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Adam
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Define traced.
I can get back to about 1900 on my father's side. With some gaps. Like no marriage certificate to my grandfather/grandmother.
My Great Grand Dad was apparently deaf - and census records which we strongly believe are him, are in a very strange mis-spelling. If deaf, and super highly paid government census workers + lack of ability to write = questionable documentation. My grandmother was an orphan - her mother a school teacher from Ohio, who got preggo and sent to live with an Aunt in Chicago until birth, then she gave up my grandmother - probably forced how could this spoiled girl care for an infant. This info is from my grandmother's bible.
On the Maternal side, I get back to 1850/1880 and arrival from Europe. Germany was not a country in 1850, remember, and my people are from along the Danube river. Seems to have been a concentration, at one point, in PLZeN which has had various spellings over the years and is now within Czechia (or Czech Republic). It was Czechoslovakia when I was growing up, Bohemia, earlier.
Someone, a cousin of my Mother we suspect, put together a book of the ancestry of one of her (my mother's) lines. But when we started entering that in Ancestry and FamilySearch, it became apparent there were errors. Even with accounting for"family names" ex. My FIL is Bob, eldest BIL is Bob, eldest nephew Bob (and all with same middle names,) it looks like there are ancestors who are both earlier and later in the table. Probably due in part to language translations.
That half is also Catholic, so in some parishes, the names are recorded in Latin, others Englsh. We found entries online that are clearly duplicates, except for the Latin-ization of the name.
We know they both maternal families settled in Indiana as farmers, farm-related ie blacksmithy until about 1880 then some moved to Chicago. There was recession/depression back then, industrialization, how do you divide family farms pressure etc.
I get interested in knowing more, then I don't.
I got one of those DNA tests, and I expected more UK blood due to my family name but that came in at 7%. 75+ for German European.
15 for Eastern European.
I can get back to about 1900 on my father's side. With some gaps. Like no marriage certificate to my grandfather/grandmother.
My Great Grand Dad was apparently deaf - and census records which we strongly believe are him, are in a very strange mis-spelling. If deaf, and super highly paid government census workers + lack of ability to write = questionable documentation. My grandmother was an orphan - her mother a school teacher from Ohio, who got preggo and sent to live with an Aunt in Chicago until birth, then she gave up my grandmother - probably forced how could this spoiled girl care for an infant. This info is from my grandmother's bible.
On the Maternal side, I get back to 1850/1880 and arrival from Europe. Germany was not a country in 1850, remember, and my people are from along the Danube river. Seems to have been a concentration, at one point, in PLZeN which has had various spellings over the years and is now within Czechia (or Czech Republic). It was Czechoslovakia when I was growing up, Bohemia, earlier.
Someone, a cousin of my Mother we suspect, put together a book of the ancestry of one of her (my mother's) lines. But when we started entering that in Ancestry and FamilySearch, it became apparent there were errors. Even with accounting for"family names" ex. My FIL is Bob, eldest BIL is Bob, eldest nephew Bob (and all with same middle names,) it looks like there are ancestors who are both earlier and later in the table. Probably due in part to language translations.
That half is also Catholic, so in some parishes, the names are recorded in Latin, others Englsh. We found entries online that are clearly duplicates, except for the Latin-ization of the name.
We know they both maternal families settled in Indiana as farmers, farm-related ie blacksmithy until about 1880 then some moved to Chicago. There was recession/depression back then, industrialization, how do you divide family farms pressure etc.
I get interested in knowing more, then I don't.
I got one of those DNA tests, and I expected more UK blood due to my family name but that came in at 7%. 75+ for German European.
15 for Eastern European.
West?
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No, 12.
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My grandmother did a lot of that leg work. DNA testing has shown us that 2of her 4 children were from different guys than the one I used to consider my Grandfather so we no longer trust her findings.
Nothing good comes from DNA testing btw.
Nothing good comes from DNA testing btw.
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I know who my daddy is, I think.
Julius Erving?
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Julius Erving?
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Love Genealogy and have been researching my lineages for about 30 years now. Started off at a funeral when a "family" member told me that I was adopted/sold at birth and my "parents" were not my real parents at all! I was just past 40 when this lovely bomb was dropped on my head. Being the curious type I started my own research to find out who I really was. That is a story all unto itself. Immersed myself into the [then] growing field of genetic genealogy. That was what gave me what I know now... I was the "oops" between two teenaged lovers in Archer City, TX in May of 1949.
I am 25% Native- Cherokee on my biological mother's side. Had several relatives that walked the Trail of Tears and several who hid out from the authorities and stayed back East.
