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Post by gillyp on Jul 19, 2014 16:16:42 GMT
Lady Diana, George Washington, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Pocahontas. If I can connect a father and son (I need one more piece of documentation) I can trace DH's family back to Knights Templar. We must be related then! George Washington was my 6th cousin, 5 times removed. His 5 x gt.grandfather Lawrence Washington was my 10 x gt. grandfather. I found that my grandmother was a distant cousin of my grandfather and I bet they never knew.
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Post by MissBianca on Jul 19, 2014 16:27:18 GMT
Lady Diana, George Washington, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Pocahontas. If I can connect a father and son (I need one more piece of documentation) I can trace DH's family back to Knights Templar. We must be related then! George Washington was my 6th cousin, 5 times removed. His 5 x gt.grandfather Lawrence Washington was my 10 x gt. grandfather. I found that my grandmother was a distant cousin of my grandfather and I bet they never knew. That's awesome!!! I love helping my mom do research and now my kids are getting into it. We are next in line to do the DNA test, I just wish it weren't so expensive.
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Post by melanell on Jul 19, 2014 16:40:49 GMT
I saw on Facebook that the Ancestry DNA test was either on sale or there is a coupon code out there for it. I think the price mentioned was $49.00.
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Post by BuckeyeSandy on Jul 19, 2014 17:24:34 GMT
Nobody really famous or noteworthy outside of their local communities or occupations.
On my father's side, the French-Canadian (paternal grandfather) goes back to France in the 1500s. The rest of his family background is German, and while stationed in Germany got to see the where, and with the assistance of a German friend found some ancestral grave sites. He was third and second generation American born from German ancestry.
My mother's side is nearly all Eastern European, (she's second generation American born) and they left few lasting records in the old country. Did not make it back to where we ought to be from (eastern Slovakia, bordering Poland and Russia) while I was stationed in Germany.
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peabay
Prolific Pea
Posts: 9,585
Member is Online
Jun 25, 2014 19:50:41 GMT
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Post by peabay on Jul 19, 2014 17:36:29 GMT
My most famous is Anne Morrow Lindbergh. My mother's grandmother was a "Morrow" and related to her somehow. I have it written down somewhere...
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Post by Heart on Jul 19, 2014 17:43:46 GMT
I asked about Genealogy before but failed to mention that I don't know how to handle adoption issues.
My mom is adopted and my bio dad is unknown. My mother's adoption was a closed Catholic adoption over 65 years ago so documentation will be sketchy at best. The father I have known my whole life adopted me when I was 1 year old.
Am I a lost cause?
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Post by gillyp on Jul 19, 2014 18:19:11 GMT
I asked about Genealogy before but failed to mention that I don't know how to handle adoption issues. My mom is adopted and my bio dad is unknown. My mother's adoption was a closed Catholic adoption over 65 years ago so documentation will be sketchy at best. The father I have known my whole life adopted me when I was 1 year old. Am I a lost cause? I am not au fait with US adoption legalities so hopefully someone will be along who can make a suggestion. Do you have a copy of your original birth certificate? Would your bio dad be named on that or do you have what might be an unusual middle name which would maybe reflect his name? Do you want to try and trace his line? I do know that some folk have researched their adoptive family tree because they wanted to honour the family they knew and loved.
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Post by Linda on Jul 19, 2014 21:01:46 GMT
I asked about Genealogy before but failed to mention that I don't know how to handle adoption issues. My mom is adopted and my bio dad is unknown. My mother's adoption was a closed Catholic adoption over 65 years ago so documentation will be sketchy at best. The father I have known my whole life adopted me when I was 1 year old. Am I a lost cause? like the others have mentioned - some people trace their adoptive family I read a story about someone who was a foundling and made contact with biological relatives via a DNA test This isn't the story I was thinking of (it was in England) but it's similar www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/us/with-dna-testing-adoptees-find-a-way-to-connect-with-family.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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Post by melanell on Jul 19, 2014 22:15:40 GMT
I asked about Genealogy before but failed to mention that I don't know how to handle adoption issues. My mom is adopted and my bio dad is unknown. My mother's adoption was a closed Catholic adoption over 65 years ago so documentation will be sketchy at best. The father I have known my whole life adopted me when I was 1 year old. Am I a lost cause? I think for starters you would need to choose if you want to research your biological lines or your adoptive family tree. If you want to research your adoptive family tree, then it should be no more difficult than any other family tree to research. But if you really want to try to research your biological ancestry, then I would imagine that you would have to start with how you and your parents would feel about even attempting to unearth that information. Hugs!! There are several people on my family tree who I know are adopted, and really, there are countless others who may be adopted and I just am not aware of it.
