Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It really was a great moment, and, like me, she had also heard the "real" story of the famous cave system discovery, which included a bear and a lot of whiskey. I don't know why I've always been drawn to caves, but I can't stay out of them, and whenever there's one nearby in our travels, I'm always champing at the bit to explore it. The cousin I met on that day said she's the same way. Weird, right?
I've had terrific luck connecting with people through our shared family history, and although I've certainly encountered those who simply want to collect names, I've also found relatives who subsequently became friends and research partners, one fourth cousin in particular. She lives in another part of the country but has a child who moved to my city several years ago. We see each other about once a year and email frequently with updates on our mutual research interests.
Quote:
Originally Posted by brownbagg
do you just chase your surname or maybe the madian surname, because all the other, goes everywhere. I have been able to trace to kings of saxons and kings of franks, which i dont know how accurate this is. I like to stick to the surname because its more me, jumping around on all the other, like the madian of a madian of a madian. it can take you anywhere and i dont know how much of that is really you. Its confusing what im saying. It seems like everybody wants to be related to the mayflower, and will drive in circles with the names to get there, but is that really you, your heatige.
When I first started in genealogy a couple of decades ago, I focused on my birth surname, too, but as a woman, I soon found myself drawn to the women in my family tree. They are no less a part of me than the men, and it turned out that the most intriguing stories and deepest connections to the history of my country were to be found in maternal lines. I don't have anyone in my tree (so far) who came on the Mayflower, but a gateway ancestor who opened up a part of my tree that connects to many prominent families of America's early colonial history is just a few steps up the women in my mother's line. What a loss it would have been had I ignored them!
Last edited by randomparent; 07-01-2018 at 06:57 AM..
It COULD be worse, you could be an adoptee like I am and discover you have a couple of family members (father, brother) who want nothing to do with you, and another who was incarcerated for drug crimes that included wrecking a police cruiser.
Almost everyone with any money owned slaves in the old days, even George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, it was part of history
I assume you did DNA and matched?
You're story isn't too different then mine except I was a kept child, age 40 find out my dad may not be my dad while he was terminal. Took him 2 months to say yes to DNA (we did a legal in court sample) turned out to be 2 hours before he passed. Lots of jealousy because I was his favorite kid even though he knew she cheated; so after he passed I'm now on my own. The one sibling that didn't speak to my dad for 10 years, refused to save his life with stem cells makes like she and he were close. She's telling people I sued my mother for my inheritance which didn't happen; I took them to mediation because they harassed me for 2 years to step down as executor, I finally spoke to an attorney but it did me no good.
So 12 years later I'm living my life to be sucker punched by her harassment. She tried to start trouble between my only Hungarian cousin that I know; he sees how nasty she is, sides with me. We'll see how this plays out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by brownbagg
mama had the hand written back to 1400, through family bibles and stuff, when she dies, my brother threw everything away, he just wanted the money
So sorry. I know how much that hurts. My dads stuff was sold or thrown out. I had stuff at his house that also wasn't returned to me. So thankful I got all my stuff out of his attic or I would have lost my doll collection including my dolls from when I was little. I asked to buy my dads desk, chair and the stuff from his bathroom (curtain, soap dispenser, toothbrush holder, q-tip jar) plus put a full price offer in on the house he built 7 blocks from us. I had a lot invested in the house; we moved them in, I picked the curtains and accessories, my hub, son and I dug flower and veggie gardens. I treated the house like it was my own. Our offer was declined. After almost 6 months on the market with no anything my mother said she'll sell us the house. We start packing, getting ours ready for sale; on the last day of her contract someone puts an offer in; they don't allow us to counter offer. So I decide I've had enough, we sell my hubs house of 30 years. A few months ago I see my dads house is in foreclosure. We're looking to move out of this house but I don't think my hub wants to go back to that town. It got really run down after we moved. I'd love to live in the house; my dad died there. The house is very special to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kitty61
There are privacy issues in play here. You can politely ask for access to their tree and tell them you need their help to break through a brick wall. I have not run into anyone that will not let you.
Actually I have found that some members were not aware they had set their tree to private .
