My brother has been tracing our genealogy and recently made some headway in a branch where we didn't have much information. Some of the links aren't certain, but we might be descended from Robert the Bruce.

So call me bob_cville_the_bruce. :-)

I am in central Pennsylvania. I am a volunteer at our local historical society where we do genealogy research for people. MANY of us are related! We are primarily German and Irish in this area. It is very fascinating and addicting.

Much of our time is now spent helping people disprove what they saw on Ancestry. Once information is posted on there it spreads like wildfire, no matter where if it is fact or fiction.

Yes, erroneous genealogy data on the internet is tough to deal with. Once posted, it is copied, spread around, and becomes family gospel. In my searches, I have found individuals who wants to cling to bad data they may have and won't let go even when you show proof otherwise. In some cases, they have gotten mad and resorted to all manner of behavior. Its a sore spot that must be tread lightly.

I have traced my surname line back to Wales in about 1714. This primary ancestor came to the Virginia colony and was acquiring land starting in 1730. He was listed as a 'Planter'. George Washington is listed as surveyor of one of his parcels. There are other examples that I found that touched on early American history. I hated history in grade school because the exams mostly tested you memory about dates. I find that genealogy is a much more fascinating way to view early history. History comes alive when you discover that members of you ancestry participated in forming this country.

My first ancestor to Virginia had 6 sons and he passed away a few years before the Revolutionary War (War of Rebellion). All 6 sons were in the Revolutionary War. One of the next generation fought under Andrew Jackson in the War of the Floridas. Later he removed with his family to Illinois and we find him as a Captain in the Black hawk War during the summer of 1832. That person was my great-great-grandfather and I have samples of his handwriting. One of these samples is a promissory note where he writes ". . . I will pay in the money of Tennessee . . ." It is dated ca 1825.

I found that up to about 1840, illiteracy was common in my family.

I discovered that Arkansas had two Capitols for short period of time. During the Civil War when the Union Army overran Little Rock, AR, the Confederate supporters packed up materials and fled to Washington, AR in the southwest part of the state and attempted to set up a new Capitol there. For a short period, there existed a Confederate Capitol at Washington, AR and a provisional Union Capitol at Little Rock. One of my ancestors had lived at Washington, AR and had passed away ca 1837.

On my grandmother's side, the first ancestor to arrive in Boston was a Franklin who hailed from Acton, England. He witnessed his father being hanged for being a Presbyterian and decided to leave England.

One of my first cousins did a lot of research, and since our fathers were brothers, that side of our families are the same. I did a 23&Me test recently for fun, but it does not name specific ancestors, but it did report that I am 4% Neanderthal, which is what I was interested in finding out about. I am also 99% NW European, and most of my ancestors were Vikings, Saxons, and Celts. I can trace ancestors back to Germany in the 19th Century on both my mother and father's sides, but the report says I am 52.3% British and Irish, and I don't know where that comes from. I can trace ancestors back to Alsace and Saxony but not Britain. 23&Me also lumps French and German together and gave me a smaller percentage of that than what I can trace back to Europe. I am wondering if it considers my Saxon ancestors to be British, since I also have ancestors from Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark, which are also considered to be Angles. Supposedly a large percentage of my ancestors lived in Greater London, but I know nothing about them.

I am supposedly related to Alexander Hamilton on my father's side and Luke the Evangelist on my mother's side, based on Haplogroups.

My maternal grandparents immigrated, to central Illinois, from Ostfriesland, in the 1870's. My paternal great grandparents are from North Rhine-Westphalia, immigrating in the 1860's

Yeah ancestry makes errors but also allows data entered with no sources. People,family pick up on misspelling of names to say they found something different. My heritage just as bad allows no source data to say there is a match. Then they ask us to confirm bad data. At first it took me months to sort out a tree where sons parents and grandparents all had the same first name or variations. People accept everything written on the net as fact without checking the source.. a lot of data is corrupted from translation from original source. Still the net is good to point you ina direction, ask for help or lookups.

It's ironic that I know less about my most recent immigrant to America (my maternal grandmother to NYC a few years before 1900) than I do about my Scots and French who came before and after the Revolutionary War.

Jem -- I'll see your ancestor 'hanged as a Presbyterian' and raise you with one of my Scots, Lord Treasurer under Mary Queen of Scots, who was 'haulit backards in an ox cart' through the streets of Edinburgh to be hanged by Protestants (likely Presbyterians) after Mary's fall from power. My French ancestors came to Illinois after your captain helped run off the poor Indians, when they thought it safe to start farming in southern Illinois.

