[Ann]

I've been doing more research (just need to keep finding new credit cards to sign up for two weeks free on until I can afford to pay for ancestry.com )

I'm SO English it's ridiculous. Honestly, beyond that one part which is Danish, I've not been able to find any other country-of-origin than English. Right now I'm looking at some people born in the 1500's in Kent. Some couple was married near St. John's cathedral in London before the fire. The records are so shoddy I'm not sure how much I can trust of this, but it sure is fascinating. I do wish I were a bit more diverse than just English/Danish, though.

[Jordan~]

Man, you got back to the 1500s? Census deity only begins in the mid-1700s in Scotland; beyond that there are parish records but not for Scotland, I think. And given that so far a grand total of 2 of my ancestors I know of aren't from Scotland, and they're from Ireland where there are even fewer records, that's pretty much as far back as I can go. Plus, some of my ancestors who definitely do exist because a lot of people who are still alive have met them don't appear to feature in any record.

[Ann]

Yeah, I don't know if those 1500 records were accurate. They weren't censuses anyway, they were marriage records and stuff, but they were from someone else's tree and I'm beginning to realize that ancestry.com is 95% people who have no clue and just guess and copy other people. The rest are hardcore researchers. I'm working on moving from the first category to the second.

I've been working on the Odens for a long time. I'm sick of them. In 1960, a descendent claimed that Hezekiah Oden was born in Scotland in 1753, came to America, and then died in South Carolina 40 years later after partaking in the Revolutionary War. He's also mentioned in books in having come, with two brothers, from Scotland "with Lord Baltimore." I'm pretty sure this isn't true. Other sources say he was of "English and Scottish" blood, so my guess is the Odens came from England, and I'm nearly positive Hezekiah did not come over, but was born here. Besides, the Lord Baltimore reference confuses me. I've done some research, but still don't know that much. If they mean he came with the first Lord Baltimore, then that was in the 1600s, and wouldn't have meant that they went to Maryland (where Hezekiah's brother was born) but there's a whole bunch of Odens in Maryland in the 1700s -- one of whom mothered the later mayor of Maryland, Oden Bowie. They were extensive slaveowners in MD. My Oden lived in South Carolina and didn't own slaves. No records to show they're related. Quite frustrating!

I'm also worried about people who just weren't recorded. Women were just wholly ignored most of the time. There are better records on slaves than wives and daughters. So much has been lost! I'm awaiting science figuring out a way to give me all this information from DNA. Let's dig 'em all up, I wanna know where I came from!