Posted on 05/14/2010 11:54:44 AM PDT by American Quilter
My DNA analysis says that I’m a direct descendant of Kieth Stone’s Grandfather!
I traced my ancestry a few years ago, I only got so far but found out I have a distant cousin (same great grandfather) in Arizona who had done ALL the work, including actually visiting gravesites and such. So I know our ancestry back to South Carolina around 1690, and they pretty much were all in the south since that time, in Northern Georgia, Southern Tennessee.
Most notable ancestor was a famous “fiddle player” from TN who played all over the country.
Most notable on my other side was my 5th great grandmother was Cherokee Indian (her name is on the Hester Roll). She married a “Smith”. Good luck tracing THAT ONE. LOL
My Dad was orphaned at age six. He spent the last few years of his life digging up all of the genealogy, and put it all in a nice notebook for my siblings and I.
It sits on the bookcase.
I have absolutely no interest in people that I did not know, could not share in their success and who were so cheap they never left me a dime.
I’m related to Obama! How’s that for scary!
Not sure I could even bring myself to look and see if I was related to him. Scary indeed!
Another relative informed me. I usually don’t tell anyone. LOL Actually, I never think about it until someone brings something up. It goes back to his great or great-great grandfather - can’t remember exactly and mostly don’t care. LOL
I’d check it out.. you might be due some money....
If there are Freepers interested, here are some of the internet products that I like. These will efficently help you with your reasearch. (In no certain order)
Ancestry- Most comprehensive, huge amount info available. Hint to researchers... IF you live near a large library, or a genealogical or historical library, that library may already have it. (free)
Find a Grave.... At last look, I think there are nearly 50,000,000 graves indexed on this site. Many have pictures of those graves too. Great site sometimes, if you have difficult brick walls in your research.
Rootsweb- Free database with nice collection. Rootsweb is the free subsidiary of Ancestry, so if Ancestry is available, opt that direction.
Vitalrec.com- Sometimes finding the first few generations, can be the toughest. The vitalrec site gives you instructions, details, costs, addresses, etc. to order birth and death certificates for all 50 states. In death certificates, the informant in most cases gives the names, and locations of parents of the deceased, so that can knock out so brick wall too possibly. Important note: These records are generally only available since the 1910's. So skip if the need is before then.
Genforum- Genforum is a discussion site that is generally sorted by location and surname. Some brick walls are easily busted by just contacting other researchers who may be researching your family too. When you post, be specific thought. Saying I can't find Granpa Jones won't cut it. Provide details of dates, names, relatives, locations, etc.
There are a few other sites that I cover in class, Freepmail me if you have any questions.
LOL...that big Irish family has distributed the cash
Great thread to revive! I am a genealogy buff and have traced my family and my husband’s back as far as each main line will go (for me that means 1300s Germany and for him it’s 1300s Wales) and between us we have a Nuremberg Renaissance scholar who was best friends with “Praying Hands” painter Albrecht Durer, a knight under King Charles, a landowner who purchased lots from William Penn’s sons Thomas and Richard, a town founder (Middleburg PA), a Pennsylvania governor, the first civilian Civil War casualty at Harpers Ferry WV, Daniel Webster, lots of farmers and merchants and veterans of every single war going back to the Revolution.
I have had a blast these past few years, and Ancestry has been invaluable to me, as have Rootsweb, the US Genweb archives, and the LDS site familysearch.org. I agree with a previous poster - verify, verify, verify. Those records could be wrong, so make sure they’re the right ones for your tree. Transcription errors are common, I think not so much because the census takers wrote them down wrong but because their handwriting was illegible and the transcriber did the best he or she could.
Another tip for prospective researchers - throw an ancestor’s name into a Google Books search - it’s amazing what will come up. I have found entire narratives written about my families, providing incredible details into their lives.
My pleasure. The web has completely revolutionized the whole thing, making it simple, even trivial at times, to track down other working genealogists who have this or that part of a story, and need something that you happen to already know. By and large genealogists are the nicest people on the web, imho.
OTOH, there’s A) a lot of total BS in the LDS records, including basics like spellings of names (my surname grandfather’s is dead wrong); and B) there was a lot of fraud among the professional “hired gun” genealogists working in the 19th century, when it had its first golden age.
I did have one serious beef with Ancestry.com; I am appalled by the sloppy research that went into the indexing of the Drouin Collection. My mother, Marie Florida Bernadette Claire Larocque, was born in Ottawa, Ontario on 6 January 1925. She was baptized in the Roman Catholic parish of St-Jean-Baptiste (a very large, important parish) on 11 January 1925. Her entire family attended that parish for generations. When I did a search for her name in the Ontario French Catholic records, I was sick to see her parish listed as just "St-Jean" and the classification "Baptist" in the "religion" column. All of the parishioners at that church have been misclassified as "Baptist". Apparently Ancestry.com can't fathom that just because the word "Baptiste" is in the church's name, it doesn't make it a "Baptist" church. My mother was a devout Catholic and to mischaracterize her faith in this way was an insult to her memory. If Ancestry.com got such a vital, easily verified fact wrong, how can we trust other data that is put in the "historical records" section?
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