I can trace my mother's family all the way back to my 12th great-grandfather who was born in around 1534 in Cratfield, Suffolk, England.

My father's side of the family can be traced back just as far.

1/22/2010 6:39:35 PM

any free sites about this? found a bunch of old pics of relatives and dont want to go through ancestry since its expensive.

3/2/2010 1:14:39 AM

My father's father had a wooden leg and he was a drunk. My grandmother got married when she was like 13 or so because she wanted to get out of the house. She never went to HS. Nothing special on my father's side as far as I know.

On my mom's side of the family, I believe it was either her great grandfather or great great grandfather who was the first mayor of Kin. I'm sure I've had relatives fight in WWII, but my mother refuses to talk to me about her family history. My family in Okinawa are very involved politically... I believe my uncle is/was in the political office... as what I don't know. I never looked any of it up because my mother seems to have a particular desire to withold that information from me. If she doesn't want me to know, then I don't need to know. I'll respect her wish.

[Edited on March 2, 2010 at 1:53 AM. Reason : .]

3/2/2010 1:52:26 AM

My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament.

3/2/2010 2:58:44 AM

once you find your family history you can put all the information on geni.com. it doesn't research for you but it has its advantages. its like a family tree edition of facebook where you can invite family members to join on and add info. if your tree is similar enough to someone else's it will let you know that you might be related, and maybe they have already done the heavy research into the past.

3/2/2010 3:32:21 AM

Goes back a ways in the US, well before the Revolution.

I'd join DAR, but the fam fought on the wrong side.

3/2/2010 5:46:18 AM

^^eh. i'd rather not go back and re-enter 624 people in another tree. ancestry.com already matches me with other member trees and lets me invited family members to edit, contribute, or just view too. that site is neat if you're not paying for ancestry.com though.

3/2/2010 8:31:25 AM

Irish and German, most of whom came over since 1900.

3/2/2010 8:50:07 AM

in rough order of % I'm irsh, scots-irish, scottish, swiss-german, and english mostly, decent odds on a small part french (a particular norman ship builder circa 1066), and very low odds on native american.

My mom is huge into genealogy (traveled around US looking for records, census data etc).

Overall the family came over here over a pretty long period, the most recent being in the 1800's and the earliest being in the 1700's

one of the family coat of arms:


apparently I'm also related to that good ol' boy Stom Thurmond

[Edited on March 2, 2010 at 10:10 AM. Reason : s]

3/2/2010 10:06:29 AM

strom?

3/2/2010 10:29:08 AM