Amateur Genealogy

[retire48in2018]

We were listening to a Mike Rowe podcast “way I heard it” and guest was an amateur genealogist.

He discussed various online tools and sites - focusing on familysearch.org, find a burial and ancestory.

Did not give it much thought - other than it was interesting. A few weeks later, we’re helping my dad through surgery and he is wanting to discuss family history but does not know as much as he does.

I started using the online tools - primarily familysearch.org - because it’s free.

Wow

Wow - so much available.


We are discovering people and stories.

This can be addictive!

 

[misanman]

You might want to check out WikiTree as well. It's free but you have to register and agree to their code of conduct.

 

[target2019]

Almost every day I spend an hour or so in the early morning working on our family tree. It's become a complex undertaking, and I enjoy the mental workout. DNA tests at four sites really amplified this hobby about 5 years ago.

The central challenge is distinguishing between what people have put in their public trees and what is factual. Every site has mistakes, and free does not always translate into correct. You gotta do your own research and use guidelines for reliability of data.

 

[Ronstar]

I did a family tree as part of a college project many moons ago. There wasn't much geneological information available back then. But the information I got from my father and grandmother really made it interesting. My dad told me that we had some fairly historical ancestors in the early 1800's. But I didn't have enough info to prove it and piece it together.


Several years ago, a geneologist called me about my family tree thinking that I was a descendant of these historical figures. I gave her all of the info I had, and never heard from her again.

I got back into genealogy again recently. It's very interesting. I found a 75 page geneological report online of my ancestors between 1740 and 1920. It verified that I am a 7th generation descendant of this historical figure. I'm going through the town named after my ancestors in the near future, and hope to get some more info from the county courthouse and city hall.

 

[Gumby]

Last fall, I got into researching my family history through ancestry.com, Familysearch and other resources. My grandmother told me family stories when I was a boy and I found them fascinating and had a good memory for them. After some research, I can conclude that some were true, some had a germ of truth but were not wholly true, and some appear to be tall tales. It has been fun and interesting to trace people back through time, even if sometimes difficult. Unless you are famous in some way, most of us will leave precious little data for our descendants to find us, little alone have any knowledge more than the bare details of our birth and death.

One of the more bizarre things that I have found is that my 9th great-grandparents, in 1639, founded the town I live in and the church I attend. There is a founder's memorial in the center of town and at least a quarter of the names on it are my direct forebears. In 1989, when we moved to Connecticut, the young wife and I chose this town off the map because it was convenient. So, I lived here for 32 years without knowing that the streets are named for my ancestors. It turns out that other ancestors of that generation were founding settlers of at least 7 of the surrounding towns as well.

My next challenge is to attempt to trace those Puritan great-grandparents back to their places of origin in England. For some of them, I know the ships on which they arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s (which is where many in the Great Puritan Migration first landed before moving on to other parts of New England). But I have not yet taken the next step of delving into the records in England. It really is an ever expanding project.

 

[Koolau]

Last fall, I got into researching my family history through ancestry.com, Familysearch and other resources. My grandmother told me family stories when I was a boy and I found them fascinating and had a good memory for them. After some research, I can conclude that some were true, some had a germ of truth but were not wholly true, and some appear to be tall tales. It has been fun and interesting to trace people back through time, even if sometimes difficult. Unless you are famous in some way, most of us will leave precious little data for our descendants to find us, little alone have any knowledge more than the bare details of our birth and death.

One of the more bizarre things that I have found is that my 9th great grandparents, in 1639, founded the town I live in and the church I attend. There is a founder's memorial in the center of town and at least a quarter of the names on it are my direct forebears. In 1989, when we moved to Connecticut, the young wife and I chose this town off the map because it was convenient. So, I lived here for 32 years without knowing that the streets are named for my ancestors. It turns out that other ancestors of that generation were founding settlers of at least 7 of the surrounding towns as well.

My next challenge is to attempt to trace those Puritan great-grandparents back to their places of origin in England. For some of them, I know the ships on which they arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s (which is where many in the Great Puritan Migration first landed before moving on to other parts of New England). But I have not yet taken the next step of delving into the records in England. It really is an ever expanding project.

DW's cousin traced one side of her family back to the mid 1300s. Not sure what value it serves, but it was interesting. Hard to believe such info is actually available. YMMV

 

[EastWest Gal]

I spent hours on Ancestry starting in June 2020. I have old photos from my grandparents.

The brick walls I ran into:

Significant cost increase if my search expanded to Europe.

My mom’s parents came from parts of Russia as minors. Tracing ancestry beyond my great grandparents would have been very difficult.

My husband is adopted. Trying to figure out his birth mom’s place vs his adoptive parents place in the tree. Ancestry kept trying to make his birth mom a second wife of his adoptive dad.

Many other trees have significant errors about people I knew well.

It’s hard to get marriage records. My grandparents divorced and my grandmother remarried. I vaguely remember meeting a man at a dinner at grandma’s house, when I was about six.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Genealogy has become my main FIRE pursuit of late.

