Tracing your roots? Up to what degree do you know your ancestors?

On my maternal grandmother's side I've traced back to a group of Swiss settlers who immigrated to South Carolina in the 1690s. The line includes a governor of South Carolina, (who coined the phrase "Cotton is King" during the buildup to the Civil War) a governor of Georgia, and several senators and representatives.

On my maternal grandfather's side I've gotten back to England in the first decade of the 1900s but lost the trail.

On my paternal grandfather's side I've gotten back to an Englishman who immigrated to Pennsylvania in the 1880s

My paternal grandmother came from an old Georgia planter family active toward the late 1700s.

Having often wondered over the years if any of my talents were left to me by ancestors...I discovered: My GGGgrandmother was a lace-maker,

(now I can sew and knit...period), and that more than a few of my G+ grandfathers built houses and made furniture...perhaps gifting me with my love of restoration and refinishing and refurbishing, to say nothing about old houses! Ship Captains... I have a few, and took to sailing like a duck. Some G.father back there was really handy with tools...and as a woman I was not supposed to have that talent (many yrs. ago) but to this day, I do have it!

Cheers to all who have passed before us...and left legacies.

On my mother's side, she knew quite a lot--but I was never told most of that information. Parts of it go back quite far, parts of it do not--on one side, they had themselves traced back to the 17th century. On another, they could never find any information on the actual parentage of an adopted great-grandmother. But with them, we have copies of discharge papers from the War of 1812 with some. Again, I don't know where those records are now, and I didn't care to look at them when I was little.

On my dad's side, we can go back to his grandparents (my great-grandparents) before it's difficult to trace. Eventually I'll try to find information from Poland itself, but for the moment all we know is the general region of his maternal family, and I have some theories on his paternal side due to names and the few records we have.

We do know that according to family legend, someone fought in a Polish lancer unit. What war, and for whom, we don't know. There is a photograph of some relatives--we're unsure whom, exactly--taken by a photographer in St. Petersburg sometime in the second half of the 19th century, but beyond that... again, no information.

But, all in all, the overwhelming majority on both sides were farmers in peace, soldiers in war. In more recent generations (since WWII), lots of machinists and the like.

I've had the most luck with my maternal grandmother's mother's side of the family. I can trace us back to Richard Risley, an early Puritan settler from England to Massachusetts Bay. Later, he relocated and was one of the founders of Connecticut. Her father's side comes from Scotland, but I've not been able to go back farther than 1859. My paternal grandfather's side comes from Czechoslovakia and I can trace us back to the 1850s. His mother's side, I believe, comes from Germany, but have only been able to trace us in the states a couple of generations.

I have traced my family back about 400 years. Many of they were ministers, many were farmers and many were in law enforcement.