Researching your family history, a positive pursuit or a definite no no?

Treacle

Treacle

Senior Member
Location
Swindon Wiltshire UK
For over 30 years I researched the Austrian side of my family. If my grandmother had decided to revert back to her maiden name I would have found her and I would know all about my mum and she would have seen her grandchildren for the first time in her life. But the good news is I found a distant relative, however he did not know mum.
On the English side I traced an ancestor back to the 1760 s. One of the most shocking parts in the research was the fact that an ancestor who was deaf and dumb was put in an asylum , common practice back then, I guess, especially if she had no one to care for her.
For me this was a positive pursuit and although I didn't find, what was initially my motivation for doing the research, i.e tracing anyone that new mum in Austria, it was the history, the documentation, recording of events both in Austria and England, the differences over the centuries etc etc that outweighed anything I did not find. So it's a big YES. It has truly been a very positive pursuit and one that I enjoyed immensely. (Ooh wonder if I can get a job on Long Lost Families!!!!!) :D
 

I had a great aunt on my dad's side who traced our family tree from her mother's side of the family. They were originally Swedish who in the 13th or 14th century emigrated to the Netherlands. The owned vast properties in Maapes, Netherlands on the Zuider Zee. 2 brothers, (one of whom is my direct ancestor), sailed for America and landed in Brooklyn in 1640. Both brothers separated and became successful farmers and landowners. Also had enormous families through a couple of marriages, so I've relatives on that side I've never known nor will I ever. On my mother's side, both her parents were Irish, but from the North and South. I have met some whose parents I knew through Ancestry and we've reconnected with my mom's Philadelphia family. Interesting to learn some things never before known.
 

I always felt close to the Irish, (didn't know why). My dad died thinking he was Swedish. I was always told I was Scandinavian. My daughter bought me an Ancestry.com kit and I found I'm half Norse, and the rest is Swede, Irish and Welsh! Wish he would have known this during his lifetime! and I'm ecstatic to know my inner feelings were correct! Excited to be part Welsh!
 
Instead of going back wards researching family,, I went forward.
My mother was youngest of large family.

As a young girl I have vague memories of my older cousins.
With some birth defects showing up in my immediate family,, wanted to learn if any showed up in any of the cousins.

Learned that couple of cousins died in auto crashes.
Some married but opted to not have children.
Another told me to not interested in helping reach their siblings.

Hopefuly when Winter returns I'll start digging into family history, again.
 
Definitely a positive pursuit! For my whole life I was lead to believe that my grandfather, my mother's father's family were horrible people and I only remember seeing my grandfather once on the street when he came up to my mother and me. He was a drinker and had been arrested many times for working for the mob in our area during prohibition. My grandmother was separated from him and he had moved to another state by the time us grandkids were born. My grandmother told stories about his family that now, I don't think were entirely true.

Taking the big step and subscribing to Ancestry changed my life! It really did! I have found a rich family line and ancestors that I now even dream about! Their stories fascinate me and I put them together based on census records and other historical information. I wish so much my mother was alive so I could be sharing this with her. She would have loved to have known this stuff. I am related to many historical figures, some royalty and even Abraham Lincoln (that is why I was so distressed to learn of his memorial being vandalized) is a distant cousin of mine. I have gone back as far as the 1400's, I think. Might be farther. I work on this all the time so get mixed up. I am putting together a book (a loose leaf notebook really) about them so I can show it to my brother (who is a American history nut and has a wild west show that he puts on in various places around NY & PA).

Plus I have met several cousins on Facebook who are are related to me through my grandfather's sisters. That is the best part! I was hoping to meet them this summer but now this quarantine thing put that plan on hold.
 
On the line I am researching I am stopped at 1796. I was the only one researching this line that was able to get back this far, but now it’s a brick wall. I am mostly Irish (Kilpatrick clan), some German Jewish, and Native American (Kickapoo tribe); which I thought had died out but hasn’t.
 
Last edited:
I have both sides of my family going back to the 1600s.

The thing that is missing are the family tree details from the late 1960s to date.

I don't have much interest in the dry details of family tree information.

I enjoy the little snippets of information about the people and how they lived.

It's funny how most of the recorded stories have to do with the lives of the scamps and scoundrels in the family.
 
A lot of people don't collect the information of the aunts, uncles, cousins, step people........I want to know it all. I visited the local cemeteries and found my ancestors there. I was so excited, like I knew them in person. Some part of me did though. I know it sounds silly, but I feel a bond to my fourth great grandmother and go to her grave often. Now I think I might get my boyfriend to take me there this week.

