Anyone do Genealogy / Ancestry?

[superj]

someone on my dad's side did a book on our family, way back in the 80s. we also have the family bible which goes back to the early 1800s/ late 1700s. my uncle on my mom's side was big into ancestry stuff for a long time and researched that side fo the family in depth. and i am on ancestry.

on ancestry, i am almost complete Norwegian, Irish, and German. like 40/40, and 30. and my mom had told me when i was very young (in the mid 80s) that my dad's side was descendants of eric the red. ancestry.com said the same thing, which was interesting. my dad said when he went to europe that last time, he saw the house our family name started in, which the people told him was built in the 1400s. it looked a large shed, from the pictures, but they said that is kept original for historical reasons. there is also a castle buseman, which is part of the family, too, though still spelled the old way, bussemann

also, all the german and irish came from my mom as my dad and grandparents are completely Norwegian. my mom's side did own a brewery in ireland though. it used to be called berry brewery but i think it sold to another company about 5 or 8 years back. that appears to be where all the red hair in the family comes from as my paternal grandma said that side is all blonde.

 

[Roert42]

I have a few aunts and uncles that have pallets worth of papers and such.
Bit of oral history about what I know.

Great grandfather on my mothers side came over from Ireland in the late ‘20s as a small child.
Great grandfather on my fathers side came over in the ‘30s from southern Italy. He died when his two sons were babies, when his wife remarried the children took his name as well so I have an English name instead of Italian. I’ve been told his family lineage lead back to a Pennsylvania delegate of the continental congress.

 

[Kelvinf]

Similar here. My grandfather gave me several pages of ancestor families lists (husband, wife, children with birth/death dates) hand written by my great grandmother.

I haven't had DNA testing; I do have serious reservations about my (most?) personal data being controlled by a private company with unknown access by who knows who.

I don't do Ancestry.com. I'm totally against "for profit" genealogy.

FamilySearch.com has free access to indexed data, and unindexed original period documents. FindAGrave is good.

I prefer to find and work from period original documents, as in my case most of the information on the web about my ancestors is full of inaccuracies. That's probably also true for most of what's on the commercial genealogy websites.

My lineage in America goes back to 1660 in Virginia. In my case, once you dive in that deep, you get curious and start leaning more details about life in general back in those times. How did they make things? What did they use for light (adjustable wick oil lamps weren't invented until the 1790s). How far could a person travel in one day (foot, horse, wagon)?

It's a fascinating journey; almost like time travel.

Familysearch is great.

 

[Kelvinf]

I did the Ancestry.com one from a gift. I have traced last name back to my 17th great-grandfather born in 1385 in the Netherlands on my dads side. I guess its ends with me due to having a daughter born and no son.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Im irish cherokee on my moms side, french/german on my dads.

Dont know anything besides that except supposdly dolly parton is a distant, distant cousin according to my mom

 

[Jim Oaks]

Some things I have found to be useful in genealogy hunts... if you know where your ancestors lived and died, www.findagrave.com is a good resource, and can even have pictures of the tombstones and genealogical family trees.

my son-in-law only went back to England and stopped.

He sent me a link to my grandfathers grave on findagravesite.com. I knew where the grave was, but the site will show you where the cemetary is on Google maps.

I had been trying to locate our family cemetary down in southwest Virgina. It's on the property my father grew up on. I was there once with my father when I was 16. I was able to find it and flag it on Google maps using that site so I can visit it again.

I knew my cousin had researched the family tree. What I didn't know was that he has visited all of these grave sites and put them on that website. The site showed me where my great grandparents are burried which isn't that far from the cemetary I visited when I was 16. I'm guessing that property was my great-grandfathers farm. I flagged that one so I can visit it too.

 

[superj]

my mom's grandpa, or great grandpa, started the first couple schools in minneapolis, or princeton. i would have to ask to know for sure. he funded the buildings and paid the teachers till the state decided education was worth getting the kids into. mom said there used to be a lot of schools and a big cemetery called berry. i have seen the cemetery but the schools were knocked down when bigger newer schools were built. the family farm house is still there, though sold to another family when my mom was young since grandpa moved west and he was the last male and would have been in charge of hte farms and everything.

the cemetery shows on google maps

11019 Alpha Rd - Google Maps

 

[Blmpkn]

My mothers side of the family came off the mayflower.. fathers side of the family moved from Scotland to Nova Scotia at some point and eventually wound up in Maine.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

He also found that part of the family came over on the Mayflower.

My mothers side of the family came off the mayflower.

Sooo... are you two related?

 

[Blmpkn]

Sooo... are you to related?

Oh wouldn't that be rich lol


We're also both related to lightning guy, 22nd cousin 3x removed.

 

[97RangerXLT]

Sooo... are you to related?

If so, I don't know who to give my condolences to....

AJ

 

[JoshT]

It's the closest thing you can get, to time travel.

Nah, you time travel every minute of every day, it's just not as exciting as what you imagine in fiction.

I am a descendant of Lord Ratcliffe of England. (so yes, I am royalty and demand you treat me as such! ) Mom's side, her Fathers ancestors came over to America on the same boat as the Brothers Grimm. her moms side, well the name is Smith, and from what I have gathered a lot of people running from the law and trying to start over changed their name to Smith. and for that side of the family, it fits lol

AJ

Careful what you ask for. Being treated like a Royal can be a bad thing.

My mother is a Smith as well. Her mother or grandmother passed down some written family history, who knows how accurate it is. Given the commonality of that name I wouldn't even attempt to trace it. None running from the law that I'm aware of, but some that might should have and others that were or should have been in an asylum.

I don't do Ancestry.com. I'm totally against "for profit" genealogy.

FamilySearch.com has free access to indexed data, and unindexed original period documents. FindAGrave is good.

In my case, once you dive in that deep, you get curious and start leaning more details about life in general back in those times. How did they make things? What did they use for light (adjustable wick oil lamps weren't invented until the 1790s). How far could a person travel in one day (foot, horse, wagon)?

I'm with you on sites like Ancestry. I'll have to bookmark the other two in case I get more interested in this stuff.

What interested me is when you find accounts of property. Being a white guy in the south, I've heard more than once that I owe reparations because my ancestors were slave owners. The genealogy records show a very different story. Not a one that I've seen was an owner, often they were little more than slaves themselves.

 

[Curious Hound]

According to what I believe, we're all related, going back to Noah and his family.

 

[Sharky]

why is it no one is related to any evil persons from the past ?

 

[Jim Oaks]

This is where my great-grandparents (dads grandparents / dads side) are buried in Virginia. Two of their sons and wives are buried there as well. What's interesting to me is that these two sons had moved to Ohio as well as my grandfather (3rd son) after my father moved to Ohio. When my grandparents died (two weeks apart) they were buried in Ohio. They weren't brought back to Virginia. But when my grandfather's two uncles died in Ohio, they were brought back to this family cemetery in Virginia. I'll have to ask my mom why my grandparents weren't brought back here. My grandparents died in 1969, and I seem to recall that it might have been an issue of money at the time.

My great-great-grandmother is buried 10 minutes from here, but I can't find and record of where my great-great-grandfather is buried. He died before her. I guess it's possible that he's in the same cemetery.

I could go stand on my father's grave, grandfathers grave, and great-grandfathers grave, and know those men are 6-feet below me.

Makes me wonder what will happen to me when I die. Will I be buried or cremated, and where on earth would I possibly want to be buried?