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Post by Heart on Jul 19, 2014 23:19:52 GMT
If I were doing my adoptive family, my Dad is "easy". He's from a very small Lithuanian family (less than 60 living relatives in the world) - no issues there.
My MOM- well.... her family was Irish and French. HUGE trees for miles. My husband's family is related to a very famous President and an inventor as well. It could go for MILES also...
I know what my supposed bio dad's name is, but he was a migrant/carnie and I have nothing else to go from. I would love to know what he looked like, because I am so different in appearance from my brothers. Other than that, I have no real interest in him.
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Post by bebe on Jul 20, 2014 0:07:32 GMT
My husband had been researching our families for years --we are both from the same county (where we still live)- I grew up on the west side and he on the east side--we met in high school and married. Well after several years we also noticed that we had some same names on our "trees"--yep! we are distant cousins--I called our daughters and laughingly told them I now had a explanation for several things LOL--Our Grandson's name is Parker which is the maiden name of sisters that connect us!
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Post by lovestocreate on Jul 20, 2014 8:30:37 GMT
So many of your stories are really neat! I was really interested in my ancestry but became rather discouraged after finding tragic story after tragic story. My line almost seems doomed
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Post by Karene on Jul 22, 2014 21:22:16 GMT
I have to agree with others that the farther back in history you get the harder it is to verify that you have the correct information. Those of you who have people on your family tree dating back into the middle ages, what kind documentation have you been able to find to prove conclusively that the royal is actually in your family tree? The biggest problem is that so many people had very similar names and not always surnames. Also, they were often very inaccurate with dates.
There are some very inventive family trees on the internet.
That said, I have been able to trace back from myself to two founding families of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Also, if anyone has ever heard of the Oak Island Treasure Hunt that has been going on since the 1700's, my 6x great grandfather was one of the ones who started the whole thing, although he did not pursue it like his friends did. They have been looking for the supposed Captain Kidd's treasure for over 200 years. If you google Oak Island Treasure you will see lots of info. There are also books written about it.
My brother says my Danish grandmother's family had royalty in it, but I told him, that we need proof, not just someone on the internet saying that it is so. And I haven't found a connection yet.
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Post by melanell on Jul 22, 2014 21:35:57 GMT
Remember before the internet there used to be stands at carnivals or festivals that would give you some decorative looking scroll with your family name, crest & history? The trees online that go back to 600 AD remind me of those.
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Post by leftturnonly on Jul 23, 2014 18:41:05 GMT
I asked about Genealogy before but failed to mention that I don't know how to handle adoption issues. My mom is adopted and my bio dad is unknown. My mother's adoption was a closed Catholic adoption over 65 years ago so documentation will be sketchy at best. The father I have known my whole life adopted me when I was 1 year old. Am I a lost cause? My ldh was legally adopted by his step-mother. Family Tree Maker considers this to be his family just as much as his bio family. Researching family teaches you a lot about the people you come from and the people who raised you. There may be a lot more that means something to you from your adopted family than from your bio one. (Oh! This is why we always had that for dinner on Christmas! type of thing.) If you have his name, and you know where you were born, when and any other names like your mom's name or if you were given a name at birth, you have a place to start. Ancestry and other web sites may get you started, and if all else fails, try Googling. I find the craziest stuff that way, including ancestors.
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Post by leftturnonly on Jul 23, 2014 18:46:27 GMT
So many of your stories are really neat! I was really interested in my ancestry but became rather discouraged after finding tragic story after tragic story. My line almost seems doomed (((Hugs)))
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Post by lbp on Jul 23, 2014 18:53:09 GMT
Dh's side has been traced back to royalty in Ireland. No one really famous.
My side has had a lot of dead ends on my fathers side. My great-great grandmother had 3 kids but never got married! No record of who the father of the children are, if it's the same man or different men. We did find out that our last name really isn't our last name! Our great-great grandfather changed his last name to his middle name.
