How far can you go back?

[FunkyTown]

16th century. I know this, because I logged in with my parents and grandparents and found that most of my work is done and has been done on my grandparents side by somebody in Seattle.

Turns out I'm probably not alone in my family.

[BenRaines]

860 AD on my mother's side following my mother's mother's line.

Ben Raines

[Dravin]

Looking at Family Search both my Dad's and Mom's lines tie back into royalty ( I imagine most do at some point) which makes things easier so those particular forks... okay I gave up following them back once I crossed over from AD to BC.

To be fair though:

* It's just a few spurs on the line, the work back to that point on either side isn't comprehensive.
* It's just following things back on Family Search, I can't vouch for the accuracy of anything and some of these are just names with birth and death dates (sometimes ranges and sometimes not even death dates) and not much else.

Less cheaty answers would be my Dad's line can be traced back to Gloucester, England to about ~1580 or so and my Mom's to Vase, Sweden 1635.

[Elgama]

you have to be careful with Royal lines though, many of them were tweaked to prove their divine right to rule

[Dravin]

Originally Posted by Elgama

you have to be careful with Royal lines though, many of them were tweaked to prove their divine right to rule

Yeah, that's why I made a point of not trying to claim any particular accuracy. Supposedly I'm related to Emperor Constantine, I'll wait for the post resurrection family reunion to get my hopes up (or down considering the whole Council of Nicaea thing).

[Lbybug]

We've gotten back to Edward I on my maternal grandmothers side (and I've been told we've gone further back than that, but I don't remember). On my maternal grandfathers side my uncles got it back fairly far as well (he's a huge geneology buff).

[lizrenowden]

I have just obtained links for one line back to 1516 on my mother's side but need to check them against the parish records though to confirm the details. I also have indications (again need to be checked) for another of my mother's line going back to the 13th/14th century

[applepansy]

One line on my mother's side is back to 500 AD. Other lines are back to the 1600s and everywhere in between. On my dad's side we're back to the 1750s.

[cherylfoster]

I went back as far as possible. I worked on it for years. The biggest problem is my father's side many books were burned, when people want to Tottenham Court of the county, but can not be run from a burning building, inside everything. Mother's side, people out there (tens if not hundreds) can not come back well, because the back of a terrible common name, they have the farthest.

[anatess]

My Father-in-Law is the best FIL on the planet.

For this year, his Christmas present to all his kids is a thick binder of all their ancestry - both his side and his wife's side with my husband's record (including me and my kids) on the first page. My mother-in-law comes from Scottish ancestry and my father-in-law from Wales. It's all the way to 1500 in that binder.

The binder came with a CD that is the electronic version of the binder that can be plugged to familysearch.org to add my line.

I'm really excited to start doing that after the Christmas Holidays! w00t!