Genealogy?

[frisian]

Any other genealogy "buffs" out there? How far back have you gotten?

[Hexxenhammer]

Far enough back to know my English ancestors in New England were Tories and got kicked to Canada when the Revolutionary war started. And one of my colonial ancestors beat his Irish indentured servant. I saw the court document. Damn lazy Irish.

[frisian]

Originally posted by Hexxenhammer
Far enough back to know my English ancestors in New England were Tories and got kicked to Canada when the Revolutionary war started. And one of my colonial ancestors beat his Irish indentured servant. I saw the court document. Damn lazy Irish.

My father's mother's paternal line I have back to West Prussia in the 1460's. One distantly related was a Governor of Curacao in the 1800's.

My father's father's paternal line I have gotten as far back as the 1600's and some land records in Fryslan (Netherlands). Also in this line is a master surgeon that practiced in the 1600's. At least according to records I have seen.

[Mr. Skinny]

I've traced a few of my family lines back to the early to mid 1700's. About the only thing I've discovered is that my parents, who were poor Ohio farmers, are descended from poor German farmers (mostly from Northrhein-Westphalen).

I've also found that three of my ancestors were Ohio "pioneers" in that they were the original landowners following the sale of the Northwest Territories (after they stole it from from the natives, of course).

I started doing my genealogy about 10 years ago. I've expanded my family tree database from about 200 names to over 10,000. In the process I've met some interesting people who I'm distantly related to, and re-connected with a few of my 77 first cousins (hey - Catholics don't like birth control remember ! :D )

[Kilted_Canuck]

My family can only go back a few generations on my paternal side, most of the Scottish ancestors were kicked off of Britain for being crooks or criminals, so they don't have much of a history (though we can infer some relationships).


Though we did discover I'm distantly related to John Diefenbaker (sp?), Prime Minister of Canada (and sellout to American business owners) during the 1950's.

[Virgil]

I can go back to when my people left the old country ca. 1850.



Virgil

[Ed]

1950, the year I was born. A very sad story.....

[Charlie Monoxide]

I did a lot of my mother's side (French Canadian). Being Catholic, there was lots of church stuff I used (baptism, marriage, death etc.). I was lucky to find that my 8th (or 9th) great-great-grandmother was Catherine Baillon. lineage (http://habitant.org/baillon/figure2.htm)

So it seems, I'm blueblood.

I took a summer off, way back in 1993 or 1994, to kick back and figured as a side project to work on my family tree. I figured 40 or 50 hours, and I'd be done. Needless to say 1000's of hours later, I'm really only %80-%90 of my mom's side back to the 1600's. It's a lifetime hobby.

Next I need to work on my dad's side (a Macdonald from Scotland, should be no problem).

Charlie (royal pain in the arse) Monoxide

[Frostbite]

Germain Doucet (http://www.doucetfamily.org/genealogy/Bio.htm)

That's the earliest known ancestor of mine in Quebec. Before that they lived in France but that's all I know.

[Baker]

One my lines go back to England in 1650
I also found Germans, Irish French and Native Americans in my family tree I have only been researching a year now and have around 2000 people in my family tree.
So how many of you have subscriptions to ancestry.com?

[LW]

Originally posted by frisian
Any other genealogy "buffs" out there? How far back have you gotten?

I haven't done any research myself but both my mother and father have cousins who have traced the respective lines back to the start of official records. For my mother's side this means 1570s and father's side goes to 1590s, I think. Both lines were farmers from start up to the generation of my parents.

In addtion to this, on the father's side there is a family tradition that we would be an offshoot of the Kurki family that was one of the most powerful noble clans in Finland in the middle ages. However, there is a gap of at least 150 years in the records so it can't be verified.

One of my maternal ancestors (grandfather's grandfather's grandfather's father, give or take a generation) has found his way into history books. Or at least a book. Though, the unfortunate thing is that the book is about history of violent crime and he is mentioned as an example of legal process. He was accused of killing his wife but acquited due to lack of proof. (At the time either a confession or two reliable witnesses were necessary for a conviction).

