Genealogy Search

[scooter22]

Has anyone used a genealogy search site or other method to trace their family lineage?

[Firefly]

Not really. A buncha couples over the centuries liked screwing and now I'm here.

Don't mean to sound like a tool. But even if I were related to some historical figure....it's not like I'd get a prize or anything

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

I so wish I would find out that I'm part black...

[26 Inf]

I so wish I would find out that I'm part black...

DNA testing.

I really don't understand the fascination with finding out where you came from - I'm interested in my family for about 100 years back, but beyond that, BFD. You make your track not your ancient family.

[Quiet]

FYI about DNA testing to find out your ancestry...

Both Ancestry.com and 23andMe have been sharing DNA testing results with law enforcement.

[nml]

It is a tremendous pain in the ass --- hours and hours. Only do when you have lots of downtime.

1. familysearch and ancestry.com -- some info is on one that is not on the other

2. Connect using:
a. Census records
b. Birth certificates
c. Marriage certificates
d. Location

3. Beware of:
a. Family trees --- these were made by users. some provide good information but others are dead wrong.
b. Same names --- this is why so many of those are wrong, mixing up people
c. Maiden names --- if you don't have this and cannot find the marriage record it is usually a dead end outside of using location
d. 1890 census --- these all burned so there is only 1880 and 1900
e. 1973 National Archives fire probably conveniently burned up all service records for your ancestors
f. Misspellings --- Everyone wrote in script and some is FUBAR. I can clearly read the name but the scan shows it as something else so you won't find records doing a simple name search (had to search that location's census record for address for example)
g. Records before 1850. Census before then were more basic or other records just don't exist that far back. You can get lucky in spots

On the plus side you may achieve an appreciation for what it took to be here. I found a story where they had to leave their land because they were threatened by Indians. And they all fought young--- before they were married. My one ancestor's casualty log for his Civil War unit was absolutely insane. Both sides of my family had to make it out of both World Wars. And more wars after that. And escaped genocide. When you look at that list of tens of people who had to make it for you to be here at all ... perspective

[Firefly]

FYI about DNA testing to find out your ancestry...

Both Ancestry.com and 23andMe have been sharing DNA testing results with law enforcement.

Lol.

1984:We must know where you are and what you do. Big Brother is watching you!
"NO! RESIST!"

2016: Hai guyz u kin TOTALLY put all your info online with Facebook, totally give up your DNA to ancestry.com and have a way to check in everywhere you go with 4square so everyone knows your habits. And Apple will even save your pecker pics and cooter shots on a Cloud years after you delete them!

"That sounds great! Sign us up"

[scooter22]

It is a tremendous pain in the ass --- hours and hours. Only do when you have lots of downtime.

1. familysearch and ancestry.com -- some info is on one that is not on the other

2. Connect using:
a. Census records
b. Birth certificates
c. Marriage certificates
d. Location

3. Beware of:
a. Family trees --- these were made by users. some provide good information but others are dead wrong.
b. Same names --- this is why so many of those are wrong, mixing up people
c. Maiden names --- if you don't have this and cannot find the marriage record it is usually a dead end outside of using location
d. 1890 census --- these all burned so there is only 1880 and 1900
e. 1973 National Archives fire probably conveniently burned up all service records for your ancestors
f. Misspellings --- Everyone wrote in script and some is FUBAR. I can clearly read the name but the scan shows it as something else so you won't find records doing a simple name search (had to search that location's census record for address for example)
g. Records before 1850. Census before then were more basic or other records just don't exist that far back. You can get lucky in spots

On the plus side you may achieve an appreciation for what it took to be here. I found a story where they had to leave their land because they were threatened by Indians. And they all fought young--- before they were married. My one ancestor's casualty log for his Civil War unit was absolutely insane. Both sides of my family had to make it out of both World Wars. And more wars after that. And escaped genocide. When you look at that list of tens of people who had to make it for you to be here at all ... perspective

Thanks. This is exactly the type of info I was looking for.

