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Post by leftturnonly on Mar 20, 2016 16:56:32 GMT
How y'all doin'? Anyone get DNA tests back? Dig a chink out of a wall? myboysnme - How's your research going? That last thread was pretty exciting. I just got my DNA results back. gar , @dottyscrapper , BarbaraUK - You'll be happy to hear that my "British" DNA is a mix of basically the whole continent. It looks like I got hit with the Viking/Roman/who's your Daddy bag of tricks not surprising for England. Which brings up a really odd point here - because of the food, I've always said that I'm Italian, to which my mother would just roll her eyes. Ha! Joke's on her. I am wondering if he was one of or a descendent of the Anglo children that were adopted in Quebec by French families who allowed them to keep their names. Because of the results, I was quickly matched with my cousin from this descendant. A great thing, because our fathers were the ones who had started the research and both are long gone. Now the families are back in touch. She said that her family lore had it that Mitchell was raised in Canada by a foster family! (Something I never heard before!) It looks like you were really on the right train here. How do I find out more? Happy Palm Sunday to everyone!
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BarbaraUK
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Surrounded by my yarn stash on the NE coast of England...............!! Refupea 1702
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Post by BarbaraUK on Mar 20, 2016 17:33:51 GMT
I just got my DNA results back. gar , dottyscrapper , BarbaraUK - You'll be happy to hear that my "British" DNA is a mix of basically the whole continent. It looks like I got hit with the Viking/Roman/who's your Daddy bag of tricks not surprising for England. Which brings up a really odd point here - because of the food, I've always said that I'm Italian, to which my mother would just roll her eyes. Ha! Joke's on her. Yay, happy that you got your results back.....and the 'British' bit is the sensible version! Your love of Italian food must originate from when your Italian ancestors mingled during the time the Bronze age people Yamnaya swept across Northern Europe to Britain in a mass migration over 5,000 years ago and became part of the 'British' DNA! Happy Palm Sunday to you also!
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Post by melanell on Mar 20, 2016 17:44:03 GMT
Same old, same old for me right now. I'm really at an end point on most of my branches in terms of how far back I can reach by way of the internet. (And I have been using primarily internet resources for several years now, since having 2 kids to either schlep around with me or to leave with someone makes digging outside of the home more difficult.) So instead I have been working branch by branch to find as much as I can about each branch online before I head back out to the world of historical societies, library research rooms, LDS Family Centers, court houses, churches, etc.
Over the summer, we, as a family, plan to hit a few areas where we have clusters of ancestry and check out the cemeteries, old streets, historic sites, etc. It will help me a bit in terms of getting photos to flesh out the lives of my ancestors, but more importantly it really helps makes these people into someone "real" for my kids. Whenever I connect our family to other things the kids are doing, the better, imo. The other day we read a story about a Russian Jewish family coming to America. And even in that short bit of historical fiction, there were so many opportunities to make connections to our families.
While we're in the towns we'll also do things like have picnics, visit parks, trails, or playgrounds, see if they have any tourist attractions, etc. So that way it's not like I'm spending the whole day hitting my kids over the head with branches from their family tree, LOL!
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Post by leftturnonly on Mar 20, 2016 18:08:35 GMT
Same old, same old for me right now. I'm really at an end point on most of my branches in terms of how far back I can reach by way of the internet. (And I have been using primarily internet resources for several years now, since having 2 kids to either schlep around with me or to leave with someone makes digging outside of the home more difficult.) So instead I have been working branch by branch to find as much as I can about each branch online before I head back out to the world of historical societies, library research rooms, LDS Family Centers, court houses, churches, etc. Over the summer, we, as a family, plan to hit a few areas where we have clusters of ancestry and check out the cemeteries, old streets, historic sites, etc. It will help me a bit in terms of getting photos to flesh out the lives of my ancestors, but more importantly it really helps makes these people into someone "real" for my kids. Whenever I connect our family to other things the kids are doing, the better, imo. The other day we read a story about a Russian Jewish family coming to America. And even in that short bit of historical fiction, there were so many opportunities to make connections to our families. While we're in the towns we'll also do things like have picnics, visit parks, trails, or playgrounds, see if they have any tourist attractions, etc. So that way it's not like I'm spending the whole day hitting my kids over the head with branches from their family tree, LOL! That's so good for them! You can have plenty of fun and still learn about your family when you are young. I believe it really grounds you in this life and gives you real examples of people who survived difficult times. Because let's face it. Our kids are going to have difficult times. Those historical/historical fiction stories can really get young imaginations going.