If we take my father's family tradition at the face value, then according to folk history a similar thing happened also on my paternal line as Klaus Kurki, perhaps the most powerful nobleman of his time (mid 15th century), is said to have burned his wife alive. (A medieval Finnish folk poem (http://www.utu.fi/agricola/hist/kronologia/elina.html) was made of the event). However, nowadays we can be quite certain that Klaus didn't kill his wife. It was his grandfather and namesake Klaus Djäkn who did it, and the folk history mixed the two Klauses.

[EHocking]

Originally posted by frisian
Any other genealogy "buffs" out there? How far back have you gotten? ... apparently I'm vaguely related to Kevin Bacon ...

[Bluegill]

My paternal grandmother has done lots and lots of genealogical research. That branch of the family has been traced back to German immigrants coming over on a ship called the Samuel in the early 1700s.

Just a couple of days ago I told my mother that I wanted as much information about her side of the family as she could get. Don't know much there. I'd like to have it for my baby daughter.

[SteveW]

On my side, the family is traced back to 1401 while on my wife''s side, she goes all the way back to the Norman Conquest.

[7th sextile]

Hex: I really resent you calling great-great-great-great
granda lazy.

He was drunk.

[shanek]

Hans Kilian, b. 1516. Although there are some questions about some of the paternage down the line before they came to America in 1732.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Hexxenhammer
Far enough back to know my English ancestors in New England were Tories and got kicked to Canada when the Revolutionary war started. And one of my colonial ancestors beat his Irish indentured servant. I saw the court document. Damn lazy Irish.

One of my direct ancestors, Simon Hager, fought for the Colonies at the Battle of Kings Mountain. His cousin, Frederick Hager, was a spy for the tories.

[Brown]

I helped my mom with her family tree back in the early 1990s. We traced some branches as far back as the 1500s. And we discovered some unusual things.

For one thing, some pretty close relatives got married. In the old country (Norway) in those days, there weren't a whole lot of available women except for one's cousins, and town-to-town transportation wasn't what it is today.

Another unusual thing was something that I'd never seen before: recycled names. Many years ago, infant death rates were so high that parents would re-use the names of children that had died. It wasn't unusual for a husband and wife to have had two children with exactly the same name, but one (and sometimes both) died young.

A third unusual thing is that one of the ancestral family farm was confiscated by the Nazis in WWII and was turned into an aerodrome. This aerodrome eventually became Stavanger international airport, and there are Nazi-built pillboxes around that area to this very day.

[RSLancastr]

Fascination with one's geneaology is something I've never understood.

My girlfriend is currently researching mine, as part of a project she is doing for my mother. She (my girlfriend) absolutely loves doing this, and has done it for others.

The other night she was telling me about one of my great-great-great-great grandfathers, and where he was buried, and who all his children were.

I listened politely, but geez - who cares? Not me.

[kittynh]

Well, I"m very closely related to Upton Sinclair, but that's just because it's so close a relationship. He was a woo woo and married to a really woo woo woo. The family refered to him as "the communist"! But he was family.

Grandmothers sister joined the DAR, so I guess there are records somewhere. Then we came to an island and pretty much sat there. I find my close relatives interesting, my grandmother the late marrying flapper - my grandfather who was a page in the Senate - my great grandfather who resides on my mantle in a picture doing a yicky autopsy.

My fathers side I just don't care about. I know it should have equal weight, but once I found the connection to the brown shirts (the family came over in the 1930's - they were stinkers, that got out just in time), I decided that choosing your relatives was very important! I think of geneology as seeing relatives that have made interesting choices in life, that can inspire you. Not that I have some great writing talent because Cousin Uptons blood runs in my viens.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Originally posted by frisian
Any other genealogy "buffs" out there? How far back have you gotten?

I've traced my family history back to early March of this year. It was exhausting! I think I'll give up. I was hitting too many roadblocks. Once you try to go back that far, the records start getting sketchy.

