My direct line goes back to 1464, my family was from France. They were Huguenots.
I had an ancestor who died at the massacre of St. Bartholomew. After the massacre in France they left for the Netherlands. One of them became mayor of Rodderdam. From there they came to America.
The ship they came over on was the Du Pumerlander Krish in 1662 from Holland.
I was able to find my great great great grandfather on RootsWeb. From there I could just backtrack to find ancestor after ancestor. The spelling of my last name changed twice since the time in France.