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Post by PolarGreen12 on Mar 20, 2016 18:29:10 GMT
My mom is the one working on ours. But I hear about it EVERY day. Right now she is really excited by a Huguenot and a Charlamagne connection.
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Post by Sparki on Mar 20, 2016 18:34:29 GMT
I'm also struggling along. I am searching for my dad's birth parents. He was born June 1, 1950 in York, AL and adopted. I have no names at all. I have a lot of DNA matched cousins on his side, but none closer than third cousin yet. I'm also trying to contact my mom's dad, whom we have confirmed through DNA. He lives in Anniston AL, but none of the telephone numbers that I've found work. But.....plugging away.
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Post by anniefb on Mar 20, 2016 18:54:28 GMT
I've hit a lot of apparent dead ends in various branches so it's a bit frustrating at the moment. I really need to hire a Hungarian researcher to help trace my g g grandfather's family from the Lake Balaton area - the records I have access to don't go back far enough. And I'd love to find out what happened to one great aunt who emigrated to the US and ended up in NYC. I've traced her to 1940 using the census but nothing after that.
But I am grateful for all the records online. I can sit in New Zealand and review indexes and records from the Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic - imagine having to visit all these places in person!
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Post by leftturnonly on Mar 20, 2016 18:54:57 GMT
My mom is the one working on ours. But I hear about it EVERY day. Right now she is really excited by a Huguenot and a Charlamagne connection. Are you the dutiful child that just nods along, or are you interested too?
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Post by melanell on Mar 20, 2016 18:55:43 GMT
Oh, and I'm still working on a great big convoluted mess with one of my great-great grandfather's sisters. She was married twice, but when she tried to get a divorce from her second husband she learned that the marriage wasn't legal, because her second husband had been married twice before and never divorced, nor did his previous wives pass away. It turns out that the same exact situation existed with her 1st husband as well. He had also been married twice before, and left both wives with no actual divorce taking place. So when I started trying to sort out those earlier marriages to try to determine a timeline and to try to sort out the kids involved, I found 2 more marriages each for each of the men after they had split with this woman. So that's 5 marriages for each man, with none but the first for each actually being legal. And on every marriage license the guys lie about their previous marriages. On one they claim to be a widower, on another they claim they are divorced, and on some they just swear they've never been married before! LOL! Good reminder to be careful of what you believe on these records! And that's just the beginning of the drama with these folks. They could have their own soap opera, these folks ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/grin.png) So every time I find one more piece of info, I find one more piece of drama, too! And the timeline for all of this straddles that dratted 1890 census year, so I'm constantly bemoaning the lack of records over that 20 year stretch.
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Post by leftturnonly on Mar 20, 2016 18:56:23 GMT
I'm also struggling along. I am searching for my dad's birth parents. He was born June 1, 1950 in York, AL and adopted. I have no names at all. I have a lot of DNA matched cousins on his side, but none closer than third cousin yet. I'm also trying to contact my mom's dad, whom we have confirmed through DNA. He lives in Anniston AL, but none of the telephone numbers that I've found work. But.....plugging away. Best of luck to you!
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Post by leftturnonly on Mar 20, 2016 18:57:35 GMT
But I am grateful for all the records online. I can sit in New Zealand and review indexes and records from the Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic - imagine having to visit all these places in person! It's a fantasy come true!
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Post by melanell on Mar 20, 2016 18:59:47 GMT
But I am grateful for all the records online. I can sit in New Zealand and review indexes and records from the Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic - imagine having to visit all these places in person! That's great! DH's family hails from that area on one side, but I have yet to find even one tiniest hint as to where exactly they came from. I have never seen nor heard even a single town name. So I have yet to be able to look across the seas to these areas.
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Post by leftturnonly on Mar 20, 2016 19:00:21 GMT
Oh, and I'm still working on a great big convoluted mess with one of my great-great grandfather's sisters. She was married twice, but when she tried to get a divorce from her second husband she learned that the marriage wasn't legal, because her second husband had been married twice before and never divorced, nor did his previous wives pass away. It turns out that the same exact situation existed with her 1st husband as well. He had also been married twice before, and left both wives with no actual divorce taking place. So when I started trying to sort out those earlier marriages to try to determine a timeline and to try to sort out the kids involved, I found 2 more marriages each for each of the men after they had split with this woman. So that's 5 marriages for each man, with none but the first for each actually being legal. And on every marriage license the guys lie about their previous marriages. On one they claim to be a widower, on another they claim they are divorced, and on some they just swear they've never been married before! LOL! Good reminder to be careful of what you believe on these records! And that's just the beginning of the drama with these folks. They could have their own soap opera, these folks ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/grin.png) So every time I find one more piece of info, I find one more piece of drama, too! And the timeline for all of this straddles that dratted 1890 census year, so I'm constantly bemoaning the lack of records over that 20 year stretch. More proof that truth is stranger than fiction. That's Crazytown for sure!
