Find and share your most distant patrilineal great grandfather.

Bryn I've been thinking about your brick wall & hopefully people with more experience in Mexican genealogy will be along, so my suggestions are general. But build your tree on Geni with as much information as you can dig up - all the siblings, their spouses, children, etc. It's work but you never know what little tidbits come along that contribute. And patterns start to emerge. I've had luck with an "empty spot" ("hey! There should be a child with THIS given name here!") ... Gone to look .. And there they were hiding.

John Smith is there a specific interest in the patrilineal line of ancestry since you're highlighting this ancestry over the matrilineal line or any other mixed sexed line in our ancestry? Do you think one line is more important than any other line? I'm curious to know what was your reason(s) to chose the patrilineal line?

So, basically you're saying that it's easier to start a discussion around people's patriline or matriline than it is to ask everyone to go find Person No. 768 on their Ahnentafel? I can live with that ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnentafel

Sorry everyone. After I posted my message I had to leave.

Thanks Justin and Bryn.

Erica - Thanks for making Thomas a MP. The majority of my family moved around Virginia for a while before traveling through southern Virginia. Some stayed in SW Virginia and others kept going on through Kentucky and Ohio. A lot of them did continue on into the Mid West. My immediate family settled in southern Virginia and took part in the formation of West Virginia during the Civil War.. Most settled in Mercer, Wyoming, and Logan county areas of West Virginia. My great great grandfather William Lawson Howerton headed up north some into West Virginia.That is why I live here in Huntington the western most point of WV where we meet Ohio and Kentucky along the Ohio River. You are going to wish you didn't get me started. I can't type short messages. The only problem is it takes me a very long time to type them. Erica understands.
Like most families back then families would split up and head their owe path in search of the perfect place to call home. They ended up in all the mid western states. The Howerton Heritage web site founders Brian and John are from Arizona and Arkansas and descendants of the Howerton families that headed out west.
http://www.howertonheritage.com/
They started out doing quarterly newsletters by mail. A copy of all their newsletters are available on the website. The very first newsletter for Spring 1996 has a great article about Thomas and John, the two immigrant brothers that started our family.
When you look at the mountains of West Virginia it makes you wonder how families even moved throughout our state. I guess that is why so many settled in southern WV. My dad is 86 and I can remember him telling me things that my grandfather told him about traveling in WV. About how he would hang his legs out of their family wagon and how rough the travel was. Sorry, I am talking too much.

Erica , I forgot about your mentioning Shropshire. It is just speculation since the spelling of our name was the same. There have only been a small number of records there using the same spelling. I have read one story many times about name variations that really stuck in my head because it involved my family. Thomas Howerton had his name written three times in a will and the spelling was different for each. There were so many people that could not read or write. This is pure speculation on my part, but I bet the majority of those that could write were not very good at doing so.
Like me ;)

You're not talking too much for me, that was a great story. I had some motivations in asking my questions.

One of the Howton family stories is that we came from West Virginia. It went along the lines of "there were 4 brothers in the Civil War; 2 fought for fhe South, 1 for the North, and our line (sensibly) headed West on a wagon train."

So I looked all over for VA/ WV Howtons in the Civil War. Found them in TN, AL, MO, AR & tons in KY (my line) - and no WV. No Willards either. I finally figured out the WV connection - the lines are Fine (German) & McIlvaine (Scotch Irish). The Waynes are still there. So it goes to show you how even stories from 150 years ago can be true in essence but wrong on details.

Was William Lawson Howerton named for a Lawson mama? If so shoot me a mail with a link & the further back you can go on it. I got Lawson.

David my father's name was spelled Howerton in the 1930 census! :). But there are Howton's in England so I'm sticking with it. :):)

Sorry, John Smith, if I asked a question you already had answered.

I was just qurious why you chose the patrilineal line over any other? Among genealogists active before the 1950's, the patrilineal line was seen upon as the most important one. I just wondered if you were among those.

When it comes to understanding you, no I don't, but that is probably my problem.

Alphonsus de Vere, comte de Guînes
is one of my great grandparents
also - flanders and de bruce are also great grandparents
- and, also the builder of Rosslyn - Roslin is a great grandparent too

William Paynel, Sheriff of Lincolnshire
paynel is also pat. great grandfather too

Susan - when you go straight back - father to father etc - where does it end for you? What was that person like?

Thank you, John Smith

You don't need to use Google translate to translate english into norwegian. All norwegians born after ca. 1960 has been taught the english language from primaryschool, and on top of that I have lived in the US. Your english text is a lot more understandable than what Google translate is translating to norwegian.

Keep up your intentions on these subject, I think they can be fruitful.

W, you have a fascinating project here.

I never really understand why so many people post about their royal ancestors and famous cousins. They're my royal ancestors and famous cousins too. I don't see much worth saying about those. It's about as interesting as reading a roll call.

What I like, really like, is when people talk about what makes them unique. What interesting ancestors do they have that I don't have? What stories? What research problems?

Here, on this thread, I've been learning about you and David and Bryn and Linda and Wendi and Erin and Hatte. I've known some of them for years without hearing this stuff. (We could get Erica to be a little more forthcoming about the Howtons, I think.) Now, more! I want more stories.

(Thanks for your good work, W.)

My most distant patrilineal ancestor that I know about was Christopher Jacobsen Wølner He was headhunted by the danish-norwegian king to work at the mines newly discovered in Norway, first at Modum Blaafarveverket, where they mined cobalt, and a few years later at the Kongsberg Silvermines.

His descendants worked at the silvermines until they closed down.

