# What's the farthest back anyone has traced their genealogy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 12, 2005, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318 "2005-01-12T02:29:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/141 "2012-06-22T15:03:20Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Well, yes and no. We can often figure out who we inherited our names from. Whether we are actual genetic descendants of those people is entirely another question. > > Now, in terms of inheritance, that’s fine. In terms of an adopted person being just as much a “real” child of his/her adoptive parents, yes, I fully agree. But in terms of an actual blood relationship to people of earlier centuries, that’s unprovable at this distance, unless you can come up with viable DNA samples from the people you’re claiming descent from. > > Why should we worry about genes? Because people in this thread certainly seem to me to be assuming that they are _actual genetic descendants_ of the people whose names they have traced. I’m saying that it becomes more likely with every generation back that there was a cuckoo or two in the family tree. Once you’re up into 32 and 64 and 128 ancestors, I’d say it’s _certain_ that at least a few of them weren’t who the records say they were. > > Which is fine and dandy, but don’t tell me you’re descended from some guy you’ve traced back to the 12th century, because there is very little chance you actually are, whatever the records say. Allow us our delusions and we’ll allow you yours. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/142 "2012-06-22T23:49:49Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I don’t know your origins, but this is suspect and would be unusual to the point of astonishing. Most European genealogy shuts down in the dark ages, when written records were nearly non-existent. To claim cited sources for lineage going back that early has to make me raise an eyebrow. I think it’s highly unusual but not impossible. Suppose **babyboomer** can trace his/her line back to Charlemagne; in that case the line can be pushed back at almost a couple of centuries more to [Pepin of Landen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippin_of_Landen), born around 580. The old Gallo-Roman aristocracy wasn’t entirely destroyed at that point, if it ever was, so conceivably a Frankish family and Gallo-Roman family could have been joined by marriage; the latter might well have been able to trace itself back to 286. ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/143 "2012-06-23T00:29:17Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Adam and Eve, although the documentation of the connections leading to them is highly subject to skepticism! 🙂 > > Seriously, quite a few provable lineages are available leading back to Charlemagne and to his ancestors, a quasi-independent Roman governor in Gaul named Syagrius in the late 300s being the farthest back I’ve seen people able to prove out linkages to. > > Lineages leading to royal lines go back quite a way in most cases. What’s difficult is tracing “normal” non-royal, non-noble lineages back much before 1600. My family has been run back to A&E. At least according to one set of charts I found at the LDS geneology center in Salt Lake City. I’m taking it with a large grain of salt. My mother’s grand-mother has had her line run back to England to the mid 1500s. I believe it to be reliable. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/144 "2012-06-23T00:43:54Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I think it’s highly unusual but not impossible. Suppose **babyboomer** can trace his/her line back to Charlemagne; in that case the line can be pushed back at almost a couple of centuries more to [Pepin of Landen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippin_of_Landen), born around 580. The old Gallo-Roman aristocracy wasn’t entirely destroyed at that point, if it ever was, so conceivably a Frankish family and Gallo-Roman family could have been joined by marriage; the latter might well have been able to trace itself back to 286. Certainly royalty can be traced, as those lines are well-documented. Generally, when somebody makes that sort of claim, it’s based upon supposition or on someone else’s undocumented work. It’s the bane of doing internet research: people post nonsense and other people copy it, and before long it’s everywhere with none of it sourced. I think I related the story about someone who was researching one of my same lines. I mentioned in an email that we were distantly related to the same family that produced Aaron Burr. She took that to mean that she was descended from Burr, which is patently impossible, as his only grandchild died without heir (I won’t go into his supposed illegitimate children). I corrected her, but her response was “Well, I’m going to post it anyway.” WTF? ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/145 "2012-06-23T01:23:43Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I think it’s highly unusual but not impossible. Suppose **babyboomer** can trace his/her line back to Charlemagne; in that case the line can be pushed back at almost a couple of centuries more to [Pepin of Landen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippin_of_Landen), born around 580. The old Gallo-Roman aristocracy wasn’t entirely destroyed at that point, if it ever was, so conceivably a Frankish family and Gallo-Roman family could have been joined by marriage; the latter might well have been able to trace itself back to 286. It is impossible. Charlemagne’s lineage is by far one of the most studied and there are many very serious genealogists trying to find some way, any way of tracing lineages back to antiquity, but so far _no one_ has been able to go beyond the 6th century CE. Pepin of Landen and Arnulf of Metz is the best anyone can do reliably. Beyond that is the realm of supposition and legend. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/146 "2012-06-23T01:29:59Z")
My ancestor with my surname has been traced back to 1680. He was the burgermeister of a small Swiss village. But I’m a direct descendent Sir Humphrey Gilbert (c. 1539-83), the half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh. (They had the same mother). ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2012, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/147 "2012-06-23T02:57:47Z")
