How much do you care about your ancestry?

[Mimi1965]

My Mom has our family traced back to France.
In the small town in this state-one ancestor ran the Inn on the River where the riverboats passed-and another was a Barrel maker (I think all goods were shipped in barrels at the time)

I think its very interesting to find out about your roots.

 

[Bilberry]

I think, or thought, Ancestry research was great and fascinating. I don't work on genealogy as much as I used to, but at one time it was a great hobby to have. It is amazing what can be found in records if you search hard enough. Some of the items discovered were founding out I'm a descendant of the founder of Yale University, had relatives on the Mayflower, lots of early Mormons in my back ground, several war veterans who wrote diaries, and that overall many in my family were pioneers living on the edge of America's society at the time. And that the relatives were well thought of as several short biographies were written about their lives on the frontier.

 

[DisneyScraps]

I am interested in it. I like the history and the more I find the more interesting it gets. Since I have become the family historian I have amassed quite a collection of old photographs. I call it my wall of dead people and I know which ancestor is in each photo and I have some awesome stories to go along with the photos

 

[Geoff_M]

I care, and have joined together a number of family genealogies and added my own research to it. I have a Mayflower connection... fact I had two generations of ancestors on that boat... Edward Fuller (12th g-g-grandfather) and his son Samuel and wife Ann were all aboard.

But I'm not into it to try and find notable people that I'm related to. I'm more interested in the "ordinary", "forgotten", or "unknown" links.

I like learning how exactly it is that I ended up where I am. I've found that my family (families, really) was very normal in that they landed and set up shop in places like NY, VA, and NJ. From there they pulled up stakes after a couple of generations and moved westward. A few stopped in PA for a bit, but most first moved to OH and then a generation or so later moved a short distance next door to Indiana about the time it became a state and settled down for good.

As for the "unknown", my Mom's side of the had a very short tree when I got started. She knew the names of her grandparents, but that was about it. I was able to add 8 generations to one branch of her tree (back to 1633) and add fewer generations to other parts of her tree. It was also neat to be able to take her to a local cemetery and "introduce her" to her two sets of g-grandparents and a g-g-grandmother that she never knew she had.

I'd also like to find a "forgotten" family member. One of my g-g-g-grandfathers fought in the Civil War and was part of Sherman's March. From records, it appears that he died of a likely illness in Savannah, GA a few months after they reached the Atlantic. I have no idea where he is buried. Seeing as he carries my surname, I'd like to be able to "account" for his whereabouts. I understand that there is a very large old cemetery in Savannah that contains a lot of Civil War dead, and I hope that he is among them. The city of Savannah is supposedly working on a database project to publish the name of the dead in that cemetery on-line, but it's behind schedule. And so, I wait.

 

[cat83]

I am TOTALLY interested in this, but not really sure how to go about it?

Beyond ancestry.com, what have you done to research? I'm guessing that is the best place to start though..

Oh, and that wall of pictures is very impressive!

 

[tink1969]

I guess it's like a hobby for your wife. I too, am interested in my 'roots'. I managed to trace back my family to 1736 (so far). That's just my father's line. Now I would like to search my mother's line.
My search is done online through Scottish geneology websites. It is so exciting when you find a document (scanned) of the handwritten birth/wedding/death registries.
It's my hobby. My DH's hobby is poker and mine is geneology.

 

[Tinkermommy]

Mildly interested but not enough to really devote the time right now.

I have a very "mixed" heritage (but mostly European and Cherokee Indian). I should check. My friend loves Johnny Depp and said he is part Cherokee, so maybe we are related and I could drop by and see my cousin!

I would love to do the DNA analysis though. I think there is a home kit where you can swab your cheek and mail it off. They will run the tests and send you results.

I think most of us in America have a mixed heritage (melting pot and all).

Edited to add:

Here is the website I have looked at. If anyone has done this, I would like to know.

http://www.dnaancestryproject.com/

 

[Rora]

I think geneology and ancestry is really really interesting.

My grandma was a part of the Daughters of the America Revolution (society of women whose families have been in America pre-American Revolution) and so am I and my mother. We LOVE to trace our ancestors, find out more about them, etc. It's sometimes a very long, difficult process but we find the hobby to be rewarding.

We can trace our family (maternal side only) back pretty far--late 1400s, thanks to lots of documentation by our ancestors.

 

[castleview]

I have an Aunt who is really into geneology and ancestry. I couldn't possibly care less. I don't look at it as good or bad. It just doesn't interest me.

