<p>Milkandsugar, good chance your relatives and DHs were in the same general pool. He’s accurately documented back to there and Plimoth (and not the least bit interested.) Our best friend is also well documented back to Plimoth, different family.</p>
<p>DH is a historian and repeatedly tells me there is no certain way to trace back before the 1500s. </p>
<p>Our surprise is that gggranddad was not the prominent abolitionist his older (very old) relatives thought (a relative who documented in the 1920’s had heard this from another older one who supposedly learned the family history at his knee.) This man and all his family were prominent slave owners. I never bothered to burst their bubble, mostly because they were so old. Someday, I’ll find the youngers and see if they’re interested.</p>
<p>JandJ, some of mine are also from Galicia, which has it’s own interesting lore.</p>
<p>FamilyHistory is not subscriber. Bless the Mormons for their dogging all this for us- but you have to be extrememly cautious about interpreting records- and not trust that someone else’s research went far enough. So much about DH’s family (from non-direct relatives) is flat out wrong and then copied by others, thinking it’s “proof.”</p>
<p>Not a story about an ancestor, but rather about what happened to me during a visit to a cemetery.</p>
<p>I knew there was a family plot at this very old, very large cemetery, but I had always been afraid to go there by myself because the neighborhood was scary. The cemetery had once been on the edge of the city but was now inner-city.</p>
<p>So I took a friend with me. While we were doing a gravestone rubbing, we spotted a car slowly approaching our area. We were spooked! Then, two women got out and started our way, literally climbing over graves and stones. Now we were more curious than anything.</p>
<p>They approached and one said to me, “Dear, are you missing your departed relatives?” I said, “Uh, not really. This one died in 1876.” The women were members of a religious group and they gave us pamphlets!</p>
<p>My very gregarious friend struck up a conversation with them, wondering if they lived in the neighborhood (they did) and asking about the schools, etc. It was actually a very productive encounter for all of us, I think!</p>
<p>I caught “the bug” over 10 years ago, but only did my research with what was available online. Unfortunately, this process showed me that there are a lot of errors out there – whether from individual’s posted “family trees” or from the Mormon Church’s genealogy database. Primary sources are so incredibly important! Visiting grave sites, reading through old newspapers or church records, squinting your way through old census records (some of that handwriting is so difficult to read much less realize that they did not necessarily spell the names correctly). I have learned that the records actually passed down by my grandparents from the 2 generations ahead of them to the present is the most accurate and trustworthy. Beyond that, there must be some kind of proof other than going by what someone else has posted. Just way too many errors that then get merged into other people’s family trees.</p>
<p>Thanks to some help from a CC poster, I started doing genealogical research. Early on, I learned information about my parents (both immigrants from Croatia who met and married in the US) that absolutely surprised me. Some of what I learned–both my parents were married before they married one another. My Dad was divorced and my mother had been a widow–at 19!. They also had a child together who died at age 2. I learned that my mother lived in W. Virginia when she first came to the US, and that my father immigrated to Canada before he went to the US. I also found out that my mother lived with an uncle who went to jail for assault. Neither my brother nor I knew any of this. My parents, especially my mother, told us very little about their early lives except to tell us that we were lucky to be born here. </p>
<p>The fact that my parents never shared the information about their lives really took me aback. I continued researching, but reached a dead end and stopped. I’m not sure why. I just don’t seem as curious about it anymore.</p>
<p>Amen to this. Almost all of the “information” I have found on-line from other researchers has been seriously flawed. The only sources I really trust are the primary sources - too many family stories turn out to be false and too many “official” sources are wrong.</p>
<p>That being said - I’ve found that obituaries, especially those from the early 1900s, are wonderful, if you can find them. So are old newspaper accounts.</p>
<p>I’m like Bromfield. I used to do a lot of genealogy, but now I’m stuck. It seems glamorous/exciting when you’re looking through immigration records or newspaper articles, but much of my family were poor farmers or factory workers. There aren’t a lot of primary records there. If it weren’t for all the Civil War records available from state archives, I don’t know what I would have done.</p>
<p>If the famous person was enough generations ago, and did leave a family which did not die out, then probably everyone descended from that person’s general region of the world is a descendent of that person.</p>
<p>For example, if you go back 37 generations (let’s say about 740 years), you have over 137 billion ancestors. This is greater than the estimated number of humans who have ever lived, so that certainly cannot be the number of unique ancestors. But that means that it would be hard to find someone (whose descendents did not die out) in the general region(s) of your ancestry who is not one of your ancestors.</p>
<p>True, ucb, but I’m thinking more along the lines of Davy Crockett, not Charlemagne. For some reason, in my little corner of the world, everyone seems to claim a direct descendancy from Davy.</p>
<p>My maternal and paternal sides of the family have some great primary source documents. I am probably one of the few people posting who have a G-grandfather who fought for the Union in the Civil War. He married late and had children very late in life. We have his sword, his letters written the day after the battle of Antietam, several “souvenirs”- a confederate newspaper printed on wallpaper, a campaign flyer for Jeff Davis. etc. On my maternal side, she is a direct descendant of a relatively famous inventor from late 18th century England. Her parents emigrated from England in the 20’s and we are still in contact with cousins who have sent us copies of various interesting documents now held in the British Museum. This branch, we have traced back to the 14th century since they stayed in the same English village for centuries and historians have already done much of the work for us. Naturally, these branches are easy to follow …it’s the Swedish peasant side of the family that tends to stray into the shadows of time. Unfortunately many of the churches in Sweden were built from wood, and birth records had a tendency to burn with the church. We have the emigration records from 1840, but that’s about it. But I am convinced that I come from a long line of Vikings who were fantastic pillagers and looters. In fact, probably the best. ;)</p>
