Searching for our Ancestors

DNA Test

Sun, 20 May 2012 22:14:29 GMT

So I've decided that I want to do a genealogical DNA test. But I have a few questions.

1. Which services would you recommend? Ancestry.com has changed theirs so it's not readily available. And anyway, I'm not sure that's the best way to go. I've found something called DNA Spectrum, but I'm not sure how reliable/comprehensive they are.

2. Whose DNA do I use? I could do mine, but I feel like that would be a mess because would I know which side was what? So it seems better to go with the two sides, but I think both sides it has to be male, and there's no way I'm getting my uncle to do a cheek swab. Let's leave it at that. ;) (He's a good guy, he'd just find the whole thing pointless.)

Thanks for anything you can tell me!

1861 Census of Ontario

Mon, 07 May 2012 03:17:23 GMT

Has anyone access to the 1861 census of Ontario who would be willing to copy a page for me?

I'm looking for the James and Catherine Craig family of Glenelg Township, Grey County, Ontario; I'm trying to get an idea of what part of the township their farm was in and want to see if I recognise any other families on the same page.

Blank form for 1911 census?

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:03:16 GMT

Does anyone know where I can get a blank 1911 England & Wales census form that I can print out and complete? I've been looking on Google which seems to point to http://www.discoveryourancestors.com but that site just gives me errors.

Is a Letter Worth it?

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:58:57 GMT

I found a few distant cousins, and some also found me, on genealogy boards and social networking sites. I did friend one cousin on Facebook (unfortunately, she died before I got the chance to meet her in RL) but not everybody wants to meet long-lost relatives on social networking sites. The ones my age and up (I'm 49) are usually not much into FB, Twitter and the like. I don't use Twitter myself. I only tried to contact one of the younger ones, a woman in her 30s. I nixed the idea of sending messages to the twentysomethings. They might feel quite unnerved...or their parents would, especially if the young person in question is a female.

A recent magazine said writing may be more accepted than a phone call out of the blue. Actually, I talked to my third cousin about a year ago after finding his number in the local phone book. Sometimes that really does work! :) At his request, I mailed him information on my great-grandfather's grave in a Veterans cemetery.

Has anyone tried a "cold" letter? I have another name and address in the phone book. His sister married my late third cousin. Obviously, he's not my blood relative, but their parents died while they were still young. My third cousin and his children (including in-laws), grandchildren and great-grandchildren are pretty much the only family they have. I've ruled out a phone call and I know better than to show up on his doorstep unannounced. As far as a letter goes, I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. He may be just as disinterested as the rest of the family, or he might be curious and respond.

Who has experience with this stuff?

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:46:22 GMT

Hello! I'm new here, and a little confused about some aspects of genealogy. I started researching my family tree within the last month. I started by going off of what I knew already, and Facebook/general Googling helped (obituaries and such). This weekend, I talked to my parents to help me fill in as much as they knew (with help from death certs and papers saved throughout the years).

A few full names, birth and death dates were SUPER helpful when I came home to Google. I was able to find other family trees that other people have made that go back to England in the late 1500s/early 1600s (on my dad's maternal side). One question I had was, how much can you trust those other trees? For example, my great-great-grandmother's name was Jane Doe (let's pretend), and she was married to John Dough (let's say). I found quite a few trees with those names listed as husband and wife, with the years they were both born and died. Those trees also allowed me to go back much, much further than what I had information for. Is it safe to say the lineage is fairly accurate (as it could be), given my starting points of Jane Doe/John Dough?

When making your own family trees, do you include siblings of those in your direct line? If the trees I found are fairly accurate, I can go back to the 1600s or so. Many of those people had 9+ children, and their kids had 9+ children, and so on! Is there a certain point when you stop including siblings and cousins? I feel like I'd have to figure out the descendants of *everyone*, and I don't know if that's how it works. I have siblings included for all the grandparents, and even my father's grandmother, but I don't know if I should try to go beyond that. Like I said, if those trees I found previously are as accurate as they can be, siblings are already listed, so it's really a matter of copying and pasting on my end, but...I feel like the tree gets super complicated?