That would be me. My aunt is inanely organized about it. It's interesting to look at her books and all the work she's put into it, but I don't need to get together with people I'm 25th cousins with. Fortunately, my aunt doesn't expect everyone else to go along with her passion.

 

[Geoff_M]

I am TOTALLY interested in this, but not really sure how to go about it?

Here's what I can offer briefly...

1) Talk to your living relatives. Also, gather any existing family trees, family histories, etc. You need to get enough basic information to get you back to people that were born before about 1920. For privacy reasons, not many public records and census data have been released after period of time. Once you get back to that time frame, the availability of records is often wide open.

The more information you have the better. Dates of birth/death, name(s) of spouse(s), where they were born/died, names of siblings, etc. A lot of the dots have to be connected by coincidental evidence. You have to be able to answer questions like "How do I know that this 'James Smith' is MY 'James Smith' in a census record?" The answer may depend on matching things like the name of his wife, when he was born, the names and ages of his kids, etc. The more points you can connect, the more "sure" you can be of ID'ing the guy as "yours".

2) Dates are often "soft". Don't get rattled if an age is off a year or two in a census record for someone you're looking for. For starters, Census data usually only reports their age on the date of the Census. That alone makes the computed year ("They were listed as being 22 in the 1880 Census") only good for an accuracy of +/- 1 year unless you know the month and day of their birth. People also gave census workers bad information on their age, or they may have been mis-transcribed. I have one relative whose birth year swings 10 years across the census records (and his headstone doesn't exactly match any census record either).

3) Be careful. Sites like Ancestry.com and rootsweb allow people to self-publish family trees. They are very useful, but have the same pitfalls as Wikipedia does with its facts. There is BAD data out there. I initially got excited when I found trees published that showed a connection for me with William the Conqueror. I found the links repeated in other trees, but it was all obviously cut-n-paste from the same source. More digging revealed that there was a father and daughter in the linage that were undocumented connections based on little more than a mention by name in a will and an assumption that this meant that they had to be a child of the will's owner. In another example, I also found a published tree that merged two generations of my ancestors into one person (they were a "Sr" and a "Jr") with his mother listed as his wife (ick!)... I contacted the tree's owner and sent them photos of both of their headstones as proof and they corrected their tree.

If you use stuff from other people's trees, make sure it's documented or look for independent confirmation in other people's trees. If the info is just copied and pasted from place to place... be careful.

 

[barkley]

for anyone that's interested-my new issue of aarp mentions that ancestry.com is providing free access to more than 1700 taped interviews with immigrants through ellis island, it was previously only available to visitors at the ellis island immigration museum. the interviews are fist person accounts of thier lives in their home countrys, their journeys to the u.s and their experiences.

sounds facinating if you are interested in geneology.

 

[SandrA9810]

My great great aunt was married into the family, but she knows a TON about her husband's family line, which would be my grandmother's line. She could also be the historian of Greencastle, IN. She knows EVERYTHING about every one. Just about every other week she's showing up in the local newspaper.

But even going back to when my grandmother was born... things happened that I wouldn't believe. Being raised by relatives because her mother wanted to be a show girl in NYC, and didn't come back into the picture till she was a teen.

I do know my grandmother's side has lots of family history in Pennsylvania. But there seems to be lots of females, so lots of name changes too.

 

[HSMndLKfan92]

I take pride in my heritage. My ancestors are the reason I'm here. One of my dad's cousins has traced our family tree back a few generations. His mom has her mother's immigration info.

We're Americanized to an extent. My mom's family knows a lot of our ancestor's language, and Christmas is celebrated with old traditions.

 

[cat83]

Here's what I can offer briefly...

Thanks for the advice. I wish that any of my relatives had taken an interest in this! There is not much for me to start with... I remember having to do simple family tree assignments in school, and no one really knew much beyond the great-grandparents.
My DH is lucky that his mom has acquired quite an impressive collection of pictures, names, and stories over the past 10 years.

 

[DizFan101]

My mom does the genealogy in my family.
I remember she would drag us to all the cemetaries when we were little to look for people we were related to. lol.
My 11th great grandpa was on the MayFlower, and am also related to Dr. Virginia Apgar (who invented the Apgar scale for babies).
It's amazing who you find out your related to. Imagine being Tom Hanks and being related to the Lincolns.

Amazing.

 

[Happy Mom2]

My mom does the genealogy in my family.
I remember she would drag us to all the cemetaries when we were little to look for people we were related to. lol.
My 11th great grandpa was on the MayFlower, and am also related to Dr. Virginia Apgar (who invented the Apgar scale for babies).
It's amazing who you find out your related to. Imagine being Tom Hanks and being related to the Lincolns.