I am 75% Scottish on my biological father's side. With the help of genetic markers my Scots line goes back about 4000 years BCE right into the NE area of [Aberdeen] Scotland to the Picts. Shocked I was to discover this within the last couple of years. My yDNA profile matches at 100% with the original Picts profile. Written Scottish records place my earliest recorded male ancestor in the 1100s to Abernethy, Scotland, UK. His name was Hugh de Abernethy, a lay Abbot of the Culdee Church. The Picts were the original First People of Scotland that the Romans attempted to eradicate - think Hadrian's Wall - but Rome was driven out of Alba by the Picts.
Thanks for reading ...
I am 25% Native- Cherokee on my biological mother's side. Had several relatives that walked the Trail of Tears and several who hid out from the authorities and stayed back East.
I am 75% Scottish on my biological father's side. With the help of genetic markers my Scots line goes back about 4000 years BCE right into the NE area of [Aberdeen] Scotland to the Picts. Shocked I was to discover this within the last couple of years. My yDNA profile matches at 100% with the original Picts profile. Written Scottish records place my earliest recorded male ancestor in the 1100s to Abernethy, Scotland, UK. His name was Hugh de Abernethy, a lay Abbot of the Culdee Church. The Picts were the original First People of Scotland that the Romans attempted to eradicate - think Hadrian's Wall - but Rome was driven out of Alba by the Picts.
Thanks for reading ...
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I first started working on genealogy in the 1970's, way pre-internet, when I had to go down to the local city LDS center and dig through whatever they had on paper. My sister-in-law was pretty active on this for my wife's family for a few years. Also pre-internet, she was writing to churches and so forth in Germany and Luxembourg, paying about $5 a pop for replies.
These days, it's pretty much Duck Soup using internet resources, even free ones such as the LDS Family Search site. You can sit down and in minutes learn as much as it used to take weeks to find out.
In my own case, my ancestors are predominantly of English and German origin. We have one semi-distinguished French ancestor who came over here just after the American Revolution, and by the time he was over 80 years old, he had sired 19 children who lived beyond infancy. One he sired in his 80's, so he had some real lead in his pencil.
As you go back, some of the female lines kinda peter out, as if the male line was of primary interest. And maybe it was for purposes of record keeping. But you go back to a certain point, you would be likely to find that both spouses were of similar origin. Chiefly because people didn't have the mobility they acquired in later times. The English that came to North America had a surge of mobility to cross the Atlantic, but once they got here, they reconcentrated
On my mother's side of the family, her maiden name is a line that goes back to very early Plymouth Colony (Mass.) and then back into England into the 1400's. I've found that in both Germany and England, records really start to taper off in the 1400's and 1500's. In the case of Germany, remember the 30 Years War (1618-1648) devastated the country with warfare, disease and displacement. Est. 20% of the entire population died; est. in some areas, 50% died. So you can imagine that records get scanty under these conditions, stuff gets burned and destroyed. Records may not get recorded when people are starving and being raped.
Also on my mother's side, I have ancestors related to Herbert Hoover (orig. Huber) going back to central Germany and about 1500 something as I recall.
On my dad's side, his mother was descended on her father's side from a way-back, early colonial family that made a Mayflower-like crossing. At the conclusion of the American Revolution, they picked up and moved to Canada for a few generations. I haven't been able to document it, but this suggests they were Loyalists. One of these descendants emigrated back to America in 1862 to join up in the Union Army. He enlisted in one of the Regular Union Army Regiments, which is a little rare since about 98% of the Union Army consisted of state militia troops.
Anyway, when a person has a couple of ancestors from a long-back, early colonial line, they have a lot of common ancestors among the early settlers. Because the population of the settled country wasn't that big, intermingling was more concentrated. On my dad's father's side, they came over from Germany (to avoid the draft) in the 1880's, so I don't have any distinguished American ancestors from them.
These days, it's pretty much Duck Soup using internet resources, even free ones such as the LDS Family Search site. You can sit down and in minutes learn as much as it used to take weeks to find out.
In my own case, my ancestors are predominantly of English and German origin. We have one semi-distinguished French ancestor who came over here just after the American Revolution, and by the time he was over 80 years old, he had sired 19 children who lived beyond infancy. One he sired in his 80's, so he had some real lead in his pencil.
As you go back, some of the female lines kinda peter out, as if the male line was of primary interest. And maybe it was for purposes of record keeping. But you go back to a certain point, you would be likely to find that both spouses were of similar origin. Chiefly because people didn't have the mobility they acquired in later times. The English that came to North America had a surge of mobility to cross the Atlantic, but once they got here, they reconcentrated
On my mother's side of the family, her maiden name is a line that goes back to very early Plymouth Colony (Mass.) and then back into England into the 1400's. I've found that in both Germany and England, records really start to taper off in the 1400's and 1500's. In the case of Germany, remember the 30 Years War (1618-1648) devastated the country with warfare, disease and displacement. Est. 20% of the entire population died; est. in some areas, 50% died. So you can imagine that records get scanty under these conditions, stuff gets burned and destroyed. Records may not get recorded when people are starving and being raped.
