Genealogy

[GreatLakesGramma]

Is anyone here interested in genealogy? I have never done any research myself, but I have information that was given to me by other family members who have, including the original data file for the software I bought to record my husband's and my family records.

Years ago my dad was given a pedigree chart by the (at the time) wife of one of my cousins. I just borrowed it from him, to put the information into my family tree program. I found it very interesting, so much so that I would like to find out more. My cousin's ex-wife traced one line of my dad's family back to 1600, in England. Other lines ended with an immigrant from Scotland, Ireland, or Switzerland, and some don't go any farther back than I already had recorded in the family Bible, from information my parents and grandparents had given me.

There are a few long-ago ancestors who are listed as died at sea, on the way to America. She had even made a few notes about famous ancestors or descendants of some of our ancestors, though it wasn't traced completely to any of them, and she didn't write in how she knew this.

I am finding this all very interesting, and it's inspiring me to think about those long-ago ancestors, and what their lives might have been like.

[Liz]

Yes, I do like genealogy. I have been thinking about trying that new website out--genealogy leaf, or something like that. I have had some aunts on all sides of the family do some tracing of the family line, but I would like to try it myself.

[Woody]

Ah What's ye fussin about Genealogy fur. Ye's got much more 'genealogies' here in thee form of Uncees than you can even handle.

Uncee Red

[GreatLakesGramma]

Knowing you guys would never tell me where my roots are. I've learned I have ancestors from France, Scotland, and Ireland, none of which I knew before. I did know I had a close ancestor who came from Switzerland, but I didn't know it was my great-grandmother (who died before I was born).

I would like to find out what tribal affiliation my Native American ancestors were of, and just who and how far back they were, also when my German ancestors came over, and what other countries my ancestors came from, and where they lived both there and here. Also just how many generations of my family have lived in Barry County, Michigan.

My husband would really like to know ANYTHING about his maternal grandfather, who died only 3 months after marrying my husband's grandmother. He was a mystery man. Even she knew nothing about his family. There was some kind of falling out before he came here from Austria-Hungary, and he never spoke of them. She knew only his parents' first names, nothing else. My mother-in-law always longed to know her roots, as a child without a father, and with a mother who was ashamed of her hillbilly roots and would never tell her anything about her family, and a stepfather who hated and abused her, she longed for family ties. I wish she could have learned about her father's family, and maybe made some contact with them, but my husband would still like to find out about them.

It's history. And when history gets personal, it gets interesting.

[Liz]

Ah What's ye fussin about Genealogy fur. Ye's got much more 'genealogies' here in thee form of Uncees than you can even handle.

Uncee Red

And I be luvin all me uncee's an' wouldn't trade a one of um.

[Amelia]

I've done quite alot of root digging. I traced one line back to the 1600's Germany. Unfortunately my two grandfathers are a dead end. One was an orphan and the orphanage he lived in burnt down. The other changed his name and wouldn't tell us why or give any information about his past. I also found distant cousins via the net and a website for surnames. Now I'm in contact with them and we compare notes and data. It's fun to dig now and again.

[Woody]

Yes GLG ... I am very interested in Genealogy.

When I was young I went to Switzerland to look up my long lost relatives. I couldn't speak German but went to the Post Office and they directed me to the Government Station where I was able to look them up and Praise God ... I found them and reunited them with my Grandfather who came over when he was 18 and had never communicated with them.

Then after that they communicated for years until he died at the age of 99 and 3/4 !!

[GreatLakesGramma]

Amelia, is there no way for you to find records of your grandfather's name change? He would have to have it done in court to be legal, wouldn't he?

Is it hard to get records from countries where English is not the official language?

One of the notes in my dad's pedigree is that my 10th-great grandparents were 6th-great grandparents to Winston Churchill. I shared this at an SDA Ladies email group, since there are some avid genealogists there, and learned that one of them is a close relative of his, so we are related to each other. That's what makes finding out fun. It's especially fun to find out that someone you have known for years is related.

Both side of my family have lived in the same county for at least 4 generations, and every now and then I find yet another distant relative (or group of them) among other multi-generational local residents. I don't have to do the genealogical research for this though.

[GreatLakesGramma]

Redwood, that is wonderful that you were able to reunite your grandfather with his family.

[Amelia]

Quote:

Amelia, is there no way for you to find records of your grandfather's name change? He would have to have it done in court to be legal, wouldn't he?

Well, we believe he either changed his name upon entering the U.S. or prior to coming here. And we don't know where he came from nor what year he landed.(but there is much speculation amoungst us cousins) ARG, he just made it so frustrating for us. Even as he got older he wouldn't answer any of my mothers (his daughter) questions. Apparently grandma knew but she passed on long before mom and than me, got the bug to dig into things. Plus she must not have cared much because she didn't pass on the info nor did she write it down.

Quote:

Is it hard to get records from countries where English is not the official language?

Try this site http://www.vitalrec.com/links2.html

[GreatLakesGramma]

What resources do you all find most helpful? I have the Mormon site, the US GenWeb site, RootsWeb, and the government archives, and Amelia, I've bookmarked the Vital Records site now. What other sites have you found particularly helpful, preferably free ones?

[Amelia]

http://www.interment.net/us/index.htm

[darlene]

In May of this past year, two of my sisters and I went to Germany to meet hundreds(really) of our relatives that we didn't know existed. My sister is really into genealogy.

My ancestors are German and left Germany before the 1st World War and went to Crimea at the invitation of Catherine the Great of Russia who was a German. They lived there and were very successful. The Russians in that area did not like that. Anyway, as World War I began my grandfather from my father's side and my grandfather of my mother's side came to North America while shortly after the other relatives in Russia where sent to Siberia. They had their own village near Omsk and lived and farmed there for many years. They had a Russian posted in the village and every now and then several of the leaders of that village would be killed. (One way to keep them in line!)

