More Family History research questions

[PrincessNancy96]

The books you are making, tell me more about them...please. I am trying to find a way to digital scrap our genealogy. I want to include the charts, etc..

Well, DH is out of town..and the kids go back to school next week..so I will have time to think.. I will take some photos and show you what she has done.. What we are trying to do this year is scrapbook page the photos and some of the documents we have.. Ancestry.com has a great program I use that makes the family group sheets and charts for me... It's their free program.. I do NOT allow it to connect to the internet though...since I use other trees as guides til I can prove the connection..
Right now I'm at a stand still because one of DH's great-grandfathers was born in 1780 vermont..but some have listed his father as born in 1609...that being the case.. I wanted to know how he lived to 171 before said son was born.. My guess is some of the tree may have been mixed up...or assumptions were made...

 

[kaileetho]

I have two passions, Disney and Genealogy but I've heard about digital scrapbooking and thought that might be easier than paper. I never thought to make a real scrapbook from all the stuff I've dug up over the years doing my genealogy. Thanks for the idea. I've done some Scottish family research and some of the best sites I've used are ancestry, especially since they now have all the Scottish census online. The next one I use is scotlandspeople.gov.uk, it's run by the Scotish government and they have the original birth, death, marriage records online. It does get a bit pricy but if you use it with ancestry you can really narrow it down to the correct person and only buy the thing you need. When you do it that way it's actually quite inexpensive. I've found death records from 1857 that listed parents names, burial place, cause of death ect and bought it for about five dollars which is a lot cheaper than ordering it for 25. Cyndislist is an awesome place to find links to anywhere you are researching. Anytime I start looking into a new area I'm not familiar with I go there and see what's available. I'll call the local library for a town or county and ask them where they might have newspaper clippings from way back when. One library in Ohio went crazy for me and sent me obituaries, directories and anything else they could find on my particular last name (it was very uncommon). They did this all for free for me. Some libraries charge a fee for this but it's usually small. The Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh charged my $15 for up to 5 newspaper articles, I only needed three obituaries which they found. They went the extra mile for me and in one of the obituaries it listed the death year of the spouse and they went ahead and found the obituary for that spouse and sent it to me as well, pretty neat since it was that person I was trying to find in the first place. I could go on forever about family history, sorry I didn't mean to write a novel, i just get so excited.

 

[pjlla]

Oh my GOSH! I am SO excited and I needed to share it with folks who would appreciate it!

I decided to go through a pile of old photos and papers that an aunt shared with me a year or so ago, when I told her I was going to attempt to do a family tree scrapbook. I have scanned most of the photos and papers, but I didn't look at them closely.

I just found a handwritten family tree documenting three branches of my Dad's family back to 1640!!! And it matches the family tree I linked to on ancestry.com (but I was waiting to confirm the match before I got too excited about the info)!! It also states that there is a direct connection to Colonel Bradford who came to America on the MAYFLOWER!! I have goosebumps! I knew that some of my Dad's family had been in Massachusetts for a very long time, but this is SO exciting!

The paper appears to have been written in about the mid 1800's and only lists family as far forward as my Dad's grandfather on his mother's side.


Plus, yesterday I paid to upgrade my ancestry.com membership to the "World" package and was able to find a possible connection to my family on the 1861 Scotland Census (hard to read and I need to confirm the names before I get too excited, but it seems reliable).

This is so stinking exciting! Thanks for listening!................P

 

[hopemax]

Too cool for you! After posting earlier, I decided to dig into things again since I haven't checked in a few years. When I asked my Grandma things in 2003, she was a lot standoffish, and didn't remember a lot. However, this time she was a lot more interested and I found out her maternal grandparent's names, which I didn't have before. I signed up for the free trial, and was able to find my Grandma in the 1930 census, although the transcriber completely butchered their last name, so I was surprised I found them. And found my great-great Grandparents in the 1920's census. I also think I found the ship's manifest from when my Grandma's dad came, however it has a different age than from what showed up on the Census (2 years off, and I know the family was lax about dates, my grandma had the wrong birth info for herself for most of her life). Through that I found out that her Dad had a brother that she did not know about (this brother died the year she was born).

