whats the earliest date

[Daisy Loo]

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...

[kerryb]

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

[Daisy Loo]

*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!

[behindthefrogs]

197 AD but like Gadget it relies on a gateway ancestor who links back to the mother of William the Conqueror.

David

[LizzieW]

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.

[Windsor87]

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.

[geniecolgan]

If they weren't Irish, I could get back further
No royalty or aristocracy, just warrior class.

Earliest mention of my name is AD 560 but there a whopping gap from then to 1841 

[Comosus]

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

[kerryb]

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