RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Keith Sherwood on Tuesday 14 June 05 19:07 BST (UK)
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Hi, Everyone,
It has just occurred to me that it really must be quite rare/ fortunate to be able to trace back and name all 32 of ones forbears, going back 5 generations. It's only recently that I have pushed backwards on certain lines (with a huge amount of help by fellow Rootschatters, I hasten to add), but because of a couple of illegitimate births in the family (two of my gt-grandparents) I don't suppose I'll ever know the exact truth on certain lines.
So, who is lucky enough to be able to exhibit a perfect set of 32 (almost said molars!) ancestors?
Sorry if this has already discussed, but just thought I'd ask. Not too much boasting, please, for we rely so much on the efforts of other kind souls, after all...
Keith,
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I would love to be able to.
I only have my maternal side to research so I fall at the first hurdle. I have started my step dad's tree - he's been my dad since I was 3 so it's of more interest anyway.
Can I include my step dad's family?
On my maternal side of the 16 I have 14.
2 will always be missing :'( unless the 1911 census undoes the illegitimacy which I doubt. If I'm allowed my gggrandad's step father then I have a full quota but as my gggrandfather never changed his name to the new dad's then I'd think he was never adopted as such.
Actually it doesn't really help including my step dad as I only have 6 of his 16.
Some bits still to do then ;D
P ;D
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Hi i have 14 out of the 16 g-g-g grandads and 12 g-g-g grandmas( but only 8 known maiden names). So 26 in all out of what i see as for me a possible 28.
Two wives names left.
As my great grandad Wood seems to be illegitimate i think that is all the ones i will ever get!!.
Very annoying that the only line i get nowhere on is my family name :(
Kev.
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I am very lucky, on my husbands side I have all 16 GGG Grandparents ! On my side of the family I have 15 and a first name. This has taken many years many many visits to Archives etc......................but the satisfaction. I am now well on the way to a complete next generation ( only 16 missing!)
all the best
Jan
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I have 30 - all on my father's side are present and correct (I hope!) but my mother has one illegitimacy - I know the name of the person my Gt-gt-gt-grandmother married but I don't know if he was the father of her child born 2 years earlier, and never will - and I have one missing wife - my Gt-gt grandmother was born in about 1853 so her birth certificate should be available to give me her mother's name, but I can't find it, and she's not on any censuses until after her marriage.
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;D In answer to your question........ Not me, that's for sure, so far... 2...
And to think I got my first cert from those huge volumes
in Somerset House 40 years ago. ::)
Great fun and friends along the way though.
;D Lesanne. ;D
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wow thats amazing well done to you all
iv got many years of researching left ,but it just shows me never to give up hope
best wishes angie
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Well, I know I can't.
I know 15 ggg grandfathers, 8 ggg grandmothers (full names), 3 ggg grandmothers first names only, which leaves me six to find. One is Irish, so left that one for the moment. All bar one of the others married pre 1837 and in areas that are miles away from their birth-place. Good fun though. ;)
Nell
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Still missing 5 of them ... but one's father to an illegitimate daughter, while the other 4 are from Scotland.
I obviously have enough of their blood in me to prevent me paying to access ScotlandsPeople! ;)
Paul
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Yes, Paul,
It's amazing how quickly even a basic £6 worth of units disappears on that Scottish website, however good it is.
Anyway, some really impressive tallies on here already...
I got really fed up with an (ex)-friend of mine recently who I proudly showed my mother's side of the family tree to, back to the 16th C, etc. He took a brief look at it and declared that it was "not a proper family tree". He apparently understood that a "proper" tree could only be ALL an individual's ancestors, as in parents; grandparents; gt-grandparents, and so on, branching and doubling in numbers the further back you go.
When I told him how difficult this was, even going just 4 generations back - tracing every line - he was unimpressed...
Keith
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"not a proper family tree".
philistine ;D ;D
anyway re original question the 4th hurdle gets me on two of the lines ...... now if there was only an easy way to find a farmer in Ireland with the name I want ::)
(just a pity it appears to be quite common and in at least 7 different counties)
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i see you have jones in your tree
me 2
now thats even trickier than farmer
havnt got past my grandfather with that one yet
and now im a jones god help my kids when they re trace my family ;D lots of laughs
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I have all 16 on my Dad's side. Partly due to Scottish clannishness, which meant that most of the Camerons were there when my cousins and I started looking, and partly our own work.