It's exciting, but very confusing. My Grandma was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. So there are lots of records to search through, and unfortunately lots of people with the same name, so identifying which person is my relative is difficult. Plus, everyone had Italian names, which they Americanized. Some were easy to match up, but others were a little more complicated. Add in the discrepancies in ages. Plus, I can't find everyone in the census, which frustrates me. If my great-grandfather came over in 1906, and married in 1915 like the records I found say, then he should be in the 1920 and 1910 census and I can't find him.

I also found out that a distant cousin from the family that still lives in Brooklyn, has done some research too, so I am waiting to find out what info she has. My Grandma as she says, "escaped" from that life, and so she isn't the one with the family records. However, she has been talking to her younger sister who's family does have that stuff, so we will see what happens.

 

[piratesmate]

<snip>.... I know the family was lax about dates, my grandma had the wrong birth info for herself for most of her life).

<snip> Plus, I can't find everyone in the census, which frustrates me. If my great-grandfather came over in 1906, and married in 1915 like the records I found say, then he should be in the 1920 and 1910 census and I can't find him. <snip>

I feel your pain! My one grandmother told us that she'd been born in 1898 & told the census takers the same thing in 1930. However, someone from her father's extended line was researching & found that she'd been born in 1896. Not only that, her name was listed as Maria Edna - not Emma Marie. She was quite angry when this guy showed up & told her this...she was 87 at the time (or so she said) and had just had a big 85th birthday bash...only to invite the same people back for her 90th birthday the next year. It wasn't a matter of confusion...she just didn't like her given name so she "changed" it...not officially or anything, just started telling people.

And I wish I could find her in the 1900, 1910 and 1920 census records! Her mother died in 1899, having only arrived in the US in 1885 with a name no one ever spells the same way twice!! Who raised her is something of a mystery. I can't find her, her older sister or her father in any of those years!!

She'd always told us that it was 'Uncle Will' that raised her, but in each of those census years she's not in his household. In fact, he was in the military and spent most of the end of the last & beginning of this century fighting in a war somewhere...the Boxer Rebellion, the Philippine-American war, the Spanish American war & WWI! And she wasn't with any of her other uncles either.

 

[Lisa]

I want going to post my genealogy update too. With all our talk here and with my upcoming trip to SLC, I wanted to organize and review my charts and documentation. Somewhere along the line this week, I came across a website of www.gen circles (no space in there.) Now I realize that often information is incorrect, either given incorrectly, interpreted by the census taker incorrectly, etc. so I never take that for gospel, just as a direction to look into.

However, at gencircles I came across a chart with DH's maternal grandmother's parents. The individual had done a lot of work and had the same information as I did from various census. However she had her grandfather's sister's spouses name spelled incorrectly. Well that person was my DH grandfather and our last name. Since her email address was listed, I took the chance to send an email, letting her know the correct spelling and attached a picture of DH's great grandparents with their adult children.

She emailed me right back, turns out her maternal grandfather was the brother of my DH's maternal grandmother. She named my FIL after this woman's grandfather. Talking this week we found out we both went into labor with our first born children on the same day and my DD was born on her birthday. She sent me a picture of great-great grandparents with their almost adult children!! Very happy to have that picture. DGGGF had the funkiest looking mustache!

So it just goes to show, genealogy is a continual project. If you think you've gotten as far as you can, by all means put it down but go back to it at a later time. You'll be surprised what you'll find!

And yes, I got all my documents (census, war docs, etc all printed out) organized. I am going to do a bit more online research here at home before I get what I can get at SLC.

Pjlla, you can get a listing of those who were on the Mayflower. That would be good to add to your documents if your relatives came over on it. A picture of the Mayflower replica would be great to add too!

