Where do the roots end?

[Guy Etchells]

It really depends how far back you wish to go and who your ancestors were.
I have two lines go back to the 15th century (1450 & 1470). If however there is a link to royalty the lineage can go far further back.

However family history is not so much going back to Adam & Eve but researching the history of the family. In other words putting meat on the bones.
One could spend many years researching a couple of generations or there could be a dearth of modern records but a wealth of information from an ancestor in the 17th century.

Aristocracy, Landowners and convicts often have a wealth of records generated for them.
Cheers
Guy

[MargP]

When the records are not forthcoming

[jess5athome]

Hi, I think I have found that point with one ancestor of mine,
I have a Trystram Denby b-Snaith yorkshire 1583
                                     d-Cowick Yorkshire 1643
His baptism is shown as 17th October 1583 in the Snaith parish registers.
His father is shown also as Trystram Denby who was:-
b- Snaith 1560
d- poss 1603
Married Snaith 1582.

Alas it seems to end there and I have to admit it is heart wrenching.

[Redroger]

The answer is that it depends on how much money THEY had. Money provides records - inheritance, wills, property, squabbles and all records money/land need. The government is always interested in their money too. All the money a researcher has is not going to normally trace a working person back before church records. UNLESS the person does something dramatic and sails on the Mayflower!

Criminals feature too, my father's likely (I say likely through illegitimacy in the late 18th century)maternal line has been traced back to around 1300, family were nothing grand, just tenant farmers who rented the same farm for around 450 years, and the manorial records happen to have survived) A matter of luck, but why didn't my likely 3XGGM claim off the parish? If she had I would have a 23 generation tree!

[LizzieW]

I have one ancestor who has gateway ancestors so it's very easy to research that line back to 1100s, however her partner (she didn't marry him so no father's name to follow) is a different story. I can't even find his birth, so I'm completely stuck with him.  I know he was around in 1884 and is on 1891, 1901 and 1911  census, I know he died in 1935, but what I don't know are his beginnings and, therefore, any of his ancestors.

Lizzie

[Redroger]

The surname Luffman appears in the Domesday book as Leofman, a thane of Wessex who in 1065 was deprived of Hayling Island by Earl (later King) Harold for some unknown misdemeanour, I think he probably supported the Scandanavian invasion by the dates. It also goes further back into the Saxon Kingdom, a Leofman is recorded as a moneyer of King Ethelred in 1016. If it could be connected that would be wonderful as it is I'm still stuck in 1776 with that line.

[smudwhisk]

I have one ancestor who has gateway ancestors so it's very easy to research that line back to 1100s, however her partner (she didn't marry him so no father's name to follow) is a different story. I can't even find his birth, so I'm completely stuck with him.  I know he was around in 1884 and is on 1891, 1901 and 1911  census, I know he died in 1935, but what I don't know are his beginnings and, therefore, any of his ancestors.

Lizzie

We had a similar issue until literally the last couple of weeks.  An ancestor was listed as born in Everdon, Northants on the 1851 census, he died in 1857.  It's not that common a name in Northants, but it is in Leicestershire.  Also causing problems was the fact he was listed "of" a Leicestershire parish on his marriage in 1815.  It had stumped us literally for about 12 years.  The microfiche of the PRs for his "birth" parish are not very good, hardly readable in the late 1700s/early 1800s.  We knew of an illegitimate child with the same first name born the right time in the parish, whose mother was the name of ancestor's first child, but nothing else.  That is until I purchased a copy of Alan Clarke's Baptism Index to find that a woman of the same name had had three children baptised in 1803 with the reputed father having the same surname my ancestor used as an adult.  The entry on the microfiche is almost unreadable unless you know what it says.  They must have indexed it from the original PRs, we had no reason to check them as there were no others of the same name in the parish ... or so we thought.  To add to that two of the later illegitimate children appeared to have taken their father's surname and the "sister" married in the same parish that my ancestor was living in, and his second eldest daughter is visiting her and her husband on the 1871 census.  While not exactly conclusive proof, we can't find the illegitimate children anywhere else and it seems much to big a coincidence.  Ironically the sister married her cousin, her reputed father's nephew   It didn't also help that the parish clerk had missed an "r" out of the surname of the reputed father on three entries in the parish records, albeit that the marriage entry (he married his "partner's" Aunt but she had died by the time the three later children appeared) is listed incorrectly but the groom signed it with the correct spelling.  Whether he was my ancestor's father, probably doubtful but you never know and perhaps the Parish Clerk was being tactful to list him as that while the wife was still alive.   He did make the usual comment about my ancestor's legitimacy mind you.

So you never know what is going to turn up.  A major brickwall can be felled at any time.

[stonechat]

YEs there are some records that you can access befoeven re PRs
Manorial records, wills , etc

These will usually not be enough than to go one extra generation back even if you are lucky.
The exception is if you are connected to a line of nobiliity.

Let's face it, sometimes there are gaps and errors in PRs and there is just no trace at a much later date

If the name is uncommon you can sometimes search for the earliest occurrence in a particular area

BoB

[Rena]

The manorial records on the a2a website  http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/

are not complete but often give clues.  There are seven results when searching for "Denby" up to the year 1700 in the Lincolnshire archives on this page:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/results.aspx?tab=2&Page=1&ContainAllWords=Denby&DateFrom=01%2f01%2f1000&DateTo=01%2f01%2f1700&Repository=Lincolnshire+Archives

Where families of status/land are concerned their names also crop up in other country records depending on where descendants migrate to