13 Generations

My niece spent many hours researching the full names and birth dates of relatives on my dad's side of the family to make a family tree for the reunion on Sunday. I received an email requesting the birth years of 20 or so relatives. It was an all-day project. I spoke with my cousin to find out birthdates of her siblings, children and grand children. Spoke to my Dad's cousin to fill in her husband's, children's and grandchildren's names and birthdates. My dad's brother's family was not available, so used the internet as much as possible. I am sure that some of the inormation is incorrect and that my cousin has a grandchild that I don't know about. However, we can correct and add information at the family reunion tomorrow. My dad's cousin's daughter traced back their family to the Mayflower. The family has been in the US for 13 generations. This is not true of my family. My paternal great great grandparents emmigrated from England in the mid 1800s, my paternal great grandmother came to this country from Sweden and my maternal great grandfather came to the US from Poland. Once here he took his middle name as his last name. Working with my family tree has clarified the information that I have English, Polish and Swedish ancestry, possible German too, although I have not found German ancestors. However, my husband's family is German, so my children have German, Polish, English and Swedish ancestors. My husband's ancestors changed the spelling of the last name several times, making it a challenge to work on geneology.