Genealogy ?

Sliverfox said:
Have been doing a bit of searching for ancestors.
Maternal side search gone as far as Ireland , where my cousins meant with the era where church records were destroyed.

Any other Irish searchers here?
Click to expand...
Quite a few years ago, Ancestry.com had a special search-for-3-days-free. I was delighted to find the ship record of ancestor who came here from Ireland. Not knowing much about computers at the time, it didn't occur to me to 'save' it anywhere, and when the computer quit I lost the record that had been on the desktop. Have never been able to locate it again- not on Ancestry or anywhere else. :(
 
Yes, I've done extensive family research on both sides of my family. Also had DNA tests on myself and many close family members. It's a fascinating hobby but very time consuming. Great activity for retirees since so much information is now available on-line.

Both maternal and paternal lines were Scots-Irish emigrating pre-Revolutionary.
 

How really good is Ancestry.com? A long time ago, it was pretty much at the dawn of the computer age, I subscribed to Ancestry. At that time, all of the information was things you , yourself, typed in.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
How really good is Ancestry.com? A long time ago, it was pretty much at the dawn of the computer age, I subscribed to Ancestry. At that time, all of the information was things you , yourself, typed in.
Click to expand...
They have basic info for free, but if you want lots of info you have to pay. Once I get some projects completed, I will pay for a few months and try to get all the info I need, but since most of my ancestors are from Italy it is kind of hard.

I've also done the DNA kit.
 
Oh yes. I'm a member or 23andMe.

Its very detailed, and I found that I am 46% British and Irish, 38% German and French, 2% Angolan and Congolese? Southern European 3%.

So I was not exactly comfortable with that, but it's o.k. Shockingly, I also have an Italian in there way back as well as a Chinese.

The more I looked the worse it got.

Suffice it to say that if I were a dog, I'd be taken to the pound as a mutt.
 
exwisehe said:
Oh yes. I'm a member or 23andMe.

Its very detailed, and I found that I am 46% British and Irish, 38% German and French, 2% Angolan and Congolese? Southern European 3%.

So I was not exactly comfortable with that, but it's o.k. Shockingly, I also have an Italian in there way back as well as a Chinese.

The more I looked the worse it got.

Suffice it to say that if I were a dog, I'd be taken to the pound as a mutt.
Click to expand...
Why?
 
My daughter and I subscribe to 23andMe. My daughter and husband have a bit of Irish blood.

As for me, I've recently been contacted by a 2nd cousin that I didn't know I had. It will be interesting to find out more about my paternal grand and great-grandparents, as my father never spoke of them. I only know that he took his mother's surname when he was old enough to make it legal.

Anyway .. back to the Irish!
 
My Husband is Irish and his older brother did searches for their Ancestry. He sent us everything he found out about the family. My cousin did search for my Dad's ancestry and he sent me all the info he found. I just wish someone would research my Mom's ancestry. I don't have the patience to do it myself.
 
Ken N Tx said:
I found that they let too much false info to be put in...My GGG Grandmother had 13 children the last one was when she was 46!! Also had 3 children after her husband had died!!!
Click to expand...
Well, the age isn't impossible- when my mother was born, her mother was 45 yrs old.

However, much comes from census records, and mistakes on census records can be absolutely outrageous. I found quite a few myself. The dopiest example was a record listed my female cousin JOYCE as male named "JOICE"! They couldn't even get genders accurate!!!! And it's not the only example of serious errors I've run into.
 
Well, I had always been told that I had (American) Indian, but apparently that was not so. My first cousin told me that we had Creole Indian and even showed me a picture. I was somehow proud of that and told everyone who asked what my background was Indian and that I was originally from the South (sorry about that break a moment ago; I sneezed and accidentally hit the enter button.)

My daughter is more into this sort of thing than I am. She told me (I don't know if its true or not) that way back in those days that some folks would say when asked that were Indian because they would get more benefits.

I think I am more Irish though. Even as a young lad, we had a '78 record player (remember those?) and my dad loved Bing Crosby. So he would buy his records. One album he had was Crosby singing Irish songs. For some reason I would listen to those for hours and my favorite was "Irish Eyes". At that time I had no idea I had Irish ancesters.
 
Last edited:
I'm from Irish/Scottish parentage...all of my grandparents on both sides were Irish... I was born and raised in Scotland..but we Scots and Irish are all Celts together, we're a very close knit family as nations..
 
