Genealogy

J

Josiah

Senior Member
Location
50 miles east of Cincinnati, OH
I'm really quite surprised that in the months I've been active on SF I've never encountered a thread about genealogy. I always thought that genealogy was a favorite subject among older people and I was hoping to acquire some expertise in an area I've only dabbled in. Sigh.
 

I recall having a discussion on it months ago, but it was probably another topic and it lead to a discussion of genealogy.

I am interested in it and about 10 years ago I did a lot of research with help of cousins, some of whom I found online when I posted on a message board with specific names. Research is very addictive - I was on Ancestry.com for a year and went through censuses with a fine tooth comb. A very distant cousin who did most of his research long before the internet even posted me a big package of copies of various papers - not cheap as it was international shipping.
 
My brothers and I got into this a bit but I soon lost interest. Our distant ancestors were not wealthy and could not afford to have their portraits painted, and there were no heirlooms or vast estates handed down. So once we got back a couple centuries, it was just a list of names.
 

Glinda said:
My brothers and I got into this a bit but I soon lost interest. Our distant ancestors were not wealthy and could not afford to have their portraits painted, and there were no heirlooms or vast estates handed down. So once we got back a couple centuries, it was just a list of names.
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According to my charts, Glinda you are my 16th cousin twice removed.
 
There've been a couple of threads on here addressing the matter, but, I'm sure others will be happy to join in the conversation again such things often come up on forums.
 
The boyfriend and I got into genealogy a few years ago and it's been like slogging through molasses at times. I had come to a complete brick wall on my father's side of the family, so in our travels, we went to the tiny mountain town in Virginia where I knew my grandfather had been born. The caretaker at the cemetery said to go and see a lady at the town hall who is in charge of the cemetery as she came from an old local family. I told her who I was looking for and she said, "What a coincidence. Someone was in here last week looking for the same family. I wrote his name on a post-it note....now what did I do with it?" She dug around on her desk and finally dumped her wastebasket out on the floor and found the post-it note. Turned out to be a second cousin once-removed who is a BIG TIME genealogist. He drove over to the town a couple days later, we had a long lunch and he took us to the graveyard and showed me all the people I am related to, which was a heck of a lot of people in that graveyard. The problem I was having was that somewhere between 1899 and 1907, his and my branch of the family changed their last name and mine moved out of state. No wonder I couldn't find them before 1910! He put me in touch with another second cousin once-removed who was a reenactor at Harper's Ferry and who was able to send me a photograph of my great-grandfather. Then he put me onto a true second cousin who I got to meet out in California last summer. His grandmother was my grandfather's sister, who married one of the Hatfield boys and had two sons by him. So I got three brand-new cousins who I would have never met otherwise. And I'm probably related to the lady at the town hall, to boot.

What's more, my genealogist cousin started in working on the family tree with my boyfriend and it looks like they are distantly related through their mothers. Small world. Not to mention that the boyfriend might be related to the lady at the town hall, too. Really small world.

The boyfriend's mother's family has a quite extensive genealogy collection, so he knows a lot about his family. During the course of that summer, we visited the West Virginia grave of his great-great grandfather who was a well-known traveling preacher during the Civil War who went all over the south (and the southern part of the north) establishing Methodist Episcopal churches. He was arrested several times by both the Confederates and the Northern Army on suspicion of being a spy for either side, as he had to cross battles lines frequently. We also visited the Annapolis house of his great-great-great-great grandfather, who had been a tailor in Baltimore and made clothes for Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (the family genealogist has actual bills of sales for these). We visited the church he attended and saw his name still on the pew that he "owned". His Annapolis house is now a bed-and-breakfast inn, but the people who own it let us come in and tour it. His Baltimore house, however, is currently somewhere under a hospital complex. Other members of his family actually were in Billy the Kid's gang.

My family, unfortunately, was not that distinguished, either for the good or the bad, except for one of my grandfather's cousins who became an actor out in Hollywood. One ancestor had his marriage bond signed by Patrick Henry who was governor of Virginia at the time. That's about as close to famous people as we ever got. My great-grandmother was a Melungeon (a mélange of Black, white and Cherokee Indian) and was supposed to be a great beauty in her day. The only picture I've ever seen of her was when she was an hugely obese old lady who bore a startling resemblance to Jabba the Hutt.

