Geneaology

I managed to make a page for my DS2 that goes to his grandparents. Not many photos or details available anymore.
Quite sad, but a reminder to get those photos taken, printed and labeled. I would love to see what you do with your photos and detailed stories.

 

Discovering family history is so cool and @rchansen I can't wait to hear all about your findings!! Just think of the pages / books, etc you can scrap! How exciting!!

I have a large binder with family history that my 1st cousin put together - on my Mom's side - it goes way to back to the beginning of our family - and shows family crests, etc. Sadly, I have yet to go through it (she took a lot of time putting several books together, they are huge - and each page has been laminated). I have a smaller binder with family info from my Dad's side as well. I have just recently started looking through it.

I have the honor of been given all of the old family photos that my parents (and my oldest sister) had before they passed away. Mom was really good about writing on the backs of many of the photos - she wrote who was in each photo, but she also gave a little background in to the people and places in the photos. She was also very good about putting little notes on physical items that were passed down to me ... She had a beautiful cast wall picture that was her parents - she wrote on the back of it when they received it, who it was from, the year, etc. I dropped it and it a little piece fell off - so I sent it off to be repaired. When it arrived back to me it was in a million pieces. The person that fixed it did NOT wrap it good enough, so that family history was lost. I was heartbroken over it. Thankfully she did that with other items that I still have - and treasure.

Also, my parents kept "diaries" for years (dating back to the 1960's). Sometimes they both wrote on the pages, sometimes just Dad or just Mom - they wrote about what when on each day ... the everyday activities that make up our lives. I really enjoy sitting down and going through them - more times than not, I'm left in tears ... mostly good tears, but sometimes, sad tears in remembering rough moments. Anyways, they are a blessing to have!

 

My mom has researched her side of the family all the way back to the 1400s. Her family lived for 100+ years in a neighboring county, and she belongs to their historical society & attends their meetings. She also travels with a bunch of other genealogical buffs to a huge library about 2 hours away that evidently has lots and lots of state genealogical records. One of our ancestors came over on the Mayflower.

I have researched my biological father's side and traced his side back to England as well. If I had all the paperwork, I could apply for & belong to the Daughters of the American Revolution. I do have a great-great-great-grandfather who was born in Northern Ireland (but before it became Northern Ireland) and then emigrated to America where he was a well-known writer for the Boston Globe.

Really, though, I'm at least 80% English and both sides of my family have lived in the States for hundreds of years.

 

When I began digital scrapbooking in 2006, I was 100% vintage and didn't do any other style until 2012 or so. I pestered my mother-in-law for pics and stories of the great-great grand's, managed to get pics of my DH great-great grandmother & grandfather taken in the 1860's. On my side of the family, after Mom passed away, my brother was quite generous in letting me borrow the old photos. I concentrated on photos prior to 1950, just as a rule of thumb, since I'd go bonkers trying to get them all scanned.

For recording, I use Family Tree Maker (still the old version before it got sold), and so far it still works. I've got over 100,000 names in it. Tons of info came from my 1st cousin who lived near a library in Dallas and he would get microfilm, etc. from Europe, trying to find baptismal records. On DH's side of the family, there are a few who do genealogy research and we all share. I actually met some of his 3rd & 4th cousins on the internet, found out they had a family reunion out in Nebraska and we went a few years ago. All done thru genealogy. Portions of DH's side of the family have been in the USA since the 1600's. His 8th great-grandmother is Martha Carrier, the 1st woman who was hung in Salem during the witch trials. He is related to Mark Twain thru marriage, Olivia Langdon was a relatively close cousin. I don't have much on my side, actually had my DNA tested and I'm 92% Eastern European, 6% Northern Russian/Finish, 2% Irish. The 92% didn't surprise me, but the 2% Irish did.

I created two books of layouts for my side of the family, one on my Dad's side, one for my Mom's side, around 200 vintage layouts combined. I incorporated Ellis Island scans, naturalization records, baptismal records, pretty much anything I could find. I made sets for my brothers, my cousins. Having photos with journaling and records seem to make the photos ever more precious. And when I didn't have photos, I went with stories, some of them were found thru city directories and books.

Good luck with your venture! I still get excited thinking about vintage!

 

Robyn, Let me see what I can come up with.

 

@JillW Having those diaries would be SO precious! I have scanned in a small memory book from when my mother graduated HS. It was from 1930 (she had me when she was 40, I had older parents...) Anyway, one of the pages had a list of her classmates and what they wanted to be when they graduated. Almost everyone listed "steno". There was one who wanted to be a private secretary and one graphic artist. Pretty sad, really.

 

How exciting for you!! I love family history. My sister does, too. My Mom and Grandma were very active in genealogy before they passed away. I inherited all of my Mom's records, family photos, etc. Bins and bins full of them and now my own shelves full of stuff to pass on when I go. My Dad's line has been traced back into the Clans in Wales. Exciting stuff!

 

I've researched my family genealogy back to arrival in the US -- some branches before the Revolutionary War. I just find the research to be a fun puzzle -- sort of like being a detective. The actual finished product is less interesting to me. It always amazes me that -- although the events are becoming more distant in time, it actually gets easier and easier to research because so much is being digitized and available online. The one area where it's still a challenge is newspapers -- there's a treasure trove of info in old newspapers -- but they are not readily available for the most part.

 

Genealogy research is just plain fun ... in fact, my DH and I just spent a few hours at the local Genealogical Library this afternoon. My father took a DNA test and it helped bridge a generation that is still a blank but it did "prove" connection to his line back in Baltimore in the 1600's. My mother took an ethnicity test which helped to "prove" the connection we'd made to Penelope Stout who was said to be the first white woman in New Jersey. Her story is fascinating and easily found online. I also love helping others who are seeking an answer in their ancestry. Sounds like we have some wonderful genealogy stories here.