Only 12 on Mum's side. Two other cousins have done a great job with half of those, which include a convict and the daughter of a convict, and a mysterious sea captain who apparently sailed off and disappeared - we don't have a lot about him. The gaps are in the other half which I am researching, and having trouble with female lines. I have not been able to determine which Eleanor Cook born in Northumberland one of my gggrandmothers is, and have not found parents for another gggrandmother. Also missing some maiden names in that ggggrandmother area, we have the people but not who they were before they married.
Soldiering on in hope!
Marie
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:D After my first reply here, I thought about trying
the Turner's of Berkshire, just one more time.
L.D.S. site fed in Tom and
:o Flew past 3x Gt and on to 8x Gt.
Just got to verify it all now.
:) Lesanne. :)
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On my father's side, I have just one maiden name to discover - it's proving remarkably elusive. On the maternal side, I have all the christian names, but am missing five maiden names. In the next generation, I have 16 on the paternal side but only three on the maternal side.
I look at it as a challenge. If my children were replying to this post, they could claim a full set. In my family, this particular generation was pretty much all born and married before 1837 and I imagine that the reason this particular generation was chosen is that this is the same for many of the other posters. If certificates are available, life is so much easier.
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Without boasting, I can say I have 25 of a possible 32 gt-gt-gt grandparents (max I can find will be 30 due to one illegitimate gt-gt grandmother!).
My main acievement is that I have 7 out of as possible 8 gt-gt-gt-gt grandparents on my mother's maternal grandfather's side and in total I have 16 out of 64 gt-gt-gt-gt grandparents.
I am also only 35 so I have lots of time when I retire later in life - hopefully not too "later" - to get back further!
My children could boast that they have a complete set on my side of gt-gt-gt grandparents but struggling on hubbies side as they are from Ukraine!
Claudia
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I'm not there yet -
but I do have all 16 gg grandparents, 10 ggg grandparents (paternal) and 2 gggg grandparents.
margaret :)
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I've been very, very lucky and have all 32 Gx3 Grandparents and 60 of my Gx4 Grandparents. Only ones to "spoil" the set are the parents of my missing Biddles - John & Maria/Dinah nee McDermott in Birkenhead.
Still soldiering on! :)
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My son can almost make this, he is just missing the maiden name of one great-great-great-grandmother, but otherwise it's a perfect set.
I can get a perfect set, my husband is missing the lady with no maiden name, and a branch of his HUGHES family I can't get out of NZ!
John or maybe Robert HUGHES who married Susan JONES - the only information I have is that they were from England - wow that's a biiiiigg help! ::)
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I currently have -
All my grandparents
All my great-grandparents
10 great great grandparents
14 great great great grandparents
and some branches there are a few other people i know of, but most of these i only know either the first name of or i dont know their spouse.
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It's always great to hear how others are getting on. I am very lucky in that I have stumbled across some reasonably well documented rellies but to put my achievements into perspective, I still have 5020 10xg grandparents to trace and 10023 11xg grandparents to go! I suspect the number will not have declined appreciably by the time I shuffle off this mortal coil, but it won't stop me hunting.
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I have 15 of the 16 possible g.g. grandparents with very little chance of getting number 16 due to an illegitimacy, and I have 20 g.g.g. grandparents. Still enough to find to keep me busy for a while!
Jill
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I have all 16 of my G G Grandparents, due to my Grandmothers helping me draw a family tree for my school home work when I was about eleven years old.
So I guess I had a bit of a head start with my research. I am very pleased I kept that homework!
;D
Angelfish
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I have 16/16 but only 27/32 - one missing guy due to illegitimacy; one unconfirmed maiden name, and (aarrrghhh) the rest are DAVIES & THOMAS in South Wales. I'm only persisting with the missing maiden name, the others are now filed in the "forget it" drawer!
Considering it took me more than 15 years to pin down one very elusive gt grandmother, whose birth was unregistered, and who gave a new version of her name and date of birth each time she was asked, I'm pleased to have got this far. Now that more records are online, filling in that branch has been much easier than in the ole days of packed lunches and what my mother used to refer to as "reading dirty books"!
Marion in Wiltshire
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Welcome to Rootschat, Marion! I like the idea of a 'Forget It' drawer. Wish they'd let me have one at work! :)
Paul
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I've 30 of 32, missing two wives :'(
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Hi, Marion,
Can't say that I've ever heard that expression:"Reading dirty books" as applied to family history. What did she mean, exactly...? Dirty, as in well-thumbed, I imagine.
Anyway, welcome, I think you're going to find time spent on the website a lot of fun...(almost better than one's nose in a dirty - sorry, I meant "good" - book).
Very best wishes,
Keith
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Hi Keith (and Paul)
Thanks for the welcome.