Sorry if these questions are confusing!

Oakland Daily Evening Tribune, 1875

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:00:48 GMT

Does anyone have access to a site that has transcriptions or scans of The Oakland (California) Daily Evening Tribune from 1875?

It published a note about the "funeral yesterday" of Teresa Brennan on 30 Mar 1875 (she died 26 Mar 1875 and was buried Mon, March 29, 1875 at St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery in Oakland, California).

Online Family Trees

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:09:42 GMT

Yesterday I was in the library looking at the 2001 version of "Genealogy for Dummies" and they had a section on privacy. They said it could be very harmful to have certain information available online. Private detectives, con artists and other potentially troublesome people can use search engines to look for living family members.

I went back to my Wikitree and changed all of the living relatives to "Unlisted" and several deceased to "Private." Right now I use it mainly for my own information, but I don't want to put my family in harm's way. On the Wikitree site, the default setting is automatically "Unlisted" for kids under 13. I think the default should be under 18, not 13. The wrong information in the wrong hands could even be dangerous: For example, a disgruntled former spouse might hire one of those detectives to track down an ex who wants to be left alone.

Legitimate Independent Sites/Genealogists?

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:19:17 GMT

I've had trouble finding information on certain ancestors, and so I decided to give up on familysearch/ellisisland/ancestry and turn to more specific websites and people. However, I've had trouble figuring out how to know if they're trustworthy.

One thing I encountered was that these organizations charged by the hour. Is that typical for genealogists? I guess I'm just uncomfortable that, especially when it's online. And in one case, not only did the person charge by the hour, but there was a starting fee of $75.00 just to get basic information on one person. Something about that didn't seem right to me. Is that the norm?

Along a similar vein, I was about to sign up for genealogy.com and archives.com when I realized they take your credit card number before you've completed your free trial. That just sounds like a scam waiting to happen. Again, is that normal or was I right in not signing up?

I really want to find out more about these people, and the services I already use (and, in the case of ancestry.com, pay for), aren't working, so I'd like to go further. But I want to literally get my money's worth - and I certainly don't want to be scammed. So how do I avoid it? And what are normal practices?

Don't Hesitate!

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:52:47 GMT

I'm really glad I got started on my research when I did. The most helpful website, which had not been updated in almost ten years, has been taken over by another family. The site contained some inaccuracies, but I had enough supplemental information to do what I wanted to do. Basically, I think he lost interest in researching that branch of the family and has now moved on to something else.

Also, he got the majority of his information from a book which is still in print. I order the book through a local bookseller, or online from Amazon, Barnes and Noble or maybe even the direct publisher.

I'm also glad that my husband and I visited an old family cemetery and took pix! The photographs of the graves had been included on the now-defunct website. I found the address on Mapquest or Google Maps. That was in July when the old site was still up and running. I had already placed my direct lineage onto my Wikitree. I've connected with other distant cousins (and some relatives of their spouses) on Facebook and genealogy forums.

Most recently, I discovered that my third cousin married someone with the same surname as one of our best friends. The odds of it being the same family are small. But last week I found out, from another genealogy board, that our friend's elderly father did considerable research on the family in the 1970s. Our friend thinks the written records are in his parents' attic. That would have been my guess, too. I think he's now almost as curious as I am. There is a possible connection in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

So my advice is: DON'T HESITATE! If you put it off too long, the information might not be there tomorrow. The knowledgable great-grandparent might die or have Alzheimers. The website might shut down. Paper records might end up in a landfill if family members don't know what's there. I procrastinated on locating one young person, thinking I had plenty of time, but he tragically died at age 30. We could not have prevented his untimely death, but it would have been nice for the family to have another chance to see him. Now, he's in a grave. Ironically, the same week, I lost a cousin whom I'd just met on Facebook a few months before. She had a heart attack. But at least I had some contact with her. If you're thinking about doing something, just do it and don't be scared! We can't guarantee that things will be the same tomorrow.

Overdue burial?