My ancestor, though, moved to Trondheim around 1780, and his descendants moved on to the area called Nordland in the northern parts of Norway.

In 1870, my 3rd great grandfather hanged himself, Paul Schjoldager Paulson Wølner. His son, Peter Johan Angell Paulsen Wølner, was probably ashamed of this, and left out the lastname Wølner, and only called himself with his patronym Paulsen. His son, Peder Angel Lund Paulsen is the reason my lastname is Pedersen. All his descendants kept the patronym Pedersen as their lastname. So I could take the lastname Wølner as my lastname, because I'm a direct patrilineal descendant of a person that used that lastname, but at the moment there are only 83 persons having Wølner as their lastname, and according to norwegian law, since there are less than 200 people having that lastname, I have to ask all of them for permission, and that is to much work.

So, there is the short story of my patrilineal line.

Eh, I happen to be bored with Howton's, that's all.:) And I was thinking of a discussion Justin & Remi had once about how a tree can be Z shaped. So I was taking W's marvelous concept to think more about the life & times of the direct paternal ancestor of different ancestors. I've got plenty more! And then it would interest me to compare the similarities & differences of otherwise contemporaries.

Not so fast Remi! That's all? What?

What was life like in the silver mines? Why recruited? Why did they leave? And why the suicide?

Well in DNA research patrilineal and matrilineal lines are the basic structures and autosomal fills out parts of the rest. So I don't think its a bad idea to still making patrilineal tables, most often they see beyond royalty and famous people and most probably to some middle-class farmer. Genealogical projects can be all descendants of one individual/all descendants who bears the surname or who lived on the same farm.. (this means also through cognatic descendants)

If someone could choose to tell someone about just one of their ancestors, chances are they would be someone famous.. Or maby a pirate/Thief/witch/etc. someone who gets yours and others attention.. But it doesn't mean the others have no interest or isn't worth as much, its just that many of the others are just names and numbers..

Here is my patrilineal great grandfather:
Olav Eriksson Myklebust

Don't know much about him, other than he was a farmer and probably owned parts of the farm Myklebust in Ørsta, Møre og Romsdal in Norway. He was mentioned as a witness in one letter about some (low-)noble landowners in 1574. He's not more important than any of the others, but his Y-DNA was probably the same as mine and makes him something that the others can't replace..

To get that information, Erica, you need to read the books. 3 books, ca. 200 pages each, with almost all of the descendants of Hans Jacob Guldbrandsen Wølner

Have any of you been to see the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongsberg_Silver_Mines

Me, several times, but I guess I don't count :-) I live in Kongsberg.

This is me, in the summer of 2008, when someone lit a campfire inside the mines (illegal activity) and the smoke exited the train tunnel. I'm the one in ambulance outfit looking for injured people after the train came out of the tunnel with 118 persons onboard. I'm glad only one kid suffered breathing problems, imagine all 118 of them having problems.....

http://laagendalsposten.no/nyheter/leter-etter-brannarsaken-1.2454600

John Smith did I surprise you?

It's public knowledge that he hanged himself, the churchbooks state causes of death in Norway.

Hopefully we can get a better relationship, allthough we disagree on some points.

The story of how the silver was found is blurred through time. The exact story will probably never be known.

There are primary sources, however, from the king's own, or his entourage, writings about, because of the discovery of silver, the founding of the mines and the city of Kongsberg. The king was omnipotent in 1624 in Denmark-Norway, and his word was law. It's a fact that Christian IV king of Denmark and Norway founded the city, the specifics of how he did it is up for debate.

Great story Remi, your ancestor http://www.geni.com/people/Jacob-Wølner/6000000001862137177 probably knew who my ancestor Overbergmester Daniel von Barth

Small country ;)

where does it end ?
better question might be, where does it begin ?
i think we are all a lot more closely related than we can imagine
- mine goes through 4 root races
- a tree at the 30th level has how many ancestors ?
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 ....
-so, how could one select only one of all of those people who is important
-personally, i see both ancestral and spiritual lineages to be equally important

Justin found a problem in my distant patrilineal great grandfather. He is now my 26th great grandfather. But he's not patrilineal anymore. :(

William Paynel, Sheriff of Lincolnshire

This is my new most distant Patrilineal.

Tibaud ‘the Moor Gardille’ de Payen, {Fictional}

W,

If your distant grandparent are fictitious, does that mean that you really don't exist? :))

Merry Christmas!

lol

The farthest patrilineal great grandfather I can find is Lieut. John Winton

He is believed to have immigrated from Londonderry, Ulster Ireland to America between 1740-1743. I have not been able to find anything as to who his parents might be, or any brothers or sisters for this man. He is known to have only 1 son William Winton, which seems rather strange, as most families were rather large in during this time period. We have found 1740 Household tax records Londonderry, Ulster Ireland for John Winton, and Military records in America 1747/8 for Lieutenant John Winton Pennsylvania Militia which are accompanied with his Geni profile. There also seems to be confusion as to John's wife Mary's Maiden name as it is believed to be McClellan, however some say McCoy. The McClellan family shared adjoining farms with John Winton in America and is who is believed to have been Mary Winton's family. As of right now it is looking like I will never be able to trace my patrilineal line back any further than the said Lieutenant, John Winton. Immigrant from Northern Ireland.

On the Clan Dalton tree: a John de Dalton from Normandy on/abt 1110

On the Clan Montgomery a Roger (The Great) De Monte Gommeti 0891 - 0960 Normandy Note: This tree is a "in progress" tree. not all links have
been validated. There are listed several earlier ancestors; but, one begins
to approach the end of real and the beginning of myth.

Merry Christmas

Dalton