Any Family History Enthusiasts here?

[ronott1]

I'm 13th generation on North American soil on my Dad's side in an unbroken male line, and I've been able to go back 18 generations in an ubroken line for our surname (though it changed spelling a bit over time). We were here before there was a USA. My ancestors owned a smithy on the Boston Neck in the 1600's. Too bad they didn't hold onto that!

I'm 12th generation here on Mom's maternal side and unsure on her paternal side. She says that my Grandfather's family came though Ellis, and had their surname changed, but I can't corroborate that. I'm Irish by both sides from my mother. this is where I've been focusing the majority of my research recently. I got a lot of Dad's side from him a while ago and just had to plunk it into the tools.

I've pushed our research back into the late 1400's in England on Dad's side but I have not contacted any of the genealogy research groups in England to dig deeper. I still poke around every couple of months trying to dig deeper. Mostly through the LDS's tool, Family Search. They've been collecting records for a long time, and they're freely available even to non LDS members (like me).

I've started working on my wife's tree as well, but getting any history from her family is difficult. They don't really get along very well and don't care about their heritage.

Have you taken a DNA Ancestry test yet? Mine showed that I am a lot more Irish and British Isles then I thought I was

 

[azurbanclucker]

Have you taken a DNA Ancestry test yet? Mine showed that I am a lot more Irish and British Isles then I thought I was

No. Based on what I've got now, I'm pretty much a classical Anglo-saxon Celtic thug Dad's side is English/Welsh and Mom's side is Scot's Irish / Irish. There's a little German and supposedly Blackfeet tribe mixed in there too ( and I've been curious about that part since again I can not corroborate it), but the major lines of the family I've traced are pretty solid into the 15th and 16th centuries in England and Ireland.

 

[ronott1]

No. Based on what I've got now, I'm pretty much a classical Anglo-saxon Celtic thug Dad's side is English/Welsh and Mom's side is Scot's Irish / Irish. There's a little German and supposedly Blackfeet tribe mixed in there too ( and I've been curious about that part since again I can not corroborate it), but the major lines of the family I've traced are pretty solid into the 15th and 16th centuries in England and Ireland.

The test can help you make contact with relatives from the native american side.

 

[TribalMog]

I love family history, but I got lucky because I was born into knowing most of it already - at least on my dad's side. But I am always learning new facts, and have no knowledge of my mom's side.

For my dad's side, we are direct descendants of Dr. Phillip Syng Physick (father of american surgery) via Commodore David Conner. Which also makes us related to Phillip Syng, creator of the Syng inkwell used for the declaration of independence. And then further back is Sven Skute. It's pretty fun.

I am curious about my mom's side though. Not necessarily the genetic makeup, but who people are - the stories.

 

[LittleMissCountry]

I have done the basic research, but don't want to shell out the money for the more intensive stuff yet. One of my cousins on my maternal side did ancestry.com and the dna test and found out my grandpa's lineage is from Ireland and immigrated in the 1700's. My grandma was an orphan so we have nothing on her history.
On the paternal side, I have traced it back to when my grandfather's side came over from England. My grndmother's side were here before America became a country and we even had an ancestor who was accused in the Salem witch trials. Interesting stuff. My great, great grandmother was a faith healer who supposedly was famous for healing burns.

 

[Ladybird CA]

My family has done all the DNA tests too. It's pretty fascinating. I found dnapainter.com last week and got addicted to it until I realized that people were too related - just when I thought a certain DNA segment belonged to a set of ancestors I found they belonged to another set. The problem is not a lot of people have family trees on the websites with the chromosome browser so I will probably wait for more advancements/matches to do more dna mapping, but I have been doing it a few years and learning a lot as I go.

What I thought was cool but probably disturbing to some was that the website I use to do some of the mapping, gedmatch.com, was used to discover the Golden state killer's identity. It usually only has around 200 people on there at a time so I thought that was very interesting.

There is a website, https://www.relativefinder.org/#/main that will tell you your relationship to notable/historical people. I just went there and there is a group for just the Salem Witch Trials, there is a list of people and it will say whether or not they found a relationship to you. Out of the 79 people listed, none are my direct ancestors but I am related to 3:

Mary Walcott 1675-1719, 1st cousin 9x removed, accused people of witchcraft

Elizabeth Colson 1676-1725, 6th cousin 9 times removed, accused of witchcraft

William Stoughton 1631-1701, 1st cousin 13x removed, a magistrate in charge of the trials

I feel kind of bad that I appear to be a bit closer related to the accuser side..maybe one day I will find more relationships with the accused/innocent

There's also an app called "We're related". I'm related to thousands of famous people and so are millions. I think it is a good way to find out how each of us are related because it's the famous ones that tend to have more filled out trees.

 

[azurbanclucker]

There is a website, https://www.relativefinder.org/#/main that will tell you your relationship to notable/historical people.

Nice. It's also linked to familysearch, which makes sense, they're both projects run by the LDS Church. I've already got a pretty in-depth paper trail family tree in FS, so this is a nice little addition. Thanks for the tip!

 

[jnicholes]

Hello,

I had something involving Family History happen I did NOT expect.

I was in Utah visiting a friend of mine. She gave me a tour of the BYU Utah Campus. She told me this,

"There is a building here called the Joseph Nicholes Chemistry Building."

I stopped dead in my tracks. I then said, "Wait, is the name Joseph Kelly Nicholes?"

She said yes. I saw the building and I was surprised. the sign said "Joseph K. Nicholes Building." I went inside and I saw a lot of his chemistry equipment on display as well as a photo of him.

How is this important to me? Ill tell you. Joseph Kelly Nicholes was my Great Great Grandfather, and he was a chemistry teacher in Utah. I did NOT know they had a building named after him. I thought to myself, "My great Great Grandfather was here!"

I did a side by side photo of me with his picture. You can see the family resemblance.

I have photos, but my phone is out of commission at the moment. I will post them later.

Jared

 

[ronott1]

Hello,

I had something involving Family History happen I did NOT expect.

I was in Utah visiting a friend of mine. She gave me a tour of the BYU Utah Campus. She told me this,

"There is a building here called the Joseph Nicholes Chemistry Building."

I stopped dead in my tracks. I then said, "Wait, is the name Joseph Kelly Nicholes?"

She said yes. I saw the building and I was surprised. the sign said "Joseph K. Nicholes Building." I went inside and I saw a lot of his chemistry equipment on display as well as a photo of him.

How is this important to me? Ill tell you. Joseph Kelly Nicholes was my Great Great Grandfather, and he was a chemistry teacher in Utah. I did NOT know they had a building named after him. I thought to myself, "My great Great Grandfather was here!"

I did a side by side photo of me with his picture. You can see the family resemblance.

I have photos, but my phone is out of commission at the moment. I will post them later.

Jared

That is very cool!

It amazes me how much Family history is lost.

 

[dunnmom]

I was lucky enough that my mom's cousin published an entire book on their paternal line. It was so cool! Probably not as tough to research as they come from nobility. Lots of formal records going back farther than Roman Empire. Her maternal side is Cherokee and Irish, so way less records there.

My Dad's side is a lot more difficult to pin down. Mostly because of lack of formal records, along with a common name on his maternal side, and the fact that it was kept a secret for a long time that he was adopted by my Grandpa, and there are only spotty records about his paternal line. Apparently, when his father's family came to America, they either did not know how to spell their name, or changed the spelling.

My father knows very little about and really wants nothing to do with his bio dad, and I can't say I blame him. I've come to the realization that lack of records can sometimes be a result of illiteracy, and illegitimacy. So I think I've gone about as far as I can.