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Post by PolarGreen12 on Mar 20, 2016 19:29:47 GMT
My mom is the one working on ours. But I hear about it EVERY day. Right now she is really excited by a Huguenot and a Charlamagne connection. Are you the dutiful child that just nods along, or are you interested too? Lol. I'm interested. But it's an almost everyday thing. My eyes do glass over at some point. But I love that she is doing this. She just took an all day class Saturday that specifically dealt with 1600s Virginia that's when a lot of her maternal family came to the US. She's gotten so far back on both sides of her family and my dads. It is really interesting!
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Post by myboysnme on Mar 20, 2016 21:39:03 GMT
I have been very excited about the articles I am finding on newspapers.com thanks to melanell. It is both frustrating for what it doesn't say and fun for what it does say. i am in the slow process of trying to download and save the articles I find. Every step forward is liking moving through concrete, but I know the answers are out there! I couldn't really take advantage of ancestry's free Irish week because my Irish ancestors have common names and not any good info to help me YET. Also hoping one of these newspapers may have a photo or two.
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Post by PolarGreen12 on Mar 20, 2016 21:47:05 GMT
I have been very excited about the articles I am finding on newspapers.com thanks to melanell . It is both frustrating for what it doesn't say and fun for what it does say. i am in the slow process of trying to download and save the articles I find. Every step forward is liking moving through concrete, but I know the answers are out there! I couldn't really take advantage of ancestry's free Irish week because my Irish ancestors have common names and not any good info to help me YET. Also hoping one of these newspapers may have a photo or two. We joked last week about printing "Kiss Me I'm 18% Irish" T-shirts. lol
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Post by melanell on Mar 21, 2016 0:24:11 GMT
Are you the dutiful child that just nods along, or are you interested too? Lol. I'm interested. But it's an almost everyday thing. My eyes do glass over at some point. But I love that she is doing this. She just took an all day class Saturday that specifically dealt with 1600s Virginia that's when a lot of her maternal family came to the US. She's gotten so far back on both sides of her family and my dads. It is really interesting! LOL. I try really hard to gauge the interest of people I am talking to about things. My mom's tolerance level is really low, unless it has to do with her Dad's side of the family--particularly if it has to do with people she actually knew or people her relatives spoke about. My dad is actually pretty darn interested, which is exactly the opposite of how one would expect things to go with them if you knew them. Dad's kind of the gruff, stoic type, and mom's sentimental, loves traditions, etc. So there's a definitely disconnect in regards to this topic and their overall personalities. ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/5645536/images/MNrJDkDuSwqIMVw33MdD.jpg) With most people, I find that how much interest they have is based on if they knew their grandparents or great-grandparents. If I stick with close enough generations that I can be talking about someone a grandparent they remember knew, it helps. DH, for instance, isn't really interested in what his 5th great-grandmother might have done. But if I tell him a story about his Grandma Irene's grandma it makes sense to him. He can imagine his Grandma Irene doing things with her own grandmother. Since Grandma Irene is actually his great-grandmother, then her grandma is his 3rd great grandmother, and that pretty much marks the extent of personal stories I can tell him and keep his interest. Unless a story is really just interesting in general. Same with my kids, instead of referring to Mary who came close to giving birth on the ship from Italy, as their 3rd great-grandmother, I refer to her as Aunt Nina's grandmother, and then it's so much more real to them, because they know Aunt Nina.
