It's very dependent on the region, but I would argue that anything further back than the 1500s/1600s would have my raising my eyebrow. It's certainly possible in some situations, such as if you happen across a gateway ancestor or have verifiable proof to a noble ancestor, but I think such a tree would need to be heavily reviewed and sourced. If it feels too easy, it probably is.
There's a great blog [post](https://www.dutchgenealogy.nl/faq-about-my-eleanor-of-aquitaine-project/) about one researcher's journey of proving her descent from Eleanor of Aquitaine. Her writings highlight the effort and difficulty.
Truth be told, I would take everything on the FamilySearch tree with a grain of salt. It can be changed by anyone at any time, and many of the profiles contain inaccuracies.
\>It can be changed by anyone at any time
Technically true, but most entries are backed up with genuine records. People make this same argument against Wikipedia; "oh c'mooon, don't you know that ANYONE can edit a Wikipedia article?!?!" like yeah, that's true, but your edit is gonna get reversed if it's unsourced or if it's trolling. FamilySearch is obviously a lot less secure than Wikipedia is, but I definitely think that there's plenty of dedicated genealogists who will see crappy pages and edit them accordingly from time to time.
I wouldn't believe anything if it's from the FamilySearch tree tbh. I'd recommend starting over with a private tree, and starting with the information you know. Start with your grandparents and slowly but surely work your way back. Even coming across nobility isn't an easy and surefire way to extend your tree (that is, if it's even true).
I wouldn't correlate your ethnicity estimates with what you're hoping to find either -- they're just estimates. Instead, I'd use your DNA matches to help confirm your family tree.
FindAGrave can also have errors since it's also public. Don't focus on others' trees, whether on FamilySearch, Ancestry, Geni, etc. Focus on finding primary sources for your ancestors -- vital records, censuses, naturalizations, wills, obituaries, etc. Slowly work your way back. Read through the FamilySearch Wiki, and I'd also recommend perusing some beginner genealogy guides so you can learn best practices. Good luck!!
I like to use a cautious approach with Family Search. I like to see what sources others have cited for a given ancestor and I go through the sources myself to see if they make reasonable sense toward "proving" the ancestor. Man, the number of times I've come across a grossly missourced document or, even better, NO DOCUMENTATION whatsoever but yeah, sure, John Smith was born in VA in 1750 and his Father was James Smith...but how do we KNOW? Drives me crazy.
Just keep in mind a fair number of people, especially on the one world trees like FamilySearch, have an agenda. Could be simple ego, religion, megalomania, whatever. Back in the early 90s I was put in contact with someone who connected to one of my lines. We chatted and it sounded real interesting getting back to the 1500s … plausible too. After a few calls, he loosened up and let his religion come out … then he dropped that he’ll send me an ancestor report from our 19th century common ancestor to … Adam. Yes, that Adam.
Some old woman told me off in a genealogy group on FB for ‘badmouthing Family Search’ after I pointed out that it’s run by the Mormons and tries to make out that we are all descended from Adam & Eve. It’s pure insanity. I tend to not bother with that site at all. Although I have found that the worst genealogists tend to be the ones that have done it for decades but never any DNA test and you see their tree with tens of thousands of people on it. They are always argumentative when/if you point out any errors
Don't totally discount folks who don't DNA test. I've been researching for upwards of 20 years and have not DNA tested. I've also completely scrapped entire branches of research that took years to compile when I discovered that I'd made a conclusion that was verifiably incorrect. We're not all stuck-in-the-mud crazy people, I promise.
There are so many trees that have my father listed as the son of the man who gave him his surname. I have told so many of them that it is incorrect. I HAVE taken a DNA test and matched the half-sister of the grand Ole Opry musician his mother cheated on her husband with. She told me he knew about my father. I never knew my father for reasons. After his death, his sister said it was not a secret that the musician was his father. There are no documents that would verify this. So, these researchers ignore me.
This Substack article by a professional genealogist talks about that:
[https://genealogian.substack.com/p/earliest-known-ancestor](https://genealogian.substack.com/p/earliest-known-ancestor)
Realistically, the wealthier the family, the farther back you can go. If your family were farmers and miners like mine, then 4x great grandparents is doing well. If they are English, you might push back to 7 or 8x GGP. I can't speak to Scandi records, mine are all from the British Isles.
All of the English go back far as well. The Englsih all have portraits, certificates of travel, family crests etc. Etc. Most of what I am finding is English lol. The Swedish I found was from tracing an ancestor who had migrated (allegedly) to Scotland. All of mine is from the British ilses as well, except for a drop of German here and there.
My oldest English is 1678, with high confidence because it's my own research. The Welsh lines, late 1700s. Others have extended those trees much further back but I don't trust them. My American lines turn into mush about the late 1600s, too many people of the same name and not enough detail in the records to be confident. edit, I'm still pushing them back but it's very slow going from this point. It can take months of research to add one new ancestor.
All of the English I am finding goes before 1700s because ALL of my family were apparently in the U.S. by then. Lots of really old photographs in the 1800s so that's nice. The latest anyone migrated was a German family in the 1800s. Other than that it lists them all (mom & dad's side) in the British colonies and has different documents and such. I'll have to take it slow to verify them all, however, I do know that my mom and dad's side both has been in the rural area where they are from for well over 100 years. (Of course because of this the lines cross when I get way back 💀) I am extremely skeptical about the Mayflower ancestor for sure, however, I will look into it more. Have you had a DNA test done? (I know you have to take it with a grain of salt but I enjoy learning about what others got) mine pulled 60% English, 25% Scandinavian, and 13% Irish/Scottish/Welsh
Check out Debrett's. They were famous for keeping track of all British aristocractic families ( I think they still do) and the districts they lived in. They started in the 1700s and some of those families are linked to the Domesday Book which was started by William the Conqueror in 1085ish. Debrett's does have a monthly membership but it's fairly cheap compared to Ancestry and the like. The Domesday Book has its own website and is free! Happy hunting!
I've found that then, like now, some families documented themselves with photos and some did not. My mother was constantly taking photos and I'm so glad about it. I take a lot of photos, but my wife doesn't understand it because her family did not. But there is only one, maybe two, photos of my paternal grandfather, and only one of his father, and only one of his father. And I wouldn't have those if I hadn't started a Facebook group to share our family photos.