The Chinese side of my family trace themselves back to Cao Cao of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms or aprx 155 AD. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/148 "2012-06-24T03:40:34Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > The Chinese side of my family trace themselves back to Cao Cao of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms or aprx 155 AD. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. 😉 Well, the Chinese have had a continuous, literate civilization for several thousand years. It’s not quite fair to compare that to people whose civilizations didn’t learn to read until sometime in the last 1500 years. 😉 I still say the Ethiopian dynasty can trace farther back than anyone (except maybe some Jews, but I don’t know how accurate some of the really old lineages are in the Bible). ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/149 "2012-06-24T04:59:37Z")
> [@fiddlesticks](#): > > Indeed, one of my grandmothers was born well after the rest of her siblings, and her oldest sister would have been 16ish at the time of her birth. Haven’t dug too deeply into this but I have a sneaky suspicion my great-aunt was actually my great-grandmother, but I’ve kept this suspicion to myself. On the other hand, “change of life” babies are common enough that passing off an unmarried daughter’s child as a change baby was plausible. When a number of years have elapsed since the last child and both parents are getting older, sometimes they get a false sense of security, and they start thinking that they’re past childbearing, and that’s when accidents happen. My great grandmother had two change babies, 15 and 17 years after her last child. I’m as confident as I can be that those children were genuinely hers. ---
**Author:** ![Hokkaido\_Brit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d26b3c/32.png) [@Hokkaido\_Brit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hokkaido_Brit)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/150 "2012-06-24T05:51:00Z")
My Japanese husband’s family are temple priests and as such can trace their lineage back to the 700’s. But blood lineage? Not a chance? So many adoptions of nephews and cousins and who the hell evers. But the legal line of priests is all documented in an unbroken chain. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/151 "2012-06-24T06:34:58Z")
I was genetically assembled in a government lab that… but I’ve said too much already. ---
**Author:** ![crazydoglady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@crazydoglady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazydoglady)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/152 "2012-06-24T17:42:34Z")
I wonder if there are more people interested in this stuff in the ‘new world’? I find it completely fascinating and have done some research on my own family line. Both my maternal and paternal sides are a)peasant (famers) and b)location in the southwest of England - Devon for my father’s family and Somerset for my mother’s. Due to my mother having a very rare surname (so rare that I haven’t found anyone with this surname who _doesn’t_ have a connection - and usually a very recent or current one - back to the village the surname originates from) I’ve been able to go back a lot farther on that side - reliably into the early 1600s, less reliably to the early 1500’s. I also found some relatives in the Chicago area descended from a deviant member of the clan who was banished there for horse thievery in England around 1910. There is a mountain in Australia that bears this surname, but I haven’t been able to find a lot of information about the origins of the name. My parents moved to Canada as newlyweds in the late 70s and then had children, and going back to England, especially back to the graveyard where many of my ancestors are buried, was/is always an oddly profound and emotional experience for me. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/153 "2012-06-24T18:11:08Z")
> [@crazydoglady](#): > > I wonder if there are more people interested in this stuff in the ‘new world’? I find it completely fascinating and have done some research on my own family line. Both my maternal and paternal sides are a)peasant (famers) and b)location in the southwest of England - Devon for my father’s family and Somerset for my mother’s. Due to my mother having a very rare surname (so rare that I haven’t found anyone with this surname who _doesn’t_ have a connection - and usually a very recent or current one - back to the village the surname originates from) I’ve been able to go back a lot farther on that side - reliably into the early 1600s, less reliably to the early 1500’s. I also found some relatives in the Chicago area descended from a deviant member of the clan who was banished there for horse thievery in England around 1910. There is a mountain in Australia that bears this surname, but I haven’t been able to find a lot of information about the origins of the name. > > My parents moved to Canada as newlyweds in the late 70s and then had children, and going back to England, especially back to the graveyard where many of my ancestors are buried, was/is always an oddly profound and emotional experience for me. I have a couple of names like that. The Colegrove name goes back to one of four brothers, offspring of the original immigrant. Nearly everyone with that name is related, although by this time I’m sure there are other Colegroves that have immigrated to the US. Whether they were originally related to that family in England is unknown. ---
**Author:** ![crazydoglady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@crazydoglady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazydoglady)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/154 "2012-06-24T18:46:14Z")
I was uncelar - when i said I didn’t know the origin of the name I was refering to the mountain with the name, not the name itself. The name itself is the equivalent of someone from NYC being called ‘Thomas New Yorker’ and it is obvious the name comes from a specific village in Somerset. What is the date on the original Colegrove immigrant? That IS a surname I have never heard before. Do you have any idea what part of England they came from? Have you considered there may be a coal mining connection, given the propensity at certain periods of time for people to have surnames related to their professions? Also, it definitley sounds like a placename, too! ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/155 "2012-06-24T19:20:05Z")