The most important thing to remember is not to copy what other people have posted on the internet right away. Many times their information was not vetted and there's no proof. Do some digging instead of copying. Keep your true pure.
Honestly the best way to try to get access to anyone's tree is to not ask. Try to build up a relationship with them first. Also have something to offer them. It's a real turn off having someone contact you asking to see your tree because you have 2,300 people so they assume it's the relative they need.
I work on Ancestry with a few people. We built up a relationship thru messaging. One is my son's 4th cousin. We work on my son's 3rd great grandparents from Ireland. He knows why my tree isn't public.
I also work with a few of my hubs cousins, one 3rd cousin has been really helpful to figure out my MIL's mothers side. He didn't know that MIL's mother was married with 2 kids that she left; so I gave him that info. She was abused from what I've heard; I don't think she had a choice to walk out of her kids lives. Another 2 on MIL's fathers side have been helpful to figure out another branch. Apparently hubs great, great grandmother isn't who she said she was. She gave a maiden name that can't be found; but there were clues on the birth records of 2 kids to the real spelling of the name which if her, turned out to be from her 1st marriage. We're pretty sure we found her actual maiden name but I won't officially change it on my Ancestry tree or her family search tree until I find better proof. A DNA match would be nice. I've been contacting people to see if they have someone with that last name in their tree. Until then on Family Search I have her profile with maiden name she gave attached to the 1st husband, there is also a profile with the real maiden name attached to the husband, both waiting to be merged when the time comes. I was a huge help to the one cousin to find a pension record he's been looking for. I wish I could remember what I did with search terms to bring it up.
Even though my tree is private, I do invite some people; I still bring a lot to the table to help. I keep a public tree on family search so that I don't have to invite all sorts of people to my tree which is pretty large but it's mostly my sons family. I give them whatever I have on family search plus I do a lot of work on find a grave connecting relatives and making memorials for relatives I know that are buried in certain cemeteries. I have not found hubs 2nd great grand parents but I will. So far everyone appreciates all I do because it's time they don't have to spend doing it.
Almost everyone with any money owned slaves in the old days, even George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, it was part of history
I guess it depends on what you mean by "any money". The vast majority of middle class people did not have slaves. Perhaps the majority of upper class like our founding fathers did - but even just looking at my own tree, the majority of which probably had enough to money to own slaves, yet there's only two slave owning families - the majority were not.
When you go back a few generations, the actual physical connection between people is so minimal it's almost meaningless, it's why on Ancestry you can pretty much ignore everything matching to you further away than about 4th cousin because you are so far removed from that person it's almost less than that of a connection to a stranger.
I have two ca 1950 hand written family pedigree books tracing back the lines to about 1640 when the family first came to America from England
If all you care about is a physical connection, in other words, an identifiable strip of shared DNA, so be it. Never mind that you wouldn't be here if they hadn't been there, if you just have to have that connection. Never mind the interest people find in learning about the lives of others throughout history and the stories to be discovered, if it's all about a physical connection.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "any money". The vast majority of middle class people did not have slaves. Perhaps the majority of upper class like our founding fathers did - but even just looking at my own tree, the majority of which probably had enough to money to own slaves, yet there's only two slave owning families - the majority were not.
Correct. Many who owned businesses worked them as a family or hired laborers who were free. Not everyone was a landowner who farmed or a business owner and those who were neither were employees.
I like it because it puts a personal spin on history. When I picture historical events happening while knowing my g-g-grandmother or such was involved in it, history takes on more meaning for me, comes closer to home, makes it more real in my mind.
My ancestors were in the Boston Tea Party. My distant grandmother was one of the last bags thrown off the ship.
Still interesting, though. I totally misread that. You know you need new glasses when you see II for I. I'm wondering how much larger I'm going to have to make the font on my computer! LOL
Nah, I think people just automatically think WWII when they see mention of a WW because it is better known and written about. Your mind just filled in the other I
Honest question here. Why do you stop (in regards to time) where you do in your search? I mean, don't each and every one of us "trace back to" somewhere in the africa region, if you chose to look back far enough? Why stop in the1400's, 1500's, 1600's? Is it just the timeframe that intrests you? Honestly I see the vast majority of us as nothing more than mongrels. I cannot understand the facination of stopping at a point anywhere in the middle of our lineage.