Anyway, since the fall of Communism in Germany, Germany has invited these relatives back to Germany. More than a hundred of them have come and are settling in quite nicely. Some of them are wanting to come to North America.

It was really something to travel around Germany and visit with many of them. The families of both my father and mother are very, very large. Don't think I'll ever know all of them.

[GreatLakesGramma]

The biggest family mystery I am concerned with at this time is finding information about my husband's maternal grandfather. I have his naturalization papers and marriage certificate, but nothing else. I don't know when he came here. His date of naturalization was January 10, 1921. And the marriage license only lists his parents as John and Anna.

[Amelia]

Darlene, I also have a German line in my family. I traced that

line back to the 1600's Rhine. The son who started the line I desend from was the second son of 11 live siblings. He went on to have 8 live children of his own. Through all the digging and board postings I found a many seconds cousin from the eldest sons line. She lives in Maine. How cool is that?

[Amelia]

The biggest family mystery I am concerned with at this time is finding information about my husband's maternal grandfather. I have his naturalization papers and marriage certificate, but nothing else. I don't know when he came here. His date of naturalization was January 10, 1921. And the marriage license only lists his parents as John and Anna.

Since he became a naturalized citizen, you should be able to find a social security number for him and then a death certificate. Also check the census records and the Ellis Island immigrant site.

http://www.ellisisland.org/

But Ellis wasn't the only port of entry for immigrants. My great grandparents arrived earlier than the documents Ellis has available. From what I have pieced together, they landed in the New England area. So far I haven't been able to find any info on that. I have just what was written in letters between them and other relatives.

[GreatLakesGramma]

Amelia, he died in 1924, so there won't be any Social Security record for him. He and my husband's grandmother were only married 3 months when he contracted pneumonia and died. And get this - when Grandma found out she was pregnant, she decided to name the baby after him, boy or girl, since she knew she would never have another she could name after him. So my mother-in-law's name was John Anna.

It seems a little strange to me that my mother-in-law didn't have his death certificate. The envelope of papers she gave me to work with only contains the 2 items I already mentioned, plus tax receipts, papers pertaining to the sale of her mother's house in Detroit, and a few miscellaneous items. I wonder if there might be a few more papers left at the family farm, which my husband and I now own in partnership with his brother. I'll have to ask him to look next time he goes up there.

I do have a set of CDs that came with Family Tree Maker, including one with birth records for the United States and Europe from 900 to 1880. I've had these things since 1999, when we bought the program after being given the data file compiled with it by a distant cousin of my husband's, but I've never done anything with it, other than entering current information and what other people have given me. I think I need to start with these CDs before I go anywhere else.

[GreatLakesGramma]

That's cool, dgrimm.

[Tom Wetmore]

My brother is the one in our family that has been working on our genealogy. He did have a head start on our mother's side as she had already been indentified and listed among the Mayflower decendants. Miles Standish and John Alden are my 10th Great Grandfathers and William Brewster is my 11th Great Grandfather. With a limited number of people to start with, being a descendent of more than one of the Pilgrims is likely.

My brother has also been working on the Wetmore line which goes back to the about the same place and time in New England. At the age of 20, Thomas (Wetmore) Whitmore, son of Sir William Whitmore came over to the New World from England in 1635, just 15 years after the Mayflower. There is some evidence that the Wetmore and the Brewster lines intersected, but I am not certain if a Wetmore/Brewster marriage is in my own direct line. A number of the Wetmores were British loyalists during the Revolution and subsequently moved into the British territory, the future Canada. My ancestors apparently were not among loyalists and eventually migrated down through upstate New York and the northern part of Pennsylvania.

I have seen some further lineage for the Whitmore family name in England as being derived from Sir John, Lord of Whytemere, (b. circa 1185) during the reigns of Henry III and Edward I (13th Century).

Tom

[Nan]

HEY ALL

A LONG TIME AGO hahahaha hehehehe hohohoho

sounds like a fair tale

well as a matter of fact about 25 to 30 years ago

my dad and mom did some research and discovered that

our family was related to the famous GRIMM BROTHERS

the ones that had the GRIMM FAIR TALES.....

there were 3 brothers in all and after one year

one of the brothers left and said he did not want

to do this any more. OF the 2 brothers that remained

collecting the fair tales one was married and the other

one was single....

I am not sure if I came from the one brother that

stayed one year or if I came from the one brother that

stay on....

but I DID come from one of them

smile smile smile smile smile

dgrimm60

And how do we know that is not a fairy tale, Doug???

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Here's the genealogy thread....

[Woody]

HEY ALL

A LONG TIME AGO hahahaha hehehehe hohohoho

sounds like a fair tale

well as a matter of fact about 25 to 30 years ago

my dad and mom did some research and discovered that

our family was related to the famous GRIMM BROTHERS

the ones that had the GRIMM FAIR TALES.....

there were 3 brothers in all and after one year

one of the brothers left and said he did not want

to do this any more. OF the 2 brothers that remained

collecting the fair tales one was married and the other

one was single....

I am not sure if I came from the one brother that

stayed one year or if I came from the one brother that

stay on....

but I DID come from one of them

smile smile smile smile smile

dgrimm60

Thank you for this Grim story.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

My great great great grandmother was scalped by Indians in Pennsylvania. When she died the husband and four children were taken captive. They remained with the Iroquois tribe for approximately 7 years. When they were released the Chief had special clothing made for them. One of the children, a girl (my great great grandmother) had been taught herbal medicine by them.

[phkrause]

Wow rudywoofs its been idle for almost a year.

pk

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Yeah, I don't think people knew it was there..