I also use family search a lot, but use caution. Always bear in mind it’s a one giant collaborative tree for all mankind, or at least that’s the concept. No “my tree” or “your tree,” and anybody can make changes to anything. Which I love and hate at times, but mostly love. Except the crazy person who began attaching a bogus father to my 7th g-grandfather without justification and ignoring at least three of us who tried to explain that without evidence it’s mythology not genealogy, and besides that there’s a YDNA study proving her connection is impossible. But I like that family search has a lot more scanned original documents available, and oh yeah, didn’t we say it’s free?

 

[Irishgirlyc58]

I started researching my family history about 10 years ago. I only stopped due to time constraints while working. I plan to pick back up this winter.
I found my dad’s side of the family, who immigrated from Ireland and Canada the easiest to track down since they were all registered with the Catholic Church.
The hard part was determining if I had the right Joseph or Patrick.

My mom’s family who came to California in 1852-near as I’ve been able to figure, are a real pain to track. They were born in the extremely rural areas of California and usually at home so no official records. I have one great grandmother that I can’t figure out where she came from.
This will be my starting point.

Thanks for posting these sites. I plan on using them in my quest.

 

[Midpack]

I've never been bitten by the bug, but I have cousins on my Mom's side who devoted many years to tracing our "roots". We have a nearly complete history of my Mom's side back to 1820 (in the old country) and some branches traced back as far as 1230 but not complete. They shared hundreds of pages, with detailed narration about the lives of almost every one of our ancestors. Those cousins actually made several trips back to libraries in Norway to complete their work. Fair to say they were addicted to the project, so I know it can happen. We don't have any such records for my Dad's side or DW's - we know great grands and that's about it...

 

[braumeister]

Just a word of caution here.
I have a relative who got into this about a dozen years ago, and it has taken over his life. He now manages an extended family tree online that contains several thousand records, and keeps adding more, going out to the families of 4th and 5th cousins. It's a labor of love for him, so not a problem at all, but kind of boggles my mind.

 

[EarlyandLate]

There is a woman on my dad's side of the family who has worked diligently for years, even enlisting the aid of distant relatives across the nation to try to link the family to the Revolution. His family seem to have all been honorable types, even church founders, etc., but missing records have hindered her efforts.
OTOH, my mom was orphaned as a child and her family was full of deadbeats and drunks. She hated them. Back during lock downs, out of boredom, I looked into her family. Actually, all I did was google her grandfather's name. Boom! It was all there and certified by the DAR. Mom's deadbeat family linked perfectly back to the revolution and beyond to a small kingdom in present day Germany.
The universe has a perverse sense of humor!

 

[Kwirk]

I've started using the "family tree" option in 23andMe with records from FamilySearch and Ancestry.com to learn how I'm actually related to some of these genetic 2nd and 3rd cousins once or twice removed.

Curiously, there's a cluster of 7 loosely related genetic relatives that 23and Me links to a great grandfather but I can find no links to them in the family tree. I have a feeling that great grandpa may have been a philanderer and that the 7 are searching for him.

ETA: Google, especially for obituaries, can be very helpful for finding information about living relatives. The genealogy sites are very cautious with information about living persons.

 

[aja8888]

My family tree ended in Ellis Island records of both sets of grandparents who migrated here from Lithuania about 1890. All records of family before that were burned by the Germans in Lithuania. Tried Ancestry and all I got were death certificates of grandparents, etc.

Now DW's family tree was put together by her sister over several years and it's pretty detailed.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Let me add the following. If you have older relatives still living, don’t put off talking to them about the family until after it’s too late. I got really interested literally the week Dad died and I now have a million questions for him. I also procrastinated looking up Mom’s cousin who had done quite a lot of research. Pretty dumb on my part, considering he lived to be 101.

 

[Gumby]

There is a woman on my dad's side of the family who has worked diligently for years, even enlisting the aid of distant relatives across the nation to try to link the family to the Revolution. ....

Something I never knew until the past year is that two of my 5th great-grandfathers served in the American Revolution and later received government pensions for their service. Their children married each other and became my 4th great-grandparents. In fact, there is a tradition of military service in my family in almost every generation stretching from my brother and me all the way back to a 9th great-grandfather who was in the Pequot War in 1637.

 

[braumeister]

For some reason, DW's mom wanted to join the local chapter of DAR. So she somehow gathered enough documentation to show her eligibility. This was in the 40s or 50s, so far more difficult than it would be today. She knew all the family history going back to the War of 1812 (had a relative who was a Captain in the war), so it was just a matter of extending that a bit farther.

Her side can be traced back to the 17th century in Scotland and England, and there is even a castle (well, a ruin) over there.

My side can only be traced back to the late 18th century in Ireland and Germany. Just peasants, so not much information.

But I admit it's kind of fun to do the research.

 

[target2019]

I know where my 1850-1900 immigrant ancestors came from, in general. I'm 1/4 each Germany (Wurttemburg and Baden), Ireland (Leitrim County), Scots/N. Irish (the main mystery), and Russian Federation (Ukraine). Wife and I have 8K+ individuals in our database. A few cousins helped with that.