[Jim Bowen]

My mum did a bit of work on our family's genealogy a while back. She got back to the 18th Century, which satisfied her curiosity. For me the best thing was discovering the careers of some of my distant greats. Among the miners and laceworkers, we had a labourer in nightsoil. It's not everyday that you discover that your great great was a ***** shoveller:D .

[Oleron]

I know that my ancestors left Africa but I'm a bit sketchy on the intervening 4million years.

[sphenisc]

My mother's becoming interested in genealogy, can anyone recommend suitable software that's user-friendly and cheap?

[DmKrispin]

My mother's becoming interested in genealogy, can anyone recommend suitable software that's user-friendly and cheap?


I prefer RootsMagic (http://www.rootsmagic.com/), but I have been using it for years and may be worth looking around for other programs. Go to Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com/) (mostly subscription) or RootsWeb.com (http://www.rootsweb.com/)(free!) and see what software they have available.

I also highly recommend getting the US Census and Birth, Marriage, & Death Records subscriptions at Ancestry.com. It is not exactly cheap, but it will save her a lot of time and money in the long run ... unless she lives very close to a library with a comprehensive genealogy section. Another very good free genealogy site is usgenweb.org (http://www.usgenweb.org/) .

If she needs help getting started, send me a PM and I'll be glad to lend a hand!

[sphenisc]

Thanks,

She doesn't live in the US so we'll give the census a miss, but RootsMagic looks fun - I'll download the demo and see how we get on.

Cheers

[DmKrispin]

Thanks,

She doesn't live in the US so we'll give the census a miss, but RootsMagic looks fun - I'll download the demo and see how we get on.

Cheers


D'oh!! Well, I guess I'm as US-centric as the next yank! Sorry for the assumption.

:o

[DmKrispin]

Fascination with one's geneaology is something I've never understood.

My girlfriend is currently researching mine, as part of a project she is doing for my mother. She (my girlfriend) absolutely loves doing this, and has done it for others.

The other night she was telling me about one of my great-great-great-great grandfathers, and where he was buried, and who all his children were.

I listened politely, but geez - who cares? Not me.

Well, thank-you so very much for actually taking the time to tell us just how boring you think our beloved hobby is!

Tell your better half that she has my sympathies -- my husband feels exactly the same way you do. :rolleyes:

Let me help you understand why we enjoy genealogy. It isn't just copying down dry, dusty stats about dead people. It's a hunt for clues in a real-life detective adventure. It's a way to feel more connected with the generations that came before you. It's a good way to learn about the human condition and social conditions from centuries ago to today. It's an excellent way to learn about US history and to put that history into perspective, making it "more real". It's a way to learn what our ansectors daily lives were and how different (and sometimes the same) they seem compared to us. It's a wonderful way to reconnect or just spend time with the older members of your family. Indeed, it can even help to heal a family rift or give comfort to a dying family member. The following is an excerpt from a PM I sent to someone a while back and is a bit long:My husband's family had very, very few family photographs. A few pics of his grandmother were the oldest ones anyone had. Any other old photos that they had were lost to fire, flood, and divorce. There also existed a previous generation's rift over some unseemly behavior, flying accusations, and some bruised egos. Most of the people originally involved in the rift were either very old or dead, but the rift remained. About four years ago, I was deep in research on their family tree. I happened to find and contact one of my husband's cousins who was also interested in genealogy. This cousin was on the "other side" of the rift, but was very friendly and helpful to me. She still lived down near the Tennessee/Kentucky border with her widowed mother who was my husband's second cousin (my mother-in-law's first cousin). She spoke with her mother, Gypsy, and her grandmother (MIL's maternal aunt) about my research. Several weeks later, Gypsy emailed me and we began to share the fruits of our research. I even sent her some recent photos of my husband's family. She then asked if I would be interested in scans of some old family pictures. You could have knocked me over with a feather I was so thrilled! I received the scans and started to digitally restore and retouch the photos. I sent back copies of the restored photos to Gypsy and she was quite pleasantly surprised. This is how the rift began to heal.

