My family tree is well documented on both sides. I am what they call a swamp yankee. I.e. I am descended from Mayflower (Brewster, Hopkins and Eaton), I have at least 10 revoluntionary veterans in my family and an unknown number of tories, my lines are as good as any Boston Brahman, but my kin are the poor farmers, loggers and other back woods swamp rats, who ranged from Nova Scotia to Mobile Alabama. I have ancestors who traded with the indians before Davey Crokett. I have Dutch roots that go back to the earliest Europeans in New York and New Jersey. I am supposed to be cousin to Abe Lincoln, one vice president whose last name was Hendrix, Aaron Burr. Finally, I have at least one part of my family that claims to have a native American ancestor.
We have family trees for at least four of my family lines that trace back to the early 1600's in America. I do not know of any ancestors who came here after the 1600's. If we trace some of my Irish great grandmothers, I am betting those families came in the 1800's, but that is still unknown.
I have family photos of most everyone in my family back to 1900, and quite a few back to the civil war.
We have at least two believable oral histories from the 1750's. There are a number of other stories written down and passed down.