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:34:31 GMT

So I'm a little confused. I was looking at a death record for a sibling of an ancestor, and I realized that her death date took place seventeen years after her burial date. All I can think of is that perhaps the grave was moved? After all, they did live in two different places, and it seems that everyone was eventually buried in the cemetery of the second location - but she may have been left behind. (It also says she died there, which may have been an assumption.) Or was it just a transcription error?

Top Five Things to Keep in Mind When Researching Family History

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:22:49 GMT

Just something I thought I would type up... see here.

Brick Wall

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:57:11 GMT

I have hit a huge brick wall trying to research a family for work.

Ann M. (CASSIN) YOUNG is proving to be quite a difficult woman to track down. Her stats are as follows:
Born: Ann M. CASSIN
Year: About 1869
Location: Maryland
Married: 12 Apr 1893 in Washington, D.C. to Casanove Howle Young (Sometimes also listed as Peter Casanove Howle Young) <1867-1910>
Children: Cassin Young (1894-1942)
Edward Young (1897-1987)
Peter Young (1901-1974)

I have found her in the 1900, 1910, and 1930 census records and the DC marriage records so far but nothing else. Any help would be awesome!

Canadian Records (Specifically Ontario?)

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:44:53 GMT

So I have been trying to get records for Canadian family (in Ontario) on ancestry.ca and familysearch.org, to absolutely no avail. I just realized that there seem to be a few problems.

- For some reason, there seem to be more records from Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia than Ontario.

- Records, in Ontario at least, seem to be limited to specific years - there are no census records after 1911, and I don't think there's birth records after 1913.

Moreover, even where the dates should still be workable, it's near impossible to find anything on anyone. I have records of when my family came, but while I have a few BMD certificates, it doesn't cover more than a few people on a very large "branch" of the tree, and I only have one census record.

Am I just not looking in the right places, or is there not that much available? I would really like to find more than I have. I have thought about just going to the historical society - would you recommend that?

Sorry if this comes across as annoyed... I've just about had it with trying to prove people I know existed did in fact exist! :P (And more importantly, learn a bit about them. Although I did learn an occupation, which is huge because it clues me into that person's life.)

ETA: I just remembered that Ontario's a pretty big province... if it helps, I'm looking at southern Ontario. If you're interested in specifics, I can PM you.

Specific ancestry.com question

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:06:50 GMT

Is there a way to save a tree to file and send it to someone, or to transfer things to familysearch.org or another free site? I ask for two reasons.

1. I've been doing family research for a friend, and I'd like to email her tree to her, especially as she'd like proof that she is related to a famous person. (I know that's always flimsy, but in this case it looks more and more credible as I research, and she'd like actual proof if she is because of the very fact that claiming to have famous ancestry is perceived as flimsy and unlikely.

2. I've emailed my own family research links to certain relatives, but they are not exactly... computer savvy.

Anyone have any tips? ancestry.com does have the option for a GEDCOM file, but it seems like it's only one way (i.e. to the website). It says you can pay to have your tree in a special book, but it's kind of expensive.

T

Historical Assumptions and Genealogy

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 14:36:42 GMT

I was just curious as to whether or not anyone else has found themselves noticing that they had assumptions about the way people lived "back then" (whether 1932 or 1732), only to question that after doing research?

One thing I had always assumed is that people used to marry young and die young, but I've found that as early as the 1700s, people were marrying at ages not that atypical now - still young, in their early twenties, but I know of a lot of people who married straight out of high school or college born within the past few decades. (So, say, 1970s onwards.) There was one person on my tree who I believe had to have been fifteen or sixteen, but she was an exception.

The other thing I've noticed is that the common stereotype is marriage between cousins... there's actually not a lot of evidence of that so far. There is one person in the 1600s who seems to have married a cousin, but I can't quite figure out if her husband is the same person as her cousin with the same name and birth date.

Anyone else notice that?

"Why do we care about our ancestors?"

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 23:41:01 GMT

A possibly interesting book excerpt in Salon:

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/08/why_do_we_care_about_our_ancestors/

From the new volume "Ancestors & Relatives" (Oxford University Press).

