Genealogy and Family Trees

[Tami]

Curious if any else here has ever created a family tree using genealogy tools and research. If so, how far back did you get, and do you have thoughts on the subject or interesting experiences to share?

As a side hobby, I'm doing research using Ancestry. Some of it I can confirm, some results are not fully verified. Still, I find it interesting.

[DebkoX]

I would love to do it but, unfortunately, it will be near-impossible. On fathers side the records do not exist as they weren't collected properly in his homeland and, on mothers side, it is hard as one of my grandparents had a second surname and so we can't trace their origin. I do know my ethnic mix though includes Scottish, Caribbean, Irish, English (we found out a slaveholder near where I live now funnily enough 'freed' our family), Mongolian and possibly Chinese and so on.

[babyblob]

I was able to go back a long way in both sides of the family. My dads family and moms kept very detailed records so thanks to extended family I was able to learn a great deal.

on my fathers side We first came to America in 1822. My family was basically run out his town in Germany because he made a bad batch of beer that killed two people. They settled in Kentucky. I had a few members fight for the south in the civil war but they never did anything of note and one was was shot for desertion. In the Probation era my dads family was involved in bootlegging and worked as grunts for Al Capone in Chicago and a couple were killed while one turned informant for Ness and was killed. my great Grandfather fought in Romels division in World War Two. He then settle in Central Ky and moved between there and Eastern ky and worked as a farmer and coal miner my grand pa worked as a coal miner for a bit and did wrestling when he came to Cincinnati and became involved in the wrestling business which my father followed. i posted that in another thread.

My moms family history is not as interesting. Or should say dark. They settled in America in 1742 fought for Brittan and America in The Rev War, fought for America in The Mexican War, The union in the Civil War. Fought for America in both World War 1 and Two. had some uncles fight in Korea and a few cousins in the first Gulf War. i tried to join the military when I was younger but because of my mental health could not. The same with the police force.

I can go into greater detail if anyone is interested.

[seismic-2]

Don Rosa dug deeply into Barks lore to construct a family tree for Donald Duck:

[foxley]

My eldest sister did a great deal of genealogical research back in the 80s, in the pre-internet days (when dinosaurs roamed the earth). She traced our father's side of the family back to Country Tyrone in Northern Island in the early 1800s. They left Ireland in the 1860s and came to Australia via America (possibly fighting in the American Civil War along the way).

[Deathstroke]

My parents did genealogy for a while. They traced back a reasonable distance but I'm not sure how far. It wasn't something that really interested me. The only bit of interest that I found in their research was I'm related to the first guy hung for murder in the colonies.

[Jackalope89]

Well, the one side of my family is heavily Irish, and has been traced back to the late 1700s with names (at the least). With records prior to 1850 about impossible, because the place the records were otherwise held burned down. Have several ancestors that fought in the Civil War (with tin photos of them in their uniforms) from previous branches, then some in WWI... Come to WWII, my great-grandfather was the youngest male, he was exempt from the draft. But his brothers participated and then settled around the Western States.

[Tami]

I'm doing research on my family and my husband's. His is somewhat more interesting than mine, so far. Mostly I started off trying to verify some of the stories told to me by my mother, and I ended up finding out about some of those and running into roadblocks on others.

At first, I only got as far as my Great Grandparents on my mother's side and my Grandparents on my father's side. But I kept digging.

My father passed away years ago, and my mother passed away about 5 years ago.

Years before my mother passed away before her oldest sister passed away, the two got into a disagreement over the phone as to whether their mother was Irish or English. My research found out that she was both. She was born in England, near Liverpool. Her parents were born in Northern Ireland. Going back, I found out that, while some were Irish, there was also a line that went to some of the Lords and Barons from England (still working out some details) who claimed land (possibly by not so pleasant means) in Northern Ireland. So, it was something of a circle.

[ERON]

One of my cousins on my dad's side has done extensive research into our family tree. He has the main lineage traced back to 1300s Scotland, and an offshoot lineage all the way back to 1100s Scandinavia. My brother has done some of his own research, but his information doesn't seem to match my cousin's, so I question some of his sources. I think in some cases my brother is assuming certain people with the same last name as ours are related to us without any further evidence to back it up.

My brother was able to prove that one of our ancestors who claimed to be part Cherokee was mistaken. Apparently she had found her grandmother's name on the Cherokee rolls, but my brother discovered that the person on the rolls was an unrelated individual who happened to have the same name. Some of our other ancestors, however, do have legitimate Cherokee and Blackfoot heritage according to my cousin's research.

On my mom's side, my aunt has records dating back to when the family first immigrated to the US from Germany in the mid 1800s. The part that fascinated me the most was a series of letters which revealed that my ancestors chose to sneak across the border and hide out in Mexico until the Civil War was over rather than fight for the South.

[Tami]

One of the hardest parts of doing Geneology, especially when using something like Ancestory [And I do use other sources as best I can] is the potential for confusion when you have multiple people with the same name and approximately the same birth year and the same or approximate birth location. I have to clean mine up often to deal with potential inaccuracies and other sources of confusion.

[foxley]

One of the hardest parts of doing Geneology, especially when using something like Ancestory [And I do use other sources as best I can] is the potential for confusion when you have multiple people with the same name and approximately the same birth year and the same or approximate birth location. I have to clean mine up often to deal with potential inaccuracies and other sources of confusion.

One of the problems my sister found was that there used to be a tradition in our family of eldest son in each generation having the same name. Apparently this was quite common at the time. This means that it was possible for two, or even three, members of the family to be active at the same time in the same area, and when all you have is a name on a document. it can be next-to-impossible to know which one it is referring to.

[Tami]

One of the problems my sister found was that there used to be a tradition in our family of eldest son in each generation having the same name. Apparently this was quite common at the time. This means that it was possible for two, or even three, members of the family to be active at the same time in the same area, and when all you have is a name on a document. it can be next-to-impossible to know which one it is referring to.

My brother and my father have the same name, and I've seen some records confuse them and mix them up.

It's easier to fix when it's people you know, it's harder to fix when it's distant relatives or ancestors. And it's not just men, it happens with women as well. Not as often, but sometimes a daughter will be given the same name as her mother or grandmother.

[MyriVerse]

Once any particular branch leaves America, I stop caring, and I've got branches in all of the "big" European countries (Ireland, England, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Greece). The furthest back were some non-Cajun French in Louisiana in the 18th century.

Honestly, I found the whole process very boring. It only amounted to hundreds of disconnected names and dates with no stories to them.