Surprising finds in your family tree

[Berahthraban]

When I was in high school we all had to make a project work. I decided to do a project work about my family history. I was so shocked that I in some cases just could google the names of my great great grandparents and find a family tree going back to the 17th century. So the work was extremely easy. I could pretty much find all my lines on sites such as geni. up The teacher was very impressed due to my effort and how much I managed to find. But if he just knew that I just used google and added names to my own family tree in that way

That is awesome, could totally see that happening from where in Sweden did you find the most of your ancestors?

[Albannach]

Found out that I'm a direct descendent of Sir James Ormiston " The Black Laird" He was hung for treason after assassinating King Henry Stuart, husband of Mary queen of Scots.

[Mazik]

That is awesome, could totally see that happening from where in Sweden did you find the most of your ancestors?

Most of them from Västerbotten and Lappland. Further back also some bourgeois who moved from southern and central Sweden.

I believe it's much easier in northern Sweden, since much less people live here. But then in the south it's very easy if you descend from the Långaryd family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A5ngaryd_family

[Southerner]

I found various Afrikaner surnames in my family line way back in the 1700's. Turns out an ancestor had been employed by the Dutch East India Company as a soldier. He was from Germany.
I also found various Jewish ancestors that are from the Horowitz family. Another good one is John W. Short, a Negro soldier in the 15th Colored Infantry during the Civil War.

Those are just some. I'm very into genealogy. It's a quite exciting hobby.

[Skjaldemjøden]

Catholics. A rarity today and equally so in 19th century Denmark. My great x4 uncle married a Catholic woman and joined her church in Aalborg. They had a flock of children. I might ask for a classification of her portrait since she had an interesting visage.

[Profileid]

Japanese names on my dad's side. It would be kinda cool if I had Japanese ancestors,but they're usually accompanied by female first names, so they're likely distantly related aunts. I haven't bothered to figure it out,but that would be my guess.

[DizzyGinger]

Most surprising for me was my maternal 5th great-grandmother was a black slave. I'm still doubting it to a certain degree, despite some pretty convincing evidence for it being true. I look as white as they come.

[Kamal900]

My family belong to "baiyt al-Lafi" or "the house of Levy" in Arabic, and I'm mostly likely descended from prominent Jewish or Samaritan Levite family lines. Hell, there was a Jew also had the same surname as me.

[Antimage]

this year i learned that i'm about 1/64 german, it's not a big deal though lol

[Skjaldemjøden]

Back when I started researching my Christian ancestry I was half anticipating some link to royalty further back in time. Virtually everyone I knew, including cousins, had some fancy count or prince among their ancestors. No such background for me. I'm the descendant of carpenters, masons, farmers, barbers, tailors and so on.
My closest tie to royalty is actually on the other side. My Jewish great-great-grandfther's sister converted to Christianity and married a Russian baron.