I have a little interest in this and am finding more all the time.
I can go back to 1600 on the Lambert side to Geo. M Lambright in Kent, England to Geo. E. Lambert in Lamberhurst, Kent, England and eventually their great grandchildren in Delaware to North Carolina, Tennessee, and then to Oklahoma.

Another side of the family came from Cesson Sevigne Ille-Et-Vilaine Bretagne, France and the name was Collas Georgeault in late 1500s. They eventually immigrated to Quebeck Canada. A few times great grandfather, Louis Durant came from Quebec by the Mississippi river to Mississippi and settled with the Choctaw Indians. His Daughter and her husband left with the Trail of Tears to Okla. Territory.
A very interesting journey in time. Wish I had started this at a younger age.
I'm sure some of you are doing the same thing.

My older brother in Giddings is a genealogy whiz. (Doesn't seem like anyone is interested in the generation following ours.)

His work goes back pretty smoothly to 1478, and then "ratty" back to 1123 / 1132 (Henry I and Eleanor); descendants of Henry II "Curt Mantel" King of England.

It is interesting stuff.

Did you do the DNA thing with ancestry? sound like you didn't have to.

My sister is a "certified" geneologist. I know, you can get certified in anything these days. It started as a hobby and she dove in with both feet.

Moms family is from Debrecen, Hungary. We went there in 2015, the farm was taken after they came to the US in 38-ish. Got pictures of the 2 townhouses they owned though.

We can't go back and narrow down Dad and grandpa (Jackson) they came to canada and then NY. Grandma is from Niederhausen Germany. I hope to get to Germany next year.

My mother who is DAR started the research in the mid 60's. We have it back to the Salem colonies R/e Judge Hawthorne who was Nathaniel Hawthorne's great grandfather,yep my great grandmother was a Hawthorne.Going back to Europe is not that easy as in Germany many eons ago it seems that back in that age there was such a thing about having a child out of wedlok,HEAVEN FORBID;thus none of the family over there will comment as that is not done. That is the kraut way."What is not openly allowed is forbidden."On a lighter side a friend told me that a few years ago at a family reunion some cousin was going on about how he was following the family tree etc. The next year he was asked how the research was going. He puffed up + said,"All that stuff is B.S." Come to find out he had literally uncovered the proverbial"nigger in the woodshed".

To each his own. Means almost nothing to me beyond my grandparents, who I, "knew" to some extent. On my mother's side, they came to Texas from Alabama while it was still a Republic and settled, farmed, and ranched in E. Texas. We still have our share of the original homestead. I'm kind of proud of fact that we still own it, after 6 generations.

However, I have a cousin's wife who is eaten up with checking and, if possible, visiting remote relations. Since my Grandfather (father's side) emigrated from England in the later 1800s, we have a number of cousins in England. She and her husband were on a trip to England to see "dear old 5th cousin" Bob, or whatever. Called me and asked me what I wanted to say to him? She was less than happy when I said, "Nothing."

I'm a little leery of the Ancestry DNA testing. I have an Aunt in Austin, Tx. that did this. It said she had less than 1% native American blood. Our family are on the Dawes Roll and she is 1/8 Choctaw by blood. Her sister used 23&Me I believe and it shows the correct Indian blood.
Yeah I know, a stranger in my Grandmother's bedroom, but the Indian blood came from her side.
I was always told that on my Mother's Father's side that we were Welsh and Scots-Irish.
Interesting to say the least.

On my Father's side, my great grandmother's maiden name was Dzerzhinsky, we stopped searching there.

On my Mother's side we have records in Japan for just about 1,500 years.

This brings up two issues my wife and I have been discussing (she is the genealogy expert) the last few days.

First and foremost get all of the information you can from parents and older relatives.

There are many questions we both have of this group only one generation back and they are all gone and so they're are no longer there to ask.

quote:

Originally posted by TCLouis:
This brings up two issues my wife and I have been discussing (she is the genealogy expert) the last few days.

First and foremost get all of the information you can from parents and older relatives.

There are many questions we both have of this group only one generation back and they are all gone and so they're are no longer there to ask.

+1

I wish I that spoken to my grandad of his travels in east Africa in the 1930s - only thing I know was he hated it and hated Africa.

Mike

Indeed. I had a great uncle who was in the AEF in WW1. He told me some stories of life in the trenches back in the 50's + early 60's. Wish he had told me more because it's all gone now.

quote:

They eventually immigrated to Quebeck Canada

Wife's brother is married to a Lambert,in Ontario, some Native on that side of the family. Lamberts seem to have been very prolific, got some around here as well.

Grizz

quote:

Originally posted by Grizzly Adams:

quote:

They eventually immigrated to Quebeck Canada

Wife's brother is married to a Lambert,in Ontario, some Native on that side of the family. Lamberts seem to have been very prolific, got some around here as well.

Grizz

The Lamberts immigrated from Kent England to North Carolina. The other side of our family came from France to Quebec.
My Aunt called and she said that she had about an inch and a half stack of papers that are journals and other written history from about 1820. I will get them at some stage and scan them.

