Do you know your family history? One film I want to see is The Wind that Shakes the Barley, I...

Only up to WWII because there was nothing interesting before that for my family, my village is kinda far from the sea and there was no reason for people to be moving there, there were mostly uneducated/illiterate people, farmers that were looking to get by, not many documents so it's hard to know. There's a monument there for the people executed by the nazis and among them was my grandma's father and grandfather. Other than that, my grandpa's father died in the neighbouring country while fighting the fascists off, there is a mass grave there for the soldiers and I know which city he was buried in but I've never been to that country. I'd like to go though and I'm sure someday I will.

SW-User

I can trace both my grandmothers families back to 1840.

One stayed in the same village, another came from a small town fifteen miles away.
I had a gf there. I found out recently her great great grandfather and my great great grand mother were brother and sisters in 1860.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

Not well.

My cousin's wife had managed to trace it back into the 19C, but apart from learning about a cycle-making business established by one ancestor, and another running a pub in Lincoln, I don't think we know much else. My maternal grandfather, who died when I was very young, fought in WW1, and apparently his only comment about that was, "It was Hell".

We had no skeletons in the wardrobe but did not keep records, we had very, very few family photographs and we tended not to tell each other much about ourselves. No special reason for that, no "stiff upper lip" nonsense, just our nature!

DearAmbellina2113 · 41-45, F

I only know bits and pieces.

My father's side are Scottish, Irish, and English. His mother was born and raised in Australia before marrying his father ad coming the U.S. as a WW2 bride.

My mother's side are English, Welsh, and Czech. My mother's grandparents immigrated from Czechoslovakia to the U.S. in the 1920s.

My ancestral DNA test also revealed that I am 4% west African, specifically from the areas of Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. This DNA entered my bloodline around the 1700s.

SW-User

Dad's side back to England in the 1600's and the troubles brothers Brian and Phillip had getting over here. On mom's side just that they all came from Germany

Musicman · 61-69, M

In my dad's side yes. On my mom's side not so well. I know both sides fought in the Civil War for the Union. I know my mom's father guarded Geronimo in Fort Sill Oklahoma for a while. I also know that one of my great, great, great, great grandmother's was one of the four women hung for being a witch in the Salem Witch Trials.

Onestarlitnight

I know bits and pieces, I know that I have ancestors who fought in the revolutionary war and the civil war.
I had a great grandfather who was a tug boat captain in Manhattan harbor and I had a great great grandmother who was a Gypsie princess , 👑 when she passed away thousands of Gypsies from all over America and Europe attended her funeral.

cherokeepatti · 61-69, F

If he is American you can find what those medals were for on a military website. Maybe not the entire story but they will tell some information.

exexec · 61-69, C

Yes. Family history, genealogy, is my hobby. I can trace all lines back to the 1700's and a few lines back to the 1600's and beyond. All of my lines are from the British Isles and Western Europe.

SW-User

Yes. I've got back to 1600s on most branches and run out of family. They're all fairly dull, with very little movement.

SW-User

Never got beyond WW1 when for an unknown reason the family surname changed. Very suspicious.........maybe skeletons in the cupboard!

basilfawlty89 · 31-35, M

On my dad's side up until my great grandfather and great grandmother.

On my mom's side from about the mid 1800s when we arrived here during the Famine.

V00doo

Mostly.