Last year we visited churches in Altensteig (Wurttemburg) and Bietigheim (Baden). In a couple of months we'll visit a few locations in Ireland. I'm going to meet a distant cousin who is near one of the Leitrim locations from 1800-1850.

A handful of the sites I use include these:

 

[Koolau]

I know where my 1850-1900 immigrant ancestors came from, in general. I'm 1/4 each Germany (Wurttemburg and Baden), Ireland (Leitrim County), Scots/N. Irish (the main mystery), and Russian Federation (Ukraine). Wife and I have 8K+ individuals in our database. A few cousins helped with that.

Last year we visited churches in Altensteig (Wurttemburg) and Bietigheim (Baden). In a couple of months we'll visit a few locations in Ireland. I'm going to meet a distant cousin who is near one of the Leitrim locations from 1800-1850.

A handful of the sites I use include these:

I'm not "into" genealogy but have found an interesting site called "Find A Grave." It's not a just a genealogy site but has lots of clues to get you started.

 

[RonBoyd]

I spent 30 years (up to 15 years ago) with Genealogy as a "taken over by" hobby. Eventually, we traveled all over to gather (and, yes, rescue) data and documents from relatives. I have met with and am still friends with folks as distant as 6th cousins -- we share the same 5th grandparents.

Anyway, I recently came across a Genealogy website that I wished had been available long ago. It is Geni.com and is described quite well in Karen McPherson's "In My Opinion" Substack site. (Which I, also, highly recommend subscribing to.)

https://kamcpherson.substack.com/p/genicom

 

[target2019]

I'm not "into" genealogy but have found an interesting site called "Find A Grave." It's not a just a genealogy site but has lots of clues to get you started.

Yes, that is a popular site. It's affiliated with Ancestry, I believe.

There can be problems, though. The images of grave markers are not always so clear. Since the site is crowd-sourced there is a significant amount of mis-labeling and creative writing in some cases. The worst thing is when an individual grabs possession of the grave you're interested in, and removes facts you've added.

Just like Ancestry, FamilySearch, Geni and so on, you should remain a skeptic of what's there until you prove what are presented as facts.

It can be useful. For example I found a plaque in a German church that listed missing from WW II who lived in that village. One line showed an unknown relative (we shared surname). I added a picture of that plague and other information for the individual. Even had an online link to the actual location of his grave somewhere in Poland.

I thought of another site - Newspapers.com. It has a fee that is really not so much. With the right search terms you can find marriages, obituaries, and so on. There may be clues in the list of survivors.

 

[Koolau]

Yes, that is a popular site. It's affiliated with Ancestry, I believe.

There can be problems, though. The images of grave markers are not always so clear. Since the site is crowd-sourced there is a significant amount of mis-labeling and creative writing in some cases. The worst thing is when an individual grabs possession of the grave you're interested in, and removes facts you've added.

Just like Ancestry, FamilySearch, Geni and so on, you should remain a skeptic of what's there until you prove what are presented as facts.

It can be useful. For example I found a plaque in a German church that listed missing from WW II who lived in that village. One line showed an unknown relative (we shared surname). I added a picture of that plague and other information for the individual. Even had an online link to the actual location of his grave somewhere in Poland.

I thought of another site - Newspapers.com. It has a fee that is really not so much. With the right search terms you can find marriages, obituaries, and so on. There may be clues in the list of survivors.

Yeah, the info, as you mentioned is unedited and may or may not be true. This can lead to some unintended (at least I hope it's unintended) family situations - especially when "distant" relatives are "found". Still it's kind of interesting stuff and I've been surprised how many folks I've been able to find that way. And it's free so YMMV.

 

[SecondAttempt]

I got into genealogy when a great aunt showed me the work she had done on her own family history in about 1987. It was hard back then. As the internet grew I searched more and more. I found a guy who had traced one side of my family back over 1000 years. So I had a huge head start.

Using Ancestry and familysearch.org I've been able to fill in many gaps. I can document with 1 single exception ties to Mary Boleyn as my 13th great grand mother. She was reputed to be Henry VIII's lover and he was likely father of her children. Of course that exception is everything.

Still there are intruiging mysteries. And it has definitely been downhill for the family for many generations, lol!

 

[target2019]

To keep myself honest I entered one direct line to James IV of Scotland. Of course the mate was one of his mistresses, so no fortune or title for me.

I clearly mark this as speculation for future generatiions to wonder about. Their is definitely not enough proof on the source site that information came from. Serious researchers joke about such finds which never have enough proof.

If true, he would be my 16th great grandfather. Or more accurately, he would be one of 262,144 grandparents I have in that generation.

I think the real stroke of fortune was that between 1860 and 1900 my great grandparents left famine and persecution throughout Europe.

 

[SecondAttempt]

I think the real stroke of fortune was that between 1860 and 1900 my great grandparents left famine and persecution throughout Europe.

That's something most Americans share. Extend that to China, Japan, and the Phillipines and you include even more Americans.