RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Inicky on Friday 16 January 09 11:44 GMT (UK)
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whats the earliest date a rootschatter has got to in there search
:)
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I have checked out parish registers back to the beginning ie early 1500s for my Pilbeam family in Sussex. Trouble is its all a bit sketchy and I came to a standstill, have deaths but no births and some family members that don't quite fit. But I did follow the line all the way back because they lived very close to where they started all the way through from my grandfather.
Kerry
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wow i thought 1744 was good but 1500 is amazing :)
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If only some of my other lines were as forthcoming ::) :)
Kerry
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Hi
I have gone back to c1600 in Kent, 1502 in Sussex and 1574 in Suffolk. I must admit that the Suffolk line is also what someone else did though. The first two I did all by myself.
Also on my own I have gone back to c1664 on my paternal line. In London I have traced my Huguenot ancestors back to the 1600s in France.
Ben
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I have a will of 1557 that mentions cousins whose names are known. As they were old enough to receive bequests that puts their births back to 1530ish with a common ancestor about 1500. It can be done.
Rog
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Hi
If you descend from nobility or royalty then the chances are that you can go back to the 1100s or even earlier. Before 1500 you have to rely on wills, court rolls, land taxes and parish records to try and trace working or middle calss ancestors.
Ben
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The earliest know birth year I have so far is my 13xG grandfather Richard Prestwich b1492.
I expect, if I went out and looked at Parish Registers, I could take that particular line even further back.
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Wow !! some of those dates are early. I thought I was going well with my family in Cheshire got back to 1720 but the brick wall has appeared. ::)
Nessy
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550 AD - but I found one of those Gatekeeper/Gateway ancestors. Earlier than that, the published trees go back 'to Brutus' but I'm not taking that on board ;D
Gadget
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Lets not get too carried away with Parish Registers. They did not start until 1538 and as far as I am aware no originals survive earlier than 1611 - you have to rely on transcripts.
That is not to say that other church records did not survive butyYou have to be lucky with other records.
Rog
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550 AD - but I found one of those Gatekeeper/Gateway ancestors. Earlier than that, the published trees go back 'to Brutus' but I'm not taking that on board ;D
Gadget
You're very lucky Gadget as I suppose a Gateway ancestor is one of the best ways of getting further back. I've not found one yet but I live in hope :)
Kerry
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What is a Gateway ancestor?
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What is a Gateway ancestor?
Someone who links you in to a 'noble' line where the trees are usually well established and independently verified. Mine was b. in 1670 and then it was easier, especially as it connected into the family of Owain Glyndwr.
Re the records needed - the National Library of Wales was the best source for my research on this line.
Gadget
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I have a copy of a very old family tree (compiled in 1856-7) which claims "the common ancestors both thought to have been born abt 1580" ... however I have doubts about that, since their first child wasn't born until 1633. Most of the other births etc., seem ridgy-didge, but I haven't added them to my tree yet, and probably won't, until I find corroborating evidence.
More research required, I think ... *sigh!*
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wow I thought that I was doing well getting back to 1746 and that 1746 ancestor is a bit dodgy hahaha whats the earliest someone from wales has gone?
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wow I thought that I was doing well getting back to 1746 and that 1746 ancestor is a bit dodgy hahaha whats the earliest someone from wales has gone?
See my earlier reply - 550 AD :)
But it's not really all that interesting without the stories. I'm more attached to some of the lines where I've only got back to the 1700s because I have some stories. It sometimes feels like so much 'breeding stock' when it's just lines.
Gadget
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you have gone back to 550AD on a welsh line?? wow thats really something, I mean getting back to 550AD is mindboggling itself but it I find it gets hard tracing welsh familys.
But I geuss thats the diffrence between a pro and an ameture ::)
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Duke - it's the Gateway ancestors that are the key. It's highly unlikely to get back much before 1600 if you don't find one of these. I was lucky.
If you are Welsh, you might well be descended from a Welsh Prince (one side of the blanket or the other), it's just getting the link. I was lucky.
Gadget
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wow I thought that I was doing well getting back to 1746 and that 1746 ancestor is a bit dodgy hahaha whats the earliest someone from wales has gone?
See my earlier reply - 550 AD :)
But it's not really all that interesting without the stories. I'm more attached to some of the lines where I've only got back to the 1700s because I have some stories. It sometimes feels like so much 'breeding stock' when it's just lines.
