Genealogy can be both fun and frustrating. I find it to be a fun challenge. I can have as much fun chasing down someone else's family as my own. One of the frustrations is the wide variety of surnames involved and being able to keep track of them, especially when the same name appears more than once somewhere through the centuries. Just think how rapidly our little history spreads out. Using 25 years between generations and simplifying by having all generations follow that strict routine provides the following scenario.
2000-- child born
1975-- two parents born
1950-- four grand parents born
1925-- 8 great grand parents born
1900-- 16 gg grandparents born
1875-- 32 ggg grandparents born
1850-- 64 gggg grandparents born
1825-- 128 ggggg grandparents born
1800-- 256 gggggg grandparents born
1775-- 512 ggggggg grandparents born
1750-- 1024 gggggggg grandparents born
1725-- 2048 9g grandparents born
1700-- 4096 10g grandparents born
1675-- 8192 11g grandparents born
1650-- 16384 12g grandparents born
1625-- 32768 13g grandparents born (think Plymouth Rock)
1600-- 65536 14g grandparents born
1575-- 131072 15g grandparents born
Examine the odds of all of those ancestors being unique in your family tree. It's not very likely is it? Rule out any ethnicities that most likely are not part of your ancestry and the odds get even wilder. Evaluating the labels we like to put on ourselves such as French, Italian, German and Lithuanian become somewhat meaningless after a point. First of all, some of those placenames did not apply in some of the home towns in your ancestry. Borders move and placenames change. Additionally, someone living in, say, Italy in 1700 may have been born and descended from ancestors in Albania or Switzerland or somewhere else and have no Italian roots except for a few years of occupancy in what was known as Italy at the time. Family folklore stating the earliest known immigrants shipped out of Genoa does not mean they were Italians.
Chasing down kin-folk that are long gone has been a hobby of mine for a number of years now. I am the youngest child and all of the "old folks" I remember from my childhood are long gone (my grandfather was born in 1879).
It is really amazing the differences between the stories I remember being told when I was a boy and the documented facts. Things get skewed a little, I guess.
6 or 7 years ago I posted a picture of my grandfather with his mother and father and his seven brothers and sisters on my ancestry.com public tree. He was 17 or 18 and probably dates from about 1896. I believe it to be the only photograph of the entire family. It hung in my mother's house for years.
I quit counting after about 400 people had added that photo to their family tree. Once you start chasing down all the kids, nieces, nephews, cousins, in-laws and out-laws the number of descendents mushrooms to the thousands.
I don't know how much truth is in it, but I read once that most folks in the U.S. can usually find a common relative with any other person by going back only eight generations. Sometimes that doesn't seem so far fetched.
> Examine the odds of all of those ancestors being unique in your family tree..
Not in mine, but I hear your family tree has no branches.
Back when I was more actively researching ancestry, I was in a library and the book I wanted wasn't on the shelf. I looked around to see who was using it, and talked to the guy. He and I were looking up the same family in colonial New England, and were about 10th cousins.
A co-worker was really big into genealogy so I compared notes with him and found out we were 10th cousins. Later we got more detailed and found another connection that made us 10th cousins again, and finally an 8th cousin connection.
So I'm ready to believe that any two people whose family has been in the same country for a few generations have a good likelihood of being related.
Here's some pictures of your Grandfather being transported, in style I might add, to a farm for stud service.........
Have a great weekend and keep that methane in check! B-)
I had always heard when I was a kid that my great-grandfather was a Texas Ranger. I found this story given by my great-grandmother that confirms it. Being that there are several on this board from the Fort Worth / Azle area, I wouldn't be too surprised if someone found a connection.
http://files.usgwarchives.net/tx/bios/roe.txt
James
OMG!!!!! This means that we are ALL kin to TDD!! :excruciating: :-$ :whistle: :woot: +o(
Continuing your routine, it doesn't take too many generations to exceed the number of people known to exist on the earth at the time. After that I guess everyone was related to everyone else.
What happens when you get back to Adam and Eve and you are supposed to have ??G's but there are only two people? 😛
Not to get overly religious, but.............All would be descendants of Noah's grandchldren.
> Have a great weekend and keep that methane in check! B-)
Why can't they "potty train" those horse, bull, mules, zebras, etc... guys??? :-S
o.O +o( :-O :-X 😉