In the days when we started tracing our FH, a fair old while ago, you travelled to see the original records, still embellished with the parish dust and mouse droppings! A session with the books left you feeling very grimy!
Marion
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FWIW, I just found out that our parish records (until about 20 years ago) were stored in cardboard boxes under the stage at the village hall. Not the best conditions to preserve 400 year old documents! At least the activity spawned by our hobby is preserving many records that might otherwise have been lost.
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In the 1950's a Bristol firm of solicitors who had been working with the CATER family for a very long time deposited 27 cardboard boxes of family documents into Bristol archives. In the past we've been lucky enough to actually look through these boxes and found all sorts of gems including MI transcriptions for graves that no longer exist, family letters, draft documents and maps relating to the family, but since they have never been indexed, they are no longer available for viewing. At least they are well cared for now, and we did get a lot of information from them, but its sad to think that anything we missed in the rush will remain tantalisingly out of reach!
Marion
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I have 28 out of 32, but I am missing the maiden names of 3 women. Not too bad, but I have a feeling the other few will remain a mystery for years to come. :-\
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Hi all,
I am only researching my maternal line, but I have 24 of 32 of my mum's gt gt gt grandparents (so 24 of my 64 gt gt gt gt grandparents), of which I am quite proud :) and have a few names of their parents as well! So for some branches of the family I have managed to show details of 7 generations before me (back to around 1800).
The stumbling block is with her paternal grandmother, as she was an orphan from Ireland, so I have no idea how to even start researching her line. It leaves a big empty gap in the pedigree chart just now :(
Cheers,
Clare
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All 32 ggg grandparents? Hell no! First obstacle - my grandad was illegitimate, second one, my g grandma was also.
I only have 6 definites with full names. It's always fun to have more to find though. All are on the paternal side except one couple.
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I had to double check all my names - I swap so much between my family and my husbands family I manage to confuse myself quite often. For my husband I have the 32 (only one Irish family and fortunately others have researched this family).
For my family, I am missing 4 - My father's Irish roots. Given that my gg grandfather swaps his birthplace from Dublin to Cork and back again, and his wife's information generates a different birth year on every document where her age is given, this is my strongest brick wall. Then again, one has to leave something for the descendants to research.
Trish
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I am lucky enough to have all 32 (but am slightly cheating as my grandparents on my mothers side were second cousins so I really only have a possible 30 to get with one set duplicated). I also benefited on my mothers side (dutch) from a thoroughly researched and documented tree to start with (only the female lines to fill in and the research to check) and one male leg of my father's right back (1700), so for the next layer I am even luckier to have 54/64 (or 50/60 if I exclude the duplicates!.).
On my husband's side, I also am lucky enough to have 31/32 with an Irish connection causing a missing mother... Again I have been very lucky in that they weren't hiding from me and lived in places that kept good records and had families that supplied correct information (scottish and australian records - useful death certificates!!), but the next layer is much much scarcer and has a lot more Irish lines which I have yet to crack.
Jenny
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I'd be much happier, though, if I had a set of perfect gt-gt-gt grandparents! :)
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Another thing I find quite uncanny, is how the years-gap between each generation seems to have a habit of evening itself through the generations. Many of my gt-gt-gt-grandparents seem to be born within a very few years of one another, I have a John in 1796, a William in 1796, a Mary in 1797, a William in 1793, a Susan in 1795, a Henry in 1796 and a Mary Ann in 1795 - no others later than 1811. For my generation of my family, therefore, 1796 was quite a good year for future gt-gt-gt-grandfathers to be born. If only they'd known...!
Keith
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On my mum's side I have 15 out of 16 ... the missing one has the surname Carter, so it's a bit tricky!
On my dad's side, 9/16 plus one with no surname. It's my grandmother's actor/actress parents where everything goes haywire!
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I was getting a bit excited because I thought this thread referred to the 16 Gt Gt Grandparents - which I can say I have now found all of them, and am incredibly pleased ;D ;D
As far as my Gt Gt Gt Granparents go I've only found 13 so only another 19 to find :( That's going to take me ages :(
Jan
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This thread made me go and update my computer files and did i get a shock!!!
I have 14 of the 16 on my mother's side .... missing the parents of her great grandmother ...
I have 8 out of 16 on my father's side and i think a couple of those are a lost cause at the moment .... need to find a couple of surnames ...
Jaki
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I thought I was doing SO well...
I have all 16 of my gg grandparents, though missing two maiden names. 20 of the previous generation have been logged, though 3 maiden names are missing. Two illegitimate gg grandmothers are likely to block the way, and the couple from Ireland will cause difficulty.
