[zkarj]

All our family history has been researched the old fashioned way. In the mid to late 80s by a cousin of my father (from which I was able to tie up to Kiwizinho's info) and then latterly by my parents. They found a tenuous line on Dad's side as far back as ~1200AD.

The most fascinating part is one ancestor many hundreds of years back was lord of a manor, on which there was a fresh water spring and he used to bottle and sell it. Not that many years ago, my parents visited this manor and bought some of the bottled spring water. We had it with Christmas dinner that year.

[Kiwizinho]

I'd mostly referred to traditional family records, but then my little brother started making some slightly outlandish claims that didn't match with the family record, and then he did a DNA test.
I got Mum and Dad to get tested, and they validated the fact that he is their son, and that the traditional records are correct.
There can always be issues with spelling errors, or possibly children born out of marriage, or via affairs, but in the past there was no social welfare, so there was fairly strong survival pressure for couples to stay together, so traditional records will be correct much of the time.
Down the female line, surnames change frequently, so it's possible to have relatives without knowing about them unless you have have traditional family tree information or DNA results to establish a link, although traditional records are actually more useful at establishing what the relationship is, as DNA simply shows there is one, but gets increasingly speculative what the relationship might be as there are more generations of separation.

[MarkJerling]

So you're about 356,689th or something in line to the throne or something? [COLOR="Silver"]

Yes. I'm feeling appropriately superior already.

Sadly, from Dad's DNA tests and genealogy it appears we managed to remain pretty much Anglo-Saxon without much influence from those invading Normans, so not much nobility there, although I think ethnic origins in Europe are actually pretty hard to estimate accurately as people tended to move around quite a bit.
Britain and Ireland can be a bit more distinct because of the maritime border that historically slowed movements.
Mum is a bit more interesting with a pretty strong Scots/Irish influence, although maybe limited nobility there as it appears one of them may have enjoyed mandatory immigration to Australia.
I used Family Tree DNA for Mum and Dad as it includes mitochondrial and Y chromosome tests as options for tracing the female and male lines respectively, but your results with Ancestry DNA look similar to European profiles, obviously with a different mix depending on the individual.

Ancestry has recently started giving the results with reference to both parents separately, which is in itself interesting. There's also some (odd to me) anomalies in that I know I have Portuguese ancestors, due to a pretty substantial and well researched family tree going back about 8 generations in some detail and much further back with a few family lines.

I know that the 1% Southern Philippines DNA relates to one ancestor who married a slave, but the rather large Portugese contingent don't show up at all.

[MarkJerling]

All our family history has been researched the old fashioned way. In the mid to late 80s by a cousin of my father (from which I was able to tie up to Kiwizinho's info) and then latterly by my parents. They found a tenuous line on Dad's side as far back as ~1200AD.

The most fascinating part is one ancestor many hundreds of years back was lord of a manor, on which there was a fresh water spring and he used to bottle and sell it. Not that many years ago, my parents visited this manor and bought some of the bottled spring water. We had it with Christmas dinner that year.

Sometimes, these tenuous links can be quite good for one's wealth. A friend of mine's mother got a call some years ago from a lawyer in Scotland. She thought it was some scam, but she really was the only surviving relative of some distant great-aunt and she inherited a somewhat substantial home in Scotland filled to the brim with rather good antique furniture and art.

She sold the house and much of the furniture (as there was Estate duties to deal with) and had the best of the antiques and art shipped over to Australia. All in all, she made a substantial windfall.

[MarkJerling]

All our family history has been researched the old fashioned way. In the mid to late 80s by a cousin of my father (from which I was able to tie up to Kiwizinho's info) and then latterly by my parents. They found a tenuous line on Dad's side as far back as ~1200AD.

The most fascinating part is one ancestor many hundreds of years back was lord of a manor, on which there was a fresh water spring and he used to bottle and sell it. Not that many years ago, my parents visited this manor and bought some of the bottled spring water. We had it with Christmas dinner that year.

When I lived in Cape Town, that had the advantage of being both the repository of the Cape Province Archives and also the Archives of the Duch Reformed Church and several other churches in South Africa. I spent much time in the archives and could therefore access a lot of records which are hard to access anywhere else in the country.
My aunt started the family tree but because she lived in Port Elizabeth it made archives research pretty much impossible in pre-Internet days.

You'd look up records on microfiche and then search further links by asking the archivists to bring out the paper records which were all in great big leather bound books. Those days you could still handle the actual 300 year old and older documents. Those days are gone.

[Kiwizinho]

There's also some (odd to me) anomalies in that I know I have Portuguese ancestors

My wife is Brazilian, so definitely has Portuguese ancestors, but according to family tradition, her great-grandmother was indigenous Amerindian. I sometimes jokingly suggest my wife is 'Ngāti Kūmara', as the kūmara comes from South and Central America, so she can possibly claim a relationship with the vegetable centuries if not millennia before Māori, or for that matter, any Polynesians had it.

[MarkJerling]

My wife is Brazilian, so definitely has Portuguese ancestors, but according to family tradition, her great-grandmother was indigenous Amerindian. I sometimes jokingly suggest my wife is 'Ngāti Kūmara', as the kūmara comes from South and Central America, so she can possibly claim a relationship with the vegetable centuries if not millennia before Māori, or for that matter, any Polynesians had it.

I love it!

[Class A]

For those in Christchurch, there is free stuff at Photo & Video (ends soon).

[Arpe]

This guy(?) was hanging around the other morning. A young hawk ya think?

[zkarj]

A young hawk ya think?

The colours appear to be classic Hawk colours. Falcons tend to have a richer colouring, though I'm not sure if that's true of juveniles. If it flew it would be easy to tell with the wing shape.

[NZ_Ross]

It was a nice warm evening here, so I took a walk around Caroline Bay with the K-3 III and FA31. I have to say I am very happy with the low light capability of that combo. It was completely dark towards then end of the walk, and I still got some good images

[Arpe]

The colours appear to be classic Hawk colours. Falcons tend to have a richer colouring, though I'm not sure if that's true of juveniles. If it flew it would be easy to tell with the wing shape.

It just sat there for the half hour I was having breakfast, then flew off when I wasn't looking, not that I could identify the wing shape anyway!

[zkarj]

not that I could identify the wing shape anyway

In my experience the Karearea usually has its wings curved and the Kahu has them broad and straight, but I have just found pictures where the reverse shape may also be true. However, the underside of the Karearea is very mottled where the Kahu is solid areas of colour.

Kahu - swamp harrier - Circus approximans | A juvenile bird ? | Flickr

https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/sites/all/files/1200296Swamp%20Harrier%2CWaitangi.jpg

[Arpe]

I think the yellow eyes means it's a hawk.

[zkarj]

The other half is into painting rocks, so we popped down a known good spot for the smooth, round ones, at Mana. (Thank you, Cook Strait.) I wanted to take some low aspect shots across the shore but clever me didn't think to check the battery before we left, so no Live View. I only ended up taking this and two shots of passing gulls (that weren't great).