I think my interest comes from my personal family history.

I'm an only child. My father died when I was 17. I have only met one grandparent, my father's mother. My father's father was a polygamist who committed suicide before my father was born, after which my grandmother changed her last name.

There's a lot to be learned for me. Plus, I'd like to know if my blood is linked to any particular nationality.

[nml]

Location (similar ethnic groups often settled in certain areas) and last names will give you nationality. Depending on how much you can get you may find some boat tickets from actual places.

Ancestry does a free trial. If for some reason you need it longer, try to cancel and then it will give you a really good offer for a bit longer. They got a ton of dough from me ha, I was gone for a bit with an active membership

Get as many:
1. Birthdates
2. Places they lived (where the census was completed)
3. Maiden names

It sounds like you have a decent starting point. Getting 1900-2016 is definitely doable, as I said before records get worse after that. Also 1940 is the last census you will find. They won't release 1950 records until 2022. But 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 all good data there and hopefully you can find some marriage certificates on familysearch.

[scooter22]

Location (similar ethnic groups often settled in certain areas) and last names will give you nationality. Depending on how much you can get you may find some boat tickets from actual places.

Ancestry does a free trial. If for some reason you need it longer, try to cancel and then it will give you a really good offer for a bit longer. They got a ton of dough from me ha, I was gone for a bit with an active membership

Get as many:
1. Birthdates
2. Places they lived (where the census was completed)
3. Maiden names

It sounds like you have a decent starting point. Getting 1900-2016 is definitely doable, as I said before records get worse after that. Also 1940 is the last census you will find. They won't release 1950 records until 2022. But 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 all good data there and hopefully you can find some marriage certificates on familysearch.

Thanks for your input!

[nml]

Shoot me an email if you encounter difficulty -- I am not on here often but can usually check my email at least once a week

[tb-av]

Has anyone used a genealogy search site or other method to trace their family lineage?

My brother does it. It's quite a bit of work. I think he went through MyHeritage.

It's kinda funny, I'll go over there for Christmas and he'll say... yeah, I traced it back and I'm related to some royalty from England... and I say, really I wonder who I'm related to.. you have to be there to see him pause on that one.

But seriously he has done that casually for quite a few years and only got one side of the family back several generations. On the other side my Grandfather we always thought was of French descent but his name was apparently an alteration of a German name simply to make more Americanized or easy to spell.

Some of the biggest headway you will make is through family Bibles or diaries and such. Photographs with names and dates. You don't have to go back very far at all before it all starts to fall apart or become a situation of 'it could be this guy' or 'it could be that guy' or 'there is no other guy'.

It's kinda cool if you like puzzles.

I would just plan it out as long term deal... like years. I know someone else that is very much into it and he has both Indians ( Native Americans ) on one side and I British and some just a generation away that were Judges and he was well trained in research and history and even he told me you hit brick walls very fast.

Your best place to start is with every single member of your extended family that you can get to give you every name they know. Every birthday, every marriage, divorce, birth , death , nicname, place lived. pictures, books, anything. Just get everything you can possibly get from your family.

There can very well be someone somewhere else that has the other half of the matching piece of your distant family. You will find them online. But you need to develop all that history first because a lot of people had the same name.

[Moose-Knuckle]

Has anyone used a genealogy search site or other method to trace their family lineage?

I have not personally.

But then again my German side has a published book of our family history on this continent starting back in 1724. I would like to take the time and explore my Irish and Scottish families some day. I have a good friend who is really into genealogy and has used ancestry.com to research his own family and his wife's.

[graffex]

My mother-in-law is really into researching the whole ancestory thing. She did a bunch of research for my genealogy also. My great great grandparents from my fathers side came here on a boat from Ireland. My mothers side only goes back a little bit before we ran into dead ends but they came over here from Germany at some point.