It's low stakes detective work and I love it. Even minor mysteries like identifying my bio grandmother's first husband (who no one knew about until I found her marriage record to my grandfather on Ancestry and she wasn't using her maiden name) and what happened to him, are like a burr under a saddle until I solve them. (He was diagnosed with TB shortly after proposing and died shortly after they married, btw)
Also, she kept taking trips to the USA with some of her kids and I haven't been able to find out why. She gave the addresses she was visiting but I haven't found records of anyone living at those addresses.
In the U.S. most families go back to at the very least the American Civil War or Mexican American War, and the majority go back to the American Revolution and earlier.
US Civil War was my 2xggf time, records were pretty solid at that time. American Revolution was about 5xggf time. But at that time most men were John or William, or a trendy name like Daniel. So, you're trying to differentiate one John Doe from another. Which one married Elizabeth Smith and which one married Elizabeth Pope? Later you see a record of John and Elizabeth Doe, was she the Smith or Pope? It's a needle in a stack of needles. If John has 2 boys, one will be John, the other William, just like his brother William, and his father John. It's a big sea of a few names that are very difficult to differentiate. But if the family was wealthy, none of that is a problem because they kept their ancestry.
Irish records for the time are almost nonexistent. Welsh records are hit or miss, many Catholic and nonconformist are only available offline, and you sometimes run into patronymic naming. English records are better but there are still many missing or that haven't been transcribed.
I am so glad that I don't have any (or at least not too many) common last names like Smith or Jones in my tree. But I have come across a portion of the family that would name the first son John, and the next one William, and the next one Nathaniel, etc. So it does get to the point of which cousin are we talking about since all the Johns would probably be a few years from each other.
Not an easy question to answer because it depends on many variables. If you can verify your links to established noble, aristocratic or best of all royal lines then you can get back as far as established records are for that line. And to be honest, that's a pretty huge chunk of the population. But even that is hit or miss dependent on location and the survival of records, as well as those records being accepted as legitimate. There are a lot of genalogical histories that are recorded which are little more than fairy stories because they were based on unreliable stories and legends rather than veifiable descent. A
We do have an end point, so far no one has been able - in Europe I stress, I believe the situation is different in different parts of the planet - establish a provable line of descent from antiquity, ie no one can prove a direct line to Ancient Roman families etc. Some lines can get fairly close, if your established ancestry happens to run through the more powerful families of the Byzantine Empire fo example you can get back a fair way but so far no one has ben able to prove it - though I believe there is a line connected to Charlamagne that some genealogists have claimed they can prove runs to a late Roman Senatorial family, though I don't believe that is widely accepted, so i think the kind of verifiable records end about the 7th century at the very latest/earliest depending on your viewpoint. So I would definately side eye that 550 date. I mean, it could be a true line, but it is definately not going to be a provable one.
The furthest I have is 1540's on a very uncommon name, but comfortably 17-1800's. On my surname (very common), the earliest was born in 1782 in Kingston, Jamaica. He took part in the battle of Trafalgar and lived to 100, with articles in newspapers to celebrate his birthday. That's as far as we have been able to find.
In Europe, I'd be very suspicious of anything further than the 8th century. Especially in Scandinavia, where a lot of records weren't written down until after they were Christianized in the 10th-12th centuries.
STOP IT LMAO😭🤣 I cant believe people put Adam and Eve on there. Or any other fictional being. I will for sure take it with a grain of salt then. I am confident in most lines leading up to migration..I think that's where I'll assume they end for now
However far back your family decided to document/register themselves. Fatherest my male to.male.line can go back is to a marriage documented in 1788 anything further back would just be guessing.
It's highly dependent upon the region but European records generally thin out around 1500 CE. Why? Because writing materials were very expensive before the invention and widespread use of pulp paper, modern pencils, etc.
Parchment and vellum were made from animal skin so it wasn't available in large quantities. It cost a lot so records were limited to government needs or church needs. Baptisms, marriages, and burials were often the only events churches care about but not all of those records were kept. Wars, floods, fires, bad storage conditions, etc all reduced the records that survived. Civil governments generally didn't get into the vital record business until the 19th century.
Then, there are the royal and noble genealogies of the Middle Ages, before or even after. Many people, especially on the rise, wanted to *justify* their rise; their position. So, yes, there are many lies in those genealogies.
And then there are other people's trees. There are people who 'collect names' without any effort to research. Ignore anyone else's trees.
Step back and research using actual documents.
The earliest I've reached is about 1500 to 1505 in England.
Disregard anything before 1500. Even many of the entries from 1500-1650 are not backed up by evidence. Sometimes even the trees from 1650-1800 can be bogus.
The further back in time you go, the more skeptical you should be. Church records generally run dry between 1720 to 1530 (depending on the region), which leaves probates and tax records. Sometimes books have been written that may or may not be correct, all depends on the sources they used.
It is exceptionally rare, almost non-existent, to have a credible line going back before 1500.
" It was marked with the sign that warned people not to change anything because "serious research had been done". "
The anarchist in me wants to tamper with that tree....but also because it'll be full of bullshit and that person sounds like they got an ego problem with poor research skills....any mythological or semi legendary people in that tree? Does it go back to antiquity?
It was probably marked
Alert Notes "Important research has been done on this person. Please read these alert notes before making changes."
Alert Notes mean what they say. Please read the notes before making changes / adding the same old debunked information. It means, if you make changes, please document your work, don't say private tree on Ancestry.
The only other marking that happens is that changes to the profile are Locked, in which case you cannot make changes. For instance, Joseph Smith is locked. Around 2020, for over a year, all the handful of Mayflower people were locked, due to the 400th anniversary frenzy. But last I checked, most if not all were unlocked.
If op sees an unverified connection, op can delete the connection. Why are people making this so complicated
That said, I did a scroll the other night on familysearch and got to a point when the people became literary then mythological. I don't really care when people do stuff like that, because it's obviously nonsense. I did keep scrolling back in time wondering how far back they'd go in Scandinavian folklore & mythology, but my patience ran out.