It gets kind of murky about six greats back. There are two men with common names married to a woman with the name Mary. One of the Mary's has a known maiden name so people keep trying to latch onto that because then the next generation back is someone with a title. He's easily traceable and he is somehow related to George Washington. I've stopped my line where it gets murky because I don't know what is correct and I don't know how to get past the wall.

I've found the generations that I do know about to be pretty interesting. I've worked to get as much documentation and stories as I can. I'm putting more effort into recording the here and now. That's information we are currently losing.

I did mine years ago, it was fun & interesting.

My mom did research many years ago to join the DAR. I have several books she used. I have no interest in finding out anything after I discovered my dad wasn’t my biological father . I didn’t know until he had died and my mom had Alzheimer’s. I don’t care for anymore information.

One of my best friends (Jimmy) was born in Korea, during the Korean War, and he told me that he was born in a rice paddy and does not know the exact date of his birth - just the week. His biological father was an American soldier that did not marry his Korean mother, but his mother did marry another American soldier whom she met later and who adopted Jimmy and moved the family to Michigan, where the stepfather had grown up. Then my friend had a couple of half-brothers born in Michigan who looked very different from him and who did not do well in school, although my friend became a very successful engineer after doing service for the Army in Europe. After his service was over, he biked all over Europe and eventually ended up in London, after he no more money left, and met his bride (who was from Holland) at a camp for homeless/poor people. Her job at the camp (as my friend told it) was to make bad Indonesian curry for the poor people. He married her anyway, and then they moved to Michigan, where he got his engineering degree. I don't know where in Michigan they lived, but it was either Ann Arbor or Lansing, but he told me that he had to tolerate a lot of prejudice there because he was half-Korean, but then when he moved to Los Angeles, no one even noticed, and so he was much happier. When I met him here in L.A., I thought he was Italian (but didn't care) and became best friends with him and his wife, who lived in the apartment right next to mine in Culver City.

Anyway, Jimmy has told me that he has no information about his biological father, except that after his son was born and was blond that his mother told him that his biological father was blond, although his stepfather was not. Jimmy's mother had moved to Michigan with his stepfather, but Jimmy has no information about his relatives in Korea and has not been back to Korea after immigrating to the U.S. as a small child. At one time he told me that he does not speak or understand Korean, but I found out later that he actually does speak some Korean and does understand it.

I think Jimmy could benefit from getting an DNA test to find out what his heritage is, if only to find out what health issues he should be concerned about.

Unless Jimmy's mother doesn't *know* anything about his father, why on earth wouldn't she tell him every little thing she does know. It is his right to know what everyone NOT adopted takes 'for granted'. It should be *granted*.

At this point, Jimmy's mother is dead, and perhaps she did not know all that much about Jimmy's biological father. Jimmy has relatives in Korea, but he is not in touch with them and supposedly they do not speak English. He also told me that he considers himself to have no family history, now that his mother is gone. I think he could track down some of his relatives in Korea if he wanted to, but he does not seem to have an interest in that. He also is not close to his half-brothers, and while Jimmy did extremely well in school, he told me that his brothers struggled. I don't think his stepfather went to college either.

Lars and others to help answer your question about having English Irish Scottish ancestry without having ancestors that you know were from there. There may be several things.

The British Isles have had rebellions of various types where the losers fled or were sent overseas. Even the "lower" classes followed the people when they were exiled so even though you may not find any lords or ladies in your ancestry it does not mean that your ancestors may not be from the group that traveled with the lords and ladies.

If you had family members of stature marriages were for property and women where sent where they could gain the most value. You can just look at how Victoria populated the courts with her children but she was not the first.

Soldiers often were for hire from many countries and left children behind them as they moved from one country to another. The Crusades added a bit of British to several countries along the way.

Interestingly my mother mentioned she thought my husband and I were close enough she was worried about children. I have not found any connection that close but back in the 1400's I found a mention on his side of the family to the family name of part of my mother's family. Of course cousins married each other to keep property in the family.

If jimmy does not want to know so be it but yes he has a right. Doing a DNA could point him to a current tree by the connections, then he would need to contact the tree owner to see if he can find who was in Korea during the war. Since he knows the week born and I take the year he can extrapolate if it matches when that person served. If his mother was religious there might be records there but he would need to know which religion his other was and whereabouts she lived to track who has the religion records. There were no census then there.

For the Irish Scottish background take what you know here to get a birth. A marriage date would be earlier then the first born. If there is a first born there check birth certs or baptism records toget a church. Check censushere to see who was born here or there. If there it will note country not always anyth8ng more. Check current trees for surname forthat country.