[nova3930]

f. Misspellings --- Everyone wrote in script and some is FUBAR. I can clearly read the name but the scan shows it as something else so you won't find records doing a simple name search (had to search that location's census record for address for example)

Not everyone was literate enough to know how to spell their name either, so different census takers would spell things differently for the same person.



g. Records before 1850. Census before then were more basic or other records just don't exist that far back. You can get lucky in spots

Some of the earliest census records were lost as well. 1800 and 1810 are the missing the most IIRC.

Another issue is that tracking birthdays didn't become a thing till the late 1800s, so the ages listed in the census will sometimes shift.

Sometimes people are duplicated because 2 different takers would hit the same house.

Sometimes they couldn't find the people, so they'd ask the neighbors, which introduces more erroneous information.

There's a lot of information that's just not possible to get exactly right. You get a most probable and narrow down the error bands and that's the best you can do...

[chuckman]

I have not, but I should. I do have my mother's family going back to one of the original settlers at Jamestown. My dad's family, is another story: my great grandfather immigrated from Finland, my grandfather broke up his 6 kids (my dad and his siblings) when they were all young children, scattering them. I know very little about that side of the family.

[Arik]

I tried once. I'm curious like that. I don't really care if they were kings or peasants I'm just curious to know. Anyway I tried but didn't get far since I'm an immigrant myself. I know my dad's uncle came here in the 20s and he died in 1994. He had family here at that time, I think his uncle was here. I tried his name but couldn't get anything. After days of searching I did find a record of his death. That's as far as I got. I did do my last name search and it originated in 12th century Germany but I'm not German

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[Crow Hunter]

I did. Some of it I got through Ancestry many years ago, through a relative that did the original research in the 1970's (when I was really young) and also on some ancestry message boards and a very, very distant relative that had done some work on his line.

However, I have a very uncommon patrilineal last name and my family has always owned property so there were quite a few probate records that could be followed.

I found out my family came to Jamestown in the 1640's (actually documented in a book about another family). I have quite a few records of land sales and slave sales and even contributions to the Continental Army during Revolutionary War. My Mom's side, I couldn't trace earlier than 1900 as the last name is Smith..... I was only able to do it to 1900 because of their extremely unique first names in combination.

I did find out a very interesting fact. I had a great uncle named JA, that was his name. It didn't stand for anything that anyone else knew. I found out, through my research that my G,G, Grandfather was named John Armstrong and he had died when my G, Grandfather was only 2. He had named one of his sons JA in honor of his father but he didn't know what his Father's name was, so we assume that he just knew it was JA. My great aunt was very interested to learn this as she had asked her father many times what her Grandfather's name was and he always said JA and they didn't have a grave stone. Another interesting fact, my G, Grandfather and his older sisters were all fostered by a particular family and all but one of them wound up marrying into that same family.

My maternal aunt had her Mitochondrial DNA tested several years ago and I am Haplogroup H (unknown subclade) which is the most common one in Europe:confused: so it is really of no help. I would like to get one of my paternal uncles tested to verify if my G,G grandmother was Indian, as we have been led to believe over the years. I might actually be a minority.:)

I think it is pretty interesting to know where you are from. But it is of no consequence in my normal life other than the one time in an Anthropology class in college when I was asked what type of -American I was and I said American-American because after 400 years, you really have to say you belong in your new country.:cool:

[soulezoo]

Same boat here... (maybe literally? lol) On maternal side, the family was traced back to Plymouth beginnings.

[WickedWillis]

My mother-in-law is really into researching the whole ancestory thing. She did a bunch of research for my genealogy also. My great great grandparents from my fathers side came here on a boat from Ireland. My mothers side only goes back a little bit before we ran into dead ends but they came over here from Germany at some point.

I guess my family has a castle in Ireland. Where's that money now? lol

[joe138]

My mother has done some genealogy and it can be interesting, even just the day to day things. We have an island named for a relative off the coast near Charleston SC.