I am especially interested in the soldiers in my family and am making a special page about them and which wars they were in. It is all interesting to me. Sometimes I even look for their houses or where they might have been.
 
Gaer said:
I always felt close to the Irish, (didn't know why). My dad died thinking he was Swedish. I was always told I was Scandinavian. My daughter bought me an Ancestry.com kit and I found I'm half Norse, and the rest is Swede, Irish and Welsh! Wish he would have known this during his lifetime! and I'm ecstatic to know my inner feelings were correct! Excited to be part Welsh!
Click to expand...

Several branches of my family have mistakenly passed along Irish ancestry family lore. Turns out it's Scotch-Irish (Scots that settled in Ireland during the time of the Jacobean era Ulster plantation resettlements). Before the potato famine wave of Irish immigration to the US in the mid 1800s, the Scotch-Irish in America did refer to themselves simply as Irish. They started making the distinction of Scotch-Irish after the large 'true' Irish immigration wave.

Years ago, before I got interested in family history or knew the above, I read a novel (that I cannot find now!!!) set in the outer islands of Scotland. As the author described the people, the houses, the sea and especially the wind, I felt like I was literally there ...had been there ...actually KNEW the place and felt the wind (I love windy days btw). I'm a voracious reader and have only experienced that once. Later when I got interested in genealogy and started doing DNA testing on family members, I learned that a good bit of our DNA is Scottish Highlands and Islands including the Hebrides which matches the description of the place in the novel. I firmly believe in genetic memory.
 
Last edited:
My Sister in Denver is getting ready to move to a new house, and she recently sent me a big box of old pictures, etc., that she collected from my parents house when they passed. I just briefly glanced through some of them, and it looks like it is a good collection of our very early years. This will be a good way to pass some time during these hot Summer days, and I hope to organize all this stuff to eventually pass along to our kids and grandkids. It has already brought back some memories.
 
The green antenna sticking out of the top of my head is probably evidence of the Martian branch of my family.
And, if there were any bank robbers among my ancestors, I wonder if they left any clue as to where they hid the loot. :giggle:
 
I've only run into one brick wall: it was probably around the beginning of 2008 when Ancestry had a free unlimited searching for 3 days... using what I'd been told was correct spelling, I found a ship record- amazing misspelling, which I heard was common especially in those days, and so weird that I can't remember it.

Not knowing much about computers, I simply saved the record on my desktop- and when computer blew out unexpectedly I lost it, and haven't been able to find it since. In addition to Ancestry, com, I've searched every genealogy site I could find, passenger lists, ports, etc., and it doesn't seem to be anywhere.

Math is my weak point- dates, time-frames, even numbers of generations, so searching is even more complicated. But if the ship record existed in 2008 it must still be somewhere. All I know for fact is the ancestor came from Ireland. If anyone can help, I'd really appreciate it!!!


To anyone who's researching or planning to, the most important info I can give you is records are not always accurate- the top of the list of inaccurate info are the old census records. Unfortunately, I've found many people take what they find on those records as "fact" AND proceed to post the info on other sites. I've run into some doozies!!!
So double-check, triple-check, and keep checking!!!!
 
JaniceM said:
I've only run into one brick wall: it was probably around the beginning of 2008 when Ancestry had a free unlimited searching for 3 days... using what I'd been told was correct spelling, I found a ship record- amazing misspelling, which I heard was common especially in those days, and so weird that I can't remember it.

Not knowing much about computers, I simply saved the record on my desktop- and when computer blew out unexpectedly I lost it, and haven't been able to find it since. In addition to Ancestry, com, I've searched every genealogy site I could find, passenger lists, ports, etc., and it doesn't seem to be anywhere.

Math is my weak point- dates, time-frames, even numbers of generations, so searching is even more complicated. But if the ship record existed in 2008 it must still be somewhere. All I know for fact is the ancestor came from Ireland. If anyone can help, I'd really appreciate it!!!


To anyone who's researching or planning to, the most important info I can give you is records are not always accurate- the top of the list of inaccurate info are the old census records. Unfortunately, I've found many people take what they find on those records as "fact" AND proceed to post the info on other sites. I've run into some doozies!!!
So double-check, triple-check, and keep checking!!!!
Click to expand...
I once talked to a woman on ancestry who had listed my FATHER as having died and been buried in Kansas. I contacted her and told her she had the wrong info. The man she indicated had died in California and had never been buried. She had him confused with another man with the same name in the same area.

To this day my dad‘s ashes sit in a half sister’s garage, where most of his ten children are happy to leave him. I gave the woman the correct information and she refused to believe me. 🤣. Finally I said I think I know what happened to my dad, but, go ahead, leave your tree wrong! As far as I know she never changed it.

