How far back have you traced your family tree?

The farthest my family can trace its roots back to is the Penn Colony in 1681. Other than that we seem to have completely lost all records of our family heritage, at least on my mother's side of the family. The ancestor, though I for the life of me can't remember his first name, his surname is stuck in my head. Bales. I found a book at my library on American surnames and found out that "Bales" is English and means "dweller near the walls of the outer court of a feudal castle; the guardian of the courts, a bail-ward. My surname, Rodgers, is interesting. Its welsh for son of rogers, and rogers is english-french for famous spear. I'm still looking into the origins of the name, but have had little success so far.

One of my lines is connected to one that goes back to 924, but like you, I did not do the research myself. I have traced some of mine back to the 1500's. The Poindexter line from the Channel Islands goes back quite a ways, and I am connected to them (with documentation).

My family can be traced back to the Mayflower. Some of my ancesters were native americans too. There is a roumer that there was a German princess that ran away with her footman too. I don't know about that one though.

This is something that I would love to get into more when I have the time. I've traced my family back to the Netherlands in 1910. That's the year my great-grandparents emigrated to America on the ship The New Amsterdam.

1500's ? Wow. That's a lot of research even you if did it collectively. I have records of my family back to the mid-1800's.

I have traced my husband's side back to the 1600's and my side back to the 1700's, but I have done neither personally. I was given a hand drawn family tree years ago and have entered all of my data into a genealogy program file, but I haven't had time recently to do much with it. Ancestry.com is a great resourceful website.

in a matter in fact my aunt dawn On my dads side is looking into that! now my moms side I would not know!

i have been trying to do my family tree for 6 years now with no luck. anyone who would know anything is gone. and the websites i need i cant afford. ive only gone back as far as my g-grandmother on my moms side

Most of my lines are back to the 1500's and 1600's and one line that goes back to the Crusades. It's my husband's lines that I've been really pursuing the last several years though. Currently the majority of that is back to the earlly 1800's and late 1700's. Still so much more work to do and sometimes I find myself branching out collaterally too much...lol. The work on my own family has been done by many of us so I can't take all of the credit. My Dad alone has done major research on the English lines. That's his genealogy specialty though.

I have traced it back about 5 generations, which is not alot but I am going to do more research on it.

One of my uncles traced my moms side back to the mayflower and on my dads side the could only go back to my great grandfather when they came to america from germnany, he disapeared when my grampa was young and nobody knows anything before that.

I have the names and the dates of birth of the parents of my great-grandparents. I have also the photo of two ancestors of mine of the end of XIX century, they are very young, made that photo few years before dying.

I have been studying my family's history since I was 11 years old and now I am near 50. I have been very blessed to have received a lot of the results that my aunt had researched before me. I have confirmed a great deal of her research on my own and with the help of other relatives. We have also been able to add details to her information by following her footsteps. Our deepest root reaches back to the year of 582 and it is a bloodline. 52 generations from the oldest ancestor to my granddaughters. I use Family Tree Maker Version 11.2 to record my findings and sources. Someday I would like to put all of my data into a hardbound book.

oh monica, i just have to share this with you...i had been researching a particular line and i had been reading lots of history books to get a better insight on this family line. One of my daughters had also been reading books for a school project. She was very frustrated and had put her book down several times while huffing and puffing. I asked her what was going on. She explain that she had been trying to read this series of books about Queen Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots, King Henry VIII and others in that family line. She said the books were boring are very hard to get into but she needed to read these books to get her grade. I started laughing and then explained to her that the line she was reading about is known as the House of Tudor and the House of Stewart. She wanted to know how I knew this. I turned my book around and showed her I was also reading about the same line. Then I also explained that these boring books that she was having trouble with were not so boring when you realize that those historical characters are actually your ancestors. She breezed through the books and got very good grades as well as a new appreciation for her ancestors.

I only knew up to my grandparents. But i'm interested to know deeply than that.

On my family's side I've only gone back to the early 1800's. I have, on one side of my mother in laws side got information all the way back to the early 1600's. But most of that was done by a professional researcher.

i have only traced them to my great grandmother. and my other relatives, i do not know most of them we are a small family and a broken one too.

My father's side has been traced all the way back to the dark ages. His cousin and wife did all of the research and travelled to Canada and Europe as they went further and further back into the family history. Reading their findings is quite interesting and we are happy to have the information. My mother's side has been much more difficult to document. I have started some work on this with her help but we keep hitting "walls" due to adoptions and destroyed records from fires.

I have one on my dad's side traced way back 5 or 6 generations, and it's pretty cool. I believe my great grandma did the research and typed it all out.