Huh, I forgot that was the most common reason. Been a while since I worked in pediatric cardiology, but I didn’t have a lot of patient contact then. Wiki has an article on other common causes, interestingly.
A childhood friend of mine was cyanotic due to some kind of heart defect, to the point of having blue-purple lips and nailbeds when she was doing poorly. She was young enough when she finally did die (after many operations) that I either was not told or do not recall what her diagnosis was.
I’ve traced my father’s line back to Prussia in the early 1800s. Prior to that, the information just isn’t there. I’ve traced several lines on my mother’s side back through the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, to the Mayflower and across the pond to England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland. One of my ancestors fought in Cromwell’s wars, and prior to that the family jumped the channel from the continent. Some of the royalty ties go back quite a long way through King Edward I, King Henry III, II, & I and King William I (The Conquerer) to Alfred the Great (871-899). Most of the lines peter out around the 12th-15th century, however.
Also distantly related to George Washington, James Madison, William Henry Harrison, Benjamin Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses Grant, TR, Coolidge, Hoover, FDR, Nixon, and both Bushes.
It’s all Dutch for as far as we can go back, which is about 400 years if memory serves. Pretty dull, when you think of it…
[quote=“AuntiePam, post:30, topic:534162”]
[li]a “blue baby” who died after a few hours – what’s a “blue baby”?[/li][/QUOTE]
I have heard that term in relation to babies born with the Rh factor incompatibility thing. I don’t know whether that is incompatible with the other explanations offered.
You mean, “It’s Dutch all the way down!”? 
Neat, I did not know this! 
Here’s a page which attempts to prove the play was inspired by a report from the shipwreck of Sea-Venture. This may be one of the strongest arguments against the “Oxfordian” theory. However there is other interesting and controversial evidence, so I find myself decidedly agnostic on the Authorship question.
Prompted by this comment I Googled for old SDMB Shakespeare authorship debates. If there will be a new one it looks like it will need to be located in BBQ pit. :dubious: :smack:
Nothing before 1600 yet but decently broad for as far back as I do know…
I have all my great-great grands, nearly all of my great-great-great grands; quite a bit thinner on some of the maternal lines in the generation before that.
I have some strands back to 12 generations ago and I have a fairly rich coverage of cousins: all the sisters and brothers of my great grandparents and who they married and all their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and most of that for my great-great grandparents.
I’m working with my own home-grown FileMaker-based genealogy app and have input over 8000 individuals into it.
ETA: Cute tales from the genealogy records. My G-G-G grandpa Thomas Welch married a Chapman, one of the youngest girls in a big family. His wife died young and he married an older sister of his daugher-in-law. Then his FIRST wife’s Dad, who had been a widower for several years, ALSO married a yet older sister of the same family. Must’ve been confusing to the little ones growing up. Great-Grampa’s wife is mommy’s sister, etc.
The family on my father’s side had the tree done by pros back in the 1890s. Since then, it’s been catch as catch can until a relative put it all on the computer and on the Internet. My last name is Sears, and yes, I am related to the Sears of Sears and Roebuck, but not close enough to get in on the profit sharing 
Our family tree is at the Sears Family Association. We trace back to Richard, who apparently came over on the Mayflower, but not on the original voyage. A second ship named Mayflower made several journeys and the dates of his appearance in the colonies tend to coincide with the third journey of that ship.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, discoverer of Newfoundland, half-brother to Sir Walter Raleigh (they shared the same mother) and knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his services in suppressing the godless Irish (they say the path to his field tent was lined with the heads of the recently executed). My great-grandmother was a Gilbert, and she married the man who handed me down his surname.
Another Gilbert was a New York City silversmith at the time of the Revolution and later head of the state library. I have an old historical-magazine feature on him from the 1940s squirreled away somewhere.
My uncle managed to trace our surname’s forebears back to 1692 Switzerland, where our ancestor was a burgermeister in the St. Gallen area.
Oh, and I almost forgot. One Irish ancestor who had been an admiral in the Royal Navy settled in New York and was the richest man there. This was sometime in the first half of the 18th century. I can’t even remember his name now. Warren maybe? I have some info on him squirreled away somewhere, too. I think his daughter married one of my Gilbert ancestors; they had adjoining land. (Riches obviously squandered before they reached me. 
)
If someone is getting their family tree done professionally, how are the fees determined?
What is the most information you’d get back, for the least bucks?
Professional genealogists that I know charge by the hour. Since it’s almost never a simple matter to find people and provide citations for the findings, it can get quite expensive. It also depends on how much information you want to know. Then there are fees for copying, mailing, obtaining official certificate copies, etc. A genealogist is not going to guess what it is you’re looking for. You need to be specific as to what you want. Before contacting someone, make sure you’ve done all the basic legwork yourself: no sense paying someone to tell you that your dad married your mum.
Lots of interesting stories from my father’s side. The most interesting ancestor I know of is Robert Blum, my ggg-grandfather. I’m currently reading a history of the revolutions of 1848 that mentions him several times.
