Geneology

[Blazin Bones]

Is anyone else here really interested in their Family history? My grandfather has compiled a family tree with over 120 thousand names on the tree. We can trace as far back as the early 17th century. I find this stuff very fascinating at the very least.

 

[Fembot]

How did he do it?

 

[Blazin Bones]

I'm not sure...Family bibles, national archives... anyway he could I guess.

 

[jasoncran]

a distant relative on my mom's side did that with the O'rourke linealge it was interesting to see the common names the Irish pick, Jack, St.John,Kate,Mary, and so on, Irish birth records were lost in a great fire in the 1700's. That's about far back as she went though

jason

 

[Guest]

It's pretty easy to research genealogy today. A ton of document is online. There are DNA tests, and so on. Check out Ancestry.com. It's a little pricey, but well worth it for those actually interested.

 

[Fembot]

Kinda hard to do when one side of your family entered undocumented. Plus I don't know how my homeland stores this information. Is that website worldwide?

 

[handy]

My "name" histories, (ie my dad's family history of the Watrous name and my mom's family history of the Tingley name) are fairly well documented. There are some fascinating stories in both genealogies. The Watrous family name goes far back because the name Watrous was shortened from Waterhouse and the Waterhouses were part of English gentry so those records were firmly documented. We know the Tingley who got off the boat in the 1600's and what happened with that paternal line since then.

As far as putting a family history together, websites like Ancestry.com are really good. Another source of information for anyone wanting to do a genealogy is the Mormon church. Although the reasons why they have complied such good genealogy records is steeped in false theology, there is no doubt that they have excellent records archived and anyone can use them for the purposes of developing a family genealogy.

One note though, you do have to double check things from the websites. A lot of the information on those sites are placed there by just folks and the veracity of such things can be questioned. My niece got on Ancestry.com and followed our family "history" to find claims that we are related to King Herod of Biblical fame as well as a full bevy of folks from the Who's Who of History. I was more than a little skeptical about that and most of those claims cannot be independently verified.

 

[Caroline H]

I have always found genealogy very fascinating as well. On part of my mothers side (through her mother) can be traced down through to the 1500's in England, and her father's side came from Anglo Saxons who settled in Northamptonshire. My father's side came on a boat during the Irish potato famine. But I always wonder about the other sides that don't get followed as much. Like, even if I follow down my father's side, there's two sides to that in inteslf....and then there's four sides to that actually...which leads to eight... :crazy

 

[handy]

I have an ancestor who came to America from Ireland during the potato famine as well. He was on my mother's mother's side of the family. As you say, four leads to eight and eight leads onward. Genealogies do get murky.

I do have a pretty good hunch though that I can count Noah as one of my ancestors! And, not only would he be on my dad's dad's side, but also on my dad's mom's side, my mom's mom's side and my mom's dad's side, and also even my mom's mom's dad's mom's side and then there is also my dad's mom's dad's mom's side and .....

 

[Caroline H]

Ahaha...exactly!

 

[Blazin Bones]

It would be very interesting if we still had records from biblical times about ancestry.

 

[stovebolts]

My wife loves doing Genealogy! And yes, she has an Ancestry account

Believe it or not, the LDS have a fantastic site for doing genealogy and it's free (it's always a good idea to validate the work of others with concrete evidence). Ancestry is great too, and one benefit of Ancestry.com is that you can manually search the Census if a particular census hasn't been cataloged to include a search funtion yet.

My wife actually spent several months playing detective while manually sifting through hundreds of online census pages while trying to find my great grandfathers wife as she moved from place to place. It's a guessing game at times and the better you understand the historical culture, the greater your chances of finding who your looking for becomes!

Here's something we can laugh at though! I'm pretty sure that everyone in TN is related, and while my wife did her side of the tree, she found out that she was related to her mother in like three different ways

If your new to genealogy, have fun! And remember, if your great grand parents came over on a boat, the first place you may want to search is the passenger list. Oh yeah, it was pretty common for people coming over to slightly alter the spelling of their name too.... That's when the historical culture bit comes in ;)

 

[Fembot]

IDK. How can you really know if someone is your blood family? Just because they have the same name doesn't mean anything. I think birth records and government tax documents are the only things that show someone is a part of a family for sure. Many people changed their names and servants took on the names of landowners. Even the serfs in Europe. So, I think it's not as accurate for many people. Do you know how many people have my last name?!

 

[Fembot]

Here's something we can laugh at though! I'm pretty sure that everyone in TN is related, and while my wife did her side of the tree, she found out that she was related to her mother in like three different ways

It's a guessing game at times and the better you understand the historical culture, the greater your chances of finding who your looking for becomes!

What do you mean by understanding the historical culture?

 

[Vic C.]

My dad had it done many years ago and also had a painting of our Coat of Arms done and framed. His side is from the outskirts of Naples.

 

[Fembot]

Cool! My first boyfriends family was from Naples (not that it matters)

 

[Vic C.]

Cool! My first boyfriends family was from Naples (not that it matters)

Not Naples, Fl. Naples, Italy! :biglaugh

 

[Fembot]

Yes, pure-breed, olive skinned Itlalian

Ippolito was the name...

 

[Vic C.]

:biglol

I stand corrected.

 

[Fembot]

:biglol

I stand corrected.

I am speaking about Naples Italy. Not Florida.

He had a great famiglia. Boy, do I miss him. Should have never walked away from that. I did that girl wants to see what else is out there bit.