Exception to the marriage date being earlier than the first born. Not certain when it changed legally but at one time if a father acknowledged a child even it not married to that woman at time of birth but later married that woman it made the child legitimate in some countries.

Always be aware that surnames change over time. Example from mine Wotring to Vautrin.

I've been working on my family genealogy for about a dozen years. I like the "solving a puzzle" aspect of it, and there are several puzzles involving grandfathers and great-grandfathers.

I have just had that experience of coming across a DNA matched distant relative, who let me know that he has some new information added to on the same branch of the family as I; but it is a bunch of junk data on his version of the tree. For example, he has attached people with similar names but from a different region, aged younger than the person they are supposedly the parent of, and the child in the attached record is also of a similar but different name than the real one.

On my daughter's father's side, the first husband and wife came over with Cornwallis to Nova Scotia, then the family worked its way down the east coast first to New York, then to the Carolinas ( where quite a few remain) then a scion went to Louisiana and ended up in Texas. Still, everyone in the USA today with that last name originated from that first couple (I think!) and to this day, the tradition of naming a child for Cornwallis persists.

Jimmy's mother was Buddhist, and I believe she raised him that way - but he has no way of knowing what the religion of his biological father was.

Have done some...and doing more. It sure can be habit forming though . Once you start it is hard to stop. Fascinating stuff (if you don't run into

something you really didn't want to know) :)

In Korea the family census would give all info. It recorded mother maiden name and all birth since 1910. Considered very accurate it would list the fathers name as it was known then. Does not matter what religion.

It was called the family census register, and also the census.. every village had to do it. Jimmy would need to search the records for Korea under his mother’s maiden name. Family search as copies of records.

I am a passionate genealogist and just love searching for connections. I have done my DNA and have it posted on several of the DNA sites and love finding distant cousins. It's a great hobby and I joined my local Genealogy Society and made a host of like minded new friends. I am about 75% German and 25% Irish and I find the Irish part is the most difficult to search for.

I too am part Irish and have hit a brick wall. There are so few records as many were lost in a major fire. Women were often not documented in their entire lives other than a first name on their child's birth certificate.

Yes Ireland can be a devil to deal with. Look for county first. Search where most last name hits come up. Best to search for marriage. Two types of records to search church and civil. From the marriage you can get mother’s maiden name, her parents and the townland they are from as well as the church. Then search thisechurch records for all surnames. The puzzle will come together. 20 years later my story is still coming together. I reached out to all searching the same names to pull together my ancestor family. Just expanded it greatly but still missing some as we do not know where they ended up or died during the famine. The reach out brought in cousins from all over. to fo it again I would first gather all info from family then go back through local census here before attempting Ireland. You can get most here. you might get lucky in that someone has done a tree here first which can point you I. The right direction. Verify everything first as so many trees are or use false data in that they did not check sources.. if any family here was born there look for that birthdate/ year. ReLize that spelling can vary with literacy and some were not sure of exact dates. I use a three point match date, name and family member to say it fits in tree.

A puzzle concerning my French ancestors involved baptismal records from Besancon where parents registeredtheir children as godparents for the newborn. The godparents being only a year or so older than the newborn was confusing.

Precious insight was gained when a relative in NY kindly gave me copies of letters back and forth between family remaining in France and family that had settled in Cincinnati and southern Illinois in the early 1800's. This is my 'gold' in research, much more than just accumulating names and dates.

A factoid

It is said that Genghis Khan slept with so many different women that today, 1 in ever 400 persons are related to him.

We share more DNA with Neanderthals than supposed. How much we share probably varies widely depending on definitions. Some say 2 to 4% while scholars who have sequenced Neanderthal DNA say its more like over 99%.

http://www.genesisandgenetics.org/2018/04/17/how-much-neanderthal-dna-do-you-have/

We share 99% of our DNA with chimps, and yes our DNA is 99.5% the same as Neanderthals, but that does not mean that we all have same relationship with Neanderthals, as people in Africa have 0% Neanderthal match as being ancestors. Neanderthals evolved outside of Africa. Europeans have a 2% to maybe 6% of their ancestry from Neanderthals, but that is different from saying how similar modern humans are to Neanderthals. My match is 4% Neanderthal, meaning that my ancestors are 4% Neanderthal - not 99.5%, as the ancestors who came out of Africa later had no Neanderthal ancestors. Neanderthals are a branch, much like cousins.

I have 0.1% match with Asians and 0% Eastern and southern Europeans regarding ancestry.

I've read that ethnicity estimates (from any testing company) under 4% are mostly just "noise" and not reliable.