What do you know about your ancestors?

[TruiColours]

i dont know that much , all i know is my family came from Ireland in the 1700s

My mum’s family were (some still are) Romany gypsies - my grandfather settled when he returned from the war and married my grandfather.

My father’s family lived by the sea for several generations - coast guards, fishermen

@Footle, yes, maybe they did. It was an absolute mystery how he ended up there as he didn’t speak about it until he was dying. He was British born and raised in U.K. but with a German passport. He just upped sticks one day and the next thing my great grandmother heard was that he was in Terezin. He claims to have made it across Europe on foot with false papers, and to have come across some British troops in northern France, who got him back. He went back to Germany after the war because he wanted to help out. He brought back my Mum’s cousin who lived with them for a few years before going back to Germany. He was a bit of a Walter Mitty character so maybe he was on government business.

On my Maternal side , an older family relative has already done a family tree themselves . Researched back about 2-300 years.
Catholic Scottish family line.

Most relatives were domestic workers/ seamstress or manual workers ( men ).

Family line traces back to Ireland.

Have very little info on my Paternal side , other than back to my great grandmother who I have been told was a seamstress. I have her first name but don’t know any dates of birth or maiden names etc.
No contact with any Paternal grandparents so would be really hard to trace back.

I would be interested to learn more as paternal side of the family , although also Scottish , are completely different.
Dark olive skin / brown eyes etc so would love to investigate further.

Years ago dh and I did the Oxford (remote) ancestors thread, going way back in direct maternal or paternal lines.

My direct maternal ancestor is traced back to northern Greece 45,000 years ago. I share her with 11% of native Europeans. I also share her with the Cheddar Gorge Man of 9000 years ago, which was interesting.

Dh’s was SW France, a mere 20,000 years or so ago - a mere parvenu - and much more common, 25% ish IIRC.

However our paternal ancestor was the same - and shared with something like 40% of all native Europeans - he was a randy old goat!

Caribbean descendant here. My mums side can be traced to mainland South America, likely Venezuela. Also, I have an ancestor who was from a Native tribe for our island.

My paternal grandmother's ancestry has slavery and, likely, rape written all over my. She had a Scottish maiden name too. My grandfather is the son of Chinese economic migrants who travelled to the Caribbean.

One side were border reivers on the Northumbrian/ Scottish border.
The other side came from the cotton mills of Manchester.

I've gone back about 7 generations on ancestry and my ancestors are pretty mundane - everyone is from northern England, lots of miners, domestic servants, the odd schoolmaster or shopkeeper. Apart from a couple of children born out of wedlock (shock!), my only other notable relatives are a war hero who I already knew a lot about as my family are very proud, and someone who emigrated to New Zealand to drive stagecoaches.
I'd love to do an Ancestry DNA test at some point to see what else I can find.
I find it puts your own life into quite harsh perspective - I can just imagine my own life being described as 'mundane' by my distant descendants in 100 years time... not sure how I feel about that.

I have on mum’s side a chap who murdered his father (rest of family covered for him so he must have been unpopular) and a g-g-grandfather who exported the industrial revolution to Russia. Sadly the massive wealth he made disappeared in boom and bust situation combined with his son who literally threw money away!

Mine were farmers who became mill workers on both sides even though one lot is English and the other Scottish. It gets interesting in the early 20th century through well documented political misdemeanours! My great grandad was a suffragette...

I found it fascinating... I’m an Aussie and both of my parents were from very racist backgrounds. My paternal grandmother continued to evolve and educate herself and realised how wrong her upbringing was. (She was descended from the Sephardim line, but didn’t know - she thought they were French.) I have a horrible idea that the many generations of “merchants” living in the Caribbean must have been involved in the slave trade as well as spices and silks, unfortunately. My maternal grandmother was a rabid Catholic who hated Jews for “Killing Jesus” (she was not an educated person, but also not a nice one, either...). She remained hideously racist until her death (fortunately my parents were not). She was proud of her “German” concert pianist grey grandmother who I supposedly resemble. Turns out that she arrived in Australia via Germany, but had escaped the Russian Pogroms. Yep. Another Jew! (Ha!!!) Poor, highly-educated woman was basically catfishes by a drunken, country cop who had convinced someone else to write her letters. She ended up having eight kids to him in a two room hut in the Alpine Region, before he left her a widow during a period of terrible depression. She froze to death.... Very uplifting... I’m going to write a novel.

I nearly fell off my chair when the name Plantagenet came up in mine and I found out my many times Gt Grandfather was Edward III (yep had my Danny Dyer moment).

Other branches are miners, Flemish weavers, Irish Labourers and EastAnglian forge workers

It was an interesting look on my Scottish DH's face when he realised he'd married Longshank's Gt Grandaughter

I don't know anything beyond great great grandparents on either side. Lots of sheep farmers and the occasional domestic servant. All from roughly the same area.

They can't all be exciting I guess 😂

Love family history. Just wish I had been more interested when my grandparents were alive. One grandparent born overseas while great grandparents there for work. So much I now wish I could ask them.