In secret, I started printing out the photographs and arranging them in six regular albums (for hubby's family) and one scrapbook album (for hubby's mom). I also made fourteen CDs with the photos on them for the extended family. I finished the albums in time to give one to a family member (hubby's uncle) who had end-stage cancer and, as it turned out, had only a few months to live. It had pictures of him as a baby, boy, and young man along with pictures of his siblings, parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. I also included a family tree print-out with each album. He and his family got a great deal of enjoyment from their album. It was a comfort and an pleasurable diversion in a time of pain, sadness, and difficulty. When I delivered the other albums, the family was stunned! Many trips down memory lane were taken, and to hear my mother-in-law and her brothers reminisce was absolutely wonderful. Later that year, my mother-in-law and I went down to the Kentucky/Tennessee border for a week of research. It was a great trip! It was late October and the mountains were eye-poppingly gorgeous. I got to do a great deal of research in the old records, and my MIL helped out even though she was not greatly interested in the whole genealogy. We talked and laughed that entire week. I got to hear some more old stories and gained some new insights into my husband's people. I felt that we really made a good connection on a personal level, not just MIL to DIL. We visited the graveyards, courthouses, historical societies, and coal camps. I even gave up one of my research days to visit some of the family that still lived there with whom hubby's immediate family had lost touch. The only bad part of the whole trip was those twisty and nearly vertical mountain roads! Now I know the meaning of the phrase "unintentional off-roading".

I am familiar with you as a forumite and via your websites, and I really don't think you meant to be rude. You seem like an intelligent, caring, and all-around nice person. Maybe it runs in the family ...

:p

[Big Les]

There must be a fair few pitfalls in the field, including some outright woo. I know that some American relatives of ours fell for what was patently a scam, claiming spurious connections to get them back not just to the Norman-era (!) but also to English royalty. In other words the oldest con-artists trick in the book of telling the customer exactly what they want to hear and aren't likely to want to critically examine for themselves.

[HawaiiBigSis]

I'm pretty much back to the point of immigration on most of my family. Like DmKrispin, I love the little stories and vignettes of life that come out during the research; it's not just places, names, and dates -- it does give me a sense of connectedness.

I found some second cousins in Illinois who had a ton of information, including pictures, family stories, etc., and they were incredibly generous in sharing what they knew. I put it all on a website so that my mother, siblings, and nieces and nephews could see what I had.

If anybody has recommendations for good (and inexpensive) research resources in Canada or Poland, I'd love to hear about them!

My mom didn't know anything about her family when I started, and I've managed to trace one portion of her side back to 1705 in Virginia. I'm back to about the mid-1800's for the other side of her family; I can't find anything about her Civil War veteran great-grandfather's family. (According to family lore, he was injured at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia -- and I actually have copies of his pension receipts. These folks threw nothing away. And that's another insight into our family dynamic -- we're all a bunch of packrats!)

I use Family Tree Maker, but I've never bought it, it's always been a gift; whenever they do a significant enough upgrade in what it does, I put it on my gift list. I also have a US membership in ancestry.com which is ridiculously expensive. I haven't decided if I'll spring for their international collection of databases -- I had a free subscription a while back, but didn't know enough information to make it useful. Maybe they'll offer a free subscription again someday, and now that I know some names and possible locations, it will be useful.

[Freethinker]

I'm back 8 and 9 generations in one branch. Almost certainly further than that in a German line, but I have a two-generation gap that I can't pin down due to multiple men of the same name. Only two generations on another line because I have a Smith in there who died young. 6 to 8 generations overall, which goes back before US immigration for all but one branch.

[Tamarillicent]

The most interesting relative in my family tree is Samuel Wardwell (http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ma/county/essex/salemvill/wardwell.htm). He was one of the unfortunate folks hung for being a witch in Salem back in 1692. Through him, I can trace my lineage back to a Hugh Wardel living in Lincolnshire, England in 1490. This branch of the family came to New England on the Griffin in 1634.
My Mom's side of the family came here in the early 1900 from Quebec. I'm having a harder time following that line.

