How far back can you trace your ancestors?

[Dark Snyper Lord 666]

Late 1500s. If I wasn’t such a cheapass I would pay for Ancestry; I would unlock so much more. Through my peasant account I have uncovered hundreds more ancestors recently and to my joy found that I have a lot of French heritage! French is my favorite language besides my mother tongue; English. I also adore Portuguese. French is such a beautiful, classy, fancy language. I can read it far better than I can speak it. I find French dialects fascinating, too.

Excellent, this is the kind of reply I wanted to see.

1. during COVID ancestry.com library version is FREE remotely aka from home for me. check your local public library, they might have ancestry.com available.

You didn't mention explicitly, so i will say familysearch.org was the BEST free site by far, by miles.


We all have certain desires for those who previously did not know from whence we came.

My mothers side only knew up to 1900, my fathers barely at all. I discovered my entire family history for myself and I am proud of it. My last name has been treated as german my whole life, and i knew i was at least partially, turns out it's not, though yes I am still german, but not as much as I thought. A funny feeling. I still have much affection for germany, perhaps more knowing that my ancestors were from a very, very specific region, to the point of concern over inbreeding.

Warning about ancestry.com - people you don't know post "family trees" - don't take them for granted. the best reliable sources are firsthand hand-written that you can view.

[klas214]

Middle ages.

[AmeriCanadian]

Excellent, this is the kind of reply I wanted to see.

1. during COVID ancestry.com library version is FREE remotely aka from home for me. check your local public library, they might have ancestry.com available.

You didn't mention explicitly, so i will say familysearch.org was the BEST free site by far, by miles.


We all have certain desires for those who previously did not know from whence we came.

My mothers side only knew up to 1900, my fathers barely at all. I discovered my entire family history for myself and I am proud of it. My last name has been treated as german my whole life, and i knew i was at least partially, turns out it's not, though yes I am still german, but not as much as I thought. A funny feeling. I still have much affection for germany, perhaps more knowing that my ancestors were from a very, very specific region, to the point of concern over inbreeding.

Warning about ancestry.com - people you don't know post "family trees" - don't take them for granted. the best reliable sources are firsthand hand-written that you can view.

I was labouring under the delusion for more than 20 years that I was merely English, Scottish and a little bit German (pre Internet era.) Since I have commenced scouring, I'm Friesian, Huguenot, Prussian, French, Swiss German, French Swiss, Dutch, Scots (of the Alppin variety among others), Ulster-Scots, French Irish (wtf?), English, Irish, Quebecois, American Dutch...my head hurts! LOL. However, there is a conflict between my Grandfather's Grandfather's family lore. He wrote out that his father was descended from an Englishman who was knighted by King George (the one that lost the revolutionary American war.) No such record, I can find, exists. Ancestry pointed me into an entirely different direction. Sadly, my Grandfather passed away at age 88 several years ago. I can't ask him for his 0.02c anymore. FML!