Genealogy..digging up facts!

[Mary Kay]

I have a bunch of geneology sites I would like to share. If you have ever had the "bug" you will too..share please.
I have managed to get all of my families and my ex's and Inlaws families back at least 150 to 200 years. Several go back to the early 1600's and one back to 1400. That's really too far..if you ask me, but it wasn't my work, I just made the connection that lead me to them.
My goal was always to get my families back to Country of origin.
Except for 2 families I did it! But I haven't given up..there's always witness protection!

The The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints site. (LDS) Great source for names..but be aware it's only as good as the information added by the contributers!
If you are having trouble with a more recent relative..check this place for the Death date..it shows the SS# and the last few places your relative may have lived.
For a long gone relative check this place for the 1880 free online census.

FamilySearch.org - Family History and Genealogy Records
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This place is a goldmine! You just have to keep asking the questions in many different ways. Such as John Jones, J.Jones, Jones of Smith County Colorado, Colorado Jones...ect. You will hit at one point or another if old John is mentioned anywhere!

Free Genealogy and Family History Online - The USGenWeb Project
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I generaly find Ancestry to be a rip off. But you can use the census index for free. If you watch the site, you will find free 2 week trials. Use them! You will be surprised what you can find in two weeks. But before you start, write down the names you want to look for..Like GGGGrandpa Jonas Smith, once you have found him copy the info. Now try to find his children or him in the next census. You may luck out and find him living with a child. keep going..making note of the people in the house, like a MIL..giving you your GGGGrandma's maiden name. Finish the Smiths before you start on the Ribocheks family or the Garcia's Decops and the Chung's.

1880 United States Federal Census - Ancestry.com

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Another rip off but the forums are good.
GenForum - Home

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Rootsweb is a spinoff of Ancestry.
But the forums are helpful!


RootsWeb.com Home Page
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Cyndis list has never been of help to me, but other swear by it.

Cyndi's List - Databases - Searchable Online

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Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild. These people do a remarkable job listing passengers coming to America!

Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild

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This is a collection of articals, obits births ect. from old news papers. Good luck finding someone YOU know..but fun to read!

Genealogy from TheOldenTimes.com: Historic Newspapers Online

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If the census is on-line, it's here, unless it's in a private collection of course!

Census Online - 54,444 Links to Online Census Records

 

[marg]

Ty! I'll be digging into this as soon as I get back to high speed... not very excited to do it but........

 

[Mary Kay]

Why not Marg? I found it interesting. But I have 470 removed cousins that are really into it! Everything must have notes and citations..please! Who really cares? I will meet all these people in the By and By..so not worried if I get great great great grandpa mixed up with his brother from another marriage.

 

[marg]

lol well said. lol
I think it'll be more like pulling teeth for me. We'll see, could be wrong

 

[beckah54]

I was bitten by the geneology bug too.

I subscribed to Ancestry.com for a year and they do have a lot of information, unfortunately, not a lot on the relatives I was looking for. After you go back a few generations, the record keeping leaves a lot to be desired.

I sent off for a death certificate for a suspected great-grandfather but it had his mother and father's names as unknown. Kind of hit a brick wall there.

I agree, MK, it is very interesting. I just retired so maybe I'll get back into the geneology research since I have the time now.

 

[Mary Kay]

The whole trick is to post on the forums..list as much as you can (only about the long gone..no living people!) and post in each surname forum that applies to your many grandparents and theirs. See if someone might be researching what you are. Also post on the places..like the Denver forum or the Colorado foum..maybe the Larado Co. forum, anywhere you think they may have been..living or dead.
There is an area in Rootsweb called world connect..that is cool because all you need to do is put in a name and lots of people pop up!

 

[Allestaria]

I've always wanted to know for sure about my family history. Though I know I would come to a close rather early.

Dad's side is Indian from Oklahoma
Mom's side is irish/black dutch.

I only know dads grandma's married last name Do not know any further back on my mothers side then my mom's maiden name.

My mom never has spoken of her grandma or grandpa. So I do not know if they even lived long enough for her to met them.

My dad's mom is still alive. But she is not having the best of memory as she is 94 years old.
If I didn't think I would pull my hair out trying to figure this out. I would check into it. But I know I would.

