O! Horror!

[lethearen]

I've been poking around on ancestry.com, and found that they have some tools to make preliminary tree-filling really fast by letting you borrow and build upon what others have already found. I know that I still have to verify, but it gives me direction and makes the whole task seem less daunting. So anyway. I found a hypothetical paternal line starting with my mum's pop back to 1634...

In Edinburgh. Scotland.
Not Ireland.

My illusions from growing up have been shattered! Why have we always been told we were Irish? Why was my Great Grandpa Max called "Pat" if he wasn't Irish?! So many questions! But that's half the fun of genealogy, right?

At least now I guess I'm officially more "entitled" to wear the kilt than I had been before!

[beloitpiper]

I've been poking around on ancestry.com, and found that they have some tools to make preliminary tree-filling really fast by letting you borrow and build upon what others have already found. I know that I still have to verify, but it gives me direction and makes the whole task seem less daunting. So anyway. I found a hypothetical paternal line starting with my mum's pop back to 1634...

In Edinburgh. Scotland.
Not Ireland.

My illusions from growing up have been shattered! Why have we always been told we were Irish? Why was my Great Grandpa Max called "Pat" if he wasn't Irish?! So many questions! But that's half the fun of genealogy, right?

At least now I guess I'm officially more "entitled" to wear the kilt than I had been before!

He could still very well be Irish even if your family was in Scotland in 1634...that was a long time ago and people tend to move.

[Rex_Tremende]

Well, 1634 was a while ago, you know. That makes you, what? 1/512th Scottish?

Regards,
Rex.

[Ozark Ridge Rider]

You didn"t say how many generations it was back to 1634, but in my case it is 11 back to that time.

Since the number of ancestors double every generation back, you probably are at least to the generation which had 512 or 1024 ancestors - in the same generation.

If you could trace all of them, I bet a whole bunch of them would be Scottish. And Irish, and probably several others.

[Paul]

You just made me re-regitester for a trial!
None of my grandparents are on it sadly

[Rex_Tremende]

Since the number of ancestors double every generation back, you probably are at least to the generation which had 512 or 1024 ancestors - in the same generation.

In my case, I have at least one repeat, so I lose one whole branch of genetic input somewhere. Not quite sure how to to the math on that one, but there's a good chance that I'm my own second cousin, six times removed.

Regards,
Rex.

[BroosterB1]

I too had the same thing occur, we always thought we were Irish, heck the boat left from Dublin so we had to be Irish right? Nooooooooooooooooo, not the case. Started looking at name registry's no, not there. Northern Ireland, nope not there either. Finally, when about to give up, on a flyer looked at Scotland...Bingo!

Doing some back tracing (going the other way from the past forward) finally found the two brothers who had left Scotland in 1747, made their way to Dublin and appeared on the ship registry that coincided with the information we had going back to Boston 1748. Also found a whole bunch of folks with the same surname that went off to places like New Zealand, Australia, the Argintine and Mexico. Seems like some of the oral history was right, some appears to be fantasy, the family name is Scottish not Irish.

Family tradition says they were impressed soldiers, research say they were missionaries. Family tradition say they "threw down their muskets, one went north on went south". My research says they were assigned to different missions.

Next step is to contact folks from Aberdineshire see if there is any familial resemblence. Then of course a trip to the homeland, for research purposes mind you. Is not the internet great?ith:

[Paul]

How are you guys getting a lot of results?

I've enterested everything generally and exactly for every single grandparent and great grandparent and I've had no relevant matches for either... I have birth certificates here to confirm everything and the people arent on the website at all on anything!

[MacDonnell1973]

Thanks for the heads up, I am always looking for more info on my clan. I had been using rootsweb and had to do alot of cross referencing to get accurate info.

Bill

[BroosterB1]

How are you guys getting a lot of results?

I've enterested everything generally and exactly for every single grandparent and great grandparent and I've had no relevant matches for either... I have birth certificates here to confirm everything and the people arent on the website at all on anything!

Are you using a site like Ancestory.com et al? A lot of the good stuff is not free. You can also try the LDS records databases.