Family Heritage

[matt.m]

Just wandering everyone, how important is your family heritage to you? I believe that there is somewhat of a "Genetic code" if you will. I have dated my Scottish heritage back to 1210 in the high and lowlands of scotland. I have found that either the men were carpenters, masons, military, fighters, farmers, and educators. Mostly Martial Artists, Military, and farmers.

Anyway, I am just checking a consensus. I own everything of the Highlander Movies, T.V. series and "The Raven" as well as "The Search For Vengeance." I own both family coat of arms replicas, a basket sword, a claymore and both family tartans.

All of you guys that are the old timers of the board know me as having one thing, "Strong Conviction." Well, I am a firm believer that if you know what you come from then it better explains who you are.

Just my .02

 

[Steel Tiger]

As a student of history I'm a big fan of knowing ones family heritage. It seems that it is more important to those of us from nations that grew from colonies. Like we need to know that there was a firm foundation for the family before it got shifted hundreds or thousands of miles.

1210? That's really cool. My own family, both sides, have been traced back to the Second Fleet (1793), the second group of convict carrying ships to arrive in Australia. Dad's side is English, from a round Shropshire/Staffordshire border. Mum's side from County Cork in Ireland.

Funny thing is that Paul Bushell, the great patriarch of my family in Australia, seems to have been some sort of crimelord or something in the Wilberforce area of NSW. Within 15 years of arriving in Australia Paul, originally convicted of stealing a saddle, had amassed a huge amount of land, married into a wealthy family, and was having charges against family members dropped by local magistrates. All sounds a little suspicious to me. The family later moved into pub ownership. Only my brother works in that industry now.

Well I know a lot about my family history but I don't know if it explains me. We have 150 years of prestigious military service, but no one serves now, former owners of vast amounts of land, all gone now, and bar and pub owners, but no one owns a pub now. Maybe I just haven't worked out what all this means just yet.

 

[CoryKS]

Lineage means little to me personally, and I have no interest in exploring mine. That said, I agree that there is some sort of genetic code. I have been told by others in my family that I am very similar in temperament to my father, despite the fact that he and my mother divorced when I was two and saw him infrequently thereafter.

 

[Omar B]

There's not much history there foor me to delve into and really I don't so much care. Half my family were farmers in India since the begining of time almost and the other half was kidnapped from their little village in Africa and made slaves in the new world. Digging into my family's slave story is pretty depressing so why bother? All I care about is that my parents eventually met.

 

[tellner]

Your roll of the genetic dice has a lot of influence on who you are. What you do with it is more important. There's nothing so pointless as tracing one's family tree back to the time when the family lived in one.

 

[shesulsa]

I thought it was fascinating to find out we've had family members in every war on the continent and in every war right up through Desert Storm I. I don't know about since then.

Also found an ancestor who had a northern plantation and who fought for the North. Dunno what happened to it yet, but I do know both sides of the family became quite destitute after the civil war ended.

There is a missing brother in the Dalton lineage and my grandmother's maiden name was Dalton. I wonder if we picked up her line and traced back we'd be able to solve the "mystery."

And there's a hint that we might be descended from some royalty - but jeez, who isn't, eh? :lfao:

I can't make time right now to delve into the history too much ... but certainly appreciate those who do.

 

[Steel Tiger]

And there's a hint that we might be descended from some royalty - but jeez, who isn't, eh? :lfao:

I know for a fact that we are not descended from royalty, though there is a strange connection to Henry VIII. His last wife, Catherine Parr, had a daughter, Mary Seymour (her father was Thomas Seymour, the brother of Henry's wife Jane Seymour, kinda weird huh?) and she married Edward Bushel. That's as close as we get. The family is mostly thieves and pub owners.

 

[crushing]

And there's a hint that we might be descended from some royalty - but jeez, who isn't, eh? :lfao:

You mean the royalty thing isn't just for reincarnated people? Seems like they were always great kings/queens and leaders in their past lives.


Matt,
I don't think it's pointless to search out your ancestry. I haven't been very interested in my own, but I won't put you down for doing it. Have fun with it!

 

[exile]

The family is mostly thieves and pub owners.

The polar extremes... thieves take from you, pub owners give you enormous pleasure...

 

[TheOriginalName]

1210? That's really cool. My own family, both sides, have been traced back to the Second Fleet (1793), the second group of convict carrying ships to arrive in Australia. Dad's side is English, from a round Shropshire/Staffordshire border. Mum's side from County Cork in Ireland.

I've never met anyone else who dated back to the second fleet. I'm also from convict blood. 7 socks and a loaf of bread - that is what it took to get the ticket out to Oz.