I personally have only traced my family back for several generations…but my mother in law is very into genealogy and has traced my leg of the family back as far as she could too (funny story: before I married, she insisted on getting all information- parents, grandparents, siblings etc. as far back as I knew so that she could get a jump on things. Now, 12 or 13 years later she just called me to tell me about a relevant point she found somewhere in the 1400s proving that my husband and I are in fact related. :)).
Mother in law has traced the family back so far I don’t even know…one branch she swears she has traced back to Adam and Eve (and she’s not joking). I caught her reading a Bible one time when she was visiting, which was odd since she is not at all religious. When I asked about it she said that her records stopped at biblical time frames so she was looking to see if there was a mention of whatever name she was working on so she could find the parents’ names. Personally I think she may be taking things a tad too far there.
As for real, verifiable records, I know she has legs of the family with records back to the 1300s and one at least, back further than that (but I forget the exact century).
There have been some surprises, but mostly in a gossip-y way…the usual crooks, outlaws, and illegitimate children that families used to try to hide, and a few “isn’t that interesting?” moments finding some tenuous relationship to famous names or royalty, but nothing too extraordinary or that we could use as our own claim to fame. I keep hoping she finds a long lost Uncle Moneybags who left me his billions, if he had only known how to contact me…but so far no such luck.
I have some branches in my tree that have been traced back to sometime in the 1400s in England.
I’m a direct descendant of the klutz that fell off the Mayflower and nearly drowned.
Say you just wanted the names of one side of your family, going back 3 or 4 hundred years, so you could do the rest of the delving yourself?
I have done a very little bit of work - it’s time consuming and tedious, but it’s also very interesting if you’re interested in it.
Probably the best starting point would be census records. Now the thing with the census records is that they can be very difficult to work with - handwritten, with writing that is hard to read and the microfilm process (you’re rarely going to look at the actual records, btw) and reading the microfilm itself makes it even more undecipherable (is that a word?! LOL). I had reached an impasse looking for my mother’s father’s father (my great grandfather) but eventually found he and his sister - the census taker’s handwriting was quite wonderful but the capital H in their last name had been interpreted at one time as an Sh and another letter in their last name had been mis-interpreted as well, so the last name that was showing for them was nowhere near what their real name was.
About a year and a half ago, just doing a bit of work, I was able to trace that family back a few generations, and found them on a farm on the eastern shore of Maryland. Another part of my mother’s family was from the eastern shore as well, and there were more than a few railroad folks (conductors, etc.) I lost one side, though, around the time of the 1920 census, and now am wondering if they got wiped out by the 1918 flu pandemic. Yet another branch of my mother’s family were from Wales and had settled in the coal mining regions of NE Pennsylvania (Mahanoy City). I believe there are still relatives in that general area. And another side was Scot-Irish (Fraser).
As I said, it’s all very interesting. I’d start with census records and see where that leads you. Good luck!
I only started looking into my family about 2 years ago, but I already had all 16 of my great grandparents names, along with some great-great grandparents.
Mom’s mom’s side is a line of Bukovina Hungarians (Székely) who pioneered in Saskatchewan Canada and have been researched back to the 1700’s.
Mom’s dad’s mom’s side are Scots who can be traced easily as well back to the 1700’s in England & Scotland and came to Canada, and then North Dakota, then back to Canada. One line claims decendency from royalty, which I had heard about since I was little, but I take it with a grain of salt until I can prove it myself or see the records that would prove it. My mom’s dad’s dad’s side are Dutch from Ostfriesland and I only have them until the mid 1800’s with my great-great grandparents - I have suspicions about how they connect to other families due to passenger records and where they pioneered in the US.
My dad’s mom’s side are Romanians also from Bukovina, I only have my great grandfather and two brothers so far.
My dad’s dad’s family were from Northern Ireland, and have been very difficult to research - I only have them back to my great grandfather & great grandmother, with a potential marriage records that had only father’s names for each of them, and not mother’s names.
I don’t have the money or time at my disposal to do anything except research online to the extent of a small budget - but I do subscribe to ancestry.com and I have purchase a couple other records.
Emailing with others tracing similar lines, and looking at censuses, military records, and even local histories has brought me many answers, and it is always fun to email with a distant cousin & learn more.
By “one side of your family” do you mean one line, or do you mean all of either your mom’s or your dad’s ancestors?
At 4 generations back (your great-great grandparents) you have 16 family lines; by “one side” do you mean tracing back one of those 16 or do you mean tracing back 8 of those sixteen?
At 8 generations back you aren’t 300 years in the past yet (generally speaking); most likely that puts you in the middle 1700s. At this level you have 256 ancestral families.
10 generations gets you back to the general vicinity of the early 1700s / late 1600s. You have 1024 ancestral families to consider at this point.
By “do the rest of the delving yourself” do you mean you’d pay to get just your direct ancestors only on your mom’s side (512 of those 1024) or dad’s side (512 of those 1024) or just one specific family (1 of those 1024), and you’d get the rest yourself, along with the folks that your 9th and 8th and 7th etc generation ancestor’s SIBLINGS got married to and THEIR children?
If you aren’t clear on what you want and don’t have a moderately clear idea of what you wish to end up with, you can end up spending a lot of money and getting very little of the work done for it.