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Post by melanell on Mar 21, 2016 0:28:27 GMT
Also hoping one of these newspapers may have a photo or two. I just love when I find a photo. Even if it's not a direct ancestor, but just some far flung random relative. ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/5645536/images/MNrJDkDuSwqIMVw33MdD.jpg) I found a photo of one of the (adult) kids involved in the craziness I posted about above just recently, and I was so excited. It was like my prize for sticking with their insanity for so long. ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/5645536/images/Q_m8lDOvc_3Le3r1GKdf.jpg) That photo was on a passport, but I have found some in the newspaper articles, too. ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/5645536/images/MNrJDkDuSwqIMVw33MdD.jpg)
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Post by myboysnme on Mar 21, 2016 0:34:09 GMT
Also hoping one of these newspapers may have a photo or two. I just love when I find a photo. Even if it's not a direct ancestor, but just some far flung random relative. ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/5645536/images/MNrJDkDuSwqIMVw33MdD.jpg) I found a photo of one of the (adult) kids involved in the craziness I posted about above just recently, and I was so excited. It was like my prize for sticking with their insanity for so long. That photo was on a passport, but I have found some in the newspaper articles, too. A passport! Hmmm. Where do I find those?
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Post by melanell on Mar 21, 2016 1:06:21 GMT
I just love when I find a photo. Even if it's not a direct ancestor, but just some far flung random relative. ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/5645536/images/MNrJDkDuSwqIMVw33MdD.jpg) I found a photo of one of the (adult) kids involved in the craziness I posted about above just recently, and I was so excited. It was like my prize for sticking with their insanity for so long. That photo was on a passport, but I have found some in the newspaper articles, too. A passport! Hmmm. Where do I find those? Sorry, it was actually an application for a passport. An emergency application. But it showed up on Ancestry. I thought it was pretty darn random, myself. Heck, I thought the fact that she was even out of the country seemed odd. Besides her father, who was in the military, I had not found anything to indicate that any of the rest of her family had ever been anywhere other than PA, NJ, & NY. It just said she was working in Cuba and wanted to return to the US at once. And it included her photo.
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Nanner
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Post by Nanner on Mar 21, 2016 1:25:53 GMT
I ordered my DNA kit last week, so it'll be some time before I have anything.
I do know however, that I have four main lines - English, Scottish, Irish and German. I am interested to see what else might appear in there.
It's funny - my mother and siblings have always been interested to hear stories, but lately they want to look at what I have. They are all becoming more interested.
I posted awhile ago about looking for records of the death of my great-grandmother's only brother (12 girls and 1 boy in the family). The story I had always heard was that he was working on a train and was killed in a train accident - that there wasn't enough of him left to put in a bag.
Come to find out that yes, he was killed on the train. He was the fireman and was shovelling coal (or whatever they shovelled in there) into the furnace (or whatever it is) on the train. Apparently to open the furnace door you stepped on something on the floor. So he had been shovelling coal or whatever into the furnace, when the train hit something on the track. This caused him to lose his balance, step on the thing on the floor that opened the furnace door and he was propelled into the furnace by this accident! He burned to death. Holy hell - what a freak accident!
A relative sent me some photos of my GGG grandparents! I was so excited to get those.
I am going to get a subscription to Newspapers.com, but not until probably next weekend. I won't have time to do anything this week. I'm hoping that there just aren't a token number of newspapers outside of the U.S. I have searched but without a subscription, it only shows me the top ones.
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Post by melanell on Mar 21, 2016 1:31:41 GMT
Oh how awful, Nanner ! But great news about the photos. ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/5645536/images/MNrJDkDuSwqIMVw33MdD.jpg) I have photos of just a very few of my 3rd great grandparents. Only 3, I think.
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scrapaddie
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Post by scrapaddie on Mar 21, 2016 3:28:13 GMT
I learned that my first Ellis grandparent came to the Virginia colony is an about 1635 as an indentured servant. His wife was born here in the colonies. I also looked up some things about my Irish ancestor, Dicey Murphree. She had five children with one of my any greats grandfathers , a Jeremiah Ellis who happened to be a Methodist minister. And then married a man by the name of Wilson and had three more children after Reverend Ellis died. There is lots of information that I can find about the Ellis side of the family, but my other three grandparents all came from Germany and it's more difficult to find information about them.
