Ancestry Adventures

[H165]

There's a zillion of us Bartletts - documented immigrants from France to England in 1016; fought at Hastings (1066), knighted (1068), signers of the colonies' Declaration, developers of Bartlett pears, etc, etc, etc. I'm living proof that all this greatness is probably not genetic.

[A Scot in Otley]

Originally Posted by H165

There's a zillion of us Bartletts - documented immigrants from France to England in 1016; fought at Hastings (1066), knighted (1068), signers of the colonies' Declaration, developers of Bartlett pears, etc, etc, etc. I'm living proof that all this greatness is probably not genetic.

This is all interesting stuff. How did you get back to 1016? I get that you might be able to find someone who was knighted by William Le Bâtard (won't let me use the english version) for services rendered, I assume the relative of the earlier 'immigrant', but there was no 'immigration' as we know it back then. People just came / invaded and settled (working / or wealth). I flippantly told a person I knew who said he would like to find out more about mediaeval history to watch the Godfather. Essentially, that has all the basic ingredients.

PS I used to love tinned pears as a kid.

[ewalling]

Originally Posted by RP

I got into Ancestry.com after my son asked me what our "real" name was. Like many Russian Jewish families, nobody talked about the old country or even what our real surname was. Unspoken family lore was that Porter was shortened at Ellis Island from a longer Russian name. As it turns out Porter was changed from Portiansky, but my grandfather arrived through Philadelphia and the name was not officially changed until over 15 years after arrival in the US despite using the shortened version long before that....

I've long suspected that I come from a proud line of ewallingskys ...

[rllink]

My grandmother on my Father's side was a Smith. I guess I can pretty much be whoever I want to be. Smith is the most common surname in America. I'll bet there's a lot of famous Smiths in history that I could lay claim to if I want.

[Cypress Knee]

I like to chart the migration paths of ancestors once they reach North America. I pop in the places of birth, marriage, and death into Google maps to see what comes up on current roadways.
My father's family name begins in 1813 in Catahoula Parish Louisiana, and pretty much stays there all the way down to me. However, the grand-parent lines include Quebecois who came to Canada from France in 1670 and eventually reached Louisiana via the Great Lakes and Mississippi waterways.

The Smiths came from England and the Maxwells from Scotland. Both followed a similar path, landing in Virginia then moving through the Carolina's, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi before finally reaching Louisiana.

[Cypress Knee]

My mother's side is almost all Scotch-Irish. The Lynch and Morrison families migrated from the mid-Atlantic to Kentucky, then Clayton, NM, and ultimately Denver.

The Elliotts and McCormicks essentially followed the Overland route from Chicago to Omaha and then turned southwest at Julesburg to eventually wind up in Denver.

[Pura Vida]

One of the more rewarding parts of my ancestry journey was reuniting two of my second cousins, both of whom I didn't previously know. They are descendants from my great-uncle, who was their grandfather, but the younger sister was adopted away when she was a baby. Their birthdays are only one day apart (different years, obviously), and they look so much alike. Their biological parents passed away already, so they were happy to find each other.

[Andyrondack]

Something I read in "A brief history of everyone who ever lived' that amazed me was that as consequence of the arithmetic of population growth originally based on the estimated past population numbers in Europe and later confirmed by genetics- if you go back 600 years everyone of European descent shares an ancestor with everyone else of similar descent.

[RP]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

Something I read in "A brief history of everyone who ever lived' that amazed me was that as consequence of the arithmetic of population growth originally based on the estimated past population numbers in Europe and later confirmed by genetics- if you go back 600 years everyone of European descent shares an ancestor with everyone else of similar descent.

This confirms what I've thought after finding that my lady friend's son and his wife seem to have a common ancestors several hundred years back. She keeps saying they're related, and I maintain that they just have a common ancestor...

[islandguitar]

Originally Posted by H165

There's a zillion of us Bartletts - documented immigrants from France to England in 1016; fought at Hastings (1066), knighted (1068), signers of the colonies' Declaration, developers of Bartlett pears, etc, etc, etc. I'm living proof that all this greatness is probably not genetic.

H1...thanks for the info and message on this!! All I had known (basically) is that a relative had signed the Declaration, so this is fun info.

My other side has Pilgrim lineage......direct with John Alden, so there's been more concentration on that side for many years.

My thanks once again,
Fred

[Skarsaune]

Tangentially related to the post -

I'm working on flatpicking fiddle tunes. Looking over some of Dix Bruce's instructional material, he had a book of Scandinavian American fiddle tunes transcribed for mandolin. What?!?

I'm first generation. Dad was born in Norway and came to the states at 16.

So I jump down the rabbit hole and find out about Norwegian immigrant fiddlers who moved to the upper midwest, their lives and music, people who are preserving and performing some of this late 19th / early 20th century music...

And I realize I never talked to Dad about immigrating to the US before he passed. How, why, when, etc. But I have an uncle still alive in Norway.....

