Furthest You've Traced Your Family History

Jonathan1990 · 13-08-2019 07:45AM #1

This is how far mine has.

My Mum's Side: She joined a website and found information that my great, great, great, great granddad under her name was a sailor on the River Themes in London.

My Own Side: Nothing going back to the 4 greats generation is known. The internet says my name originates from West Yorkshire, England which is where all under my name were from including my great, great granddad as far back that I know of. However in the great, great, great generation I heard a rumour that they were Irish gypsies but not found anything about that or anybody under my name moving out in Victorian times. Keep wanting to trace my side and I'm interested to know if I had any ancestors living in Ireland.

what generation have you've traced your family history to?

ILoveYourVibes · 13-08-2019 07:51AM

Great grandparents on both sides.

threetrees · 13-08-2019 07:58AM

All mine and my husband's great great grandparents, mid 1800s. I have most of the names of the generation before that but not all.

It's interesting and very addictive.

ILoveYourVibes · 13-08-2019 08:02AM

threetrees wrote: »

It's interesting and very addictive.

Too addictive.

Aglomerado · 13-08-2019 08:20AM

Back to late 1700s on my mother's side.

On my father's side back to before Cromwell (spit!) ...some English ancestors from Devon were in his army and granted land in Cork by him.

ILoveYourVibes · 13-08-2019 08:28AM

My maternal grandmother was from New York. We have all this paperwork. Deeds to property in NY etc. My mom went there to find out more it was very difficult. Surprisingly difficult.

Her parents were not originally from the US though. They were from Europe.

Maternal grandfather was from Ukraine. We have very little from his background in terms of paperwork. Just old books etc.

We were really frustrated at not finding out about the NY side after traveling there. I mean we have her birth cert and parents names deeds to property etc. They said a lot of records got lost or damaged. They just showed us the area she lived in on a map.

Plus on the backs of photos someone wrote address lets say for the name of the photographer etc. So we tried to look them up.

fixXxer · 13-08-2019 08:30AM

What ways do people go about tracing back family history? Interested in it but never had the time to look in to it fully.

ILoveYourVibes · 13-08-2019 08:36AM

fixxxer wrote: »

What ways do people go about tracing back family history? Interested in it but never had the time to look in to it fully.

I am not a pro.

But any papers you have birth certs marriage certs etc.

If all your family were born in Ireland its easier.

If you have family abroad then its way harder.

If you maybe know where they got married etc

Obv you prob won't have any of that stuff beyond grandparents.

You can hire people.

But they often won't look into places beyond Ireland. And if the place your family was from went through a lot of changes of govt etc you can forget it.

Bicyclette · 13-08-2019 08:40AM

fixxxer wrote: »

What ways do people go about tracing back family history? Interested in it but never had the time to look in to it fully.

Start off with the 1901 and 1911 Census Data. Then go to www.irishgenealogy.ie and flesh people out. Start building a documented tree on Wikitree (its free and I like it a lot)

Then do DNA Testing (Hubby and I have tested with both MyHeritage and Ancestry - there are always sales on during the Black Friday period). Build your trees on those sites too. But use them as your work in progress ones because of all the hints you will get.

Then sign up to GEDMatch - which is a clearing house for DNA tests. Bit like a food hall. You match with people who bought from other testers.

Then join the Irish DNA Registry Facebook Page, the Irish Surname Registry and the relevant County Facebook pages. The first two and many of the latter have Matching Tools.

By that point you are most likely stalking people on Facebook

. I recently saw someone on Facebook looking for a lost dog. I had to step away from the computer because I was about to message the person to sympathise about their dog but ask them about their surname, because it is one of the brickwalls in my husband's tree.

ILoveYourVibes · 13-08-2019 08:46AM

Well if you are Jewish this might help!

https://www.irishjewishroots.com/

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/archives-of-53-000-jews-who-lived-in-ireland-made-available-to-the-public-1.2328592

Its a list of all 53,000 jews who have lived in Ireland. Its fantastic. Unfortunately it only covers Ireland though for most.

If they have a diff country of Origin they might have details for some.

Aglomerado · 13-08-2019 08:48AM

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

I am not a pro.

But any papers you have birth certs marriage certs etc.

If all your family were born in Ireland its easier.

If you have family abroad then its way harder.

If you maybe know where they got married etc

Obv you prob won't have any of that stuff beyond grandparents.

You can hire people.

But they often won't look into places beyond Ireland. And if the place your family was from went through a lot of changes of govt etc you can forget it.

The destruction of the pre-1901 Census records in the fire at the public records office in 1922 was a terrible loss to researchers.

Feisar · 13-08-2019 09:05AM

Dunno if it has been mentioned but thanks to De Valera we lost untold amounts of records. Due to this most people can't go back that far.

Dad is mad into this stuff. He can go fairly fat back and trawled through parish records for snippets here and there to add to the puzzle.

corner of hells · 13-08-2019 09:17AM

Roughly the 1300s on my Dads side.
Another good source of information is the CWGC commission if you had a relative who served in the British Army.

An amateur historian gave me a little help verifying some information and making a few suggestions.

Its addictive and can keep you occupied for years.

corner of hells · 13-08-2019 09:23AM

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Well if you are Jewish this might help!

https://www.irishjewishroots.com/

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/archives-of-53-000-jews-who-lived-in-ireland-made-available-to-the-public-1.2328592

Its a list of all 53,000 jews who have lived in Ireland. Its fantastic. Unfortunately it only covers Ireland though for most.