<p>My grandmothers were both enthusiastic and rigorous genealogists. Most of my “research” has consisted of poring through the wealth of information they compiled in their lifetimes. I have some wonderful mid-19th century family portraits-everyone in black looking exceptionally dour.</p>
<p>When my mother’s mother met my father for the first time she wasn’t so sure about him. Yes, he seemed a decent fellow and had a good education, but he came from an East Coast family she hadn’t heard of, unlike her own prosperous Midwestern stock. What turned it around was learning that, like herself, my father’s mother was a member of the DAR. Well, that was certainly a stamp of approval! Sheesh. I was registered at birth. (Now how do I do a rolled eye emoticon?)</p>
<p>My grandmother registered me with the DAR as well. However, I always cringed when it was mentioned. I always associated the organization with their shabby treatment of Marion Anderson. Looks like they have tried to make amends, but still…</p>
<p>I recently read the Beautiful Creatures series (I like to read books before seeing the movies) and there was a heavy discussion in there about family trees, the DAR, etc in there. I had never heard of the DAR before this book series.</p>
<p>As a member of the DAR, I can tell you they really have changed. Much of the country changed over the course of the last 50 years or so. The DAR only looks at descendancy from a Patriot. The ones I have a problem with are the Colonial Dames. I read through their application and tossed it in the trash.</p>
<p>Anyway, my great grandfather fought in the Civil War, but on the Confederate side. He spent time in a prisoner of war camp, so he didn’t come away with his sword or anything else. He married his second wife (my ggrand) when he was 65, which helped move me up the chronological chain.</p>
<p>Has anyone done the DNA thing? I find that interesting, but haven’t convinced any relatives to do it yet. Is this still restricted to males?</p>
<p>Tracing family is a bit like a prosecutor trying a criminal - there’s direct evidence and there’s circumstantial evidence. It’s tough to know how much credence to give an item. Some people take a more lax approach to proof than others do.</p>
<p>Have you found out which camp? If you know which unit he served in, you could probably trace those records as to which camp he lived. Some of those camps where pretty awful. My dad discovered most of our revolutionary war and civil war records by tracing the ancestors applications for pensions from the government.</p>
<p>My family isn’t that interesting as my grandparents were late 19th/early 20th century immigrants–all from the same country. Don’t even know the great grandparents names in some cases.
Last year I solved a little mystery in my dad’s family (Dad is the youngest, by far, and only surviving member of his family.) He was confused about a relationship in his mother’s family. Various theories surrounded these “aunties”–most thought they were adopted after their parents died. Some thought grandpa married their mother after his wife/her husband died–but the children kept their own father’s last name. Through census records I found that the children’s mother had died, the families were neighbors and immigrants from the same country. So the “older” family looked after these young children while their father worked. My dad thought they were his mom’s “siblings”–but in reality, she was a teenage girl doing a lot of free babysitting for her motherless neighbors. This close relationship continued, though dad’s family moved away. My dad kept in touch with these “aunties” and thought their children were his cousins–I remember traveling to attend these cousins’ weddings when I was a child. Now I find they are not related at all. Strange how a bond of neighbor helping neighbor lasted for 3 generations.
H’s tree has a lot of interesting branches–Puritans (who lived in Salem for a time), Cajuns, Conquistadors, Native Americans, German, Irish, Scots etc.
H’s family did genetic testing, and found that their grandmother was part Native American (despite grandma’s denials). He also found, in the Irish branch of his family, that he is not related to those with his surname, but to other clans–which could mean something as simple as a name change, (we were told it was fairly common to adopt the name of a more prominent/powerful/wealthy family–so you could pretend to a be cousin)-- or other more “interesting” scenarios.
I would like my dad to get tested–his family is from eastern Europe, but grandpa had a very “Asian” look–maybe part Genghis Khan’s legacy?</p>
<p>btw, there a lot of errors in stuff you find on-line–even in census records you will find discrepancies in names, ages, even sex. Also, sometimes you can trace someone with the same name, state, and year of birth, even same first name of spouse–and then find it is the wrong person. . .
Hayden–DNA of male or female line can be traced. The deeper you go, the more expensive it is.</p>
<p>My cousin dug up the ship’s manifest and immigration records of our great-grandmother bringing her family over in 1911. We had a 100 year party. That was cool. </p>
<p>We have a family tree for one other part that goes back further but nothing for the rest. </p>
<p>I was packing up the pictures and stuff I took from my mother’s house day before yesterday. We found a wedding certificate but we can’t identify who the people are, which seems somewhat shameful. It’s from 1912 or 13. </p>
<p>It was weird looking at my great-grandmother’s picture because I’d seen The Jazz Singer on TCM - which is now in HD!!! - and she looked exactly like Al Jolson’s mom in the movie. I guess they cast from experience with immigrants. </p>
<p>Some of it is sad. I found a bunch of my wife’s family stuff mixed in and that included pictures of her grandfather and his absolutely beautiful sisters. All murdered. Despite their blonde hair and Aryan looks.</p>