Pretty soon after, I was FaceTiming with my relatives in Norway, getting the family story.

I'm really glad I did.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by RP

This confirms what I've thought after finding that my lady friend's son and his wife seem to have a common ancestors several hundred years back. She keeps saying they're related, and I maintain that they just have a common ancestor...

I think your both right but perhaps not in the way your partner thinks .
On the one hand we all have the same limited number of genes and half of those from each parent gets lost in the shuffle with each generation. So we all have millions of ancestors from whom we inherited no dna, so I guess that means we can't say we are related to them, even though we are descended from them, but you would have no way of knowing if some of your dna arrived to you via any specific ancestor unless you share a rare genetic disorder.

But then again the human population hundreds of years ago was so small relative to today's population that you can only get from there to here by lots of ancestors marrying cousins of 2nd, 3rd, 4th variations etc so in that sense she's right because everyone is related.

As far as Europeans are concerned then everyone who was alive in Europe 1000 years ago and who left descendents is the ancestor of everyone of European descent alive today, so if that family tree is like a jigsaw puzzle you'd better clear a big space on the carpet because it's a pretty big picture.
Once we go back more than a few generations there are no direct lines of descent from any ancestor, it all becomes a web with different branches of the 'familly' leading by multiple routes back to all ancestors.

[A Scot in Otley]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

I think your both right but perhaps not in the way your partner thinks .
On the one hand we all have the same limited number of genes and half of those from each parent gets lost in the shuffle with each generation. So we all have millions of ancestors from whom we inherited no dna, so I guess that means we can't say we are related to them, even though we are descended from them, but you would have no way of knowing if some of your dna arrived to you via any specific ancestor unless you share a rare genetic disorder.

But then again the human population hundreds of years ago was so small relative to today's population that you can only get from there to here by lots of ancestors marrying cousins of 2nd, 3rd, 4th variations etc so in that sense she's right because everyone is related.

As far as Europeans are concerned then everyone who was alive in Europe 1000 years ago and who left descendents is the ancestor of everyone of European descent alive today, so if that family tree is like a jigsaw puzzle you'd better clear a big space on the carpet because it's a pretty big picture.
Once we go back more than a few generations there are no direct lines of descent from any ancestor, it all becomes a web with different branches of the 'familly' leading by multiple routes back to all ancestors.

Thanks for this instructive explanation. The 'loss' of DNA is something I hadn't realised: I'd never thought on it that way (I assumed addition was infinite) and the 3rd and 4th relatives intermarrying (which I expected but it must be absolutely a major factor) clarifies the confusion outlined in my earlier ramblings on numbers of ancestors.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by A Scot in Otley

Thanks for this instructive explanation. The 'loss' of DNA is something I hadn't realised: I'd never thought on it that way (I assumed addition was infinite) and the 3rd and 4th relatives intermarrying (which I expected but it must be absolutely a major factor) clarifies the confusion outlined in my earlier ramblings on numbers of ancestors.

An interesting population figure I heard quoted by David Attenborough and others is that 10,000 years ago the world's human population was similar to London's today, so around 7M people - today it's 8 billion. To get from the first number to the second in 10K years then a lot of people must have had children with partners they are related to.

Anyone interested in this kind of thing should really read 'A brief history of everyone who ever lived' some of it gets a bit dry and technical at times but there's a lot of fascinatining stuff about hereditary and genetics .
The author Dr Adam Rutherford is scathing about the significance of claims by genetic ancestry companies, he seems to suggest that their real business is building a commercially exploitable database of population genetics, so basically your paying them to exploit your genetic data.
Dr Rutherford sites the example of an Italian celebrity who was claimed to be a descendant of Charlemagne in a press release by one of these ancestry companies , the author showed how that was meaningless because Charlemagne lived so long ago that all Europeans can rightly claim to be descended from the 8thC emperor.
All these genetic ancestry companies are doing is comparing databases of modern people living today , anyone reading this could well have as an ancestor the famed Abominable Snowman but as we all have fewer genes than ancestors there may well be no Abominable Snowman DNA remaining in us.

On American ancestry I once new a bloke from New Mexico who had been given as a present an illustrated book of historic articles from the local newspaper of a town where his a family had lived for several generations.
In it there was a photo story of one of his great great uncles being hung for horse stealing,
the final picture was a bit grim and humorous at the same time , it showed the towns dignitories all suited and booted in victorian bowler hats gathered around a black sack on the ground which held his old uncles head which in the hanging had become detached from
his body.

[A Scot in Otley]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

An interesting population figure I heard quoted by David Attenborough and others is that 10,000 years ago the world's human population was similar to London's today, so around 7M people - today it's 8 billion. To get from the first number to the second in 10K years then a lot of people must have had children with partners they are related to.

Anyone interested in this kind of thing should really read 'A brief history of everyone who ever lived' .

Will have a look, cheers.