[Madalch]

The earliest ancestor anyone in my family knows about is a Dutch schoolteacher who was born around 1675. On other branches, we have a Scottish farmer who moved to Prince Edward Island about 1803 (which means I would have had family around for the Belfast race riots in the 1860s- the Scots and the Irish beat the heck out of each other, and caused bars to be closed on election day ever since), some cordwainers and grocers in the midlands of England in the 1800s, and some coal miners in the south of Scotland.

[DmKrispin]

The most interesting relative in my family tree is Samuel Wardwell (http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ma/county/essex/salemvill/wardwell.htm). He was one of the unfortunate folks hung for being a witch in Salem back in 1692.

One of my interesting direct ancestors is Captain Richard Gardner (b. 1653, d. 1728). He was one of the six men enlisted to press Giles Cory to death in 1692. He is mentioned in Longfellow's Giles Corey of the Salem Farms (http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=LonCore.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=16&division=div2).

[DmKrispin]

There must be a fair few pitfalls in the field, including some outright woo. I know that some American relatives of ours fell for what was patently a scam, claiming spurious connections to get them back not just to the Norman-era (!) but also to English royalty. In other words the oldest con-artists trick in the book of telling the customer exactly what they want to hear and aren't likely to want to critically examine for themselves.

Yes, this is quite true. Genealogy is a field in which critical thinking must be applied. You have to be very careful, especially when including other people's research. It's best to develop the habit of sourcing, citing, and rechecking everything for yourself. It is also important to get copies (pref certified copies) of all the documents and records that you've used.

Some of the common misconceptions I've run across are:

"They didn't keep records 150 years ago."

"Having a famous/infamous relative makes me special." (I've got my share, and it never made me feel any different)

"He's my ancestor, therefore my research carries more weight than yours."

"The family surname was ALWAYS spelled 'Hayes', it was NEVER 'Hays!"

"People always knew their own birthdate and where they were born."

"My ancestors knew how to read and write."

"My family has Native American blood." (but no sources or proof)

"My ancestor married an Indian Princess." (it's ALWAYS an "Indian Princess", isn't it? It's never a lowly "common" Indian)

"People just didn't get divorced/have pre-marital sex/shack up/produce bastards/marry because of unplanned pregnancy before the 20th century."

"My family never had any black sheep or n'er-do-wells."

"It says so in this book, so it must be true."

"I'm not a real 'Smith' descendant because my line is through the daughter" (yes, people have actually said this to me!)

"If I just post, 'I'm looking for info on Bob Jones who married Sally Baker', that will be enough for someone to help me" ( no dates, no places, no other names mentioned .... yeah, I'll get right on that for ya.)


These ideas can resemble woo in that people will continue to cling to their belief even after you provide them with contrary evidence. Somehow, they just "know" or "feel" that they're right and your cold, hard evidence is wrong.

:rolleyes:

[Big Les]

That's interesting, and not unexpected. It's not so much woo as just bad history with the old wishful thinking and confirmation bias to the forefront. Although it's very much in the tradition of the oldest genealogies. The Greeks, Romans and later royalty would trace their lineages not only to ancient and famous kings, but to mythological heroes, just to "big themselves up". And so it continued, the bolstering of family histories for people that needed some extra prestige. The Sinclairs of Rosslyn are a great (late C18th) example of that.

[HawaiiBigSis]

<snip>"The family surname was ALWAYS spelled 'Hayes', it was NEVER 'Hays!"
<snip>
"People just didn't get divorced/have pre-marital sex/shack up/produce bastards/marry because of unplanned pregnancy before the 20th century."
<snip>
I actually had a conversation with variation on these points just yesterday with my father's second cousin who found my niece and contacted her, and then she referred him to me, the family genealogist.

We had a couple of Polish ancestors decide for some reason to change the spelling of their fairly common last name. Don't know why, but he was just insistent that it had to have been their choice to change the spelling of their name so that they would appear less Polish. Yeah, right. Changing that "e" to an "i" on the end of their name made them suddenly less Polish or invisible or something... Now if they'd changed the Polish version of the name to the English version, I could see that argument (Janicke=Johnson), but I'm sorry, Janicke->Janicki doesn't make it less anything.