 

[JustMeAgain]

I saw the genealogy post and HAD to join this group.

Mary Kay, have you ever gone to a Latter Day Saints church and researched there? They'll let anybody (even me ) come and access what they have and it's more info than what is online. Just a little FYI for anybody that's interested.

I have one of those brick wall ancestors.

My grandmother's sister killed her husband. My grandma would never tell us why or anything about the situation, not even what prison she was in.

I have been looking for this great aunt for years. She was born in 1916, and in the world of genealogy, this is too recent to have much info available.

Anyway, I love doing this kind of research - I just have gotten so hung up on Aunt Sarah that I haven't got much done.

 

[PatriciafromCO]

I wondered if you don't have the correct name how far you can go in your search. My grandparents on my mom side came over from Romania but they shorten their name so much no one has ever told me what it was.. They say they don't remember it ??????? But I find it odd and not believiable story. Since we only talking about it being Changed after my uncles being in or going in the us military??? So we talking only one generation here... Can you research something like that??

 

[JustMeAgain]

This is a very good site if anyone is looking for Birth/Death records in Missouri:

Missouri Digital Heritage : Death Records Certificates

 

[Mary Kay]

Allestaria, The Indian nations have good geneaolgy records. Find the tribe and that should help. Ask your G'ma anyway. Tape her or write it down fast. Sometimes they have great flashes of memory about the past but can't remember breakfast!

JustMeAgain, first welcome to the Woman's Room! (My traps are working! I got another one ladies!)

I have an LDS Church down the road from me that has a History Research area. But I haven't been "into" for a while. I may go back to it to finish up my dad's family. On another board I ran, a few years back, There were a lot of L.D.S. ladies. Great gals and very helpful. One of them was a professional reseacher ..she did a living Presdidents lineage. She couldn't find one of dad's people past 1800..that's with all her resourses! his maternal ine goes back to the 1600's!

Pat, Take the name and go to the ships list site. They may have changed it before they left. Or go to the Ellis Island site. Ellis Island - FREE Port of New York Passenger Records Search

Most of these places let you do a fuzzy search. That means it will look for Smith, Smyth , Smoot ect. they also do sounds like , like Johnson, jonesin, jameson, jimson ect.
Your best bet is to go to a Romanian site for last names and see which ones fit the bill best. like Crookshank..crook or shank. see?
try the family again. Sometimes they just don't want to remeber because they want to be 'American". My ex husbands family never talked about where they came from and wouldn't answer questions..well of course I thought maybe we had a crook in the family. Nope..they were just embarrassed that they didn't know. With a few clues I got them back to 1802.
That's kind of a common problem with a country of Immigrants. My husband is only 2nd generation American on one side. His maternal grands were from Belgium. his Paternal grands were from Germany and have been here since 1850.
It was a royal pain to research his Belguim family because of the language. All the sites were in French or German or Flemish! I found a lovely Belgian man who was from the town Mikes people were from and he looked for the records for me. He wanted "for to practice his English more better" in return. Oh and 2$ worth of State Quarters for his coin collecting son.

Practice random Genealogy kindness! You never know where that little bit of info in your files may lead someone else to. In return they may send you a clue to Uncle Ray from Italy who has all the family records back to Moses!

 

[Allestaria]

MaryKay

I would love to speak to my grandma about my family history. But that wont happen. She more or less has forgotten about me the day I turned 13. She has disliked me since that day. I ran into my grandpa once. A few years before he died. Him and my parents were eatting at one of my cousins restaurants. He looked at me and said "Since when do we have a red head in the family". Got up and walked out. I didn't see him again after that.

But my great grandma's maiden name is rare. My mothers maiden name is rare. That might make it a little easier.

 

[PatriciafromCO]

Thanks MaryKay, I don't think the mystery will ever be solved.. The original name was like 20 + letters and somehow their either chose only 5 letters from that or just chose 5 letters to use.. My mom not born yet so she never knew it... My mom side of the family is very thick on being very superstious of what they talked about.. If it's true, I think it be interesting to understand coming from a history of traveling gypsy's. My mom's parents passed when I was only 11 so never really had a chance to ask question I might of asked when I was older. and all 3 of my uncles were part of a special task force during the war because they spoke or knew an old lessor used diolect of Hebrew maybe I can find more about that angle and go from there.... just my mom side of the family think it's bad to talk about certain things so don't know anything about them.. not even their own kids know either....

