Genealogy - who are your ancestors?

#101
#101
xJesusx56 said:
My mom got me one of those dna test kit things for my birthday a few months ago. Ended up being:



60% Scottish/Irish
30% English
10% Scandinavian



My great grandmother was full blooded Cherokee, so I dunno how much stock I put into it. Or I’m adopted.
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Ask anyone whose family has been in East Tennessee for a few generations and they all think they have Cherokee blood. Now finding out it's hooey.
 
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#105
#105
VolunteerHillbilly said:
For some of us it's a source of motivation knowing what kind of stuff other people with similar dna to our own were able to do, or maybe their actions can serve as a cautionary device.
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Your family tree DNA decreases rapidly with each generation.. the amount of blood or gene from your great great grandfather is next to nothing
 
#106
#106
I don't know. Lots of interbreeding in this part of the country, at least among certain groups. The DNA part doesn't mean so much to me as does the history.
 
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#107
#107
Biopsyman said:
Your family tree DNA decreases rapidly with each generation.. the amount of blood or gene from your great great grandfather is next to nothing
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At the end of the day it really doesn't matter where your ancestors came from does it? While it might satisfy some curiosity you have, the end result is that you are responsible for your own life and your actions are your own.
 
#110
#110
Biopsyman said:
Nobody knows anyone ffrom 4 or so generations back.. so what does it matter
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I don't think it has to matter in a day to day sense. I suppose for some people it's just an interesting thing to know about yourself and where you came from. Or maybe there's a historical interest. Or some people may even have a sense of pride (or otherwise) about it. For a lot of people their current family bonds are very strong and important to them and even if you never knew your 4g-grandmother, somebody that you knew and loved had someone they knew and loved that knew and loved her. And so on. People come to it from lots of directions, I suppose.

But it's just like any other interest people may have, whether it's art or music or cars or sports, whatever, the value is in the enrichment it brings to you personally, for whatever reason. It would be a very dull and dreary life if we only paid attention to the things in life that are of immediate and practical use.
 
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#112
#112
5 of my great grand parents were alive during my teenage years, so I guess some of us do/did know 4 back. I'm living in the home of a woman right now who has never had to work one day in her life because of what one of her great grand's did. For anyone who's unaware, we now have what are referred to as dynasty trusts where people of certain means can tie their money up for 350 years. So, yeah. it matters.
 
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#113
#113
VolunteerHillbilly said:
5 of my great grand parents were alive during my teenage years, so I guess some of us do/did know 4 back. I'm living in the home of a woman right now who has never had to work one day in her life because of what one of her great grand's did. For anyone who's unaware, we now have what are referred to as dynasty trusts where people of certain means can tie their money up for 350 years. So, yeah. it matters.
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Any chance she'd adopt a middle aged man?
 
#114
#114
hog88 said:
We might be kin.
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We might also be kin. Or maybe not. Anyways my dad's people first came to this continent in the 1700s and settled in the hills and backwoods of Virginia, West Virginia and E. KY. Last name is pretty rare, we were the only family with that surname in Knoxville. G grandad had a cousin who was a casualty of the Hatfield - McCoy business. Another from the generation just before was killed fighting for Lee's army in Virginia.

Couple years ago I got interested in this subject and turned up a book by Lisa Alther, a writer who grew up in Kingsport and happens to be kin by marriage to my dad's tribe:

Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree -- The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors

I thought it was a pretty good read, mainly because she interviewed some of my dad's people in researching it.
 
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#115
#115
golfballs said:
Yep because their grandma had an uncle who had a dark complexion
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Same in West Tennessee. I was told for years I was part Cherokee because of darker complexion on my Dad's side. After research I found out I was of French descent.
 
#116
#116
Biopsyman said:
Nobody knows anyone ffrom 4 or so generations back.. so what does it matter
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It matters because I'm interested in knowing who my ancestors were. I want to know their stories, where and how they lived. It matters because they are all links in the chain that is me. Remove any one of them and I don't exist.
 
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#117
#117
MyBloodRunnethOrange said:
It matters because I'm interested in knowing who my ancestors were. I want to know their stories, where and how they lived. It matters because they are all links in the chain that is me. Remove any one of them and I don't exist.
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OK good for you…For me it really doesn’t do anything to improve my life or my future
 
#121
#121
I’m interested in history and I feel like this is history I can connect to. Today I learned about one of my ancestors from Maynardville who volunteered for the union army. He was captured at Cumberland gap and was held prisoner. Eventually he was freed as part of a prisoner exchange. He ended up being relocated to a camp in my current city to convalesce and was slated to join a force to fight Sioux in Minnesota. However he wasn’t able overcome his ailments and died here. He never saw his family again. Im going to go find his grave.
 
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#122
#122
golfballs said:
I’m interested in history and I feel like this is history I can connect to. Today I learned about one of my ancestors from Maynardville who volunteered for the union army. He was captured at Cumberland gap and was held prisoner. Eventually he was freed as part of a prisoner exchange. He ended up being relocated to a camp in my current city to convalesce and was slated to join a force to fight Sioux in Minnesota. However he wasn’t able overcome his ailments and died here. He never saw his family again. Im going to go find his grave.
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Start here

Search Cemeteries - Find A Grave

Great resource.
 
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