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Post by myboysnme on Mar 21, 2016 4:08:42 GMT
I ordered my DNA kit last week, so it'll be some time before I have anything. I do know however, that I have four main lines - English, Scottish, Irish and German. I am interested to see what else might appear in there. It's funny - my mother and siblings have always been interested to hear stories, but lately they want to look at what I have. They are all becoming more interested. I posted awhile ago about looking for records of the death of my great-grandmother's only brother (12 girls and 1 boy in the family). The story I had always heard was that he was working on a train and was killed in a train accident - that there wasn't enough of him left to put in a bag. Come to find out that yes, he was killed on the train. He was the fireman and was shovelling coal (or whatever they shovelled in there) into the furnace (or whatever it is) on the train. Apparently to open the furnace door you stepped on something on the floor. So he had been shovelling coal or whatever into the furnace, when the train hit something on the track. This caused him to lose his balance, step on the thing on the floor that opened the furnace door and he was propelled into the furnace by this accident! He burned to death. Holy hell - what a freak accident! A relative sent me some photos of my GGG grandparents! I was so excited to get those. I am going to get a subscription to Newspapers.com, but not until probably next weekend. I won't have time to do anything this week. I'm hoping that there just aren't a token number of newspapers outside of the U.S. I have searched but without a subscription, it only shows me the top ones. Oh how terrible! My grandmother had an uncle who worked on the railroad. He was only 24 when he was coupling two train cars together and the train lurched causing him to be impaled all the way through. There were no phones or anything of course and they carried him home and laid him on the kitchen table where he died. His wife had a 6 month old baby.
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finaledition
Pearl Clutcher
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Jun 26, 2014 0:30:34 GMT
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Post by finaledition on Mar 21, 2016 5:03:15 GMT
I got my results back this week. I have not seen my dad since I was quite young so I don't have much information so that was probably the catalyst for getting it done. No big surprises except it was nearly the same percentage of Scandinavian as I am Scottish (Irish on the test).
I can trace lines on my mom's side back to the 1600's, one line to the 1300's. I think to move forward I will need to pay to dig deeper on my father's side. I don't want to contact him to get the info so I think that's the route to take. I
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Post by joblackford on Mar 21, 2016 5:05:15 GMT
I'm new around here, so I hope it's OK that I have a couple of stories to share. I've been working on family history for the last 9 months or so, building on what other family members had found out, and trying to put it all together (getting overwhelmed with all the information!). I've been lucky to find quite a few photos - of 2nd and 3rd great grandparents and even a 4th great grandmother. It's not a very good quality photo, but since we think it was taken in the 1860s, it's really amazing that it exists at all! There are a couple of books written about the family by previous genealogists in the family which have been full of fascinating stories. I'm lucky to have these resources. I found one slightly notorious ancestor's private business plastered all over the papers of her gold mining town. I call her Slutty Maggie, which is rude, but is meant affectionately, and distinguishes her from her daughter who was also Margaret. Maggie ran away from her first husband quite soon after they were married, from Scotland to New Zealand, so it must have been a pretty bad marriage. Then she had several children with 3 different men who she couldn't marry because her husband was still alive back in Scotland. Her boys being sent off to the orphanage for being "incorrigible" was in the papers, as was her court appearance to get child support from another miner who got her into difficulties. I've read quite a bit about her life and imagined how hard it was for her kids to have a mother like this in a society that valued privacy and decency so much. But the man who fathered her 1st daughter who was my 2nd great grandma ended up eventually being a very prominent citizen and politician. The gold mining town where they lived has a family history center and I keep meaning to send them all the information we have on this child that was unknown to the public - he was on her birth certificate though, and kind of acknowledged her in his will, without actually saying "my daughter." I found another story about a distant cousin that was worth retelling to everyone who would listen. A young Welsh woman meets her cousins and widowed uncle for the first time and decided to wed her uncle, but they made a plan to marry after they emigrated to Idaho so she could get a timber claim as a single woman. Then they returned to NZ, where he had lived previously with a bag full of 5000 gold sovereigns in profit! Old Edward (in his 70s) realized that his young wife and kids would soon be without him, so he made one of his oldest sons promise to "look after" Mary... yeah, you know where this is going! so after Mary's uncle/husband Edward died she married Tom, her cousin/stepson! Very interesting family... I kind of wish they were part of my direct line! I need to spend more time going through the documents I've found and organizing the information, but I love telling these crazy family stories ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/5645536/images/MNrJDkDuSwqIMVw33MdD.jpg)
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Sue
Pearl Clutcher
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Location: SE of Portland, Oregon
Jun 26, 2014 18:42:33 GMT
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Post by Sue on Mar 21, 2016 6:14:34 GMT