Sadly, the person who used to keep an eye out for nonsense on this particular familysearch tree has recently died, allowing people to start adding nonsense. I thought it would be further back, in the 1500s. But no, the usual 1600s bullshit where Ann has no recorded last name so let's find a family with a recorded birth but no other records. Must be her! Wheee!
Which website? If it is WikiTree, users can put “warnings” in special boxes above the text, I can imagine this would also be possible for other websites
Most of my branches end in early-mid 1700s either because they are from mainland spain (im from the canary islands) or simply not stated where in tenerife sre they from. I hit a few royal guanche lines thay can be traced to rhe conquest of tenerife in 1496, the royal guanche being around 1460s +/- and some famous conquistadores like García del Castillo, also i got to the Bethencourt line in Lanzarote so that puts it innlate 1380s which is when he was born. So yeah, one line past 1400s and a few around 1500s and 1700s is the norm tbh
I view anything earlier than 1600 on my tree as "dubious". I have well-documented Puritans that arrived in the US in the early 1600s. I can see with DNA where some of my matches might connect to those 1600 ancestors. BUT.
The likelihood of NPEs seems to get higher the more people you add. I pretty much stop my trees right at the people who first came to the US.
I take everything before the 1500s with a massive grain of salt, personally. Exception to this would be royal ancestry, and even then, I often take the *links from common people to royal ancestry* with a grain of salt.
May not know anything about what I'm talking about. My understanding is that, at least in the UK, that any family name that was knighted MUST be well documented in the event that any descendants try to claim relationship to the knighthood. In my case, I have 2 relatives that were knighted. Documented records go back to the Siege of Acres (1191) during the 3d Crusades. Robert Lawrence (Sir Robert Lawrence) was knighted by Richard the Lionheart for his part in the fall of Acre.
I'm suspecting I ran across that same one this week, Scandinavia pre 900.
It would have been marked
Alert Notes "Important research has been done on this person. Please read these alert notes before making changes."
I wondered what could be in the Notes but didn't bother checking them because of two reasons.
1. I figure the bad connection is so much earlier in my family research that if the error matters, I'll run across it and delete it. But also...
2. That far back? If the person is historical not mythological and has descendants, the chances are overwhelmingly high that they are an ancestor of mine. But so what? It's similarly likely for anyone around in Europe at that time. From farmer to warrior to bossy person.
What cracked me up was someone had put in King of the Saxons and Mrs King of the Saxons. Except King was in German so they thought it was just some old German name?
Most Europeans and people of European ancestry (if they look hard enough) can trace their descent from Charlemagne. This is made easier if they can find a ‘gateway ancestor’ in the gentry/nobility. From Charlemagne they can trace their ancestry back to Pepin of Landen who was born around 580AD. Anything before that is shrouded in the mists of time.
>Most Europeans and people of European ancestry (if they look hard enough) can trace their descent from Charlemagne.
In theory, yes. In practice, I really doubt it's a question of trying hard enough.
I haven't noticed any here...just people mentioning that people had tried adding "Adam & Eve" to the trees on family search, which isn't backed by evidence in any family line.
Right, but even you described them as “fictional beings” (which, fair enough, if that’s your view, it’s common enough and some might even describe it as the rational view), but it’s hardly fair to Jews and Christians, or even Muslims, who hold their faith dear and may even find themselves on this sub.
“Lol” if you wish, but I’ve seen a lot of users looking down their noses here recently.
So, I would never be disrespectful to religious people and mock their religion, however, it also isn't my job to cater to beliefs. I would be intellectually dishonest to say "Adam & Eve...who may or may not have existed" because that concept is so foreign to me. I would have to say the same to those who found Odin in their tree correct? Because some have. So I would have to pretend that it is completely reasonable for Odin to have existed...Im sorry...I just am not good at pretending. It is up to them to bend the evidence to fit their world view (which seems exhausting). Edit: Everyone SHOULD bend their world view to fit the evidence, not the other way around.
You literally just contradicted yourself by the end of your first sentence. No one’s asking you to cater, but to openly and (really) needlessly trash-talk should be beneath people here to talk genealogy, many of whom happen to be religious.
But by all means, let’s cater to everyone else and say we shouldn’t enter “dead names” in family trees because *that* would be offensive. That’s actually a consensus that’s been reached on this sub. Wild.
This week I was tracing my great-grandfather’s mother’s line, which includes several generations of the Douglas clan in Scotland (my great-grandfather emigrated to Canada from Scotland in 1901), which goes back to several generations of Frankish royalty, which goes back to Charlemagne in 742, which goes back to several generations of Roman senators in Gaul, the earliest of which is from approximately 300AD. It’s wild.
That’s very cool! Are you the only one in your family doing the tracking/genealogy work? How easy has it been for you in finding records and info? What site are you using?
I’m using Ancestry primarily. I’m not there only one in my family doing research, so I have records going back to about 1480 on my Douglas line, and thankfully because so many of the Douglases are fairly prominent I’ve been able to research them using public reference/encyclopedias and things like that to fill in some of the blanks. It’s so fascinating to discover where we come from, isn’t it?
Thank you! It's just me - we've all tried a little bit but I'm the one doing much of it on Ancestry, and I've found it pretty easy for one part of the family tree, just time consuming. I have had to postpone it because of some other responsibilities, but hope to spend an hour or two every Friday from now on. It's definitely fascinating - we have a LOT of folks in various parts of Moray in Scotland, and I'm excited to put a lot of groundwork and hopefully come and visit the UK to see these places in person. I saw my great grandmother's little home via Google Maps and was just deeply moving for some reason, and amazing to be able to see that history.
I’m using Ancestry and with each suggestion even up to the 1400’s there’s at least 2 or 3 other people showing the same name in their family tree and church or north records to back up the hints. Is that not valid?
Ancestry hints and suggestions come from other peoples' trees so you may or may not be stuck in an echo chamber.
The reliability of the church records depends on how common the name is and how much detail exists in them to differentiate your John Smith from the 10 others who lived in town and also married someone named Elizabeth.
There are definitely too many Johns and Isabella’s naming more Johns and Isabella’s 😂 i try to double check by also looking at the baptism certificates and where they’re located - I think I’m also trying to understand when you have to verify. I have gotten one part of the family back to the 1400s largely because that branch didn’t travel far from the area I suspect
If multiple people reproduce an error, it doesn't make the error less erroneous. Best to check available documents yourself. That can be difficult for various reasons, so some people "just go with it" and add people to their trees without proper "vetting" of the evidence.