If they have a diff country of Origin they might have details for some.

My OH's is of Jewish ancestry , there's a version of her name on those sites.

Aglomerado · 13-08-2019 09:26AM

corner of hells wrote: »

Roughly the 1300s on my Dads side.
Another good source of information is the CWGC commission if you had a relative who served in the British Army.

An amateur historian gave me a little help verifying some information and making a few suggestions.

Its addictive and can keep you occupied for years.

I've boxes of papers for years and keep adding to them now and again.

DNA has added a whole new dimension to things, allowing me to confirm a few suspicions I had.
Not sure about the ethnicity estimates though...apparently about 15% of my DNA is Ukrainian/ Hungarian....

ILoveYourVibes · 13-08-2019 09:30AM

corner of hells wrote: »

My OH's is of Jewish ancestry , there's a version of her name on those sites.

Yeah Jewish people are constantly changing their names or anglicizing them etc.

There are people with the name O'Sullivan, O'Shea, O'Reilly , O'Connor, O'Carroll,O'Mahony,Callaghan, O'Neill, O'Brien O'Doherty O'Donovan O'Driscall etc on there. ALL Jews.

fixXxer · 13-08-2019 09:39AM

Thanks all, very helpful.

Graces7 · 13-08-2019 12:29PM

working on mine; UK that is but two separate Irish strands. Fazed by finding a cemetery page where almost all were my dead uncles and aunts who died very young of TB; never met them. Coal mining family. Heartbreaking to see also the rate of infant mortality in the early 1900s

we are so blessed

partyguinness · 13-08-2019 12:40PM

Well, my mother's farm where she grew up has been in the family since at least the late 18th/early 19th century.

We can trace back quite easily to the mid-1840's all my paternal grandparents ownership of the farm and there is an old story of victim of the famine victim dropping dead at the bottom of the haggart having walked from a neighbouring townland which my great grand mother told my mother. She died in 1983 aged 97 and I remember her.

There is a famine grave about 3 miles away.

The house (since sold) is a good 200 years old with walls the best part of 3/4 foot thick.

It's a shame so many records were destroyed in the Civil War when the Four Courts was bombed.

partyguinness · 13-08-2019 12:48PM

Aglomerado wrote: »

Back to late 1700s on my mother's side.

On my father's side back to before Cromwell (spit!) ...some English ancestors from Devon were in his army and granted land in Cork by him.

Haha love the euphemism 'granted'. In other words stolen from the natives.

I hope sir, you are proud. Any chance you will hand it back to its rightful owners?;)

13-08-2019 01:36PM

The furthest back we go is to Raymond Le Gros Fitzgerald, a Norman commander in the invasion of Ireland. He is the father of all the Grubbs, among others, he has thousands of descendants. We just happen to know by sheer fluke.

It's on my Mums side and - don't judge me, because I do - I feel like the maternal lines tend to be less interesting? Probably because people tend not to feel a personal connection to the name.

Interesting stuff, family history. The skeletons can be fascinating.

Aglomerado · 13-08-2019 01:58PM

partyguinness wrote: »

Haha love the euphemism 'granted'. In other words stolen from the natives.

I hope sir, you are proud. Any chance you will hand it back to its rightful owners?;)

I think a lot of it was divvied up by the Land Commission post-Treaty!

Either way, the estate was "encumbered" and sold due to debt in the 1850s.

My gg-grandfather despite his ancestors' wealth was a blacksmith in Clare and was oft-cited in the local petty sessions for letting his pig roam on the road!

0lddog · 13-08-2019 01:59PM

@Tyrant Do you know if you had a relative ( probably maiden great / great great aunt ) who worked for some years in a boarding school in Co. Dublin ?

13-08-2019 02:02PM

0lddog wrote: »

@Tyrant Do you know if you had a relative ( probably maiden great / great great aunt ) who worked for some years in a boarding school in Co. Dublin ?

Not a direct relative. There are a few different branches of Grubbs, all are related but I've never heard of her.

0lddog · 13-08-2019 02:03PM

Aglomerado wrote: »

The destruction of the pre-1901 Census records in the fire at the public records office in 1922 was a terrible loss to researchers.

Have to point out that the 1841 records for the parish of Killeshandra exist in full to this day

Feisar · 13-08-2019 02:03PM

partyguinness wrote: »

Haha love the euphemism 'granted'. In other words stolen from the natives.

I hope sir, you are proud. Any chance you will hand it back to its rightful owners?;)

And I'm sure their ancestors took it from someone at the end of a sword.

ToddyDoody · 13-08-2019 02:05PM

I can never get further beyond Nazi Germany

0lddog · 13-08-2019 02:07PM

ToddyDoody wrote: »

I can never get further beyond Nazi Germany

Beyond there is Poland

You might not like it there - it gets very cold in winter

suicide_circus · 13-08-2019 02:08PM

:rolleyes:

ToddyDoody wrote: »

I can never get fuhrer beyond Nazi Germany

ToddyDoody · 13-08-2019 02:09PM

0lddog wrote: »

Beyond there is Poland

You might not like it there - it gets very cold in winter

Didn't stop the Nazis

Aglomerado · 13-08-2019 02:09PM

suicide_circus wrote: »

:rolleyes:

I did Nazi that coming.

Furthest You've Traced Your Family History

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