Genealogy, OMG, please stop me.

[shamblescross]

Oh, shame on all of you!

You've given me new leads on family research. I've come to dead ends on most of my however-many-greats grandparents on Ancestry.com, so maybe a different site will give me some different input. Thank you again!

 

[weimarmama]

I just love geneaology; it's so addictive

I don't know that much about my father's family because we're not close, but I'm very close to my mother's side. I traced my maternal grandmother's family all the way back to the 1600s to the captain of the Speedwell which was the sister ship of the Mayflower. It was supposed to accompany the Mayflower to America, but had to turn back because of repairs. I don't know much about anything farther back than that. I have read that one of the captain's ancestors immigrated to America in 1585 to Roanoke, but there's no record of what happened to him. That's all I really know about him, though. I do know that their surname originated in the 10th century.

My maternal grandfather's family were Scottish Quakers that immigrated to America before the French & Indian War. One of the family's sons (his name was John & he's the one we're descended from) decided to marry a French lady & fight in the war. His father didn't take all of that too well, & disowned him. I don't know if John really cared all that much because he was awarded a couple of thousand acres in NC by the King for his service in the war, had a very long marriage with many children, & apparently he never saw his father again.

It's just amazing what you can find out about your roots & it's just so much fun.

 

[josh44]

This is a fun thread,

I just found am of

Spanish, Mexican, Polish & English Decent.

Family reunion this year hope I get to make it & learn more.

 

[BBK]

Quote:
Josh,
that's we i did, went to a fam reunion... was told lots of stories...now I'm just reaLIZING THAT A LOT THEM WERE JUST THAT....STORIES!!!! opps sorry fro the caps!!! But fun to find out... and the spellings...oh my....

I've found twice now, in my fam, and i don't know if a lot of you guys have found the same... but if a child was born and then died within a few years...they would have another child and named them the same name....this has cause a lot of confusion, but i've now realized that this is a trend in my mom's fam...

melinda

 

[OldMacDonald]

Turns out a LOT of family stories are just stories. Almost every family says they cam from two or three brothers who arrived in America a long time ago. My family thought that. After a decade of research (and about $5,000) I found out the truth. Of course the truth can often be much more exciting than the "stories"- as was true in my case.

My family arrived in America in 1729 when my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather brought his three children from Ireland, and then almost immediately died, leaving them orphans. The girl disappeared. The two boys went their separate ways with guardians assigned to them in their father's will. One ended up in central Pennsylvania right about the time that the Indians were massacring the settlers. The other ended up in eastern Pennsylvania right about the time when the Indians were massacring the settlers.

After the French and Indian war one moved a bit north just in time for the Revolutionary War when the Indians began massacring the settlers. The other moved a bit west just in time for the Indians to begin massacring the settlers. After the Revolution my family moved even more west to the Pennsylvania border with Ohio just in time for the Indians to begin massacring the settlers.

You may say they were good at being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But look on the bright side, those events were well recorded and so the lives of my ancestors are much easier to research in county histories!

 

[NanaKat]

Yes sometimes the stories are embellished...but sometimes there is a kernal of truth that opens a floodgate. You have to know what is fact and what is fiction...sharing with the old folks can often peel back those layers of fiction to get to the kernal.
Take a tape recorder if you can...it's hard to keep up with the story as you write. Opportunities for spontaneous questions often get lost in trying to record someone as they are talking.

On my mother's side of the family, we knew that her grandfather was a blacksmith and that he learned the trade from his father. We knew also that the Cates came from New Hampshire or Connecticut. Charles and Mary had only the one son. Both died at ages over 100 and Charles had served in the Civil War as a confederate. With this information, we have traced my grandmothers father's family to tax records in Connecticut and cemetery records that list several siblings for his parents too. Also Mary had filed for Veterans benefits for Charles...giving us information on her family and that of Charles.

We knew my father's father was adopted and have his birth name. Fortunately his birth mother kept in touch with the adoptive family, yet never shared much information about her husband. He had died in a flooded river leaving her with three children. My grandfather was the oldest boy and was adopted at 18 months. His brother was just 6 weeks old. The little girl was not adopted out and later died at the age of 9.
I was able to find the adoption papers at the county court archives in Oklahoma for both boys and have now been able to amass quite a bit of information that I hope will lead to my father's blood family. Also was able to find the birth certificates in Arkansas because of information in the adoption papers. Now we have the actual name of the husband and where his family is from....a door is now open to the Ellis family.

 

[weimarmama]

You know I had always been told by family that my grandmother's family arrived in America in the 1800s straight from Ireland. I started researching it & found out that the family got here 200+ yrs before that & that they were English & it wasn't until much, much later that a few Irish ancestors married into the family. So it pays to actually look into it & do some research. Besides what I found out about our family was so much more interesting than what I thought I knew before.

 

[BBK]

Quote:
i know... i just uncover a lot of info....now to figure it all out...i know it's the same fam....but it might not be mine... I think it's a brother or two... Very interesting though...one was hiding out in a corn field to escape from being put in jail (imprisonment) for what...i'm not sure of just yet.... but I WILL find out...Both own little shops (businessmen) I read it while I was getting tired, So i need to go back through... and I also need to print it out... I didn't have a printer when I found it...(laptop)

Exciting...
Melinda

 

[mom'sfolly]

Anyone here have the family names of Jullian, Fullen or Branstetter? I'm just curious. The Branstetter family that I'm related to is from Missouri, and further back, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. I think the family originally came from Germany about the time of the revolutionary war (mercenaries, maybe).

 

[sfw2]

Ancestry.com finally sucked me in, last week. My brother's done a lot of research on my family, but we really didn't know much about my husband's. I took what little I knew, and now I'm back to the late 18th century, when his German ancestors arrived. There's a lot more available information on the German side of the family than the Irish.

One of his maternal ancestors died as a POW at Andersonville. Another fought in the War of 1812. His maternal grandparents families basically lived next door to each other for about 100 years. I think my DH is related to himself, at this point!

Several different branches of the extended family have done research that I've been able to poach. I've also found photos of several relatives he never knew about, some of whom he bears quite a resemblance to.

Of course, I didn't get much sleep this weekend . . .