One thing Ancestry won't tell you

 

Evidently, we can all trace our ancestry back to a most recent common ancestor of all humans, who probably lived in either Egypt or Babylonia during the classical period

Assuming an average generation time of 20 years, this means that we are all 120th cousins, descended from someone that was alive when the pyramids were already aging structures. (Many millions of other people living at that time also have living descendants, of course. The last common ancestor is simply the one who is an ancestor to all of us, in addition to our many other ancestors who are not common to everyone.)

Like many others I tracked my parents and grandparents and apart from one grandfather who came from Shropshire, almost every other ancestor came from the Wear Valley in Country Durham. By that I mean from Durham city up to the border with Cumberland as it was known then. And that grandparent moved up to Etherley and married a local girl.

One thing that Ancestry.com won’t often tell you (but which I soon di ancestorsscovered for myself) is that the genealogy that you discover may not be accurate. Inferences have to be made when you are dealing with records that are hundreds of years old. There are many surnames and first names that are quite common. (In my case, Thomas Wilsons and John Hulls crop up everywhere) There is no way to be sure that the “Jacob Carter” that turns up in one record is the same “Jacob Carter” that shows up in another from fifteen years later, even in the same general area.

Then, as now, many families were on the move. An isolated census record containing only a name is nothing more than a low-resolution snapshot. Especially, as I found, if you are checking mining communities in South Durham. Families followed the work.)

Try reading Nathan H. Lents, Ph.D., professor of molecular biology at John Jay College, of the City University of New York if you want to know more.