14th great grandfather......

[777777]

The only thing to concern me, Xin, is that Francis Pitt appears to only be 14 when son Oliver born!!

Annette

These things did happen! I have a 14-year-old dad in my tree in 1877... explains why my great-grandmother refused to speak about her parents... 

Xinia - well done. It's a great feeling to get a line back that far.

[Finley 1]

Thanks
but I shall only be really pleased when I actually have some kind of documentation or something -  so it will be a long long time, before it is alllllllll verified... Unless of course, I become totally famous overnight and they want 'ME' for wdytya   

xin

[sharonmx5]

Got back on my husband's line to his 13th Gt Grandfather who died in 1556.  He must have been born during the last decade of the 15th Century.  Unfortunately the relevant Parish Registers don't now exist before the mid to late 17th Century so I've had to rely on Wills along with some other reliable documentation.  I'm quite happy with the results so far although I have one or two doc's left to examine.  I have been lucky that I have had at least 10 relevant Wills to draw on.

Verification and doing the leg work is the best bit in my opinion.  You are lucky, I've never got very far using Family Search.

[Finley 1]

Yes it is the only line, I have had that much 'luck' with -- a lot of the research I did before family search became as it is today and the old fashioned much easier igi was available online...
Besides there is an abundance of 'Pitts'  so -- easy name to follow - finding EXACTLY correct parent not so easy, I think I have a Frances for a Francis up there in the list.  But will sort it..

e v e n t u a l l y

xin

[LizzieW]

I've got back to one of my 16 x g.grandfathers born 1360, but that is only because the family way back was very wealthy so there are records available in National Archives, Burkes Peerage, Chancery Court proceedings etc. and, of course parish records.  I also have lots of wills, one or two of which I can barely read but I can make out the names of the children. Of course, once my ancestors stopped being the 1st son of the 1st son their wealth dropped off and although most of them had a good trade my 3 x g.grandfather was only a labourer and died in the workhouse.

Following other lines that married into the one above I've got back even further as many of the men were Knights and Lords so there's lots of info about them in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and other sites but although the info is in print, I've not verified it personally and I'm not sure how I could do that.  From various pieces of literature I believe that my 22nd x g.grandfather  accompanied King John to Runnymede where he was one of the 25 witnesses to the signing of the Magna Carta.

Ironically I can't trace my one of my g.grandfather's origins and he was only born about 1858 

[Ringrose]

With the help of a tree held in Societe Jersiaise in St Helier I have been able to back to the 14 hundreds just after the family came from Normandy to settle.Initially on enquiring a few years ago they emailed me a copy but recently I saw the actual tree of the Le Cronier family.
It was also interesting to find out that for generations they were privateers.
Ringrose

[LizzieW]

From various pieces of literature I believe that my 22nd x g.grandfather  accompanied King John to Runnymede where he was one of the 25 witnesses to the signing of the Magna Carta.

As I mentioned I think it's difficult to verify what is available on line when it refers to something so far back.  Having written the above I re-checked the details and found it wasn't my 22 x g.grandfather who witnessed the Magna Carta but another man of the same name.  Nevertheless, my 22 x g.grandfather was still an important man at the time and was an Earl.

[Redroger]

My 12X great grandfather on my mother's side was William Cockerton bc 1530 probably in Cambridgeshire. On my father's side, IF (and I have tried since 1996!) I can demolish an illegitimacy brickwall in the 1770s I can go back 21 generations to Robert Metyer b in Dorset c 1300. And if I can prove a connection to the Black Prince then i can get right back to William I Duke of Normandy. One thing in favour I know I have the Nordic Gene, so maybe!!

[Nick Carver]

A friend of mine put all my research into some perspective when she informed me that her ancestors were influential at the Chinese court (she is from Brunei but of Chinese origin) and her tree can be traced back to 200BC, although the first 400 years or so are not written down. She has a transcript, but it is in classical Chinese, something  that is about as understandable in that culture as Anglo-Saxon is in our own.