My family has had trouble getting any further back - but hey, we learnt that we are convicts, explorers and engineers.....can't be upset with that!!

 

[theletch1]

My family traces back to the Scottish highlands and the American South West. Scottish/Apache heritage. That's as specific as I've ever gotten. It's more of a "Heh, that's neat" thing for me. Like Tellner said, it's more important what you do with the genetic roll of the dice that who tossed them.

 

[Makalakumu]

My grandmother has a family tree that reaches back into the 1300s. I come from german mercenary stock. The beginning of my family tree nearly terminates when 50 of my relatives were hung by the neck until they be dead.

 

[Sukerkin]

Crikey, Upnorth that sounds like a tale worth re-telling.

For myself, the history of your family is one of the most important things that you inherit.

It is a source of sadness to me that it seems that my missus and I are one of those couples whose genes do not mesh and we may well never have children (even though we're both not infertile as far as we can tell). So my family line dies with me. As we have our earliest recorded roots in the Doomsday book (and are 'royal' down both patrineal and matrilineal lines) that is a sadness to me.

All I have to do is eliminate my 200-odd rivals and I would be an Earl .

 

[Steel Tiger]

I've never met anyone else who dated back to the second fleet. I'm also from convict blood. 7 socks and a loaf of bread - that is what it took to get the ticket out to Oz.

My family has had trouble getting any further back - but hey, we learnt that we are convicts, explorers and engineers.....can't be upset with that!!

A saddle and a sheep I believe was the count against my ancestors. Serious thieves, you know.

We run into the same problem when translating back to England. The records are somewhat confusing.

For myself, the history of your family is one of the most important things that you inherit.

It is a source of sadness to me that it seems that my missus and I are one of those couples whose genes do not mesh and we may well never have children (even though we're both not infertile as far as we can tell). So my family line dies with me. As we have our earliest recorded roots in the Doomsday book (and are 'royal' down both patrineal and matrilineal lines) that is a sadness to me.

I have to agree with you about family history. Its more than just a genepool. The actions of my ancestors are the reason I live in Australia and not England. There actions once here is why I live in the circumstances that I do. My own actions add to this collective, if unconscious, endeavour.

The Doomsday Book? That's really cool too. One of our family historians claimed to have traced the family back to the tenth century but its not verifiable and unfortunately has to be discounted.

 

[Kacey]

I get interested in genealogy periodically; I took a class in college and tracked my family back to when each branch entered the US, which takes me back to the early 1900s for 3 branches, and 1867 for the 4th branch. I found out some interesting things, such as one of my father's great-, great-uncles was the Lord Mayor of Dublin. It's interesting, but not in a day-to-day way - although I did take everything I found out and bound in book form for my grandfather for his 90th birthday, and got quite a few of the family to sign it - he really enjoyed it, and all other things aside, it was worth it for that.

I also found out quite a bit about how various family members died, and their medical histories back several generations, something my doctor greatly appreciated.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Just wandering everyone, how important is your family heritage to you? I believe that there is somewhat of a "Genetic code" if you will. I have dated my Scottish heritage back to 1210 in the high and lowlands of scotland. I have found that either the men were carpenters, masons, military, fighters, farmers, and educators. Mostly Martial Artists, Military, and farmers.

Anyway, I am just checking a consensus. I own everything of the Highlander Movies, T.V. series and "The Raven" as well as "The Search For Vengeance." I own both family coat of arms replicas, a basket sword, a claymore and both family tartans.

All of you guys that are the old timers of the board know me as having one thing, "Strong Conviction." Well, I am a firm believer that if you know what you come from then it better explains who you are.

Just my .02

So you are Norwegian...esque.
Sean

 

[arnisador]

For those interested, at www.ancestry.com/military there is a special allowing you to search military records for free through the end of the month. Pretty cool.
My wife has enjoyed looking up her grandparents and great-uncles.

 

[Ping898]

I don't have much interest in it. I know about my lineage to a point only because of school projects growing up. Dad's family came through Ellis Island and they mangled the last name and the claim to fame on my mom's side is a great great....(fill in requisite number of great's here).... grandfather was the first white male born in the new world - i.e. North America. I have no idea what happened to the family pre-North America...
My folks never really had much interest in it, so I imagine that is part of the reason I never did. Not like there was ever someone with a passion for it, passing the passion on to me.

 

[shesulsa]

For those interested, at www.ancestry.com/military there is a special allowing you to search military records for free through the end of the month. Pretty cool.
My wife has enjoyed looking up her grandparents and great-uncles.

I just tried this and was asked for a login and password. :idunno:

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

I just tried this and was asked for a login and password. :idunno:

Same for me.