What century have you traced your ancestors back to?

[BendyCowgirl]

Hi all

as I'm new I'm just wondering what century you have managed to trace your ancestors back to thus far? I heard of someone ging back to 16th century in a casual discussion about family history on another board.

[quiffdo]

With definate records ive managed to get a few lines of my family back to the early 18th century (c1720's)

Danny

[Stella]

Traced one side of mine back to the 1700s. Hit a brick wall in 1825 with the other side though.

[BendyCowgirl]

What brick wall was that?

[Stella]

My brick wall is my gt gt grandfather, born 1825 but who was illegitimate. Know who his mother was, but cannot find any record of his father.

[WendyPusey]

I've managed to get back to the 1500's with paternal grandmother's line.

[Guy]

15th century circa 1450. I can also trace further back but there is a break so the earlier line might not be connected but it seems pretty certain to be.
I also have wills back to 1532 which help to confirm some individuals.
Cheers
Guy

[Christine in Herts]

Piggy-backing on other people's research, which I haven't necessarily had the opportunity to check for myself, early C16th. There is some earlier stuff, but the links are more tenuous than Guy's (above), I'd say.

CHRISTMAS has attracted a lot of researchers, of course.

Christine

[Tom Tom]

The furthest my research has taken me back is a man and his wife who were born in c1666 and c1676 (thanks to them having a gravestone with dates of death and ages on!)

[Olde Crone Holden]

1480 set in stone.

Like Guy, I can push it even further back to the first mention of the FAMILY in 1179...and in the last week a tantalising glimpse of a possible connection to a Saxon Overlord in 980!

However, this is balanced out by several females who refuse to be identified before 1841!

OC

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I have two lines back to around 1680, both all my own work!

I have another branch where I am back to about 1700, but other people who I have contacted have gone back about another 200 years, having invented a convenient baptism which is not in the PRs :(

[Barbara Dodds]

one of my lines back to c1580 thanks to another researcher, anther back to c1660.


I've also got a couple of hubby's lines back to the 17th century (mid 1600's)

[JudithM]

I have traced one line back to my 11X gt grandparents married in 1579, due to the family staying in well documented villages and leaving a few wills as well.
BUT I feel far more connection to another line which i have struggled to get back to approximately 1788 (I have 3X gt grandfather's 1811 marriage and 1825 death aged 57) Because I have had to really work to find details on these folks I have absorbed every little scrap of information, whilst the others are in danger of being just a string of names until I find time to fill in the details.

[bev&kev]

1400's on one line. Luckily they bought and sold land constantly so there is plenty on them in the NA. And they made wills that survived! It's still incredibly hard work sorting out who was who that far back though.

[Rosie Knees]

Welcome to FTF Bendy Cowgirl.

I have traced back as far as only the late 1780s, but it is all my own work lol (with help from the great bunch here).

Considering when I started out I didn't even know the names of my grandparents I have done quite well.

I have been sent a couple of trees from distant cousins, whose dates go waaaaaaaaay back (one to the 1600s I think) but I haven't tagged them on to my tree, I will use the information as a guide to research myself. I would happily give back all this given information (names) in exchange for personal information of my ancestors and photographs.

[Little Nell]

Bearing in mind that most of my ancestors either moved about or had common names and so are impossible to distinguish from others once you get back to parish registers, the earliest I have in my tree are
great x 6 grandfather James Massingham, born 1697 in Langham, Norfolk, on my father's side, and
George Eplett, my 6 x great grandfather, born 1699 in Cornwall on my mother's.

[Mark Dudley]

1633 on one line and 1515 on my wife's paternal line via one leap of faith which I still have to prove, but which looks quite likely .. (I think!)

[Grampa Jim]

A couple of lines back to around 1450. I am presently busy checking Wills for my Mother's line which lead me to a William , born 1603 son of William who must have been born around 1570

[anniern]

Not my own work but William Clifford born in Stow 0n the Wold, Gloucestershire in 1598. The records are literally carved in stone as the family were stone masons and lots of records survive of bills for various carvings in cotswold churches. A lot of the family wills survive as well.

There are trees on ancestry that take this family back to a knight, De Clifford who came over with William the conqueror and was given an estate in Gloucestershire. However there are not really any records for a couple of centuries.

[Vicky the Viking]

on one line, my own work to a birth in 1650 (thanks to memorial inscriptions, wills & land leases etc). This chap is a "gateway" ancestor whose ancestors can then be traced back via Gascoignes, Staffords, Nevils etc to Edward I and so on as far back as you want to go.

On other lines, a couple reliably to mid 18th century only. Unfortunately (if that's a fair description) the majority of good honest working-class folk are next to impossible to track any further.

On 2 lines I am stuck with births in the 1790's or early 19th century, so I guess it all balances out really.