I had a cousin that did extensive research, visited graveyards and court houses and I don't know what all else. He wrote a book. I read a very little about the folks I knew. Found numerous inaccurate dates and omissions. These were people the cousin knew personally and lived within one mile of him. With these discrepancies how could I possibly trust things that happened centuries ago and thousands of miles away to be accurate? If you are off a foot at 25 yards you most likely aren't going to be MOA at 1000 yards.
Another case that I find hard to believe would be Emmitt Smith. I'm a big fan of his and loved his running ability when he played for the Dallas Cowboys. He traced his roots back to Africa. To me it would seem a black man named Smith tracing through slavery and all the way back to Africa would be all but impossible to get accurate.

quote:

Originally posted by carpetman1:
I had a cousin that did extensive research, visited graveyards and court houses and I don't know what all else. He wrote a book. I read a very little about the folks I knew. Found numerous inaccurate dates and omissions. These were people the cousin knew personally and lived within one mile of him. With these discrepancies how could I possibly trust things that happened centuries ago and thousands of miles away to be accurate? If you are off a foot at 25 yards you most likely aren't going to be MOA at 1000 yards.
Another case that I find hard to believe would be Emmitt Smith. I'm a big fan of his and loved his running ability when he played for the Dallas Cowboys. He traced his roots back to Africa. To me it would seem a black man named Smith tracing through slavery and all the way back to Africa would be all but impossible to get accurate.

Why DNA matters and is relevant to looking at genology.

I think if one digs into the hard data and looks at what the dna tells us a lot of ethnic myths go away.

For family stuff a lot of history is often tainted by some family members and the person writing it.

Mike

How many use DNA when tracing genealogy? Perhaps it's common, if so that would surprise me.

I'm a fan of Bill Griffeth on CNBC. He and a cousin of his got interested in the DNA testing. They did it and Bill found out he was not related to some of his "relatives". He knew the finger pointed to his mother. He agonized over discussing the possibilities with her, at her age, but finally did. She admitted a little "problemo". That took his ancestry search in a whole new direction. He was not a "Griffeth". He wrote a book "The Stranger In My Genes". I bought the book. Fascinating.

My dad's brother was interested in his ancestry. He traced a distant relative back to the slavery days. It seems my uncle's relative wasn't a slave owner, but had a number of "blacks" after the civil war that worked and stayed on his farm. My uncle liked to trace ancestry, and find where the people were buried. He couldn't locate the cemetery where this man was buried. He finally started talking to some of the blacks in the area and got referred to this great-grand-mother whose dad had worked for the man. She told my uncle the general area where she remembered that the man was buried. She said there was a headstone. My uncle took a number of trips and kept searching. He finally stumbled over it in the brush along an Interstate, beside a fence line. He said the headstone was about the size of a loaf of bread, and lying on its side. He said he just sat there and cried. He then went to the DOT or some other agency and told them what was there and they cleared and fenced a small area after finding a few other headstones.

If you look back across 10 generations or so, most folks' DNA probably doesn't exactly match the "official" family tree. Lots of opportunities for mishaps.

I have been messing with this off and on for years. The Internet sure has made it easier -- and easier to reach incorrect conclusions.
Just did the basic Family Tree DNA test and came out 98 percent European, as I suspected. With three of my four family names being British -- Powell, Wood and Pitts/Pitt -- I figured that would be where the concentration was. The fourth family name Trailleur/Traylor I knew to be French, but it turned out the biggest concentration of related populations came from southern and eastern France, Switzerland, Austria and Bavaria. And as usual to all of us whose ancestors came from the British Isles, there is a measurable concentration of genetic heritage from our ancient friends, those randy Vikings!

quote:

posted 02 May 2017 05:48 Hide Post
On my Father's side, my great grandmother's maiden name was Dzerzhinsky, we stopped searching there.

Kinda like finding Hitler in the family bush.

Wife and I are both Aryans, according to our family's Ahnenpass, that all good Germans were required to have. Traces our ancestry back to the late 1700s, complete with birth and death dates with occupations of the people listed.

Grizz

From what I have observed over the years, is that unless someone in the family in earlier generations had kept up with the family history it is pretty impossible, due to such things as changes in the spelling of a surname.

Example, my Dad and his brothers were convinced by one of their uncles, who was a Doctor in the late 1800's/early 1900's here in north Texas that the proper spelling of our name was Weems..

My Grandad on Dad's side of the family is buried in a small country cemetery north of Loving Texas and his tombstone and the one of Dad's oldest brother has it spelled Wems.

Supposedly that side of my family is originally from Scotland and one of the spelling from there is Wemyss or Weymiss.

The DNA testing that some sites offer leaves something to be desired.

My Aunt is an attorney in the Austin, Texas area. We are blood card carrying Choctaws. My Aunt is 1/4 Choctaw according to the Daws Rolls. Ancestry.com's DNA came back as less than 1% native American. She was pissed and did the 24 and Me DNA and it confirmed her ancestry as we know it. What's going on here?

The DNA test starts as a database compare of a base group. So, what/who is the base group?

How did anyone load the database with 100% surety that person "A" is 100% (fill-in-the-blank) ethnicity.