Nanc, I am still tracking down the relative on the site you gave me.

I can feel everyone's excitement. Let's keep up the search!

 

[hopemax]

If my great-grandfather came over in 1906, and married in 1915 like the records I found say, then he should be in the 1920 and 1910 census and I can't find him.

My mini update...I found them in the 1920 census! After talking to my Grandma again, and armed with a few more birth and death dates. I tried one more time, and this time they came up. Those transcriptions are something. Apparently, they entered the name as Omero (the correct spelling is Ghiuro). I looked at the scan, and I don't know how they came up with Omero, it's obviously Gh-smudge-uro. But I guess if you don't know the name...The 1930 census was spelled Guerro, a little closer.

I have ordered what I think are my Great Grandma's birth and marriage certificates. There are a couple other records I think belong to my family, but at $17 a pop for NYC records, I want to be confident before I request them. I tried to find my great-great grandparents in the 1910 census, but if they lived in the same neighborhood, I don't think it will happen. I looked at the scans and they were very faded and basically impossible to read.

I am printing everything off, and making them into a binder for my Grandma. Her birthday is in a couple weeks, and I wanted to send them to her so she can show the family (everyone is talking about this stuff now).

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

remember to when looking on census records that if women answered the door a lot of them would lie about the info. Give wrong dates and names.
And depending on how heavy the accent of the person is it could be written down wrong.
DH's family member is named Harold but everyone called him Red, he is down on the SSDI as Harith! LOL

Also and this is especially for people in GA, the old Courthouse burned down in Fulton County (I think). Anywho my Grandmother In Law's birth name was Charlotte but she was called Lottie, one of her marriage certificates it said her name was Sadie (not sure if it makes the marriage illegal), anywho. When she had to get her SSN for work she had to bring down 3 people who knew her since birth that were not related so she could get a new birth Certificate since the old one was destroyed in the fire. Do you think she picked any of her old names??? Heck no, she picked one formal name but went by her new middle name! LOL

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

Hope I read somewhere once or heard, I think it was Piratesmate, that said it. If you put yellow vellum on your computer screen it can make the handwritten documents easier to read. Give it try. And don't just look for the parent, if you have the info look for siblings, children, parents etc on the census. We found DH's father on the 1920 census and he was only 1 at the time, because we were searching for FIL's father but they had the wrong name.

FIL's death index info is wrong too, I just need to document my info to send to them to fix it.

 

[piratesmate]

I've been looking for a gg-uncle in the 1910 census for years - still hoping that maybe he had my grandmother. I've tried every conceivable (and a bunch of inconceivable) spellings without success. Today I finally found him! (No Gram, though.) If you have enough info, this method might work for you too.

I entered his first name, his date of birth, the state & county where I expected him to be and his wife's name. It was that last name misspelled again. Sometimes there's just no way you can figure out how they've read it! I think it looks "correct" but they totally messed it up in the index!

This has worked in reverse for me as well. I've put in the last name & as much detail as possible. I found a Joseph today who was indexed as Josephor - and for some reason they either weren't showing me that option, or it was on page 100 and I'd given up by page 30.

 

[piratesmate]

Hey! I just noticed that I have a new tag! LOL When did that show up?!?!?

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

cool beans !!!!

 

[hopemax]

Yeah, I keep checking things every which way. I keep shaking that tree and in bits and pieces things are falling out.

I gave up on that part for awhile and went to look for my Grandfather's side. I had info going back to someone named Rachel. I had her spouse, and children, but nothing more than Rachel. And I couldn't find anything to match up with any trees on the usual sites.

Well, I did an internet search for her daughter, and I found a transcription of a biography from 1888 in the county that my relatives still live. It was about Rachel! So now I have her maiden name, her parents names, her marriage date, her birth date, her husband's birth date, his parents names. And a general history of where the family came from and how they ended up in Stephenson County. I was so excited to find that information, I called my Grandma back, and she told me more family stories.