 

I've been thinking about doing one of these for fun.

Just as an aside, I read a really interesting article in the paper recently about how police and a "forensic genealogist" used a crime scene DNA sample to compare to samples from an ancestry genealogy database. It helped them narrow down what was a huge list of suspects they had by giving them a likely last name to focus on (the sample matched some guy in Australia, I think, but both samples included a marker that is only passed down in me, so they figured that the two men would likely have the same last name). When they focused on the suspect with that last name they were able to collect more evidence and he confessed.

 

I would love to trace my ancestry but its really hard when you have a non-English background. My mother was Latvian and my father Lithuanian. My older sister and brother were both born in Germany before they all immigrated to Australia. My younger brother and I were born here in Australia. It's really hard trying to locate information when it's in another language and of course so many records were lost during WWII. Neither one of my parents ever spoke of their childhood or growing up, only little snippets here and there. My mother had been married before and had a daughter and apparently the husband died during the war, before she met my father. Not quite sure of the entire story but it appears that my mother had to leave her daughter with her late husband's family when she decided to immigrate to Australia with my father. So somewhere over on the other side of world I have a step-sister and some nieces and nephews that I know nothing about.

My sister and I were able to get someone to translate some of the writing on the back of my Mum's photos but there was a lot that she couldn't read due to handwriting and a different dialect to what she knew. We looked at using a professional service to trace back a few years ago but it was just too costly! It saddens me to think that I have family that I will never know and I guess that is why I have always spoken to my own children about my life as a child and growing up etc. I have also made scrapping pages for my kids when they were younger and have included the story behind the photo. I started a family album a few years ago (just on what I had found out and the stories that my Mum had told me) so I will need to get this done as well. Getting a DNA also sounds like a great idea and I need to chase this up for sure!

@rchansen Would love to see some photos of your finished projects when you get them done as well! and thanks for starting this thread Robyn, great reminder to get our own histories up to date!

 

Yes, this is a challenge for sure. I found church records from Germany with my family name in them from the early 1800s. They are written in this crazy, elaborate handwriting and with archaic german letters that aren't even used anymore. Coincidentally, I was having dinner with some native German speakers and showed an entry to them and they couldn't make it out either. I finally posted it on a genealogy website and someone kindly interpreted it for me but that was one record out of probably dozens so that's not gonna work for a lot of research. Similarly, my friend, Eileen, is Taiwanese ethnicity and doesn't know the language and she thinks there's no way she could do her own genealogy.

 

I love genealogy. For a short while in university, I worked for the Métis Nation of Ontario and helped people establish their link to the Métis community so they could obtain harvester's cards. Because I was doing it professionally, I got very picky about using first hand resources, and did a lot of research at the National Archives of Canada. I know a LOT about French-Canadian and Métis* genealogy. And a fair bit about Jewish geneaology. My knowledge of German migration is pretty specific to Southern Ontario. If anyone has questions on where to start looking for primary resources. OR if you have some old-timey French records you can't translate. I would be happy to help.
@Lynne-Marie j'ai hâte de voir ta création à vendredi!

*For those not from Canada, Métis is the name for the community that arose from the intermarriages between mostly French and Scottish fur traders and Indigenous people between Ontario and British Columbia. They did go down into Michigan and Wisconsin, and in Montana. The Métis has a distinct culture and language from either European settlers of other Indigenous groups and is recognized in Canada's constitution.

 

I spent about five years tracing my dad's family history, using both online, Census, LDS church and FHS records. I was very lucky as I was born in the UK, so there were lots of records available. I managed to get back as far as 1700 with a couple of the lines, although I hit a brick wall with my main line at 1820. I was amazed at how much people did actually move around back then, even though the distance might not have been great. My mum has also researched her side of the family back to the mid 1600s. It is very difficult to trace most lines further back than the Civil War (1640s) in the UK as there is around a 20 year gap in many parish records of that time.

 

Interesting subject for sure! It was actually my son who started with Ancestry after using this type of research at work. You may not know that Bin Laden was found via family connections...

My son had all the papers my late mil had that that been done by her (also deceased)brother. As that family had been English, Scottish, and Welsh who settled in VA in the 1600/1700s it was fairly easy to do. My son and his children are eligible for DAR and Sons of the Confederacy. It was the Civil War time that was fascinating as he has ancestors who fought on both sides. One VA Confederate was a pow in MD near where I went to summer camp as a child! They were also wealthy slave holders and again in one of those strange twists of fate, my son met some women at work who are probably decendents of those very same slaves.

Like @wombat146, my side is half Lithuanian and I've always had little hope of finding anything out about them. Both my grandfathers were immigrants in the late 1900s, the Lithuanian one and an Irish one. We were stopped on the Irish side by the language and what seemed to be a lot of inbreeding. On the Lithuanian side, my son found some records through Jewish sites that gave us the name of the village my grandfather came from. Maybe @wombat and I should make a trip together to 'see our roots'!!!

 

Knowledge from a brief but fun stint working in disability policy:
I will also add that before anyone gets a DNA test, you should read the fine print on what it will tell you, and what the company will do with your information. Some companies test for both health indicators and ancestry related markers. Depending on where you live that information may or may not be protected by law. In some places, you can be forced to share that info with insurers or employers, who can then choose to not cover you or even to not hire you. But you can't be forced to disclose what you don't know. Canada is in the process of making a law that would keep genetic information private. Until it is passed, I won't be mailing off tubes of my spit to any DNA labs.
Ancestry.com is beta testing a project called Ancestry Health that tracks personal health information through families. That is a lot of very private data in a very large database, and I'm not entirely clear what they are doing with it. In fact, I don't think they know what they are doing with it. Like I said, read the fine print!