Posted on 05/14/2010 11:54:44 AM PDT by American Quilter
Now that so many ancestry records have been digitized, it's amazingly easy to start tracing your family tree. I'd never done it, but I watched this season's TV show, "Who Do You Think You Are?", and they kept referring to ancestry.com. So on a whim a few weeks ago I logged onto that site , and I've been amazed at what I've found. My mother's father's mother's family line goes back into the late 1400s in France, via many generations of French Canadians--who knew??? One of my dad's grandfathers came to the US to escape the Potato Famine in Ireland, and the other was apparently paid by his wealthy father-in-law to leave Ireland before the authorities arrested him for his anti-English revolutionary activities.
I've started wondering if I may be related to any of my fellow FReepers. Do any of you have any ancestor stories you'd be willing to share? My family has history in Quebec, St. Paul MN, Jasper County IN, Iroquois County IL, and the Seattle area (including the Olympic peninsula), but I'd love to hear from other FReepers regardless of whether we turn out to be related.
My Lutheran pastor friend said he traced his ancestors back to a Pope in the 12th century.
Don’t you worry about passing on your genes? We do..
LOL - I never thought of that! Too late now, though. My kids are 23/23 (twins) and 26. But that might explain a lot.
I loved all the shows & yes I have belonged to Ancestry.com for quite a few years. Since I had 2 roadblocks one on my fathers side & one on my husband’s side I had my brother (father had died in 81) & my husband both do paternal dna tests & found that the surnames were different. Now I’m on a quest to find the common ancestors on both these lines.
We did pretty well..out of 7 kids we only have 1 flaming liberal . We have decided to be nice to her anyway
“and the Seattle area (including the Olympic peninsula)”
My family is here on the Olympic Penninsula and has been for more than hundred years AFAICT. My Great -Grandmother/mom’s side belonged to the family that founded a rural town named Porter that still exists. A couple generations before her the family name was “Twidwell” and they helped found the small rural community of Brooklyn, Wa and basically were the (vigilante) law enforcement back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Not much is known about my mother’s fathers’ side past his mom who was an alcoholic and gave him up for adoption around the age of 12. She did however name him after one of my favorite authers; Robert Lewis Stevenson. He was a logger and family farmer in Aberdeen, Washington for many decades when he retired and moved himself and Grandma out to the Eastern part of the county.
I have been told that the family came from Europe in the mid 1800’s and were (again moms’ side) Swedish Jews.
My mom stays in contact with one of her uncles in California, apparantly there are still many “Twidwells” there and in Kansas that we are related to.
I am a very new immigrant, but I do have one American relative David Salisbury Franks, who was an American Revolutionary War minor player (and my direct ancestor).
He had the misfortunte of being an aide to Benedict Arnold, and so was slimed by association.
He was cleared of all charges, and, in fact given an apology and a small pension.
It was still ugly, they were broke, so one of his sons went to France and started my maternal line there.
He had several kids, so I have distant cousins running all over America.
My grandmother had Col. Franks “Society of the Cincinnati” paperwork that was signed by George Washington, but the Nazis stole it when they had to flee.
We, Maxwell’s, did not eat the livers of our cousins in Northern England. It is an outrage, we only stole all that whey owned, then again they gave us some pay back, James the First.
My mother's father's father, who emigrated from to Quebec to Illinois sometime in the late 1800s, changed his name from Dutour to Cadore, and became Frank rather than Francois. Family legend has it that he was on the lam, and I haven't been able to find out more about him.
8)
I agree, and they're adding more records all the time, as various organizations digitize them. I was contacted through the site by a nice fellow whose wife and I have a mutual ancestor, and he's been in touch with the diocese at Harbour Grace, Newfoundland for years, hoping they'd make their records available. They just have, and he found that one of my pairs of greatgrandparents died of cholera on the trip from Newfoundland to Minnesota, leaving four children. So many sad stories from times when life was much harder than it is now.
We can trace to past 1500 on one side and 1620 on the other.
Yes, unfortunately! But I confess that tracing the family tree back so far has made me a little less dismissive of the French (I had previously been of Ann Coulter’s persuasion that we should bomb them). I’ve decided that my ancestors probably helped fight off the Moors (aka Muslims) when they invaded France hundreds of years ago, and they had the gumption to leave France in the 1600s for religious freedom.
Wow, Honey Fitz! Dang, you’re related to someone famous and you can’t even brag about it.
Pretty good as far as I know, particularly for western Europe and especially England. I understand that ancesty.com is adding 77 million newly digitized records from England over the next year.
That is so cool! Was that in the US, if you don't mind my asking?
I think. :-)
One thing that's entertained me as I've looked at census records covering decades is three great-aunts who only aged about 8 years each decade.
Oh, no! I wouldn't want to drop that into conversation, either. You have my sympathy.
What great stories! It’s a shame Washington himself had no direct descendents—I’d LOVE to be able to claim him as an ancestor. He’s my favorite president (though Ronaldus Magnus runs a close second).
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