My paternal grandmother's family, I know very little about except that her father, an Englishman, ran off to become a Mormon shortly before she was born.

My mom's side were solid Southern farmers and plantation owners. No scandals or extreme achievements as far as I know. I've often wondered, since they were all from around the same area, if some of my mom's ancestors owned some of my dad's ancestors??? Wouldn't that be a hoot?

As I said, it's like wading through molasses. I had a wonderful day at the Genealogy Center that the Mormon Church runs in Salt Lake City. You can track down just about anything through them. They have genealogy centers in quite a few large cities and anybody can use them. They charge nothing except for a small charge for printing stuff and sometimes not even that.

OK, taking off my genealogist hat.
 
Thanks Jujube for the extensive summary of your genealogical experiences. I was nice that you and the boyfriend could share the experience together. You don't have to go back too many generations before you would find that a lot of us have common ancestors. I sent my son who lives in Tennessee a picture of the home of one of his great great great grandfathers. He has duly impressed until in mentioned that this ancestor had had 21 children and it was probably the case that a quarter of the population of the state were descendants of this man.
 
I have a written history to some degree of my maternal side, but really it only covers one my mother's and her father's side, I only have a few details about my mother's grand father from her mother's side. I do know some of the blood lines, but, I haven't any great curiosities, but, would like to know a little more about my mother's mother's father, what little I did hear of him was interesting. The other great grand, I've already discussed and have the written history dating back to his parents in slavery, but they don't know of the african or much about indian tribes and other's origins or getting together. I know several of the women were listed as mutts in my great-grandad's book I have. It's interesting to see how they were described down the line. But it is the reason you see so many hues among blacks, many of the people have bloodline mixtures that most haven't a clue about. I'm not curious about how much of a mixture, just curious about some of the people in general, especially my dad's dad, whom died before I was born and about my mother's grand on her mother's side. I'm going to have to ring up one of my most annoying aunts to get the details again on him, last time we chatted though, I put her on a long hold. :eek:nthego: So, she might not take my call, but, then we have birthdays a day apart, so, maybe she'll accept a birthday call. LOL She's the one who has kept a long log of the family history, we used to visit one of my grand-uncles up in his VA nursing home when I lived in NY, this uncle was related to, the great grand I'm referring to.

I don't know, maybe it would be interesting to find out more details, I don't have much info on my dad's dad other than african, cuban, cherokee, mohawk origins, I never really had long chats with him or any of his family members about his family history.
 
I recall seeing some thread or conversation on genealogy and for a couple or three years I was really into it. I learned some things, but in the end you realize we are all cousins.
 
drifter said:
I recall seeing some thread or conversation on genealogy and for a couple or three years I was really into it. I learned some things, but in the end you realize we are all cousins.
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Would that be the annoying cousin who comes to stay for a week and leaves about a month later?;)
 
It could be or it could be that striking gent you see playing bridge that all the gals are crazy about.
 
My father's side of the family has been quite easy to research. Going back 10 or so generations almost all of my three thousand plus ancestors on his side of the family were born in this country. My mother's parents immigrated from Lithuania and I've totally struck out there not even knowing the family's unAmericanized Lithuanian name. When I say I've struck out, what I'm saying is that as an inexperienced genealogist, I haven't really known how to begin. I really miss not knowing something about my Lithuanian kin folk, I mean that's half of who I am. I've noted that many Russians, like myself are eyebrow deficient (not Joseph Stalin) and that's about all I know of my Slavic heritage.
 
Josiah
I have been studying my genealogy for some 35 years and have got connected 100,000 names across the world. My own surname line going back to 1660.
Where do you want to start on Genealogy?
How have you recorded it, on paper or on a program and if so what is the name of the program?
 
I have some details about my geneology.... on both my maternal and paternal side... I know when everyone emigrated, from what part of Germany and what ship they arrived on..
 
Josiah said:
I'm really quite surprised that in the months I've been active on SF I've never encountered a thread about genealogy. I always thought that genealogy was a favorite subject among older people and I was hoping to acquire some expertise in an area I've only dabbled in. Sigh.
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I got interested in genealogy when I learned that my paternal g.grandfather was orphaned. For every one question answered it seemed like at least 3 new questions would surface. And, for every branch of the family tree I got interested in, I'd get side-tracked to follow still other ancestral lines.