His other comment was actually pretty classic. After a lengthy discussion of the apparent view of marriage as being optional in my immediate family, he says, "Well, you guys certainly do things differently in California." Oh, like there are no babies born without the benefit of their parents being married to each other in 21st century Ohio... :rolleyes:

And I have a friend whose research was stymied for years because of her unwillingness to accept that in America, at least, it was possible that the name got misspelled in records. (I'm sure it was always spelled correctly in Italy. Not.) Shoot, just in the past six months, she's had her name changed to a more common variation on her own health insurance, employment, and bank records! (Which actually makes me curious why some data entry clerk thinks he or she knows better than you do how to spell your name...) But in any event, I'm certain it's not a 20th/21st century phenomenon.

[Madalch]

That's interesting, and not unexpected. It's not so much woo as just bad history with the old wishful thinking and confirmation bias to the forefront. Although it's very much in the tradition of the oldest genealogies. The Greeks, Romans and later royalty would trace their lineages not only to ancient and famous kings, but to mythological heroes, just to "big themselves up".

When visiting the College of Arms in London, I was once shown a beautiful book tracing the ancestry of the royal family of England, done in the late 1600s, which showed the lineage of the kings back to Brutus (the leader who, after the siege of Troy, took his people to Britain and named the island after him) and a large number of biblical personages.

And then there are still people on genealogical forums who declare that they have done their genealogy all the way to Adam and Eve (usually by finding an ancestor who was a king, and then accepting the lineage outlined in the book at the College of Arms).

"The family surname was ALWAYS spelled 'Hayes', it was NEVER 'Hays!"

"My ancestors knew how to read and write."

These two are related, of course- even those who knew how to read and write didn't give a damn about the "proper" spelling (if it had ever occurred to them that there was such a thing) until the 20th century.

Another myth- "My ancestors were Irish, not Scottish, since my last name is McWhatsis, not MacWhatsis."

And- "We have the same last name- we must be related somewhere back there." (No, we both have the last name Johnson because we both had an ancestor named John.)

[Big Les]

Another myth- "My ancestors were Irish, not Scottish, since my last name is McWhatsis, not MacWhatsis."

You know, I was told this for the first time only last week, and caught the distinctive odour of BS in the air at the same time. Funnily enough, it was a Scot telling me so, which might normally have lent some weight to what he was saying. But in light of the great variance in spelling until relatively recently, it just didn't ring true. That and it sounded like the surname equivalent of a "backronym" where someone has tried to think of a reason for the difference without any knowledge of the subject or even desire to gain some.

[TX50]

I've never felt the urge to try it. I am generally rather suspicious of those
who can claim to have traced ancestry back for hundreds of years.

I do know that my ancestors have built railways in India and dug mines in
Africa in Victorian and Georgian times. I also recently inherited a bundle of
letters and cards sent home by my great grandpas from the First World War.
Some of those are very poignant; "Please excuse the bad handwriting. It's
the pen nib. It's like I am now...broken"

[Madalch]

But in light of the great variance in spelling until relatively recently, it just didn't ring true.
My great-grandfather used the "Mac" spelling because that's what the army enlisted him under- the rest of his family used "Mc".

And his mother's side of the family, during the 1800s, couldn't decide between "Dougherty", "Docharty", "O'Docharty" and "Dockerty".

[Pope130]

My mother was the genealogist. She got the maternal line back to 1042 (DeBoynton in the Welsh border country). The paternal is only verified to the 1830's in West Texas (Papa was a rollin' stone...).

My favorite ancestor is Susana Martin, last woman executed in the Salem witch trials. Beyond that, mostly farmers, soldiers, engineers, loggers, sailors, woodworkers, smiths, miners, teamsters, preachers, politicians, horse thieves, smugglers, poachers, and even a few lawmen.

Robert Klaus