But then I already know, with the help of others who struggled before me, the names of three ggggggg grandparents!
I know my relationship to over 500 different people! And I only started this quest at Christmas!
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Great going, Andrew! You ARE doing well!
cheers
Paul
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I have 28 of 32 gr gr gr grandparents.
Have just found Census records for my long lost gr gr grandparents so I am hoping that will lead me to the remaining 4.
I have 20 of 64 of the next generation (my gr gr gr gr grandparents), I think this will be harder to find.
Cheers,
Darren M Flowers
Wyrallah NSW
Australia
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Darren
As one Aussie to another - you have done superbly well, getting such a number of people in the next generation back (4xggrandparents) when you are here and they were there!
I am wondering how you did it. I have a mere handful of that next generation back, because parish records are uninformative (as to fathers' names, etc, let alone mothers!) and so difficult to access here, except on LDS microfilms.
Marie
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Hi Marie,
I gleaned the majority of my information off the IGI with a few looks at the original parish records, but only for 4 of the lines.
I only have one of the 20 of my 4xgr grandparents born before 1800 which I think has made it easier. Census records have helped as have other people who ahve helped me via rootsweb groups.
Have a nice day,
Darren
very wet Wyrallah (5 mins drive from Lismore)
NSW Australia
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Received a marriage certificate in the mail yesterday - I now have the name of my 1st gx3 grandfather (maternal side) - taking the total to 11 8)
Darren, I hope you survived the floods in Lismore.
margaret :)
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I'm not doing too badly
On my mums side I have all my grandparents, great grand parents.
I'm missing 1 gr gr grand mother (flipping Margaret Williams!)
10 gr gr gr grandparents
15 gr gr gr gr grandparents
13 gr gr gr gr gr grandparents
10 gr gr gr gr gr gr grandparents
and 1 of each 7xgr, 8xgr and 9xgr (I think!)
As for my dad's side, I'm lost! I do have back to 1575 and (I think) my 11x grandparents.
Still a couple of maiden names to find in that lot and many more to fill the gaps.
Thank Goodness I'm not back to uni until October!
Good Luck and Happy Hunting everyone
Love
Legs
xxxxx
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I can, and I'm well on the way to finding all the gggg's after 15 years of searching.
This may collapse though if I ever find my Grandmother's birth.............Elizabeth Violet Everett.............If I find that she was adopted then her line will go out of the window!!!
Sue
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I'm missing 1 gr gr grand mother (flipping Margaret Williams!)
Legs,
I'm here!
It's weird seeing my name in your post :o
My namesake is obviously causing you grief - I promise I will ensure that my research is thorough so my descendents won't have similar problems. ;)
Hope you find her soon,
margaret :)
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Hi Margaret,
How bizarre! I wish you were her and then I could stop banging my head against this brick wall! She married Edward Hubbard Middlesbrough in 1923, had 3 children (1923, 1925 and 1927) but as far as I'm concerned she has neither been born or died! Her marriage cert states her father was William Williams but theres no occupation listed as he had died. Searching for Margaret and William Williams in the UK is like searching for a needle in a haystack as I'm not even sure where she was born.
Oh well, I'll carry on searching!
Love
Legs
xxxx
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Legs,
I'll keep a look out for her in my genealogical travels.
hugs
margaret :)
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I wish!! Although i don't think i am doing to badly!
4/4 Grandparents
8/8 G grandparents (1 illigit)
14/15 GG Grandparents + 1-Maiden name (1 illigit)
26/29 GGG Grandparents + 1-Miden Name
23/58 GGG Grandparents + 1-Maiden Name
I have been at it about 18months! So at this rate... Although it has slowed down one hell of a lot! i am now building a One name study for the Vacher/ Vatcher name to keep myself busy in those times when the info drys up! D x
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Margaret-yes we were safe, high up but cut from town by the three routes in. However, late this afternoon we managed to get into town via a lot of water still on the road but just passable to buy some much needed supplies
Your research name of GIDDEY caught my attention as I once worked with an Alan Giddey at the Post Office in Griffith, NSW-very unusual name.
Bye for now,
Darren
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The best I can do is on my direct line of FLOWERS.
William FLOWERS bap 1575 Gedney, Lincolnshire is my 10xgreat grandfather.
Bye,
Darren
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Your research name of GIDDEY caught my attention as I once worked with an Alan Giddey at the Post Office in Griffith, NSW-very unusual name.
Haven't started on the Giddey's yet - mine are from Newcastle NSW - before that - who knows?
Glad you're dry!
margaret :)