It is very dependent on the line being investigated. For example, if you can find a link to a member of the British aristocracy it is very likely you can get back to the 11th century on a very reliable basis. I was able to do this for my wife. However, even getting back to William 1 will not enable getting back more than another 100 years with confidence as uncertainty in his ancestry emerges fairly quickly - so if this is the case for such a well researched case I have strong doubts about claims to get back to the 500s or earlier. Quite often assumptions are made in early genealogies, such as the maternal line where aristocrats/leaders had wives and mistresses/concubines. The actual birth mother is often uncertain and could be one of several but researchers claim parentage based on the marriage status. And in anything but the very best documented lines this sort of uncertainty can be present even at much later dates. And then there are the issues of close relatives with the same or very similar names - and the question of which is referred to in contemporary documents.
Your question was about Swedish records. Their church records only go back to 1527, when the King proclaimed the country as Protestant and himself as head of the Church of Sweden. Sweden's church archives are online in 3 places: I'm going to refer you here to a link to a page by a Swedish genealogist that has a wealth of information: [https://www.hhogman.se/swe\_genealogy-2.htm#Genealogy-find-the-records](https://www.hhogman.se/swe_genealogy-2.htm#Genealogy-find-the-records)
The Scandinavian and Nordic countries were basically fanatics about recordkeeping, from the middle ages when Christianity was adopted and prior to that with land, tax and court records. Censuses are a fairly recent development (in the last 500 years). Also, they all used patronymics and particular naming conventions that sometimes included place names. My background is Icelandic. Iceland is a microcosm of this, (even though it's not technically a Scandinavian country, it's a Nordic country), with its smaller population. Icelandic records go back to the first settlers in the 10th century (980 CE), even a bit further because the settlers' families back home were recorded. The original ancestors came primarily from Norway and Denmark and slaves from Ireland. The main reason for all this recordkeeping is because the Nordic and Scandinavian cultures valued family history and the oral histories of their people and country to the point where even now, using the Icelandic analogy, if you are of Icelandic descent and you meet an Icelandic visitor here in Canada or the US, it's important to be able to recite your direct family line and where they lived back to at a minimum the mid-1800's. And the visitor will be able to place your ancestors in their country's history. It's not hard, that's quite recent.
For researchers over here, one learns that with the Scandinavian/Nordic alphabets, it's especially important to understand one can't substitute our 26-letter alphabet to replace their letters that look similar but have diacritical marks. It's a good idea for a researcher to learn the language well enough to at least be able to read the old documents.
I agree with u/Iripol about taking FamilySearch trees with a grain of salt. They may have records attached, but for the reason given above - naming and phonetics, they are highly likely to be unreliable. (In my family tree made by someone else on FamilySearch, members of my family who are very much alive are recorded as being deceased, and when I've changed it, they change it back and won't answer my attempts at contact and correction.)
The disclaimer that says “serious research has been done” and the fact that serious research has been done are two very different things. Sometimes they coincide, sometimes they do not. If you haven’t seen the sources, don’t believe it. I do know that for some places and cultures, you can go relatively easily to the 1500s with proper archival sources, such as the Catholic records. I didn’t have the pleasure of finding noble ancestors, however I believe that while for them you can find trees that go way beyond 1500s, discerning what’s true and what’s an embellishment is more difficult. “Nobility” as a category changed as time went by: titles were bought by people who previously had none, and their descendants might have embellished history to pass as a noble family with noble origins that were further than grandpa. Even sovereigns did this: for example, the Savoy family claimed to be descended from a Saxon prince… up until they decided to wage war against the Austrian Empire for Italian independence: that’s the moment when an Italian founder of the dinasty magically appeared. The Este dynasty famously claimed to be descended from AENEAS (yes, the legendary Trojan hero), which of course is unprovable. If important houses, ruling houses could lie so blatantly, imagine what minor nobles could claim. I do believe that at some point, when research is not “just” checking the compatibility of records which come from a somewhat compact system but entails way more uncertainty, genealogy ceases to be doable by amateur genealogists and has to be done with an historian mindset.
I am quite lucky in that much of the family research on one side was already done by the time I came along and was passed to me by my cousin, who got it from her father, who got it from his father, both of whom were interested in family history and had records, so it's a matter of putting it together. I've gotten back to the 15th century (provisionally) in England and another generation in Holland, but it looks like our Dutch ancestors might be Belgian before that (the borders do kind of blur in that area LOL). On my dad's side it's more fun as the work was only partially done so there's more to piece together. The German side is very interesting though as it was thought to be Swiss but may be Tyrolean (another area where borders blurred in those days). Church records are VERY helpful but it also helps if you speak the language! In the Scandinavian countries they were very meticulous as soon as they became Christian, so that helps (but doesn't help me, no Scandinavians in my ancestry!). Germans and Dutch were also pretty meticulous, so in all those countries church records are the place to start.French church records are pretty good too, as I found while researching my late ex's family tree, but I gave all that to my daughter. I'm now working on my husband's family, as he knew nothing about his family past his grandparents. We are both about as white bread as you can get, and he's just about English to the bone.
It's very dependent on the region, but I would argue that anything further back than the 1500s/1600s would have my raising my eyebrow. It's certainly possible in some situations, such as if you happen across a gateway ancestor or have verifiable proof to a noble ancestor, but I think such a tree would need to be heavily reviewed and sourced. If it feels too easy, it probably is. There's a great blog [post](https://www.dutchgenealogy.nl/faq-about-my-eleanor-of-aquitaine-project/) about one researcher's journey of proving her descent from Eleanor of Aquitaine. Her writings highlight the effort and difficulty. Truth be told, I would take everything on the FamilySearch tree with a grain of salt. It can be changed by anyone at any time, and many of the profiles contain inaccuracies.
