Ancestry / Genealogy

darkgen said:
Not a very helpful comment but I have zero interest or care for my ancestors or history. They had their time; this is mine.
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Well quite.

I've come across several people who have discovered they are e.g. 1/100 part Inuit and subsequently become insufferable.

I'm having a dinner party and I'm going to serve putrified whale blubba to celebrate my ancestry.... <shudder/>
 
That Jekka Gal said:
Well quite.

I've come across several people who have discovered they are e.g. 1/100 part Inuit and subsequently become insufferable.

I'm having a dinner party and I'm going to serve putrified whale blubba to celebrate my ancestry.... <shudder/>
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I have genetic trauma. You pay me monies. *squeal*
 
One side were shipbuilding in Maryport with a shipyard on the banks of the River Eden in mainly timber built sailing ships . Another were predominantly farmers in Nottinghamshire. There are a sprinkling of clerics, a soldier or two and some quite interesting individuals.

One cleric married the widowed wife of a fellow vicar and when she died he found another widowed wife of a religious sort. This one bore him two daughters. After her death he retired to Norfolk living in a home for retired clergy. He was my great grandfather.

I am not doing the DNA gig though.
 
Why is it when this topic comes up that the claims of noble and royal blood come flying from all angles? Were all these royal men and women that promiscuous? What happened to the descendants of all the paupers?

I used the free trial of Ancestry.com and got back as far as the late 1700s into the early 1800s. Can’t find anything prior to that, but then a lot of records and history were put on a bonfire around that time.
 
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I signed up to Ancestry and found it really difficult to find records of close relatives, couldn't find the great grandfathers docs or service history for example. That was a few years ago, maybe it's came on a bit since then?
 
Started down this rabbit hole earlier today, have been using the hints on ancestry alongside the birth/death and marriage certs I can get access to on https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/ . Small fee but honestly feels worthwhile for my kid and her cousins to get this figured out after years of putting it off.

So far after a few hours I'm back to around 1780 although I'm going to stop there and just triple check as things get a bit dicey before 1850.

One thing though, holey moley they liked having a lot of kids a hundred years ago, half a dozen? NOT ENOUGH apparently.

I'll be doing a DNA test when it comes.
 
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Scuzi said:
Why is it when this topic comes up that the claims of noble and royal blood come flying from all angles? Were all these royal men and women that promiscuous? What happened to the descendants of all the paupers?

I used the free trial of Ancestry.com and got back as far as the late 1700s into the early 1800s. Can’t find anything prior to that, but then a lot of records and history were put on a bonfire around that time.
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It wasn't unusual for kings to father lots of children by various wives and mistresses. But really this pick your distant ancestor business is just a numbers game* and the further back you go the more it becomes a nonsense as you are picking one potential ancestor from hundreds or even thousands. Go far enough back and we're all related.

*You had two parents. They each had two parents of their own. All four of which had two parents. So just going back a couple of generations that's already eight direct ancestors to choose from...
 
Mr Badger said:
It wasn't unusual for kings to father lots of children by various wives and mistresses. But really this pick your distant ancestor business is just a numbers game* and the further back you go the more it becomes a nonsense as you are picking one potential ancestor from hundreds or even thousands. Go far enough back and we're all related.

*You had two parents. They each had two parents of their own. All four of which had two parents. So just going back a couple of generations that's already eight direct ancestors to choose from..
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Four or five generations us relatively simple to most families. Then there are censuses, armed forces records etc. Going back much further tends to need family records or additional sources, churches, factories, work houses etc.

An additional issue is that people did not universally spell very well, people often changed how their names were spelt or even changed it completely for many reasons.

I have a written family tree on one branch which was carried out by a great uncle in 1918 after the war however you are right, the further you go back the more branches you uncover.

If I was being totally indiscriminately I could claim a woman called Jone living in the fifteenth century, but I won't.
 
Hagar said:
Four or five generations us relatively simple to most families. Then there are censuses, armed forces records etc. Going back much further tends to need family records or additional sources, churches, factories, work houses etc.

An additional issue is that people did not universally spell very well, people often changed how their names were spelt or even changed it completely for many reasons.

I have a written family tree on one branch which was carried out by a great uncle in 1918 after the war however you are right, the further you go back the more branches you uncover.

If I was being totally indiscriminately I could claim a woman called Jone living in the fifteenth century, but I won't.
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You've also got the problem of the same names cropping up in the same families multiple times as they liked to carry on the fathers name. I've also had the same family having 2 children with the same name but several years apart, it was only sorted when I found the death registration for the first one. Going back before the 1840 census is a minefield.
 
^^noticed that too.

Oddly was having problems identifying a distant male relative, ended up getting both names on the register of births, both were him. His mum and his dad had independently registered his birth at different places. I can't explain why, but literally word for word it's the same with those present being different (mum on one, dad on the other) and written by different registrars. I guess it's possibly as the Dad was in the army at the time.

Quite fascinating finding little quirks like this when looking into it.
 
Raumarik said:
^^noticed that too.

Oddly was having problems identifying a distant male relative, ended up getting both names on the register of births, both were him. His mum and his dad had independently registered his birth at different places. I can't explain why, but literally word for word it's the same with those present being different (mum on one, dad on the other) and written by different registrars. I guess it's possibly as the Dad was in the army at the time.

Quite fascinating finding little quirks like this when looking into it.
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It is fascinating but also infuriating as you can go round in circles until you find the name was incorrectly copied out( I don't know how many times I've had to really look at the handwriting and then put a correction in).
 
Is it a myth or do forensics have access to the data on these websites and can tell that some close family member has similar dna and is a wrong un that they are looking for (asking for a friend)
 
tres said:
Has anyone delved into their ancestry using something like Ancestry.co.uk or Myheritage?

I signed up for a free trial. It's so addictive, and fascinating. I can't imagine how laborious and difficult it would have been prior to the digital age.
I've got about 1200 in my family tree. The earliest direct lineage is to a viking Jarl of Orkney in the 900s AD. Some french and Irish royalty.
My surname origin is from a bunch of London criminals who enjoyed lots of time in a workhouse.

Interested to hear what you've found.
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yeah my uncle is our family historian gone back 1000s of years. gone deep. its amazing who you find your related to and where you are from across the globe family wise.

do fancy doing some of the gene dna testing too. not tried it yet myself. also as we all seem to come from africa..this also makes being racist the stupidest thing on the planet when you look into genetics.we all are a mix basically.
 
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I wouldn't do any of the DNA tests as they are clearly just to harvest your DNA for the government. That said it's interesting to see your family history. My dad has looked into ours and on his side all seems to lead back to Germany in the 1700/1800's and unfortunately the records don't go back as far as some UK records. its amazing when people can trace back nearly 1000 years.
 
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