I'm new around here, so I hope it's OK that I have a couple of stories to share. I've been working on family history for the last 9 months or so, building on what other family members had found out, and trying to put it all together (getting overwhelmed with all the information!). I've been lucky to find quite a few photos - of 2nd and 3rd great grandparents and even a 4th great grandmother. It's not a very good quality photo, but since we think it was taken in the 1860s, it's really amazing that it exists at all! There are a couple of books written about the family by previous genealogists in the family which have been full of fascinating stories. I'm lucky to have these resources. I found one slightly notorious ancestor's private business plastered all over the papers of her gold mining town. I call her Slutty Maggie, which is rude, but is meant affectionately, and distinguishes her from her daughter who was also Margaret. Maggie ran away from her first husband quite soon after they were married, from Scotland to New Zealand, so it must have been a pretty bad marriage. Then she had several children with 3 different men who she couldn't marry because her husband was still alive back in Scotland. Her boys being sent off to the orphanage for being "incorrigible" was in the papers, as was her court appearance to get child support from another miner who got her into difficulties. I've read quite a bit about her life and imagined how hard it was for her kids to have a mother like this in a society that valued privacy and decency so much. But the man who fathered her 1st daughter who was my 2nd great grandma ended up eventually being a very prominent citizen and politician. The gold mining town where they lived has a family history center and I keep meaning to send them all the information we have on this child that was unknown to the public - he was on her birth certificate though, and kind of acknowledged her in his will, without actually saying "my daughter." I found another story about a distant cousin that was worth retelling to everyone who would listen. A young Welsh woman meets her cousins and widowed uncle for the first time and decided to wed her uncle, but they made a plan to marry after they emigrated to Idaho so she could get a timber claim as a single woman. Then they returned to NZ, where he had lived previously with a bag full of 5000 gold sovereigns in profit! Old Edward (in his 70s) realized that his young wife and kids would soon be without him, so he made one of his oldest sons promise to "look after" Mary... yeah, you know where this is going! so after Mary's uncle/husband Edward died she married Tom, her cousin/stepson! Very interesting family... I kind of wish they were part of my direct line! I need to spend more time going through the documents I've found and organizing the information, but I love telling these crazy family stories Thanks for sharing your family stories. Genealogy rarely gets dull, does it? ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/5645536/images/MNrJDkDuSwqIMVw33MdD.jpg) You just never know what will turn up!
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Post by pas2 on Mar 21, 2016 11:03:41 GMT
I just got my DNA results back and there were no surprises on my European roots since I favor my mother's side of the family. I was disappointed in that there was no trace of my supposed Native American roots. I am waiting for my brothers DNA test since he strongly favors our fathers side and looks Native American. I have been fortunate in not having to research 3/4 of my family tree since I inherited several printed genealogies dating back to their arrival in the US in the late 1700's. We are trying to prove that my father's great grandmother was indeed Native American (probably Delaware). Unfortunately that line had met with lots of tragic deaths and all I have to go on are family stories from people who's parents died when they were very young.
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Nanner
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Post by Nanner on Mar 21, 2016 11:49:47 GMT
Oh how terrible! My grandmother had an uncle who worked on the railroad. He was only 24 when he was coupling two train cars together and the train lurched causing him to be impaled all the way through. There were no phones or anything of course and they carried him home and laid him on the kitchen table where he died. His wife had a 6 month old baby. That's just awful!!! There's a quote that describe those days very well, to me. I read it in a book years ago: "The good old days were actually the bad old days". This was referring to how many children died young.
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Nanner
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Post by Nanner on Mar 21, 2016 11:51:24 GMT
Same old, same old for me right now. I'm really at an end point on most of my branches in terms of how far back I can reach by way of the internet. (And I have been using primarily internet resources for several years now, since having 2 kids to either schlep around with me or to leave with someone makes digging outside of the home more difficult.) So instead I have been working branch by branch to find as much as I can about each branch online before I head back out to the world of historical societies, library research rooms, LDS Family Centers, court houses, churches, etc. Over the summer, we, as a family, plan to hit a few areas where we have clusters of ancestry and check out the cemeteries, old streets, historic sites, etc. It will help me a bit in terms of getting photos to flesh out the lives of my ancestors, but more importantly it really helps makes these people into someone "real" for my kids. Whenever I connect our family to other things the kids are doing, the better, imo. The other day we read a story about a Russian Jewish family coming to America. And even in that short bit of historical fiction, there were so many opportunities to make connections to our families. While we're in the towns we'll also do things like have picnics, visit parks, trails, or playgrounds, see if they have any tourist attractions, etc. So that way it's not like I'm spending the whole day hitting my kids over the head with branches from their family tree, LOL! That sounds like a fabulous trip! I would love to do something like that!
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