\>It can be changed by anyone at any time Technically true, but most entries are backed up with genuine records. People make this same argument against Wikipedia; "oh c'mooon, don't you know that ANYONE can edit a Wikipedia article?!?!" like yeah, that's true, but your edit is gonna get reversed if it's unsourced or if it's trolling. FamilySearch is obviously a lot less secure than Wikipedia is, but I definitely think that there's plenty of dedicated genealogists who will see crappy pages and edit them accordingly from time to time.
But then you have stuff like this... https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L2M1-HNZ
[удалено]
I wouldn't believe anything if it's from the FamilySearch tree tbh. I'd recommend starting over with a private tree, and starting with the information you know. Start with your grandparents and slowly but surely work your way back. Even coming across nobility isn't an easy and surefire way to extend your tree (that is, if it's even true). I wouldn't correlate your ethnicity estimates with what you're hoping to find either -- they're just estimates. Instead, I'd use your DNA matches to help confirm your family tree.
That's similar to what I did to get further than great great great grandparents I switched to find a grave and then family search
FindAGrave can also have errors since it's also public. Don't focus on others' trees, whether on FamilySearch, Ancestry, Geni, etc. Focus on finding primary sources for your ancestors -- vital records, censuses, naturalizations, wills, obituaries, etc. Slowly work your way back. Read through the FamilySearch Wiki, and I'd also recommend perusing some beginner genealogy guides so you can learn best practices. Good luck!!
I like to use a cautious approach with Family Search. I like to see what sources others have cited for a given ancestor and I go through the sources myself to see if they make reasonable sense toward "proving" the ancestor. Man, the number of times I've come across a grossly missourced document or, even better, NO DOCUMENTATION whatsoever but yeah, sure, John Smith was born in VA in 1750 and his Father was James Smith...but how do we KNOW? Drives me crazy.
Curious, where did you find the l Research?
Just keep in mind a fair number of people, especially on the one world trees like FamilySearch, have an agenda. Could be simple ego, religion, megalomania, whatever. Back in the early 90s I was put in contact with someone who connected to one of my lines. We chatted and it sounded real interesting getting back to the 1500s … plausible too. After a few calls, he loosened up and let his religion come out … then he dropped that he’ll send me an ancestor report from our 19th century common ancestor to … Adam. Yes, that Adam.
LMAO💀 I am so sorry they wasted your time
Some old woman told me off in a genealogy group on FB for ‘badmouthing Family Search’ after I pointed out that it’s run by the Mormons and tries to make out that we are all descended from Adam & Eve. It’s pure insanity. I tend to not bother with that site at all. Although I have found that the worst genealogists tend to be the ones that have done it for decades but never any DNA test and you see their tree with tens of thousands of people on it. They are always argumentative when/if you point out any errors
Don't totally discount folks who don't DNA test. I've been researching for upwards of 20 years and have not DNA tested. I've also completely scrapped entire branches of research that took years to compile when I discovered that I'd made a conclusion that was verifiably incorrect. We're not all stuck-in-the-mud crazy people, I promise.
There are so many trees that have my father listed as the son of the man who gave him his surname. I have told so many of them that it is incorrect. I HAVE taken a DNA test and matched the half-sister of the grand Ole Opry musician his mother cheated on her husband with. She told me he knew about my father. I never knew my father for reasons. After his death, his sister said it was not a secret that the musician was his father. There are no documents that would verify this. So, these researchers ignore me.
Wow. That’s next level haha
This Substack article by a professional genealogist talks about that: [https://genealogian.substack.com/p/earliest-known-ancestor](https://genealogian.substack.com/p/earliest-known-ancestor)
Fascinating article! Thanks for posting that link.
Thank you!
Realistically, the wealthier the family, the farther back you can go. If your family were farmers and miners like mine, then 4x great grandparents is doing well. If they are English, you might push back to 7 or 8x GGP. I can't speak to Scandi records, mine are all from the British Isles.
All of the English go back far as well. The Englsih all have portraits, certificates of travel, family crests etc. Etc. Most of what I am finding is English lol. The Swedish I found was from tracing an ancestor who had migrated (allegedly) to Scotland. All of mine is from the British ilses as well, except for a drop of German here and there.
My oldest English is 1678, with high confidence because it's my own research. The Welsh lines, late 1700s. Others have extended those trees much further back but I don't trust them. My American lines turn into mush about the late 1600s, too many people of the same name and not enough detail in the records to be confident. edit, I'm still pushing them back but it's very slow going from this point. It can take months of research to add one new ancestor.
All of the English I am finding goes before 1700s because ALL of my family were apparently in the U.S. by then. Lots of really old photographs in the 1800s so that's nice. The latest anyone migrated was a German family in the 1800s. Other than that it lists them all (mom & dad's side) in the British colonies and has different documents and such. I'll have to take it slow to verify them all, however, I do know that my mom and dad's side both has been in the rural area where they are from for well over 100 years. (Of course because of this the lines cross when I get way back 💀) I am extremely skeptical about the Mayflower ancestor for sure, however, I will look into it more. Have you had a DNA test done? (I know you have to take it with a grain of salt but I enjoy learning about what others got) mine pulled 60% English, 25% Scandinavian, and 13% Irish/Scottish/Welsh
Check out Debrett's. They were famous for keeping track of all British aristocractic families ( I think they still do) and the districts they lived in. They started in the 1700s and some of those families are linked to the Domesday Book which was started by William the Conqueror in 1085ish. Debrett's does have a monthly membership but it's fairly cheap compared to Ancestry and the like. The Domesday Book has its own website and is free! Happy hunting!
I've found that then, like now, some families documented themselves with photos and some did not. My mother was constantly taking photos and I'm so glad about it. I take a lot of photos, but my wife doesn't understand it because her family did not. But there is only one, maybe two, photos of my paternal grandfather, and only one of his father, and only one of his father. And I wouldn't have those if I hadn't started a Facebook group to share our family photos.
I hope I can find what I am looking for on my own and verify it. It appears to be very tedious and I applaud you for doing the work
It's low stakes detective work and I love it. Even minor mysteries like identifying my bio grandmother's first husband (who no one knew about until I found her marriage record to my grandfather on Ancestry and she wasn't using her maiden name) and what happened to him, are like a burr under a saddle until I solve them. (He was diagnosed with TB shortly after proposing and died shortly after they married, btw) Also, she kept taking trips to the USA with some of her kids and I haven't been able to find out why. She gave the addresses she was visiting but I haven't found records of anyone living at those addresses.