All my lines immigrated as Scots-Irish but there was a lot of mix prior to immigration as evident in my DNA mix - 48% British, 25% Scot, 24% Scandinavian and 3% mutt. I'm proud of my mix. Who knows which little part contributed what to today's me and I'm quite happy with me as is.

2020's Ancestry is very much different from 20 years ago. Many states have put their old public record (birth, death, marriage, etc.) on line and they are available and searchable by individual name through Ancestry as well as the public trees of lots of other amateur researchers.

It's true that these trees often include a lot of incorrect material but if you remember that the Public Trees are nothing more than the findings and assumptions of other amateurs such as yourself and subject to error as your own research would be if you gathered and shared it with others.

If you study about how census records were gathered in earlier times (such as the 1800s) you'll be amazed at their accuracy and wealth of information.

For serious researchers, Ancestry's cost is worth it.
 
Didn't intend it to be limited to Irish.

Still got my father's side to look into,, probably German or English there.

Reading about the census records in post above mine.

If memory serves me correctly,, for some reason my Grand father didn't not want to talk to them.
He didn't like antique dealers either. ????
 
gennie said:
All my lines immigrated as Scots-Irish but there was a lot of mix prior to immigration as evident in my DNA mix - 48% British, 25% Scot, 24% Scandinavian and 3% mutt. I'm proud of my mix. Who knows which little part contributed what to today's me and I'm quite happy with me as is.

2020's Ancestry is very much different from 20 years ago. Many states have put their old public record (birth, death, marriage, etc.) on line and they are available and searchable by individual name through Ancestry as well as the public trees of lots of other amateur researchers.

It's true that these trees often include a lot of incorrect material but if you remember that the Public Trees are nothing more than the findings and assumptions of other amateurs such as yourself and subject to error as your own research would be if you gathered and shared it with others.

If you study about how census records were gathered in earlier times (such as the 1800s) you'll be amazed at their accuracy and wealth of information.

For serious researchers, Ancestry's cost is worth it.
Click to expand...
Long before I ever saw a computer, I heard the LDS church (the real one, not the cults) had been compiling genealogy records for a long time, not just members of their church but everybody. Awhile back I found their site familysearch.org, where you can find tons of records and other info and they don't charge anything.
 
I only know of one LDS/Mormon church headquartered in Salt Lake City UT and yes they did collect primary records, mostly church records of marriages and births, etc. Most individual Mormon churches have a small room devoted to searchable files and there is a huge repository in Salt Lake City. All are open to public and are free with volunteers to assist researchers. I spent several weeks researching there.

The Quaker church also kept early incidental as well as complete primary records of their members. If you had Quaker ancestors, you may even learn such things as whether they parented an illegitimate child or took the Lord's name in vain.
 
exwisehe said:
Well, I had always been told that I had (American) Indian, but apparently that was not so. My first cousin told me that we had Creole Indian and even showed me a picture. I was somehow proud of that and told everyone who asked what my background was Indian and that I was originally from the South (sorry about that break a moment ago; I sneezed and accidentally hit the enter button.)

My daughter is more into this sort of thing than I am. She told me (I don't know if its true or not) that way back in those days that some folks would say when asked that were Indian because they would get more benefits.

I think I am more Irish though. Even as a young lad, we had a '78 record player (remember those?) and my dad loved Bing Crosby. So he would buy his records. One album he had was Crosby singing Irish songs. For some reason I would listen to those for hours and my favorite was "Irish Eyes". At that time I had no idea I had Irish ancesters.
Click to expand...
Thanks for clarifying! :)
Reason I was wondering- and even more so since you mentioned what your daughter said- you said Angolan and I noticed your location. When I first started researching, I noticed around the web that people in the distant past who were "Melungeon" (combination of Native American, African, & White) occasionally tried to pass themselves off as Portuguese to try to avoid discrimination, and others simply didn't know their heritages.
Not meaning to be nosy, but it's possible you might have had African ancestors who married Native Americans & Whites.
 
gennie said:
I only know of one LDS/Mormon church headquartered in Salt Lake City UT and yes they did collect primary records, mostly church records of marriages and births, etc. Most individual Mormon churches have a small room devoted to searchable files and there is a huge repository in Salt Lake City. All are open to public and are free with volunteers to assist researchers. I spent several weeks researching there.

The Quaker church also kept early incidental as well as complete primary records of their members. If you had Quaker ancestors, you may even learn such things as whether they parented an illegitimate child or took the Lord's name in vain.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's them. And it's the website I mentioned.
 
Yes you're right, Janice. I did not want to mention the word Melungeon, but that is exactly what my daughter said. thanks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top