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Genealogy - How far back in time can you trace your family?

  • Most of my work is around historical records and my clients typically are able to trace back up to 4-5 generations (some even 7!). I am in a awe of such work. How far back in time can you track your family? I do very poorly, myself. 3 generations and that's it.

  • When I was a child, my maternal grandmother had a possibly dubious genealogist trace her Scottish family back multiple generations. On my Father’s side, unfortunately all relatives older than my English-descended grandparents are mere mythical figures to me.


    It’s a real pity that passing down family information has been far less a priority in the New World than in Europe.

  • i can trace my ancestor until 1865, not more in the past.

    perhaps I need to investigate more,, but at the time my ancestors came from the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetian and the register of my earlier ancestors are in the churches of the small towns where they married and baptized.

    The only thing that i can assure that we were better under the Austrian empira than being under present Italy.

    of coursem that depends on the region where your ancerstors were.

  • I've never really tried to be honest. However I used to love listening to my grandmother (mother's mother) tell stories about her side of the family going back generations. How accurate her stories were I do not know.

    Her tales about one of her relations caught my attention the most....her Uncle Guy. Seems he came to Argentina to ''build the railways''. I'd like to find out what happened to him.

  • It's only recently that I discovered my grandad served in the first world war and I found a picture of him in uniform.

    We don't know what he did during that war, but later he opened a grocery shop in the Welsh mining valleys and some of the time we all lived behind the shop with a coal fire and baths in a tin bathtub.

    He used to give credit to poor families during rationing in WW2, was a presbyterian lay preacher, loved funerals and told us that alcohol was the work of the devil, although he never said no to a gift of a bottle of sherry at Christmas. he was certainly a real character.


  • @Bombonera , you are correct. This client was able to trace back his GGGGGF's BC dated 1771.


    I think he probably went back further for genealogical research, since on the BC are noted the parents' names. He could easily trace their MC. Of course, these endeavors cost a lot of money and time.


    An acquired relative of my husband, whose family came from Ireland, actually had all her older ancestors on myheritage.com. I think they went back to late 1500.

    My husband had to severe the connection because there were like 2500 people in his extended family due solely to these acquired extended family of this aunt with Irish ancestry.


    Like Carlos , also my family comes from the territories that were once of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Unfortunately, there was also a lot of ethnic cleansing along the borders during and after WWII, so the church and civil registers are long gone. My aunt tried to find records locally in Germany, but there wasn't anything left.


    I did a DNA test for fun on MyHeritage, but unfortunately it didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know. The only fun fact is that I am about4% Ashkenazi, but who isn't among those of German ancestry?! And 22.5% of Iberian ancestry - I have no idea where that comes from!



    Fight the milanesa:!:

    Edited once, last by serafina: Merged a post created by serafina into this post. ().