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Post by leftturnonly on Jul 23, 2014 19:09:39 GMT
I have to agree with others that the farther back in history you get the harder it is to verify that you have the correct information. Those of you who have people on your family tree dating back into the middle ages, what kind documentation have you been able to find to prove conclusively that the royal is actually in your family tree? The biggest problem is that so many people had very similar names and not always surnames. Also, they were often very inaccurate with dates. There are some very inventive family trees on the internet. Middle ages..... 15,16 & 1700's, right? 90+ % of my kids' ancestors were among the first immigrants here to the US. There weren't many families and those that were here intermarried. Towns were named for them, as were all kinds of buildings and streets. Some of these lines have been very well documented already, and a rational, logical history from them to us is somewhat easy to establish. Once we get to crossing the Atlantic, I feel like I'm entering pre-historic times.
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Post by miominmio on Jul 23, 2014 19:29:09 GMT
I have to agree with others that the farther back in history you get the harder it is to verify that you have the correct information. Those of you who have people on your family tree dating back into the middle ages, what kind documentation have you been able to find to prove conclusively that the royal is actually in your family tree? The biggest problem is that so many people had very similar names and not always surnames. Also, they were often very inaccurate with dates. There are some very inventive family trees on the internet. Middle ages..... 15,16 & 1700's, right? 90+ % of my kids' ancestors were among the first immigrants here to the US. There weren't many families and those that were here intermarried. Towns were named for them, as were all kinds of buildings and streets. Some of these lines have been very well documented already, and a rational, logical history from them to us is somewhat easy to establish. Once we get to crossing the Atlantic, I feel like I'm entering pre-historic times. No. The Middle Age was ca 500-1500. After the Reformation (which started in 1517), access to Catholic church records was mostly lost. The only reason I have been able to trace one of my lines before that, is because an ancestor who was born mid-1500 was a bishop for most of southern Norway and he wrote a biography about his parents and grand-parents. I can probably trace my family even a bit further, but access to those primary sources are difficult because it means applying to foreign universities for access to their libraries, and that's not easy to get if you're not a scientist. Back then, being a bishop meant you were probably an aristocrat's younger son, but again, primary sources are difficult to access. At least here in Norway, there are records of emigrants, so if any of you is of Norwegian ancestry, it should be possible to trace your ancestry further back, 1750-ish is usually fairly easy (in geneaology terms, at least). And half the population emigrated, so there are now more Americans of Norwegian ancestry than Norwegians living in Norway.
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Post by leftturnonly on Jul 23, 2014 19:37:20 GMT
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Post by gillyp on Jul 23, 2014 19:58:57 GMT
I have to agree with others that the farther back in history you get the harder it is to verify that you have the correct information. Those of you who have people on your family tree dating back into the middle ages, what kind documentation have you been able to find to prove conclusively that the royal is actually in your family tree? The biggest problem is that so many people had very similar names and not always surnames. Also, they were often very inaccurate with dates. There are some very inventive family trees on the internet. That said, I have been able to trace back from myself to two founding families of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Also, if anyone has ever heard of the Oak Island Treasure Hunt that has been going on since the 1700's, my 6x great grandfather was one of the ones who started the whole thing, although he did not pursue it like his friends did. They have been looking for the supposed Captain Kidd's treasure for over 200 years. If you google Oak Island Treasure you will see lots of info. There are also books written about it. My brother says my Danish grandmother's family had royalty in it, but I told him, that we need proof, not just someone on the internet saying that it is so. And I haven't found a connection yet. Inventive they most certainly are! Unfortunately some people are more interested in quantity than quality. For my own part, I've not been able to get past the 1700s on my mother's line but I have not been able to do any research in person on hers so who knows what might be waiting to be discovered?! On my father's line I am lucky that a number of branches have formal written histories, have appeared on visitations, Burkes Peerage etc..
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Post by miominmio on Jul 23, 2014 20:40:56 GMT
;-) be kind, I'm not English, you know.
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theshyone
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,400
Jun 26, 2014 12:50:12 GMT
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Post by theshyone on Jul 23, 2014 20:48:32 GMT
I have two questions:
Does ancestry have Canadian info in it?
If I have a bio dad name, is there any way to see if and DNA has been done to see if it could be matched if I did it?
