He had 18 kids and 2 wives. He had a son named Thomas Jefferson Mullins, and a son named Andrew Jackson Mullins.


Here is some basic info about him on Monticello.org

https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/anthony-mullins

Most of my early US relatives, who I researched, lived in Guilford and Randolph Counties in North Carolina. Many of them were born or first settled in other states like Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey before moving to North Carolina.

You can download a PDF on the history of Guilford County at:

https://archive.org/details/historyofguilford00stoc

There is a list in that PDF that has the details of many of my ancestors buying or receiving the original land grants in that county. There was a bunch of different nationalities that settled there including Irish, English, Scottish and German and I have ancestors from all those nationalities, who lived there, who mostly did not intermarry until moving to Ohio, later on.

Keith

My aunt is very big into the it and has done a lot of research on the family’s bloodlines, some recent surprises are that I have 2 different ancestors that were in the 7 cavelery with Custer and both survived the massacre one was with Reno and the other had furlough, the funny thing is one settled in Minnesota and the other in Wisconsin and a hundred plus years later my dad met mom and produced us kids

The earliest ancestor in the US came over with the Spanish as a member of the Irish brigade and took an Indian girl as his wife who he later took back home with him when he returned

Keithc,

My ancestors in Maryland were the Hopkins family.My great,great grandmother was a distant cousin of Johns Hoplins.

I had relatives before me compile family history with some lines dating back to the 1600s. I have confirmed records of ancestors (both white and Native) who fought in the revolutionary war, and from another branch of the family go to Canada during this time. Reading the accounts of why families were nomadic is interesting to me. It's also interesting to account for why the families ended up in the midwest with such strong connections to New England, especially Maine (Monhegan Island area, Trefethen line).
Trying to trace the lines that came from Scandinavia have been much more difficult.

Just a question?
Why are folks enthralled with these things?
Is it for conversation?
The older I get, I could care less if I was related to anyone famous.
But I did play with Prince as a kid

Nice Keith … I have been occupied by this obsession for over 38 years now and have 50,223 names in my data base. It is a never ending trail. At the beginning of 2018 I had 8 "Brickwalls" I needed to Solve. With very intent research, some 8 to 10 hour days and trips to various libraries … I was able to break through 6 of those walls. This was usually taking them back to Europe and into late 16000 or early 1700s. With one break through, I was surprised to be led to the Mayflower and the first trip with the Pilgrims. I had no previous idea of such a connection. I have also found the last of my ancestors came to this country in about 1803 … So, I wasn't able to get any help from the Ellis Island records. I too am blessed with having some good blood lines and I think from 6 U.S. Presidents, Daniel Boone, Henry Morgan the pirate, and General Daniel Morgan, also a cousin of Daniel Boone. During the Civil War, I think I had more Upper level people from the south than from the north. From the North Abe Lincoln and from the south Robert E Lee, Jefferson Davis and General Turner Ashby. The heck of it is from all of the Royalty, Nobility, and High level officials I had in family … none of them left me any money or land. Just memories.

Garry-

The truth of question is … most people that do genealogy research are usually older people … WHY? Well they have finally slowed down, got the kids grown and out from under foot and they start to think about the past and the past goes back a lot further than what they can see in front of them.

Garry-

I was looking at more of my pedigree tonight. My 11th Great Grandfather was Senior Elder William Brewster, who arrived in 1620, on the Mayflower with his wife and my 11th Great Grandmother Mary. He was the religious and community leader of the pilgrims until 1629. It made my night.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Brewster_(Mayflower_passenger)

The Mormons have parts of my pedigree back until well before the birth of Christ. If you are interested in your genealogy, I highly recommend taking a look at:

https://www.familysearch.org/

Keith

My ancestors escaped through the Caucasus mountains.