I stop where the paper trail dies. I can find nothing much on my grandfather's family mostly because the area he was born in change hands so many times and in WWII and many records were destroyed as wars have destroyed records elsewhere. What I know, I know only from what my mother and aunt had and from my grandfather's social security application. I find nothing on my Irish relatives unless I want to try and go to Ireland to find information. If I go to Ireland, sifting through genealogical records is not what I want to do. My father's father's side just fell into my lap as someone with the same last name had done all research on the name as it came into Canada from France in the 1600's. There were 8 men of this name most probably not related. I have traced back to the 700's and earlier through a gateway ancestor (for those who don't know what a gateway ancestor is, it is an ancestor where real genealogists have traced back a person who came to either the US or Canada to someone like King Charlemagne. If you can trace to them, which is far easier since you only go back to the 1600's, you now have a line to the earliest times. Doing this on your own is next to impossible.
So, in a nutshell, people don't voluntarily stop back to a certain time, they stop because they can't go back any further easily.
My 2 adult kids (32 & 25) also have no interest. A few people have done extensive research on 2 or 3 sides of my son's father's side, he knows its somewhere if he wants it but my worry is it won't be around when he does. His grandmother's side is a bit complicated as she's not sure if a few relatives so I've been helping her with that before she's not around to give info. I recently met up with her nephew who's pretty good with family that she's not good with.
My daughter's side is harder. Both grandparents are Polish with her grandmother coming from Germany. She can't talk about life before she came over and doesn't remember much of her family. She knows she was the youngest, she had an older brother and her father passed when she was 4. My daughter will be 25, I have a great relationship with her; only recently found out she was teased for not having a German name, was in a displaced persons camp, met a US soldier who she married; had a baby boy that passed away. She's suffered a lot of emotional trauma. If burying one child was enough, she buried her son who drowned while saving a girl from drowning, then buried her husband, her SO, his son then her daughter. I was shocked she let me do her DNA. Thankfully since doing her DNA she's been opening up some to her oldest daughter who's father was the soldier. I hope that between me and the oldest daughter that we can figure her family out for my daughter, her 2 kids and our grand kids. I'm sure my daughter will appreciate what we're doing at some point.
Even if no one is interested now, it's very possible they will be when they get older. If I don't do it; who will preserve the history of older generations? You should really consider doing a tree for relatives you do know.
My grandmother's first husband and her father both died as a result of a car accident. Her oldest daughter died months later at 4 years old. She was left with 3 children under 3 (twins in the mix). A few years later she married my grandfather and had a daughter but while just pregnant (probably didn't even know yet) with my mother this daughter died in my grandfather's arms. She was only about 1. It was no wonder she always looked sad.
My wife is into genealogy, she is the direct male-line descendant of a delegate the county she grew up in, sent to the state constitutional convention in 1776. (Not where she was born, the hospital is over the state line now. ) She has a couple of lines that go back to Adam and Eve through Charlemagne.
Now she's trying to work on my side, which is more difficult because not only don't my relatives really keep in contact with each other, the 3 out of my 4 grandparents who I never met (died before I was born; or was in Florida, close to the same thing) came through Ellis Island. My one grandmother who I do remember (died when I was 12) was the one native-born but her baptismal certificate is written in Cyrillic script. Her maiden name actually got longer (adding a consonant to the end) in American usage.
My own inclination is intensely geographical; genealogy is in some respects applied geography. We think we've identified the villages of origin within the former empire of the late Franz Joseph, and might soon visit a couple of them that straddle the present-day Polish/Slovak border. Though it's entirely possible I might have 2nd-3rd cousins living in these areas, I really wouldn't know what to say to these folks if I do meet them. I'm curious if I have some innate taste for the local mineral water or plum brandy, though.
Conversely my wife might personally know all of her 2nd cousins; she knows how she's related to about half of her high school graduating class.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
