# What Is The Oldest Surviving Unbroken European Last Name In the Continental U.S.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 2, 2005, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692 "2005-12-02T04:48:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692/1 "2005-12-02T04:48:11Z")
There are really two questions to this: 1. What is the earliest European ancestor that produced an unbroken lineage within the lower 48 states of the U.S. and parts that lineage stayed in the U.S. the entire time. 2. What is the earliest surviving last name from an earlier settler that was passed through continuous habitation in the lower 48 of the U.S. Let me explain my reasons for asking. I was just reading about the Roanoke colony in North Carolina in another thread. That was an early colony but none of them made it. There were also settlements in San Augustine, FL. I don’t hear much about those descendants. I am a male who descended from the first colony at Jamestown around 1610 and I have the same last name. My ancestor was [Richard Pace 1st](http://www.phc.igs.net/~gordpace/lines/lineage0001.htm) . Don’t worry, I have the full genealogy that encompasses the work of a much older cousin and others, predates the internet, and cross-checks perfectly with every other source. I can even do a DNA test through the society if I want. I live in Massachusetts now where people love to talk about those stupid “original” Pilgrims. I want to scream" Jamestown is where it’s at!". My lineage dates back 20 years before the Pilgrims. I am just wondering if there are unbroken European lineages that go back further in what is now the Lower 48. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692/2 "2005-12-02T04:59:06Z")
There could be some people in New Mexico who may give you a run for your money. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692/3 "2005-12-02T05:03:54Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > There are really two questions to this: > > 1. What is the earliest European ancestor that produced an unbroken lineage within the lower 48 states of the U.S. and parts that lineage stayed in the U.S. the entire time. > > 2. What is the earliest surviving last name from an earlier settler that was passed through continuous habitation in the lower 48 of the U.S. > > Let me explain my reasons for asking. I was just reading about the Roanoke colony in North Carolina in another thread. That was an early colony but none of them made it. There were also settlements in San Augustine, FL. I don’t hear much about those descendants. > > I am a male who descended from the first colony at Jamestown around 1610 and I have the same last name. My ancestor was [Richard Pace 1st](http://www.phc.igs.net/~gordpace/lines/lineage0001.htm) . Don’t worry, I have the full genealogy that encompasses the work of a much older cousin and others, predates the internet, and cross-checks perfectly with every other source. I can even do a DNA test through the society if I want. > > I live in Massachusetts now where people love to talk about those stupid “original” Pilgrims. I want to scream" Jamestown is where it’s at!". My lineage dates back 20 years before the Pilgrims. > > I am just wondering if there are unbroken European lineages that go back further in what is now the Lower 48. You may have competition from an unlikely source: New Mexico. There are old Hispanic families there that go back to the earliest settlements, which date to the same time frame. Santa Fe was founded in 1607-08, and San Juan in 1598. ([Cite.](http://www.common-place.org/vol-03/no-04/santa-fe/)) Whether there are provable lineal descents from the first settlers, however, is a different story (see article). ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692/4 "2005-12-02T05:06:49Z")
> [@BobT](#): > > There could be some people in New Mexico who may give you a run for your money. I assume you are referring to some Spanish groups that moved up. What are those? This question isn’t really about me, I would really like to know the earliest unbroken line of last name. However, I am scared the answer is going to be something like Rodriguez and then things will quickly go downhill. My grandmother from the 1500’s was named Smythe (Smith) so I am glad it didn’t that way for research purposes. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692/5 "2005-12-02T05:18:49Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > You may have competition from an unlikely source: New Mexico. There are old Hispanic families there that go back to the earliest settlements, which date to the same time frame. But the conditions were “an unbroken lineage within the lower 48 states of the U.S. and parts that lineage stayed in the U.S. the entire time.” Any family living in New Mexico when it was under Spanish control was not in the US for the entire time. In fact they weren’t in the US for most of that time. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692/6 "2005-12-02T05:26:53Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Any family living in New Mexico when it was under Spanish control was not in the US for the entire time. In fact they weren’t in the US for most of that time. That’s OK. You could argue that none of it was the U.S. until much later. I am just looking for the lineage and ideally the last name that never left what is now the lower 48 once they arrived. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692/7 "2005-12-02T05:42:09Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I live in Massachusetts now where people love to talk about those stupid “original” Pilgrims. I want to scream" Jamestown is where it’s at!". My lineage dates back 20 years before the Pilgrims. If your ancestor(s) immigrated to Jamestown in 1610, your North American lineage dates back 10 years before the Pilgrims arrive at Plymouth. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692/8 "2005-12-02T06:14:11Z")
[_Los Paisanos: Spanish Settlers on the Northern Frontier of New Spain_](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0806128852/), by Oakah L. Jones. Excerpt: > [@](#): > > Juan de Oñate led the first official colonizing expedition to New Mexico in 1598. . . . By January 1597, he had enlisted a total of 205 men, largely natives of Spain, central New Spain, the frontier regions near Zacatecas, and what is today southern Chihuahua. Delays, generally caused by contested authority and lengthy inspections, had reduced Oñate’s expedition to only 129 men when the royal inspector, Juan de Frías Salazar, completed his inspection and muster of soldiers and settlers on January 8, 1598. > > Oñate led these soldier-settlers, many with their families, together with carts, livestock, and equipment, northward via El Paso del Norte (not settled then) and along the Río Grande to its junction with the Río Chama. There, in July, 1598, he and his advance party founded the first Spanish settlement on the east bank of the Río Grande, naming it San Juan de los Caballeros. The main body reached the settlement on August 18, but before the year was out all had moved to the site of the Tewa Indian pueblo of Yuque Yunque on the Río Chama where it joined the Río Grande. There were four hundred houses at the site for the Spaniards to use in the community of San Gabriel de los Españoles. It remained the single Spanish settlement and capital of New Mexico in spite of the dissastisfactions of the colonists and near desertion of the colony in the first decade of the seventeenth century. In 1610, the new governor of New Mexico, Pedra de Peralta, founded the _villa_ of Santa Fé and moved the remaining colonists from San Gabriel to become its original settlers. Nine years before Jamestown, Virginia, and 22 years before Plymouth, Massachusetts. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692/9 "2005-12-02T06:43:13Z")
[Jamestowne Society](http://www.jamestowne.org/) > [@](#): > > The Jamestowne Society was organized for educational, historical, and patriotic purposes, and to that end: To discover and record the names of all living descendants of those early settlers who made the great sacrifice to establish our English-speaking Nation. . . ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692/10 "2005-12-02T14:53:43Z")
What about the Spanish settlements in Florida dating to the early 1500s? Did any of them survive or were they all abandoned until aftet the New Mexico/Virginia/Massachusetts colonies were established? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692/11 "2005-12-02T15:19:04Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > [Jamestowne Society](http://www.jamestowne.org/) Cool, I didn’t know about that I can qualify pretty easily. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-surviving-unbroken-european-last-name-in-the-continental-u-s/333692/12 "2005-12-02T15:28:24Z")
> [@FatBaldGuy](#): > > What about the Spanish settlements in Florida dating to the early 1500s? Did any of them survive or were they all abandoned until aftet the New Mexico/Virginia/Massachusetts colonies were established? [St. Augustine, Florida has been continuously occupied since 1565](http://www.oldcity.com/his2.html): > [@](#): > > …St. Augustine was founded forty-two years before the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, and fifty-five years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts - making it the oldest permanent European settlement on the North American continent.