One branch came over with the Huguenots in the 1660s. Another from Germany in the 1700s.

Most came from England/Ireland.

I have discovered that a great great uncle lived for a short time in the same town in Devon as I do now, despite his family being from Hertfordshire and mine from Essex, which I thought was an amazing coincidence.

No rich relatives discovered but I found that there was an attempted murder and suicide in fairly recent history.

Fascintating.

Both my Welsh and English lines were poor as church mice for as far back as I could trace - agricultural labourers first, then industrial in the 19th century. Nothing as fancy as a shopkeeper or even anyone who could read and write. And nobody forrin, which quite disappointed me. Nobody ever bothered to emigrate either. Am considering an Ancestry DNA test to try and find some interesting genes.
However, my research into the 19th century turned up some fascinating yet grim individual stories. Most notably, my gr-grandmother tragically died (and was found by my 8yr old great aunt), my gr-grandfather then abandoned his four kids and they were all taken into the local workhouse (in 1900). My grandfather spent four years there until he was 14 and was sent down the mines. The 19th century was one long trail of doom and tragedy for that line of the family.

What is the best sight to use to start researching it? And how do you find out the stories behind the names?

I have a copy of my maternal family tree, researched by a relative and given to me when they died, but I'd like to do my paternal side and also finish off the one on my maternal side as the work was interrupted, so far it goes back to 1620.

I've never researched any of the people in it, I only know about the ones my relative made notes about. There were a couple of WW1 deaths. A sad case of a father dying in a work accident, his 17yo son taking over the business, and then dying himself in a similar accident a few years later. There were photocopies of a newspaper article of that one from 1800-something. My DC's uncommon names are in the tree, something I wasn't aware if before naming them but was nice to see. A female relative from 1820 whose occupation was noted as "scholar" which must have been very unusual back then. They're mainly of English, Irish, and Scots with one or two Belgians and Germans thrown in along the way. The progression of surnames is interesting too, the Cravens became the Cowards within two generations, the Schnieders became the Tailors within one generation and within another couple they were Taylors and now neither Taylor or Coward has been a current name in the family for over a hundred years as our current surname (my maiden name) has dominated thanks to lots of boys being born and carrying it on. My own generation was huge - I'm one of 26 grandchildren on that side so the current generation is also fairly large (43 to date).

*sight = site

On my dads paternal line, I got back to the 1400s. We have visited the graves of several of my ancestors, as well as the places they lived and worked. Luckily, the main village they were for several hundred years hasn't really changed so we were able to go and see the homes and places they frequented like the pubs and schools. It was a strange feeling being there. We felt really at home even though we had never been there before.

I'm obsessive about family history. I've either shared stories on here under other names or in RL so they're a bit outing.
My family were mostly ag labs until the mid 19th century apart from my nan's family who were farmers and local 'gentry'. DH's family were ag labs apart from one line that quickly gets very aristocratic and entertaining.

On my Mum's side we're from Yorkshire, Northern Ireland and possibly Devon. On my Dad's side, as far as I know, we're from Yorkshire and West London.

On one side I've got back to the 1700s, they worked on farms in Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudbrightshire, lots of young deaths, kids born out of wedlock (which apparently wasn't as frowned upon in some communities as it's made out).
My great great great gran however lived until she was in her 80s, had brought up her own kids plus multiple grandchildren and great grandchildren whilst working the land.
On the other side I have great grandparents who were born in Ireland but I don't know where to start with finding out where in Ireland as I heard that many Irish parish records were destroyed.
I find it really interesting what you can discover about people and the life they lived.

My friend is a genetic counsellor. She said not to touch the DNA analysis from any of the ancestry sites because while you get all the ancestry data, they sell on the DNA & medical data to insurance companies. This probably won’t affect our generation too much, but it will affect our kids and grandkids. I was a bit “Okay, Mrs Tinfoil Hat, whatever... “ but my GP said she’s quite right. It’s all a bit sci-fi, but our future and potential health issues are already known by other people as a result of this shit.

My .mum is really into this and has been researching for years.
One of my lines is Welsh and can be traced back to a Welsh king (although it's so far back that any One with Welsh ancestry shares this lol)

A different more recent line someone who started a rebellion for workers' rights

Mostly very poor!

And Yes I really don't want to do the DNA ones, we have done quite well with just official records (althogh taken a LOT of work/connecting with researchers all over the world) for the reasons mentioned above

My maternal Greatx3 grandmother was Scottish and we've traced her family back to the same small area in Dumfries to about 1580.
My Great grandfather was Chilean but we were never clear on the whole story of who his family were. Turns out we have indigenous South American ancestry rather than Spanish as had been assumed.
My dad's side is quite boring. All Londoners and Essex folk back to the 1600s. However his/my surname is French and a known Norman family so there is more to be found. My mum's maiden name is Walloonian and the lesser branch of a landed family so again more digging to be done.

My husband is Jewish. Sadly the town his paternal great grandparents left has no records pre 1890 due to the synagogue burning down.