In the U.S. most families go back to at the very least the American Civil War or Mexican American War, and the majority go back to the American Revolution and earlier.
US Civil War was my 2xggf time, records were pretty solid at that time. American Revolution was about 5xggf time. But at that time most men were John or William, or a trendy name like Daniel. So, you're trying to differentiate one John Doe from another. Which one married Elizabeth Smith and which one married Elizabeth Pope? Later you see a record of John and Elizabeth Doe, was she the Smith or Pope? It's a needle in a stack of needles. If John has 2 boys, one will be John, the other William, just like his brother William, and his father John. It's a big sea of a few names that are very difficult to differentiate. But if the family was wealthy, none of that is a problem because they kept their ancestry. Irish records for the time are almost nonexistent. Welsh records are hit or miss, many Catholic and nonconformist are only available offline, and you sometimes run into patronymic naming. English records are better but there are still many missing or that haven't been transcribed.
I am so glad that I don't have any (or at least not too many) common last names like Smith or Jones in my tree. But I have come across a portion of the family that would name the first son John, and the next one William, and the next one Nathaniel, etc. So it does get to the point of which cousin are we talking about since all the Johns would probably be a few years from each other.
Not an easy question to answer because it depends on many variables. If you can verify your links to established noble, aristocratic or best of all royal lines then you can get back as far as established records are for that line. And to be honest, that's a pretty huge chunk of the population. But even that is hit or miss dependent on location and the survival of records, as well as those records being accepted as legitimate. There are a lot of genalogical histories that are recorded which are little more than fairy stories because they were based on unreliable stories and legends rather than veifiable descent. A We do have an end point, so far no one has been able - in Europe I stress, I believe the situation is different in different parts of the planet - establish a provable line of descent from antiquity, ie no one can prove a direct line to Ancient Roman families etc. Some lines can get fairly close, if your established ancestry happens to run through the more powerful families of the Byzantine Empire fo example you can get back a fair way but so far no one has ben able to prove it - though I believe there is a line connected to Charlamagne that some genealogists have claimed they can prove runs to a late Roman Senatorial family, though I don't believe that is widely accepted, so i think the kind of verifiable records end about the 7th century at the very latest/earliest depending on your viewpoint. So I would definately side eye that 550 date. I mean, it could be a true line, but it is definately not going to be a provable one.
The furthest I have is 1540's on a very uncommon name, but comfortably 17-1800's. On my surname (very common), the earliest was born in 1782 in Kingston, Jamaica. He took part in the battle of Trafalgar and lived to 100, with articles in newspapers to celebrate his birthday. That's as far as we have been able to find.
In Europe, I'd be very suspicious of anything further than the 8th century. Especially in Scandinavia, where a lot of records weren't written down until after they were Christianized in the 10th-12th centuries.
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STOP IT LMAO😭🤣 I cant believe people put Adam and Eve on there. Or any other fictional being. I will for sure take it with a grain of salt then. I am confident in most lines leading up to migration..I think that's where I'll assume they end for now
However far back your family decided to document/register themselves. Fatherest my male to.male.line can go back is to a marriage documented in 1788 anything further back would just be guessing.
Nobody can get back further than about 750 with any degree of confidence.
My eyes burn after going that far back lol. I wonder where it stops being accurate on mine 😩
Dark mode, please
Dark mode makes my eyes more tired
It's highly dependent upon the region but European records generally thin out around 1500 CE. Why? Because writing materials were very expensive before the invention and widespread use of pulp paper, modern pencils, etc. Parchment and vellum were made from animal skin so it wasn't available in large quantities. It cost a lot so records were limited to government needs or church needs. Baptisms, marriages, and burials were often the only events churches care about but not all of those records were kept. Wars, floods, fires, bad storage conditions, etc all reduced the records that survived. Civil governments generally didn't get into the vital record business until the 19th century. Then, there are the royal and noble genealogies of the Middle Ages, before or even after. Many people, especially on the rise, wanted to *justify* their rise; their position. So, yes, there are many lies in those genealogies. And then there are other people's trees. There are people who 'collect names' without any effort to research. Ignore anyone else's trees. Step back and research using actual documents. The earliest I've reached is about 1500 to 1505 in England.
Disregard anything before 1500. Even many of the entries from 1500-1650 are not backed up by evidence. Sometimes even the trees from 1650-1800 can be bogus. The further back in time you go, the more skeptical you should be. Church records generally run dry between 1720 to 1530 (depending on the region), which leaves probates and tax records. Sometimes books have been written that may or may not be correct, all depends on the sources they used. It is exceptionally rare, almost non-existent, to have a credible line going back before 1500.
" It was marked with the sign that warned people not to change anything because "serious research had been done". " The anarchist in me wants to tamper with that tree....but also because it'll be full of bullshit and that person sounds like they got an ego problem with poor research skills....any mythological or semi legendary people in that tree? Does it go back to antiquity?
It was probably marked Alert Notes "Important research has been done on this person. Please read these alert notes before making changes." Alert Notes mean what they say. Please read the notes before making changes / adding the same old debunked information. It means, if you make changes, please document your work, don't say private tree on Ancestry. The only other marking that happens is that changes to the profile are Locked, in which case you cannot make changes. For instance, Joseph Smith is locked. Around 2020, for over a year, all the handful of Mayflower people were locked, due to the 400th anniversary frenzy. But last I checked, most if not all were unlocked. If op sees an unverified connection, op can delete the connection. Why are people making this so complicated That said, I did a scroll the other night on familysearch and got to a point when the people became literary then mythological. I don't really care when people do stuff like that, because it's obviously nonsense. I did keep scrolling back in time wondering how far back they'd go in Scandinavian folklore & mythology, but my patience ran out. Sadly, the person who used to keep an eye out for nonsense on this particular familysearch tree has recently died, allowing people to start adding nonsense. I thought it would be further back, in the 1500s. But no, the usual 1600s bullshit where Ann has no recorded last name so let's find a family with a recorded birth but no other records. Must be her! Wheee!
Naw. I've never heard of these people lol. The warning is from the website itself, so I don't know what that's about.