Gadget
I agree Gadget, as great as it must be getting back a long way to me the real bit that I enjoy is finding out enough information about my ancestors to find out who they were, not just bmds and census returns but the bits that fill in the story.
Kerry
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Mine is 1490, mind you that is only father,son and grandson etc.
And would you believe that I currently live only 1 mile away from earliest connection.
Brian
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It can get difficult before 1538. But as I said you can look through tax, probate and court rolls for before then.
Ben
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What website do you go on to see Tax, probate and court rolls?
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If it's Wales your best bet is :
http://isys.llgc.org.uk/
Also A2A might have something ( http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/advanced-search.aspx?tab=1 ) but it's best to do library/Archive research not rely on online records .
Gadget
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I managed to get my Gooch family back to 1670 in Norton Suffolk. Then I searched the parish registers on film at the LDS family history centre and found the family written as Googe back to 1540. I wrote down everyone I found and then tried to sort them out into trees. One branch has a son baptised in 1557 the son of William the younger so that is 2 more generations. Really I have not made a proper connection from the 1670 one but I suspect I know the line back. Can't prove it though
Sylviaann
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Although it must be amazing to get so far back...I have to agree with Gadget and Kerryb...I just lose interest, when I can't get the stories! I love knowing where they lived, what they worked etc...beyond the census's, I kind of lose interest, unless I can find more info on where they lived, say a village etc.
1603 is my earliest date, but like Ben, most of it was done by someone else...who I share an ancestor with :(...doesn't compare with finding things out yourself though!
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I agree with you all aswell the stories are what makes it intresting, But Ive just broke into the 17th century for the first time! yay! William Berridge born 1691 woo hoo! exciting stuff for me ;D
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lol....well done! it's kind of cool looking up the history of that time too...knowing who was King/Queen at the time, what laws applied...what the fashions were...etc etc...
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I'd add to that Daisy Loo, I recently got hold of a book about epidemic disease and mortality in SE England and that makes for fascinating reading, looking up the year gr gr gr gr grandad was born etc.
I also like to know what the weather was like when they were alive and there are various websites to help with that.
It's funny to think that when some of these really early ancestors were alive the Tudors were reigning, I learnt all about them in history at school (and not much else) ::)
Kerry
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*grin* what I remember about the Tudors from school, is that they used to throw their "liquid waste" out of the top windows that over hung the street!
Yes, it does bring the history alive...shame they don't teach genealogy at lower level schooling, it would help History come alive anyway!
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197 AD but like Gadget it relies on a gateway ancestor who links back to the mother of William the Conqueror.
David
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I didn't do the research, but it is possible that my 16 x g.grandfather has been found about 1360. What is definite is my 15 x g.grandfather was born c.1385. This particular line is detailed in the family genealogy in the British Library.
That is my paternal g.grandmother's line. Pity I can't find out anything about my paternal g.grandfather, not even when he was born.
Lizzie
ps. There are other Rootschatters who link into the same family tree.
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I have two gateway ancestors - one on my mother's side, and another on my father's. In both cases a quite randy, poor member of the landed classes got a local girl pregnant. ::)
Assides from these lines, the earliest I have is a 'Georg' Thom of Peterhead, who married in 1707. Can't find a birth unfortunately.
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If they weren't Irish, I could get back further ;D
No royalty or aristocracy, just warrior class.
Earliest mention of my name is AD 560 but there a whopping gap from then to 1841 ;D
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I have an ancestor who died in 1613, the same year his son was born - but I got that information from someone else.
Apart from that I have a Mary Hodgson b1669, father Thomas Hodgson, and Thomas Tattersfield b1633
Although going this far back they are just names on the tree found through the IGI.
Andrew
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I had forgotten that my gran's family the Harmers are reputed to come from a Robert de Haremere who was given land in Sussex by William the Conqueror in 1066.
He founded the Sussex Harmers, I say reputed because I believe the Harmer Family Association have records going back that far and we all link in.
The tree that I have worked on goes back to 1489 through parish registers, will and other records, some done by other researchers and then I have been double checking for my own records. :)
Kerry
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A distant family relative claims to have traced my maternal family back to the kings of Scotland (including Duncan, who was murdered by Macbeth) and English kings (Ethelred the Unready and Alfred the Great, etc.) going back to around 500 AD, but I don't know how she traced them. ???
Personally, I can't get back any earlier than the mid 1700s with either side of my family. An illegitimate ancestor with no father traceable has stymied me on the one side, a very common surname on the other.