I often remind folks that it can be extremely hard to trace beyond great grandparents, especially for older folks. No matter how persistent we are, we may never get all the names we seek.
For example, while I know the names and info for all four of my grandparents I don’t know the names of a set of my great grandparents.
By the time to I get to my 5x great grandparents, I’ve hit the late 18th century (1700s), so in order for me to even find a connection to the “20 or 30 and odd“ from 1619, I’d have to trace things back to approximately 8 more generations from my 5x great grandparents to my 13th great grandparents! We each have 32,768 13th great grandparents!
Weigh in. How successful have you been in tracing your ancestors? The qualifier here is having more than just a name for your ancestors, but an actual paper trail. Have you traced… (mark all that apply)