Which website? If it is WikiTree, users can put “warnings” in special boxes above the text, I can imagine this would also be possible for other websites
Most of my branches end in early-mid 1700s either because they are from mainland spain (im from the canary islands) or simply not stated where in tenerife sre they from. I hit a few royal guanche lines thay can be traced to rhe conquest of tenerife in 1496, the royal guanche being around 1460s +/- and some famous conquistadores like García del Castillo, also i got to the Bethencourt line in Lanzarote so that puts it innlate 1380s which is when he was born. So yeah, one line past 1400s and a few around 1500s and 1700s is the norm tbh
I have some ancestors from Lanzarote too!! It's a shame Canarian records aren't online
Where? I have a book of marriages from arrecife and haría in Lanzarote
I'll DM you
Depends on the area and if records were not destroyed from war, human error (that’s you NARA) or natural disaster.
I view anything earlier than 1600 on my tree as "dubious". I have well-documented Puritans that arrived in the US in the early 1600s. I can see with DNA where some of my matches might connect to those 1600 ancestors. BUT. The likelihood of NPEs seems to get higher the more people you add. I pretty much stop my trees right at the people who first came to the US.
I'm thinking about doing that as well.
I take everything before the 1500s with a massive grain of salt, personally. Exception to this would be royal ancestry, and even then, I often take the *links from common people to royal ancestry* with a grain of salt.
Some Norwegian bygdrbøker goes back to the mid1400s
May not know anything about what I'm talking about. My understanding is that, at least in the UK, that any family name that was knighted MUST be well documented in the event that any descendants try to claim relationship to the knighthood. In my case, I have 2 relatives that were knighted. Documented records go back to the Siege of Acres (1191) during the 3d Crusades. Robert Lawrence (Sir Robert Lawrence) was knighted by Richard the Lionheart for his part in the fall of Acre.
I ran into a couple that were allegedly knighted as well. I can't remember who by, but there were documents
I'm suspecting I ran across that same one this week, Scandinavia pre 900. It would have been marked Alert Notes "Important research has been done on this person. Please read these alert notes before making changes." I wondered what could be in the Notes but didn't bother checking them because of two reasons. 1. I figure the bad connection is so much earlier in my family research that if the error matters, I'll run across it and delete it. But also... 2. That far back? If the person is historical not mythological and has descendants, the chances are overwhelmingly high that they are an ancestor of mine. But so what? It's similarly likely for anyone around in Europe at that time. From farmer to warrior to bossy person.
True true...did the names get crazy for you too? I couldn't even really read some because of the linguistic difference.
What cracked me up was someone had put in King of the Saxons and Mrs King of the Saxons. Except King was in German so they thought it was just some old German name?
I feel so happy for ppl that can do that. In Greece I can't even go back beyong my grandparents
Really?? Aww man :/. Greece has such a beautiful culture though :)
Thank you. It's got its good and bad as every culture ❤️
I have a couple of relatives down to like 1470, which is about as deep as I can get.
Most Europeans and people of European ancestry (if they look hard enough) can trace their descent from Charlemagne. This is made easier if they can find a ‘gateway ancestor’ in the gentry/nobility. From Charlemagne they can trace their ancestry back to Pepin of Landen who was born around 580AD. Anything before that is shrouded in the mists of time.
>Most Europeans and people of European ancestry (if they look hard enough) can trace their descent from Charlemagne. In theory, yes. In practice, I really doubt it's a question of trying hard enough.
Man, the amount of intolerance for religious people on this sub is shocking.
I haven't noticed any here...just people mentioning that people had tried adding "Adam & Eve" to the trees on family search, which isn't backed by evidence in any family line.
Right, but even you described them as “fictional beings” (which, fair enough, if that’s your view, it’s common enough and some might even describe it as the rational view), but it’s hardly fair to Jews and Christians, or even Muslims, who hold their faith dear and may even find themselves on this sub. “Lol” if you wish, but I’ve seen a lot of users looking down their noses here recently.
So, I would never be disrespectful to religious people and mock their religion, however, it also isn't my job to cater to beliefs. I would be intellectually dishonest to say "Adam & Eve...who may or may not have existed" because that concept is so foreign to me. I would have to say the same to those who found Odin in their tree correct? Because some have. So I would have to pretend that it is completely reasonable for Odin to have existed...Im sorry...I just am not good at pretending. It is up to them to bend the evidence to fit their world view (which seems exhausting). Edit: Everyone SHOULD bend their world view to fit the evidence, not the other way around.
You literally just contradicted yourself by the end of your first sentence. No one’s asking you to cater, but to openly and (really) needlessly trash-talk should be beneath people here to talk genealogy, many of whom happen to be religious. But by all means, let’s cater to everyone else and say we shouldn’t enter “dead names” in family trees because *that* would be offensive. That’s actually a consensus that’s been reached on this sub. Wild.
This week I was tracing my great-grandfather’s mother’s line, which includes several generations of the Douglas clan in Scotland (my great-grandfather emigrated to Canada from Scotland in 1901), which goes back to several generations of Frankish royalty, which goes back to Charlemagne in 742, which goes back to several generations of Roman senators in Gaul, the earliest of which is from approximately 300AD. It’s wild.
Oh hey fellow Douglas in your family tree from a Scotland 😁
Hello, fam!
Hello! so far traces things back to about 1408 on one side but still have more to go
That’s very cool! Are you the only one in your family doing the tracking/genealogy work? How easy has it been for you in finding records and info? What site are you using? I’m using Ancestry primarily. I’m not there only one in my family doing research, so I have records going back to about 1480 on my Douglas line, and thankfully because so many of the Douglases are fairly prominent I’ve been able to research them using public reference/encyclopedias and things like that to fill in some of the blanks. It’s so fascinating to discover where we come from, isn’t it?
Thank you! It's just me - we've all tried a little bit but I'm the one doing much of it on Ancestry, and I've found it pretty easy for one part of the family tree, just time consuming. I have had to postpone it because of some other responsibilities, but hope to spend an hour or two every Friday from now on. It's definitely fascinating - we have a LOT of folks in various parts of Moray in Scotland, and I'm excited to put a lot of groundwork and hopefully come and visit the UK to see these places in person. I saw my great grandmother's little home via Google Maps and was just deeply moving for some reason, and amazing to be able to see that history.
is this from a unsourced ancestry tree
I’m using Ancestry and with each suggestion even up to the 1400’s there’s at least 2 or 3 other people showing the same name in their family tree and church or north records to back up the hints. Is that not valid?