> [@crazydoglady](#): > > I was uncelar - when i said I didn’t know the origin of the name I was refering to the mountain with the name, not the name itself. The name itself is the equivalent of someone from NYC being called ‘Thomas New Yorker’ and it is obvious the name comes from a specific village in Somerset. > > What is the date on the original Colegrove immigrant? That IS a surname I have never heard before. Do you have any idea what part of England they came from? Have you considered there may be a coal mining connection, given the propensity at certain periods of time for people to have surnames related to their professions? Also, it definitley sounds like a placename, too! The date of immigration is not clear yet. He was born in Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales (not England - brain fart) in 1663 and married in Rhode Island in 1688, so it was obviously somewhere in between. The name has variously been spelled Colgrove, Colegrove and even Colegrave. There is an apocryphal story about there being a grove of trees near a Cole River (or some such), at some point, but that’s speculation and undocumented. ---
**Author:** ![nae4nola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/43a26b/32.png) [@nae4nola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nae4nola)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/156 "2012-08-23T03:31:59Z")
I traced my lineage all way back to Eugene V Eochaid II MacDomangart “Crooked Nose” King of Dalraida and Scotland (660 - 697). He was my 39th great grandfather. Being a royal lineage of Kings from Scotland was the only reason I could trace this far back on my Mom’s side. I have not yet been able to get back past the 1600’s on my Dad’s side, but I am still researching. One thing is for certain. At some point, we all came from the same place. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/157 "2012-08-23T12:19:25Z")
> [@nae4nola](#): > > I traced my lineage all way back to Eugene V Eochaid II MacDomangart “Crooked Nose” King of Dalraida and Scotland (660 - 697). Why did you stop there? His father and grandfather (at least) are known. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/158 "2012-08-23T14:24:18Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > I traced my lineage all way back to Eugene V Eochaid II MacDomangart “Crooked Nose” King of Dalraida and Scotland (660 - 697). > > Why did you stop there? His father and grandfather (at least) are known. One thing I learned (the hard way :smack: ) is that once you reach a well-documented noble lineage it’s easiest to just write “Refer to readily available Internet sources for further ancestry.” Perhaps **nae4nola** traced himself back to a hitherto-undocumented child of the Crooked Nose King. :dubious: BTW, as a nitpick, I doubt if the term “Scotland” was in use in the 7th-century, or if it was it probably referred to Ireland rather than the Scots’ holdings in Pictland. On a happier note, Eochaid “Crooked Nose” had (supposedly) a great-great-uncle Artur who is alleged to be the Arthur of Camelot myth. However, it appears that [the website that explained this in detail and for free](http://kingarthurlegend.com/) now allows you to buy a Kindle book instead. ---
**Author:** ![Lazy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/159 "2012-08-23T15:30:22Z")
What got me hooked on genealogy was when it started to appear like a puzzle that I was putting together in time as well as space. It is always a little provisional though. You think you have a connection solidly established, and then some new piece of evidence appears that casts some doubt. After years of fooling around with it, I have a line to Charlemagne, I think. (It helped that I eventually linked up with distant cousin who is a professional archivist and has been working on the line for years.) But there is still at least one generation where the evidence is not as solid as I would like, and that could easily overturn the whole thing. Of course, I, like most people of western European descent, am almost certainly descended from Charlemagne in thousands of different ways, (as well as from equally interesting people , most of whom are lost to history). But it is cool to be able to follow a line that far (even if it is not necessarily a genetic line), and to know at least a little bit about each person in the link. ---
**Author:** ![YoudNeverGuess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a587f6/32.png) [@YoudNeverGuess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoudNeverGuess)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318/160 "2012-08-23T16:52:01Z")
I’m lucky in that I have a celebrity second-cousin who was the subject of a TV programme called ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ and one branch of our family tree - the one that I’m directly descended from too was traced all the way back to King Edward III of England and France (and of course you can trace back from there too through the Plantagenet line). I’m Irish so whoever was saying it’s impossible of Irish people to be descended from English or French royalty and to be able to trace it is talking rubbish. Loads of us have English ancestors who came over to Ireland to marry nobility here. That side of my family has the aristocratic history. We don’t know so much about the other branches but haven’t looked into it. It’s definitely much easier to trace your family tree back if you can find a line that connects with nobility because lineage was so important. Also, being descended through the female line (which much of our path to Edward III was) could be seen as even better as it’s a more reliable indicator of legitimacy. Not that any of it matters much but it’s interesting and made me interested in finding out a bit more about Edward III who was a pretty interesting king. 🆒 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-farthest-back-anyone-has-traced-their-genealogy/284318.md?page=9)