Post by LoveTrains on Sept 16, 2012 10:11:04 GMT -5
I have now spent about 8 hours (four this morning and four last night) obsessing over ancestry.com. This stuff is pretty cool.
Anyone else played with it? What do you do when you find stuff that doesn't match? Like I have this one guy on my family tree, and then so do lots of others, but there are two different versions of who his parents were and I don't know which one to pick. And its like back in the late 1600s/early 1700s in South Carolina and CT so its kind of hard to find supporting documentation.
Post by jillboston on Sept 16, 2012 10:17:09 GMT -5
I had a months long obsession with Ancestry.com. It was so cool. It is really hard to tell when you get way back and have discrepancy with people. I tried to find matches in what looked to be the most robust trees (heavily documented etc). You can also google an ancestor's name and see what happens. I did this with an ancestor from the early 1800's and found a book google had downloaded on families of Pennsylvania - my ancestor was there as well as reference to my great-grandmother and our line. That line had been lost from the Bemis family line that I was working with.
In high school, I did a huge family geneology project but of course did not have the amazing resources of ancestry.com. I lost track of my father's family in Virginia, but have since picked it up on ancestory.com. I was working with census records a couple of weeks ago and discovered that for some reason, my great x 4 grandmother was alone with her 3 children at 23, listed as head of household. No idea where the father was....but I am still working on it. I am certain he was not deceased, but am curious to know why he was not listed. Perhaps in the military or a military hospital?
Very intriguing. There is a family story about a matriach who pulled the cornstalks and replanted seed in the hole to keep her family from starving to death when her husband was away at war. Maybe this is her, but I have no proof and no one to ask now. I am glad I started this journey back when I did and hope to learn more about our roots with ancestory.com.
As far as finding supporting documentation for those far back records, like jillboston mentioned, sometimes you can find family histories, area or county histories noting families which may help you identify the family line. Check google.
Post by Roc A Bee on Sept 16, 2012 11:22:41 GMT -5
Omg I was playing around with it yesterday too! I didn't pay for it yet, so I was limited to what I could see. I was still anpble to see my mothers side has been here since the 1650s at least. On my fathers side, my great grandparents immigrated only at 14 in the very early 1900s. I should spring for the membership huh.
My mom is super into genealogy. So I have records that go back to the 1500's. We now have her working on my DH family to give something new to do, and he has way cooler ancestors.
Post by drloretta on Sept 16, 2012 13:40:53 GMT -5
I've played with it quite a bit in the last year or so. MIL is really into her genealogy, and we bought her an international membership. So sometimes she looks stuff up for me.
For inconsistencies, I look at the trees of people I've used for other information. There's one family tree of someone related to my dad's side of the family, so if his stuff matches up and another is different, I go with his.
I also found some background info at a historical society about naming conventions for one branch of the family. It helped me tease out who's who.
I have been into it on/off and I often get stuck on my dad's side. Trying other sites and sources at this point, not able to get any records from older orphanages.
Ok, I'd like to take back my previous comment. I just discovered a British ancestry site that listed my Grandfather, and that took me back to 1639 in Downham, Lancashire. Wow.
No DAR here. They didn't move to NC until sometime between 1775 and 1811.
My mom is very into genealogy so she's shown me lots of stuff she's found. In fact she found out that her aunt's wedding date that she told her children isn't the true date and they were actually married I think a year + later than what they told the kids (I think b/c the husband was still married to wife #1).
My dad's side had a book at one time, but I think it stops at my dad's generation, so it's definitely not updated.
Dude I had to get Rock's maiden name to even find her on facebook. I don't think it works with Asians. My original last name is Bui. So you know I can narrow it down to the half of Vietnam that's not Nguyen.
You need to start looking at primary sources (wills and probates, court records, church vitals), rather than just what is posted online. Baring that, you can seek out older published histories of areas (often available via Google Books), which provides leads.
It's true. I think it's because we are desperate to find some sort of ethnic awesomeness. I'm just so white, I have no culture... Well, other than jello and funeral potatoes
Post by theintended on Sept 16, 2012 20:39:13 GMT -5
I've been researching my dad's family. I traced one line back to 1200, but I'd be very surprised if it has any accuracy at that point.
However, I did take the information to a town historical office and was able to corroborate the info with their records as well as local cemeteries to the late 1700s, and one document also matched up back to 1609.
Post by theintended on Sept 17, 2012 6:54:26 GMT -5
Yeah, it doesn't work for my mom's family. We've had no contact with my dad's -- the only thing we knew was that his dad was institutionalized. So I've been shocked they were all so very white and recorded.
We did the free trial and I became obsessed for the short time I had full access. We have traced several branches of both our families back very far- we both have ties to the French Huguenots- a line which is very well documented by others.
For a while I thought I had ties to royalty, but it turned out to be a false lead.
Post by electricmayhem on Sept 17, 2012 10:33:28 GMT -5
All of my relatives are off the boat Irish and Italians in the early 1900s, so Ancestry was a little limited for me (it's free at my library). I found some registration cards from the world wars that gave me info about my relatives, and my library had another database that lets you look at all of the census data for free at home, so that was much more helpful. 3 of 4 surnames in my family were fairly uncommon, so it was usually easy to throw out the stuff that didn't match. The fourth one though is something like "Smith"--and since I don't speak to my dad (it's from his side), I don't have anyone to verify things, so I have the least amount of info on that branch. This is a thorn in my side. :-)
After that, I used Ellis Island records, then ordered microfilms of church records and other original documents from Italy through the Family History libraries. I made copies of everything I found, scanned it, and am now using Blurb to make books for my sister and I.
I, too, got hooked on the free trial. Luckily I have lots of distant relatives that had done a lot of the work for me, so it was a matter of linking up with them!
I found some pretty amazing stuff: There's some Austrian and Russian in my family I didn't know about. And I found an ancestor who was a captain in the colonial Virignia militia, we're also descendents of George Downing (of Downing Street fame) and Katherine Howard of Tudor fame
Lovetrains - as far as knowing which ancestor to pick when you have a couple options, all you really can do is process of elimination by looking at each person's immediate family. Try one, see if you get a link back to a family member you've confirmed. If it's not going anywhere, try another one.
Have fun with this! I went through 3 different emails to keep hitting up the free trial, lol