The earliest that you've traced your family tree; how far back?

I easily traced us back to Daniel Boone, and if the records on ancestry.com are reliable, I traced my mom’s side back to William the Conqueror.

You win! lol

The Mayflower. A relative was on the ship and stepped foot on Plymouth Rock.

My mother’s side is half Irish half British but both have been traced back to Viking raiders from Norway that settled in Ireland or northern England.

My dad’s side is pure Bavarian, but it also can be traced back to the Vikings, this time a Swede, that earned a freeholding by renting his axe to a local earl, and he wasn’t chopping wood.

Two branches back to the early 1800s. One branch only to my grandfather :(

One of my ancestors supposedly invented the wheel but there were no patents then. It was said he was unable to pay for his cave mortgage and died in a mammoth stampede.

My dad’s mom’s family came from Ireland. We have records that date in the 1700s for them. My mother’s side of the family mostly came from England and Wales. We have records dating back to the 1600s and the name of the ships they sailed on to reach the US. The only famous names to appear were a possible connection to Billy the Kid and an ancestor who sold some farmland here in Illinois to Abe Lincoln.

Through Ancestry.com, I’ve traced the family surname back to England in the 1400’s. The other three grandparents’ come from Germany. Dad’s mother’s family started a brewery in Pennsylvania that closed down in the ‘50s. It’s been fun to collect memorabilia from it, including soda bottles from the prohibition era.

I would have to check with my father. He’s a professional genealogist, and I know he’s traced our family tree really far back, but I’m not sure how far back…

My grandparents, lol.

I can trace my surname back to England in 1503 without uncertainty. Also I have traced possible German ancestors to the late 15th century. But I can’t confirm that they are definitely my direct ancestors at the point.

If ancestry.com’s reliable, my cousin and I traced one line back to 1320.

I could only trace it as far back as my paternal grandmother, but she was the first Cro-Magnon cave artist.

I can only trace the family to pre-WWI Poland, loss of language and destruction of records

I can trace 19 generations back to England. He was born in 1492.

@WillWorkForChocolate William the Conqueror? Well, that ‘splains some things about you!

<giggle>

I got overwhelmed in the 1750’s and left it alone for a bit. I’ve been researching the first five generations of my grandmother’s parents to gift her for her birthday present this year. It’s a lot of work if you actually verify stuff.

I know some men in my mother’s family fought in the Revolutionary War, so that goes back to the 1770s.

On my father’s side, I know they came to the United States from Mexico around 1910.

I would really like to learn more. (Especially before certain key sources of information pass away!)

Genealogy and record-keeping outside of the nobility is fairly recent, so if you can get five generations back on most or all branches, that’s pretty good. Some people today don’t even know their grandparents’ names, or able to go back beyond their grandparents.

As for me, some branches I’ve been able to extend back farther than others. The winner so far are my Norwegian ancestors; for that branch, I’ve been able to get back to about 1580.