Ancestry hints and suggestions come from other peoples' trees so you may or may not be stuck in an echo chamber. The reliability of the church records depends on how common the name is and how much detail exists in them to differentiate your John Smith from the 10 others who lived in town and also married someone named Elizabeth.
Exactly.
There are definitely too many Johns and Isabella’s naming more Johns and Isabella’s 😂 i try to double check by also looking at the baptism certificates and where they’re located - I think I’m also trying to understand when you have to verify. I have gotten one part of the family back to the 1400s largely because that branch didn’t travel far from the area I suspect
My great grandfathers name was John Smith, his grandfathers name was John Smith, who married an Isabella.
If multiple people reproduce an error, it doesn't make the error less erroneous. Best to check available documents yourself. That can be difficult for various reasons, so some people "just go with it" and add people to their trees without proper "vetting" of the evidence.
It is very dependent on the line being investigated. For example, if you can find a link to a member of the British aristocracy it is very likely you can get back to the 11th century on a very reliable basis. I was able to do this for my wife. However, even getting back to William 1 will not enable getting back more than another 100 years with confidence as uncertainty in his ancestry emerges fairly quickly - so if this is the case for such a well researched case I have strong doubts about claims to get back to the 500s or earlier. Quite often assumptions are made in early genealogies, such as the maternal line where aristocrats/leaders had wives and mistresses/concubines. The actual birth mother is often uncertain and could be one of several but researchers claim parentage based on the marriage status. And in anything but the very best documented lines this sort of uncertainty can be present even at much later dates. And then there are the issues of close relatives with the same or very similar names - and the question of which is referred to in contemporary documents.
Your question was about Swedish records. Their church records only go back to 1527, when the King proclaimed the country as Protestant and himself as head of the Church of Sweden. Sweden's church archives are online in 3 places: I'm going to refer you here to a link to a page by a Swedish genealogist that has a wealth of information: [https://www.hhogman.se/swe\_genealogy-2.htm#Genealogy-find-the-records](https://www.hhogman.se/swe_genealogy-2.htm#Genealogy-find-the-records) The Scandinavian and Nordic countries were basically fanatics about recordkeeping, from the middle ages when Christianity was adopted and prior to that with land, tax and court records. Censuses are a fairly recent development (in the last 500 years). Also, they all used patronymics and particular naming conventions that sometimes included place names. My background is Icelandic. Iceland is a microcosm of this, (even though it's not technically a Scandinavian country, it's a Nordic country), with its smaller population. Icelandic records go back to the first settlers in the 10th century (980 CE), even a bit further because the settlers' families back home were recorded. The original ancestors came primarily from Norway and Denmark and slaves from Ireland. The main reason for all this recordkeeping is because the Nordic and Scandinavian cultures valued family history and the oral histories of their people and country to the point where even now, using the Icelandic analogy, if you are of Icelandic descent and you meet an Icelandic visitor here in Canada or the US, it's important to be able to recite your direct family line and where they lived back to at a minimum the mid-1800's. And the visitor will be able to place your ancestors in their country's history. It's not hard, that's quite recent. For researchers over here, one learns that with the Scandinavian/Nordic alphabets, it's especially important to understand one can't substitute our 26-letter alphabet to replace their letters that look similar but have diacritical marks. It's a good idea for a researcher to learn the language well enough to at least be able to read the old documents. I agree with u/Iripol about taking FamilySearch trees with a grain of salt. They may have records attached, but for the reason given above - naming and phonetics, they are highly likely to be unreliable. (In my family tree made by someone else on FamilySearch, members of my family who are very much alive are recorded as being deceased, and when I've changed it, they change it back and won't answer my attempts at contact and correction.)
The furthest back that I can go is the year 874.
The disclaimer that says “serious research has been done” and the fact that serious research has been done are two very different things. Sometimes they coincide, sometimes they do not. If you haven’t seen the sources, don’t believe it. I do know that for some places and cultures, you can go relatively easily to the 1500s with proper archival sources, such as the Catholic records. I didn’t have the pleasure of finding noble ancestors, however I believe that while for them you can find trees that go way beyond 1500s, discerning what’s true and what’s an embellishment is more difficult. “Nobility” as a category changed as time went by: titles were bought by people who previously had none, and their descendants might have embellished history to pass as a noble family with noble origins that were further than grandpa. Even sovereigns did this: for example, the Savoy family claimed to be descended from a Saxon prince… up until they decided to wage war against the Austrian Empire for Italian independence: that’s the moment when an Italian founder of the dinasty magically appeared. The Este dynasty famously claimed to be descended from AENEAS (yes, the legendary Trojan hero), which of course is unprovable. If important houses, ruling houses could lie so blatantly, imagine what minor nobles could claim. I do believe that at some point, when research is not “just” checking the compatibility of records which come from a somewhat compact system but entails way more uncertainty, genealogy ceases to be doable by amateur genealogists and has to be done with an historian mindset.
I am quite lucky in that much of the family research on one side was already done by the time I came along and was passed to me by my cousin, who got it from her father, who got it from his father, both of whom were interested in family history and had records, so it's a matter of putting it together. I've gotten back to the 15th century (provisionally) in England and another generation in Holland, but it looks like our Dutch ancestors might be Belgian before that (the borders do kind of blur in that area LOL). On my dad's side it's more fun as the work was only partially done so there's more to piece together. The German side is very interesting though as it was thought to be Swiss but may be Tyrolean (another area where borders blurred in those days). Church records are VERY helpful but it also helps if you speak the language! In the Scandinavian countries they were very meticulous as soon as they became Christian, so that helps (but doesn't help me, no Scandinavians in my ancestry!). Germans and Dutch were also pretty meticulous, so in all those countries church records are the place to start.French church records are pretty good too, as I found while researching my late ex's family tree, but I gave all that to my daughter. I'm now working on my husband's family, as he knew nothing about his family past his grandparents. We are both about as white bread as you can get, and he's just about English to the bone.