Lee Tracing the lineage from Robert the Bruce King of the Scots to Robert E Lee Confederate General

Thoughts: (1) Too much to read. (2) There must be thousands if not tens of thousands of living descendants of any one of the men cited. For example, I can trace ancestry to Robert the Bruce, William Wallace and Edward I (aka Longshanks) himself. I‘ve never thought of it all as anything special, just a curiosity. But my own father and grandfathers - those were men to admire and be proud of.
 
I can trace my ancestry back like that, too, through the same bunch of Scots, in fact. It's fun to do, but ultimately meaningless. If the records were available for everyone, tracing descent from medieval Royalty would be quite ordinary. Bobby Lee doesn't owe his place in history, nor his worth as a man to Robbie Bruce; he did it all by himself.
 
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Yes, the only thing this does is bring home how inter-connected we all are. Ancestry's made fortunes from the idea millions of us can trace something back to a manor house a gazillion generations ago, peerage a gazillion before that and somewhere, ooh, a CASTLE. If you're of European ancestry it's surprising if you don't.

Like John said it's fun but really, to imply R.E. was somehow the man he was because Robbie was the man he was misses something awfully important- which is allllll the other gazillion folks here because Robbie Bruce once walked the Earth.

Having said that, my great grandmother would have been largely interested in who was lowland and who was highland Scots and that's it.
 
I understand what you all are saying. I personally have traced my ancestory back to the "45" my ancestors were Grants from a small village called Torbreck just outside Inverness. I have lived all over the world, but eventually ended up where my roots came from although our family are spread out all over the world.
 
If I can believe the thousands of family trees on Ancestry and a history on the Glenns I have read, one of my Civil War ancestors is a direct descendant of Robert Bruce too through an illegitimate relationship he had with a member of that family. I guess I'm one of the gazillion descendants of Robert the Bruce out there if the genealogy I've seen is true but that isn't going to be enough to make me wear a kilt and make a declaration of war against the English.
 
If I can believe the thousands of family trees on Ancestry
You'd be better off finding your Scottish connections through more credible sources.

When one traces back that far, it is necessary to rely on secondary (etc.) sourcing--however it is quite likely that you should be developing a taste for haggis :smile:. The Scottish and English kings tended to have huge families--hence large numbers of descendants. I had a genealogy teacher once tell me that there are 5 historic figures common to most people in western Europe: Charlemagne, Mohammad, Alfred the Great--and two other worthies whose names I don't recall.
 
I understand what you all are saying. I personally have traced my ancestory back to the "45" my ancestors were Grants from a small village called Torbreck just outside Inverness. I have lived all over the world, but eventually ended up where my roots came from although our family are spread out all over the world.
A bit of an aside but would these Grants have been those who fought with the Jacobite army at Culloden ? Maybe not because I understand that the Grants who were captured were transported, and you're still living near Inverness.
 
You know what I do like about the whole ( albeit a little weird ) new world where identifying with one's 40th grandparents is a ' thing ' ? It sure makes people students of history in a big hurry.

Ran into a tree on Ancestry, no lie, someone took their line back to Jesus. Beyond the fact that's well, crazy, always wondered how long that took.
 
Well, many of the genealogies for "upwarldy-mobile" families composed in the 17th and 18th centuries & earlier, provide names for every generation back to Adam ... curiously, they all seem to include Charlemagne, J.Caesar, Alexander the Great and King David!

And that's exactly why most of those genealogies cannot be trusted. I understand that it was common among European aristocracy to hire genealogists to confirm their claim to a crown or this or that title, and guess what? The paid genealogists would find the connection that they were paid to find. I believe that most of these genealogies are spurious, probably including my own. My grandfather began his own genealogical search when he was just 18 and it was a life-long passion for him. He found multiple lineages connecting his (and now my) family to European royalty, including English, Welsh, Scottish, French, Viking - the list goes on. And yet he was never able to trace his own direct lineage (Hyatt) past his own great-grandfather.
 
My 11th great grandfather Davy Gamy was the body guard that saved the life of King Henry at Aingcourt in 1415. He was knighted later by the Knights of the Round Table after the battle. He is mention in a documentary about King Henry. Sournames are Gaines, Gane and Game.
 
The closest thing that anyone in my family has to fame is a knight who fought with William the Conqueror at Hastings and was rewarded with a castle in England.

Other than that, on my mother's side, it's a bunch of middling to poor Welsh and Swiss people and on my dad's side, a bunch of middling to poor Irish, Scots, English, and French people.

Ryan
 
What I find fascinating is that all these ancestors had to live their lives exactly the way they did for you to be here. Change mere seconds in anyone of their lives and chances are that you aren’t here. I think of Genealogy as determining who was responsible for you being here. No Robert De Brus? How many of us, including Robert E Lee, wouldn’t have walked on this earth? King Robert de Brus was my 19th Great Grandfather. So, I wouldn’t be here if not for him. When viewed from this perspective your existence on earth really becomes a miracle.
 
The closest thing that anyone in my family has to fame is a knight who fought with William the Conqueror at Hastings and was rewarded with a castle in England.

Other than that, on my mother's side, it's a bunch of middling to poor Welsh and Swiss people and on my dad's side, a bunch of middling to poor Irish, Scots, English, and French people.

Ryan

As a correction, on my father's side, we also have some Mohawk thrown in the mix. Apparently, some of the French Canadians and their Mohawk neighbors got along well as there were several marriages between them.

Ryan
 
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