How can people trace British Genealogy futher than 1500s?

[HistoricalGenealogy]

I've seen many family trees with people tracing back to the late 1000s in England?! Parish Records weren't even a thing before the 1530s; So how on earth can people trace back that far. I would love to trace my family tree that far.

Edit:

I've just realized that a person traced his genealogy back to the 800s!

[Deirdre784]

i have struggled to get back further than the late 1700s on all lines, and even some of those are really only 'maybe'

[Milliepede]

I struggle going beyond late 1700's too 

There must be a lot of blue blood around, those trees are better documented.

[Biggles50]

By finding a Gateway Ancestor, but even Church records can go back centuries and in my case to 1595.

I found a Sir in my family and then the mass of online records, family histories, the available information got me back centuries with single name line going back to the 1100’s.  All documented and all available, this family home is now a National Trust property.

We found records of my Wife’s family in Lancashire Archives, a complete history of the family including a tree that included her 4xGGP’s.  This gave her lineage all the way back beyond the Norman invasion to 480 and a Leutfried of Alammania.  In what is now England Ecberht of Wessex born c770 is the furthest back.

Whilst finding a Gateway can be satisfying after a while the lives and detail of more recent predecessors become far more important.

Good luck

[Knight-Sunderland]

Furthest record back I've manage to establish with confidence is a marriage between two ancestors that took place on 5 February 1555 in a village in Devon.

It completely depends on location and status as to how far back you can get. A good location can get you back to the 16th century even without any noble blood, any further back than that you pretty much need some nobility.

But I agree with Biggles, after a certain distance back, it can start to feel like you're essentially just researching history rather than ancestry. I don't have a gateway ancestor and sometimes I wish I did, whereas other times I am kind of glad I don't. I know for a fact I'd get addicted to tracing everyone and that would just dominate my life 

[coombs]

Wills meant I could trace a family back with confidence to North East Essex in the 1700s then further back to Colchester with one ancestor born there to a Suffolk father and a Lincolnshire mother. Her father owned land in Elston, Notts in the 1540s.

[KGarrad]

Earliest I have is a baptism in 1550.

[Rena]

You might find a surname that you recognise in this book:-

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/The_Royal_Families_of_England%2C_Scotland%2C_and_Wales_%28IA_royalfamiliesofe01burk_1%29.pdf

[coombs]

Also a Sussex ancestor in the 1600s was a minor knight and barrister who had land in Somerset. I descend from his 1586 born 2nd wife whose father was from Northern England and mother from Lincolnshire, and lived in Kings Lynn Norfolk for several years as he was a merchant there.