How far back can you trace your ancestors?

**Daco Celtic** · 06-24-2019, 04:18 AM

1500 is as far as I can go back.

**aja675** · 06-30-2019, 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by aja675

Late 18th century-early 19th century. BTW, while tracing my own ancestry by looking for mentions of my father's surname on Facebook, I found this picture with my great-grandfather and my great-great-grandmother in it:

A half-aunt of mine's family tree. Outside of Pilar Martinez, it's pretty much the same as my family tree: https://www.geni.com/people/Maria-Sa...00020962887041

**Roy** · 06-30-2019, 02:27 PM

Originally Posted by Daco Celtic

1500 is as far as I can go back.

In Poland it is possible to trace your ancestor that far, but almost only in the cases when someone is at least partially of a noble origin (szlachta - in Poland it's a large share of people), or if someone has a centuries-old urbanite origin - both cases are not particularly common. In regions where the wooden construction of churches dominated like that of my ancestors that would often burn together with the records kept in them, it is almost impossible beyond certain dates.

**Antimatter** · 07-09-2019, 11:02 AM

I can trace as far as early 1700-late 1600 without any gap. Although my family's ancestor lived around 1350-1400 (maybe even older). I can also trace further into around 890 (however with a very big gap).

**Thracian** · 07-09-2019, 11:23 AM

Late 1700's.

**~~Dark Snyper Lord 666~~** · 07-03-2020, 03:59 AM

I have a petpeeve with people who run out and get some ancestry23DNA test without well. "doing the work" and reliably tracing your ancestors through records.

I know that not all countries have existing and detailed records, but i believe you can get within 95% (barring odd sudden migration surprises before records began) or much higher of your genetic makeup simply from finding your ancestors as far back as written sources usually go (17th to 19th century).

the ancestors i've found had their kids usually between age 20 to 30, occasionally older. so within 200 years you are looking at 128 individual ancestors EASILY. let's say one ancestor walked thousands of km and was from sri lanka and ended up in europe. that would skew it by 0.7%. and THAT situation simply won't happen. You basically are who you can trace back a few hundred years because of the number of people involved.

I am still tempted by 23 and me. But I have too many concerns and doubts about it.

**Creoda** · 07-03-2020, 05:53 AM

Allegedly back to the Middle Ages on one line at least, but I don't care beyond the 1700s, as anything before that is too unreliable, and they make up such a small part of your ancestry anyway that who cares.

**Creoda** · 07-03-2020, 06:00 AM

Originally Posted by Dark Snyper Lord 666

I have a petpeeve with people who run out and get some ancestry23DNA test without well. "doing the work" and reliably tracing your ancestors through records.

I know that not all countries have existing and detailed records, but i believe you can get within 95% (barring odd sudden migration surprises before records began) or much higher of your genetic makeup simply from finding your ancestors as far back as written sources usually go (17th to 19th century).

the ancestors i've found had their kids usually between age 20 to 30, occasionally older. so within 200 years you are looking at 128 individual ancestors EASILY. let's say one ancestor walked thousands of km and was from sri lanka and ended up in europe. that would skew it by 0.7%. and THAT situation simply won't happen. You basically are who you can trace back a few hundred years because of the number of people involved.

I am still tempted by 23 and me. But I have too many concerns and doubts about it.

23andme is a total waste of money for connecting genealogy with genetics. AncestryDNA is better for it. In 23andme most English people are apparently from 'Greater London', and all British people apparently have a large amount of recent 'French and German' ancestry.

**~~Dark Snyper Lord 666~~** · 07-04-2020, 04:39 AM

Originally Posted by Creoda

Allegedly back to the Middle Ages on one line at least, but I don't care beyond the 1700s, as anything before that is too unreliable, and they make up such a small part of your ancestry anyway that who cares.

Yup, it's a shame, but expected that the records really fizzle out then, as well as the certainty issues. I am lucky (in a way) that my last name is one of the rarest in the world thanks to a mispelling, or rather multiple mispellings I tracked down, and out of my 8 great grandparents, at least 5 are relatively uncommon last names. Names like "Elizabeth Brown" from Manchester are dead ends.

I was thinking of querying about tactics for breaking through the church-records, earliest censuses, any links?

**AmeriCanadian** · 07-08-2020, 05:29 AM

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.