Researching Family History

[Bailey Guns]

I got a bug to research my family history. Ancestry.com has a free 2 week trial...so I signed up.

I was able to trace my father's side of the family back to 1640 in Belfast, Ireland. That ancestor immigrated to Virginia in the late 1600s. I can follow the family on my father's side from Ireland to VA, to NC and finally to modern times in AL, TX and on to me. If my calculations were correct that goes back about 10 generations.

I'm having trouble with mom's side, though. I can't find any information on her! It's like she doesn't exist. I don't recall her parent's names because they were both deceased by the time I was born. I'll have to get some more info from mom before I can continue.

I've sat in front of the computer for several hours on this snowy spring night finding out amazing things about my family history.

Anyone else into this sort of thing?

[Half Live]

I have always wanted to do that. I do know that my dads side of the family is from Germany and I still have distant relatives that live in Germany.

[Uberjager]

Well, my dad's side is Frisian, and my mom was adopted. I do find it quite interesting.

[Irving]

My grandpa did this back a few generations before he had the internet. I need to get my hands on a copy of it. I don't know crap about my mom's side of the family.

[2ndChildhood]

My cousin tracked our ancestors back to England in the 1600's, but then ran into an ancestor named Stephen whose parents could not be ascertained.
Best guess is that Stephen was illegitimate and got his fathers last name, but wasn't recorded in any church records.

[gnihcraes]

Pierre Chxxxxx in the 1600's of France, but our family tree is mostly been known for years, complete website dedicated to it. Ancestry.com is good, but expensive, be sure and cancel the monthly payment and leave your account active, you can still log on and edit items, just no searching.

Every few months I log on and see all kinds of hits from other family trees that are attaching to mine, amazing how it grows.

[palepainter]

I have my Great Grandfather x 7 will. He made it out when he joined colonial forces. Survived the Revolutionary War, but was later killed in an Indian Raid in Western PA. A cousin of mine has his Pennsylvania Long Rifle flintlock. My first relatives came from Pfalz Germany in 1680 on the Speedwell. It took a few years to get all the info, but was worth the research.

[Seamonkey]

I was able to trace my father's side of the family back to 1640 in Belfast, Ireland. That ancestor immigrated to Virginia in the late 1600s.



We might be related... [Coffee]


Several people have traced our family history, I should probably get a copy from them. I remember reading parts of wills and court documents one cousin had found. So and so was hung for stealing a horse, that person was disowned for having a child out of wedlock, this person served with Capt Washington on the Ohio campaign. Or was Washington a Colonel during that campaign? Cool stuff in some parts, others was just the average Joe living out their life as a farmer, small shop owner and the like. I think the records stopped around the 1600's in Europe, either destroyed during the wars or fire or plague or something another.


Not to side track your thread but a couple years ago I went to Ireland for three weeks. Listening to local music in the pubs was a highlight. The owner of a B&B in Kinsale invited me to a pub where he was playing that night. They started on a song they claimed was 100 years old and I almost fell off my stool. It was bluegrass. I asked them about the song and they laughed. The Irish immigrants brought their music with them and as they settled in the Appalachian mountains and over generations the Irish music mixed with the Scot's and other immigrants to become what we call bluegrass.

[HBARleatherneck]

delete

[Mtn.man]

pretty sure we all came from the cabbage patch.

[Bailey Guns]

Pierre Chxxxxx in the 1600's of France, but our family tree is mostly been known for years, complete website dedicated to it. Ancestry.com is good, but expensive, be sure and cancel the monthly payment and leave your account active, you can still log on and edit items, just no searching.

Every few months I log on and see all kinds of hits from other family trees that are attaching to mine, amazing how it grows.

Yeah...it's 300 bucks for a year! That's a little rich for me. That's why I'm gonna take advantage of the 2 week free trial...then cancel.

I haven't got to spend any time on it today...maybe later.

You guys have some interesting stories. That's the sort of stuff I want to learn about...so and so fought in such and such battle. It's nice to know and to be able to pass that on.

[970TJ]

Growing up in Utah, genealogy is big because of the Mormons. They have a HUGE library you can go to for free to look up your ancestry. In fact, it's right across the street from the Salt Lake Temple. Cool for sure.

[gnihcraes]

A couple of generations back on the smith side of the family, they started naming the kids by the alphabet. A-Z they made it to P. I'm named after one of them.

First/Middle

Arthur Benjamin
Clara Dell
Emory Franklin
George Homer
Iva Jane
Kelly Lester
Mickinley Noble
Ollie Pink

We have one person on my fathers side of the tree we cannot find any information on. Supposedly full blooded Indian of some sort, she just appears on the family tree, married someone the tree grew from there. No Census information, nothing. Wish we could find out the truth just out of curiosity.

Best thing over all is both my sets of grandparents put time into researching the family tree years ago, and all the known information is documented.

Oh, both my grandparents had the same names. Arthur and Mildred.

[Heep72]

I got a bug to research my family history. Ancestry.com has a free 2 week trial...so I signed up.

I was able to trace my father's side of the family back to 1640 in Belfast, Ireland. That ancestor immigrated to Virginia in the late 1600s. I can follow the family on my father's side from Ireland to VA, to NC and finally to modern times in AL, TX and on to me. If my calculations were correct that goes back about 10 generations.

I'm having trouble with mom's side, though. I can't find any information on her! It's like she doesn't exist. I don't recall her parent's names because they were both deceased by the time I was born. I'll have to get some more info from mom before I can continue.

I've sat in front of the computer for several hours on this snowy spring night finding out amazing things about my family history.

Anyone else into this sort of thing?

How much info do you need to have to do this sort of thing? I mean do you have to have the names of several generations and such?

[Bailey Guns]

No, you can just start with yourself. Then, for example, search names of parents for various public records. From there you'll probably get their parent's names, etc...

It's pretty fun...you start looking forward to finding out neat information.

[sniper7]

do you have to give them a credit card or anything to get started for the 2 week trial? just need to cancel when you are all done?

I would love to see some more info on my family

[Bailey Guns]

Yeah...you have to do the credit card thing. But it's easy to find the "Cancel" instructions on the "My Account" page. I looked before I signed up.

[sniper7]

sounds good, I think I will give it a try. just in the little tester thing it showed records to the mid 1500s just based on my moms family. I knew my great grandma came here from germany, and on her dads family was from england.

my dads side is where I am unsure. I know he has native american indian in there which would be cool to track down. also some irish.

[Bailey Guns]

It's fun to start diggin' around...never know who you might find!

[ShooterJM]

I started this weekend, fun stuff. Found my great grandfathers WWI draft card. Pretty much a dead end after that point though. How are you guys finding data outside the US?

[ghettodub]

I was in to that pretty heavily for a while. Because of some famous relatives, mine has been super easy to track. My grandmother did the brunt of the work on my mom's side, and that's traced to the 1100s.

On my dad's side, we have it traced back with confirmed records to about 800 something, with some loose data going back to the BCs. But most aren't that easy to trace, I just got lucky that there is a lot of royalty in my family.