Also on my mother's side, I have ancestors related to Herbert Hoover (orig. Huber) going back to central Germany and about 1500 something as I recall.
On my dad's side, his mother was descended on her father's side from a way-back, early colonial family that made a Mayflower-like crossing. At the conclusion of the American Revolution, they picked up and moved to Canada for a few generations. I haven't been able to document it, but this suggests they were Loyalists. One of these descendants emigrated back to America in 1862 to join up in the Union Army. He enlisted in one of the Regular Union Army Regiments, which is a little rare since about 98% of the Union Army consisted of state militia troops.
Anyway, when a person has a couple of ancestors from a long-back, early colonial line, they have a lot of common ancestors among the early settlers. Because the population of the settled country wasn't that big, intermingling was more concentrated. On my dad's father's side, they came over from Germany (to avoid the draft) in the 1880's, so I don't have any distinguished American ancestors from them.
Yes, you have to be careful with the credibility of some of the entries in Family Search. After all, that information is often self-entered by various family members. One of my former coworkers whom I still communicate with is a hard core genealogy researcher. She points out that the religious motivations of LDS members in using it is different from those of us who are using it strictly for historic genealogy. So sometimes, people entering data will force family tree entries. Like pounding a square peg into a round hole when all else fails. She also opined that the real value in Family Search is the document images that accompany many entries. Those are right there to see, they can't be faked or forced.
One of the areas where there can be ambiguous, misleading or false information relates to ancestors who were slaves. Those records were badly kept if at all, because slaves were property, relationships weren't legitimized or known, etc. The paper records from pre-US Civil War era sometimes only list a total number of slaves belonging to owner property records; other places actually listed them by names.
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In my case it was relatively simple following English naming conventions. Things we do without realizing it because our dad or grandfather did it. I have a son. I give him my grandfather's or father's name as a first or middle name. He does the same. Maybe I give him my wife's maiden name as a middle name or her father's name. So on and so on. Helps to put the pieces together when you are looking at county records or census roles.
I do know that my family were somewhat prolific slave holders and with my somewhat uncommon name it is very likely that if I meet someone who is AA with the same last name chances are pretty good my family owned theirs at some point.
I do know that my family were somewhat prolific slave holders and with my somewhat uncommon name it is very likely that if I meet someone who is AA with the same last name chances are pretty good my family owned theirs at some point.
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Most of my family is still up in the tree eating bananas. Ook ook!
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Wow! Really nice to find fellow genealogists who also enjoy firearms! Yes, like gmerkt, I also started off with paper records in the Denver Public Library. Something about the smell of those old records ...
Computers and the web have truly simplified the search process for the most part. Still have to be careful and not try to nail square pegs into round holes - good illustration gmerkt! On more than one occasion over the years I have had to delete entire family lines when I found they were not accurate. Its a PITA but the reworked results could be taken to Court. Also have spent ample time reading old [1700-1800s] Scottish history records. That really helped straighten out several lineages that had previously been impossible to cipher.
Anyhoo, I am at a point with my research over the passage of years where I am only looking for tidbits now; pictures, coats of arms, etc. My son is not interested in genealogy at all and that's OK. Ancestry.com will outlive me so perhaps future interested others can use my work as a reference for their own research. coop44, now yours was a dern funny comment!!! LOL. In the end, we all go back to Adam and Eve anyway
Computers and the web have truly simplified the search process for the most part. Still have to be careful and not try to nail square pegs into round holes - good illustration gmerkt! On more than one occasion over the years I have had to delete entire family lines when I found they were not accurate. Its a PITA but the reworked results could be taken to Court. Also have spent ample time reading old [1700-1800s] Scottish history records. That really helped straighten out several lineages that had previously been impossible to cipher.
Anyhoo, I am at a point with my research over the passage of years where I am only looking for tidbits now; pictures, coats of arms, etc. My son is not interested in genealogy at all and that's OK. Ancestry.com will outlive me so perhaps future interested others can use my work as a reference for their own research. coop44, now yours was a dern funny comment!!! LOL. In the end, we all go back to Adam and Eve anyway
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You are correct. I am just looking into the Pict's/Celt's Ogham script. Found on a lot of standing stones and no one yet knows exactly how to decipher it. Looks like stick symbol writing. Hmmm.
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Ah, to be a teenager up in a tree. Those were the good old days.
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Nah! That looks like my Uncle Burt!
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I've got family members that have spent significant amounts of time doing this. I think it normally becomes a hobby for those closer to the end of their lives.
I'm sure it's easier for those of you whose trees are linear, but still a lot of collection of data required.
I'm sure it's easier for those of you whose trees are linear, but still a lot of collection of data required.
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