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:58:54 GMT

My family is organizing a family reunion for next summer, for all the descendents of my great-grandparents. (There are a lot of us!) One of my grandfather's brothers, though, has always been a bit of a mystery, so I wanted to see if I could find out anything about him, and whether he had any children we could get in touch with.

On Ancestry, I managed to find some information about his death, as well as two marriage certificates, but that's all, and I don't know where to look for his children/grandchildren, if he has any. I thought of looking for an obituary, but he died in 1976, so it probably wouldn't be online. And I'm not even sure where to start, because he lived in several different states.

Any ideas?

Close, but not quite

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:33:15 GMT

Hi everyone,

What do you do if you find a record that is SO close to what you're looking for, but not quite a 100% match with what you already have?

I've recently made some headway into finding my grandmother's biological father and his family, and I hit a dead end with his grandfather, my greatx3-grandfather. He immigrated from Germany, and the only source of his parents' names are on his US death record.

Then yesterday I found a pedigree line with very similar names, and I'm hesitant if I should add them to my tree, albeit with a big "MAYBE" note attached.

My greatx3-grandpa's name was Charles Facius, and he was born around 1838 in Saxony. On his death record, his parents are listed as Morris and Wilhelmina Facius. Then yesterday I found a pedigree line from Germany, with Christian Moritz Facius and Irmelin Amalie Wilhelmine Facius. One of their children is Karl, born in 1834.

It's SO close! I really want to add them to my tree, but there's no further information to verify who they were, and there aren't any other hits on any genealogy site for Morris Facius.

Interesting things you find

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:24:54 GMT

My parents were going through some of the stuff they took out of my grandmother's home about 10 years ago when she died and found what looks to be a gravestone marker for her uncle. There are no markings to indicate who made the marker or what cemetery it came from, but at least I have his exact death date? :)

Anyone else find anything weird like that?

More an ancestry.com question...

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 22:41:37 GMT

So I have a relative who, after marriage, kept her last name. However, when I searched records for her, it kept giving me her husband's last name.

Is there any way to emphasize that she is NOT Mrs. Jane Doe, but rather, Ms. (Last Name)? She's very proud of having kept it and I don't like that she's automatically given her husband's surname, because it's not hers.

Achtung Ancstors

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 10:40:27 GMT

Hi
I hope this is okay to post here. Im starting a new genealogical service for people who want to find their German ancestors. I hope to have a website up this week. Meanwhile I have a Facebook page, ACHTUNG ANCESTORS
For more information feel free to send me a message at achtungancestors at gmail dot com .

Family Tree Maker for the Mac

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 01:15:29 GMT

I just bought a Mac, and I'm wondering what the transfer from a PC is like for Family Tree Maker files? Anyone have any problems with it, or luck? Just wondering if I should bother buying the program for the Mac, or use one of our other PCs for FTM. Thanks

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:34:57 GMT

I was directed to the Canadian Genealogy Survey at http://www.cusurveycentre.ca/gensurvey/ today; if you have roots there (or live there) you might enjoy taking it.

Newbie Here.

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:06:39 GMT

Hi Everyone!
I am new to this community and new to this whole genealogy thing.

I have always wanted to trace back my ancestry but never really knew where to start.

I decided to finally start my research.
I decided to finally do it because on my dads side my grannie, uncle and my dad died a couple of years ago.
On my dads side I am also the only one of the "kids" who holds the Bell last name who is not adopted.

I am just not sure where to start and what to look for and how to look for it.

On my dads side I was told I have research to do in Canada, Germany, France, Ireland, Wales and Scottland.
One problem I know I will encounter is with my Grandmother from Wales as she was a Foster Child.

On my moms side I have to research in Italy.
One problem I know I will have is that my grandmothers mother was adopted.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

Also is the Ancestry site worth the money???

Kind of a random question

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 17:07:41 GMT

I'm purely asking this out of curiosity... how far back is it possible to go, assuming the one has the time and financial means for all the research to be done? Which I don't, so I'm not asking for myself, although I would love for ancestry.com or another site to release really old documents one day. (How far back does ancestry.com go? It seems to me it only really goes to the 1600s.)

Again, I don't expect anyone to know for sure. I just feel speculative, I suppose.