Amazing.

I can remember going to cemetaries with my grandparents and walking around for hours and hours while my grandmother wrote down all the names and dates from the headstones. At the time I hated it, but now I am thankful for all the time and energy to put into it.

 

[Geoff_M]

Thanks for the advice. I wish that any of my relatives had taken an interest in this! There is not much for me to start with... I remember having to do simple family tree assignments in school, and no one really knew much beyond the great-grandparents.
My DH is lucky that his mom has acquired quite an impressive collection of pictures, names, and stories over the past 10 years.

I'm not sure of your age, but I'm able to find my grandparents in Census records. So you may have enough info to get started.

In addition to ancestry.com, there are some good free sites that you can use. The best is FamilySearch.org (which is operated by the Mormon church). There are a couple of search sections on that site. The form on the home page will search one set of records, but there's a link on the bottom of the page labeled "See prototype for searching millions of records" will take you to a whole treasure trove of government records (Census, marriage, death, etc.) FamilySearch also offers free family tree software called Personal Ancestral File where you can enter your findings.

Also Ancestry hosts a free site called RootsWeb at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com This site offers a massive database of self-published family trees as well as genealogy forums related to geography (you can pose a question to someone in another state/county about a relative) and specific surnames. A lot of county genealogical societies also host their web pages on RootsWeb.

There are also other "pay" sites that offer you free trial memberships... however, I've found them to be inferior to Ancestry.com and their "trial membership" programs are structured in the hopes that you'll forget to cancel your 14-day trial membership and then your CC will get billed for a full year's non-refundable membership (~$100).

Go fishing, and see what you can find!

 

[EMom]

years ago i went on a tour of the public portions of one of the larger mormon temples in northern california. one of the areas we were taken to was where members (and the public) could work on geneological research. i remember seeing some kind of mass produced family tree that they offered to people wherein (they claimed) that if you could search your geneology back to a certain point that connected you with one of dozens and dozens of names they had the rest of the "family tree" mapped out which connected you with adam and eve.

maybe your relative has based her information on one of these mass produced products.

Hmmm.......Maybe her "family tree" DID go back to Adam and Eve. To tell you the truth, once I got to Jesus, I was so gobsmacked that I stopped reading. I figured she was nuttier than a fruitcake. The actual family tree is interesting enough..... I don't need to use duct tape to connect myself biologically to Jesus.

 

[Guy Incognito]

I love it. It is my own personal connection with history. I've been tracing my ancestry for about two years now. I have managed to trace some branches in my family very far back. Whenever possible, I find out what they did for a living and if they played any notable role in history.

My most exciting find was that my 13th great grandmother on my mom's side was Mary Tudor (sister of Henry VIII). I've traced all the various castles my ancestors lived and/or died in. I've done research on these places. It's fascinating, but I love history.

I will keep doing this for as long as I can. I hope, that when I am no longer around, my family will continue to document what happens.

got Mary Tudor in my genealogy file as well (relationship calculator says she is my half-4th cousin 15 times removed)... my 18th great grandmother was Katherine Roet (my side came from her first husband.... her second marriage to John of Gaunt is the connection to all the royal houses of Europe). Printed out a nice ancestry tree starting with me awhile back. Ended up being 7 feet tall and about 2.5 feet wide


Geoff already posted great tips for starting. Definitely take what you find posted online from others with a grain of salt, until you can verify their sources yourself. I've posted my file out there, and have received some corrections from others who have also researched those lines; so it's always a work in progress.

 

[daughtersrus]

I"m not really interested at all. My SIL (DH's brother's wife) is VERY into it. She spends hours and hours every day on it. Everyone in the family complains because you can never call during the day because it's always a busy signal. (they still have dial-up internet).

My mom was in the foster care system so there is really no way for us to find out anything on her side of the family.

When we first started dating (back in '86-'86) we realized that my grandparents on my dad's side and his grandparents on his mom's side, worked at the same factory. They also all went to the same doctor and lived in the same area. All of them had passed away by this time so we couldn't ask them if they knew each other.

When my DD was diagnosed with a genetic disease and the geneticist explained how rare it was, (it's recessive and there are only about 200 people world-wide diagnosed), we started to think that somewhere down the line, we may be related.

My SIL has already done the research on DH's side so maybe some day, I'll try and look up my dad's side and see if there's any connection.