Tracing Family roots

[brandycr]

Sorry to disappoint you, but there just aren't any reliable genealogical records for anyone much earlier than a few generations before Charlemagne, around 800 AD, and those are only of the royaly and aristocracy of course. Virtually everything prior to that is legend, myth and conjecture. As are quite a few genealogies after that time.

thats how i found my lines royal records got lucky.

[gilmore]

<<<Quote:
Originally Posted by gilmore
Sorry to disappoint you, but there just aren't any reliable genealogical records for anyone much earlier than a few generations before Charlemagne, around 800 AD, and those are only of the royaly and aristocracy of course. Virtually everything prior to that is legend, myth and conjecture. As are quite a few genealogies after that time.



thats how i found my lines royal records got lucky.>>>

Let me be clear: even the royal lines prior to a few generations before Charlemagne are legend, myth or conjecture. In other words we know to a reasonable degree of certainty who Charlemagne's immediate ancestors were. We do not, however, know who were the ancestors of those people. They cannot be reliably connected to anyone earlier. From time to time various people have made up all sorts of fanciful stories about descendancy for them from Adam, various Norse, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, etc, but they simply are not creditable, i.e., the stories fall apart under scrutiny. There are no valid, reliable genealogies going back earlier than the 700's AD.

[Riverkilt]

Be careful of this genealogy work, its as powerful an addiction as kilts.

I started back in the '70s and still have the bug. Have been lucky in the documentation dept. But oldest lines go back to the 1500s.

Like Gilmore says, we've a bazillion ancestors. Both my parents lines go back to the same three families aboard the Mayflower, making them 13th cousins. My mother was joyful when I found that. She said now she could get an annulment after 35 years of marriage.

I like genealogy since many of my ancestors were Scottish, Welsh, and Irish, giving me a solid excuse to buy more kilts!

Have met lots of online cousins and been able to share lots of actual documents handed down to me through the family.

Ron