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Post by femalebusiness on Jul 23, 2014 20:56:53 GMT
I asked about Genealogy before but failed to mention that I don't know how to handle adoption issues. My mom is adopted and my bio dad is unknown. My mother's adoption was a closed Catholic adoption over 65 years ago so documentation will be sketchy at best. The father I have known my whole life adopted me when I was 1 year old. Am I a lost cause? I say don't choose, research all lines adoptive and bio. If you are like most people who get into genealogy and fall in love with the process you'll track down every line that you can. As a matter of fact that would be very interesting to note the differences and similarities between your bio and adoptive lines.
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Post by leftturnonly on Jul 23, 2014 21:01:36 GMT
;-) be kind, I'm not English, you know. I'm laughing at myself, not you. My grandfather was first generation American. I knew the English town/village/teeny tiny burg they came from. I got to the Atlantic Ocean and turned around several times before I ventured into English records. A different country with records in different languages - my hat's off to you!
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Post by gmcwife1 on Jul 23, 2014 21:01:49 GMT
I can't even imagine trying with some of the names in our tree - my mom's dad is John Delgado, hmmm, that's right up there with John Smith There will only be 1000's of them in Mexico! And my dad's family changed their name or there was an adoption or something. I know my grandmother's maiden name is Zimmerman, another one shared by how many?! My dad is the youngest and only immediate living member of his side of the family so I wouldn't have any idea where to start. So basically we are mutts of unknown origin
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raindancer
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,095
Jun 26, 2014 20:10:29 GMT
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Post by raindancer on Jul 23, 2014 21:59:14 GMT
We just received all of my dh's grandmothers files, and we found that she has relatives with my maiden name and my grandmothers maiden name. We thought it would be fun to see if back a couple hundred years ago our families married, but I have zero skills on this area.
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Post by shevy on Jul 24, 2014 4:20:42 GMT
So I mentioned in another thread that I got my DNA test back, I'm adopted so this is all very new and exciting for me. I did have my mother's name and started a family tree on Ancestry.com and I have been addicted to it. It's pretty exciting when your 10th gg is a familiar name. I guess if your family has been in the country like mine has since the beginning you're going to be related to some interesting characters in history. So far I found.. Lots of Lords, Ladies, Knights and Sirs. No Kings or Queens yet. Mylish Standish and John Alden from the Mayflower A "witch: named Rachel from the Salem Witch Trials The 2nd Governor of the Commonwealth of Mass. Thomas Dudley who was also a founder of Harvard. I also found they have a scholarship at Harvard for his direct descendants! A Mormon polygamist pioneer, who had taken his wives and children to Mexico to flee the new laws of Utah against polygamy. I thought for a while that THE John Smith was my 10th gg, but you have to really watch out for the dates because sometimes what people post on their trees is incorrect. So it was just another John Smith. It's lots of fun to me going from not related to anyone (other than my kids) to a whole lot of people!! Anyone interesting in your tree you are related to? Can I ask how much Ancestry is? And how easy it is to use? I'm thinking it may be a good gift for my mom to use in her spare time this winter.
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Post by gillyp on Jul 24, 2014 14:53:04 GMT
I have two questions: Does ancestry have Canadian info in it? If I have a bio dad name, is there any way to see if and DNA has been done to see if it could be matched if I did it? Yes, loads of Canadian info. I'm not sure if I understand your second question. Are you asking if you put in 'John Smith's' name will it show if he's had a DNA test and would it be possible to compare your results with his if you have one done?
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theshyone
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,400
Jun 26, 2014 12:50:12 GMT
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Post by theshyone on Jul 25, 2014 9:19:31 GMT
I have two questions: Does ancestry have Canadian info in it? If I have a bio dad name, is there any way to see if and DNA has been done to see if it could be matched if I did it? Yes, loads of Canadian info. I'm not sure if I understand your second question. Are you asking if you put in 'John Smith's' name will it show if he's had a DNA test and would it be possible to compare your results with his if you have one done? Im not really sure how it works so I'm wondering. can you tell if someone else has had the DNA stuff entered? or do you only know if you have yours done? i guess I'm asking more info on how related matches through DNA are made? Can I tell if john smith has had a DNA test? If he has had a test, if I then test can you do a direct comparison or is it something only ancestry suggest?
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