I recently rekindled the genealogy hobby, and thought it would be interesting to do a DNA test. I figured $99 wouldn't break my budget, so I got a test kit from familytreedna.com. I should get results by mid May, so I'll report back with whatever comes up.
 
jujube said:
It's a pity that I had no interest in my family history when my grandparents were alive. There are so many things I would love to ask them now.
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Same here. I think many of us are kicking ourselves for not asking questions when grandparents and others were still alive.
 
Never worry about getting side tracked on a tree as you will be surprised where it will in the end help you in another area.Some times somebody will post just the thing you need from the side track that will take you back to your direct line.
 
tnthomas said:
I got interested in genealogy when I learned that my paternal g.grandfather was orphaned. For every one question answered it seemed like at least 3 new questions would surface. And, for every branch of the family tree I got interested in, I'd get side-tracked to follow still other ancestral lines.

I recently rekindled the genealogy hobby, and thought it would be interesting to do a DNA test. I figured $99 wouldn't break my budget, so I got a test kit from familytreedna.com. I should get results by mid May, so I'll report back with whatever comes up.
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I did one of those and results are guesses based on having a haplogroup from certain areas. My sister and my paternal aunt did one as well.

The only heritage I'm 100% sure about is two sets of gggrandparents who left Ireland in 1851 and 1853 or 54. Two of their children married so my paternal grandmother was totally Irish. I've seen the graves of both sets of gggrandparents in Michigan. As for the rest it's only a guess by surname where they probably came from - England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Germany.
 
jujube said:
It's a pity that I had no interest in my family history when my grandparents were alive. There are so many things I would love to ask them now.
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Josiah said:
I've said the same thing over and over again, and not just my grandparents, my parents went to their grave with so much information that I would now love to have.
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Ameriscot said:
Same here. I think many of us are kicking ourselves for not asking questions when grandparents and others were still alive.
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ditto.gif I got involved with our genealogy late in life.

I did a lot of research (Free Sites) and found most of my ancestors back to 1770 here in the states. I hit a brick wall, for years prior to that, and found a lot of mistakes/entries that the internet allowed others to submit. I stopped at 1770.
 
Ameriscot said:
Same here. I think many of us are kicking ourselves for not asking questions when grandparents and others were still alive.
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I was fortunate to have had a conversation with my grandmother before she died.. She was 11 years old when her family made the voyage from the port of Hamburg to New York's Ellis Island. She told me all about her experiences and impressions.. about how she stood in line and doctors did physical exams on all the immigrants, including taking an instument and looking under everyone's eyelids for a parasite that if present, would get them put right back on a ship to Germany. Everyone held their breath until my great grandparents and their 5 children (my grandma and her siblings) passed the physical.

Then they were given a snack while they were waiting to be processed. .. Grandma tells me that she was given a piece of fruit... a banana.. She had never seen one before.. so she ate it... and hated it.. It wasn't until someone told her that you PEEL it before eating it, that she found out she loved bananas.

She described Ellis Island and how HUGE the grand hall was... and how scared they were.. until they finally were cleared and she and her family were put on a train to Chicago. He father was a blacksmith. He opened a shop at Archer and Ashland in Chicago.. She would ride horses down the streets of Chicago!! That's how she met my grandfather... He was working as a roofer, and he fell off the roof watching her gallop by on a horse..

Such precious stories for me to know..


I finally had the opportunity to visit Ellis Island in 2004.. I stood in the Grand Hall and pictured my grandma as a little girl standing in lines after arriving on a ship.. It was HUGE... it must have been so terrifying and exciting at the same time..
 
Great stories QS! Those are the kinds of details I'd love to have instead of names and dates.

I did find out quite a bit about my TN ancestors who apparently go back to mid 1700's. Some of it I knew already from my grandmother talking about them, but found online distant cousins who knew much more. The most interesting ancestors were the female side of the family. The house that ggg built in 1837 is still there and I'd love to go see it. I've seen his will and know he owned a saddle shop and they had 14 kids.

I feel most connected to my Irish roots (like millions of others) and have the maiden name of my ggggrandmother who was probably born around or before 1800 as her son was born in 1819. I'm curious why her name is Scottish and plan a trip to the records office in Dublin to see what I can find as I've hit a brick wall online.
 

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