She thought she was a great researcher. Not!
 
Aneeda72 said:
I once talked to a woman on ancestry who had listed my FATHER as having died and been buried in Kansas. I contacted her and told her she had the wrong info. The man she indicated had died in California and had never been buried. She had him confused with another man with the same name in the same area.

To this day my dad‘s ashes sit in a half sister’s garage, where most of his ten children are happy to leave him. I gave the woman the correct information and she refused to believe me. 🤣. Finally I said I think I know what happened to my dad, but, go ahead, leave your tree wrong! As far as I know she never changed it.

She thought she was a great researcher. Not!
Click to expand...

That's online genealogy for you. User generated content = Lots! of errors. But people think that if they find it on Ancestry.com or the like that it's gospel.
 
Aneeda72 said:
I once talked to a woman on ancestry who had listed my FATHER as having died and been buried in Kansas. I contacted her and told her she had the wrong info. The man she indicated had died in California and had never been buried. She had him confused with another man with the same name in the same area.

To this day my dad‘s ashes sit in a half sister’s garage, where most of his ten children are happy to leave him. I gave the woman the correct information and she refused to believe me. 🤣. Finally I said I think I know what happened to my dad, but, go ahead, leave your tree wrong! As far as I know she never changed it.

She thought she was a great researcher. Not!
Click to expand...
Oh I ran into someone like that, too!
A few years ago, some woman contacted me with some interesting information- as we both had a number of ancestors not too far back in time with the same names, she refused to grasp that they were not the same people! I even went as far as to find and send her links to tombstones, etc., "This is your Richard, the other is my Richard," etc. but she seemed to think I was just jerking her around!!
 
JaniceM said:
To anyone who's researching or planning to, the most important info I can give you is records are not always accurate- the top of the list of inaccurate info are the old census records. Unfortunately, I've found many people take what they find on those records as "fact" AND proceed to post the info on other sites. I've run into some doozies!!!
So double-check, triple-check, and keep checking!!!!
Click to expand...

Very good point re census record errors. There are a lot of those.
 
AnnieA said:
That's online genealogy for you. User generated content = Lots! of errors. But people think that if they find it on Ancestry.com or the like that it's gospel.
Click to expand...
True, but also consider the original sources.
From what my mother/aunt/cousin said long ago, census-takers did everything orally and on-sight, and that accounts for a lot of the mistakes.
When that particular cousin was a child, for example, an old census record not only got her name wrong but even her gender!! Instead of the facts: female, named Joyce, the record says male named Joice!!! :ROFLMAO:

I've also found individuals listed by their nicknames instead of their true names, mistakes in how household members were related to each other, etc.
 
treeguy64 said:
I have ZERO interest in researching my family tree. I got a short, free rundown from some genealogy site many years ago. That was OK, but that's that.
Click to expand...
I'm with you.

My in-laws did a huge amount of genealogy research. When they died none of their kids or grands wanted it. No idea what happened to those records. They may have hit the trash.
 
This reminds me, my Ancestry membership will expire soon. I probably won't renew (again) because I don't spend time doing the research. I didn't keep up with the couple of cousins that were found. I think researching, if one has the patience for it can be a good thing or not, according to what is found out. We're told a bit of family history at our reunions. Something I didn't like was that the family tree traced as far back as someone had gone at the time revealed that a German slave trader was in our ancestry. One of our cousins, a family historian, produced a DVD about our ancestry. I have yet to finish watching it. I have an online friend who found out that she's got royalty in her ancestry. Also either she or someone else (I forgot) is related to a famous politician.
 
JaniceM said:
True, but also consider the original sources.
From what my mother/aunt/cousin said long ago, census-takers did everything orally and on-sight, and that accounts for a lot of the mistakes.
When that particular cousin was a child, for example, an old census record not only got her name wrong but even her gender!! Instead of the facts: female, named Joyce, the record says male named Joice!!! :ROFLMAO:

I've also found individuals listed by their nicknames instead of their true names, mistakes in how household members were related to each other, etc.
Click to expand...

Sources definitely have to be examined closely on Ancestry.com. The way I look at it, Ancestry is a good starting place and can make things pretty easy if you find a tree created by a good researcher who attaches reliable sources.

Using Ancestry DNA in conjunction with their website is immensely helpful since they've added the ThruLines feature. I have two trees at Ancestry: A "DNA experimental" tree and then an accurate tree with reliable documentation. I label and describe the experimental tree as speculative hoping that people won't copy from that one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top