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I've found PA very difficult to research, but there are more records available now. My German family Fuchs or Fox, well I found them in Ohio but not where they were supposed to have lived in Lancaster County, PA. I hate those censuses where all you have are the 1's for male, female over, all across. Then it was males only that were named, but I think the first time was 1860 was when the whole family was counted, named and ages given which was a huge help (and can throw you off bigtime). Females are the hardest. I do female lines, too, and it is through those I found the royal ties.

I don't trace back to any Howards that I've found. Tudors. I get them all confused with Plantagenets, Stuarts, should know my English history better.

My anecdotal material is the most interesting even if they weren't royals. I visited Warwick Castle in the 70's, and now I find that I may be a direct descendant to of first earl, Thomas? Newburgh, origin Normandy, changed to Newberry in early Am.

My favorite one takes too long to tell.

If you have Strong in your lineage, it's a good bet you are a Mayflower Descendant. I never found any for me.

The genetic traits are fascinating if you can find a few clues, not much got recorded way back when.

Yes, there's no end to this stuff, and I got burned out on mine unless something new crops up and did a lot of research helping a distant cousin find missing lines in his enormous database. Two in particular he badly wanted. Well, we worked together and found them, but I did a lot of the grunt work. He loved old cars and trucks, so we tracked down a family who had a factory in the Bronx, found tons of stuff in the archives of the NYT about that. He was thrilled to meet the grandson who showed up at a reunion (I can't get to them out east). The other one was a family name killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. I stumbled over their most recent origins. They were very hard to research because they were a missionary family in oh boy, near the Congo, and rarely showed up on censuses, we used the ones they did, passport records and Wheaton church records. One was still there last I knew. The ones in the bombing shared his surname; mine was a variant, but when we got them back far enough, I was a little more closely related than he, 9th cousins.

I could find a lot more if I could travel. Isn't it exciting when you break through a brick wall? Some I doubt I ever will.

Yes, the common names are the very worst! That's where I got major stuck.