 

[SudokuGal]

I'm going to avoid these sites, MK...it would become an obsession, I'm sure, lol.

 

[JustMeAgain]

JustMeAgain, first welcome to the Woman's Room! (My traps are working! I got another one ladies!)

Thanks, Mary Kay, glad to be here...Can you recommend any good genealogy forums? I have posted questions @ rootsweb - it's been like 4 years ago, and not one response. I also posted the question on a genalogy blog in the St. Louis Area (where she was born) and got a few responses, but even the experts seemed stumped on this one. I would think that women in prison in the mid 1900's would be rare enough but, apparently not. Just too recent, but it's getting 'older' every day. In 2012 those census records will be released, and that's prob the key. Btw, I am so stealing that cute pumpkin.

I'm going to avoid these sites, MK...it would become an obsession, I'm sure, lol.

You're right, sudoku - it can become an obsession, but it's very interesting and fun...I'm trying to avoid having two obsessions at once. Right now the ecig is the one I'm dealing with but once I get more settled in w/them, (which is taking FOREVER- not usually such a slow learner) I'm headed back to genealogy for a bit.

JM

 

[Mary Kay]

The thing with Forums is that if you don't know get a response today..that doesn't mean you will never get one! New people join, old members get the bug again. Post again...and again. In the same forum under different sections. GenForum and Rootsweb have many sections to post in. In last name, in the county forum, in the state forum. Somebody will see it sooner or later.
I have a gg grandfater named Palatine (first name) So every seach I do brings up the Palatine immigrants from Germany. Drives me nuts! I can't find his birth state because it's Virginia in 1800. That could mean West Virginia or Virginia! (It was before the Civil War of course).Also back then only the head of house was named in a census..so I wouldn't find him unless his father had the same name.
So every so often I do another search and one day his name popped up..I thought "Finally! I have his E-mail" That lasted for about a second. It turned out to be a mention in a historical document stating he was suing the Union for money owed for his services as a bricklayer. He was a Mason. It wasn't proof of anything but it meant the world to me. He lived, he had a family and even if only in an old paper he still had an identity.

Do a search for genealogy sites..it will give you hundreds of them, I only posted the biggest and best.

here's another to steal:

 

[JustMeAgain]

I have a gg grandfater named Palatine (first name) So every seach I do brings up the Palatine immigrants from Germany. Drives me nuts! I can't find his birth state because it's Virginia in 1800. That could mean West Virginia or Virginia! (It was before the Civil War of course).Also back then only the head of house was named in a census..so I wouldn't find him unless his father had the same name.


here's another to steal:

I might get charged with grand theft-emoticon if I keep this up.

MK, are you using Heritage Quest for the census info? I thought that the original docs there showed all household members.

 

[Mary Kay]

I used Ancestry when I had the free trial, I use the census listing when I don't. I also found census's on Genweb and on Census on-line (url in the first post). Never used Heritage. The original docs all show house numbers and such. But in the 1820 (Ithink) and below..it shows the house number..but the only name listed is the head of house. The rest as appear as number of males below age aof 50..3 number females below the age of 16 ..3 ect. So there is no way of telling who lived in that hose, just how many.
It helps if when in the later census a parent is listed living with a son..you can confirm it's the same family. You would be surprised at how many had the same names back then! That's of course when they spelled them right!
happy Halloween!

 

[beckah54]

My father was born in 1921 in Kentucky and, even though I knew the county he was born in, I could not find his birth certificate.

Finally, a person on one of the geneology forums looked for me and found that they had listed his middle name as his last name. I probably would have never found it on my own. Geneology is very rewarding but at times it can also be very frustrating.

MK you are right. A lot of fellow researchers, be they amateur or professional, will lend a helping hand when they can. Kind of like this community, very helpful and fun.

 

[abhowe]

Great resourcees....... Have been doing family Genealogy for about 20 years and have taken the name back to the 1200's in France and the 1500's in England.... It is a great hobby.......