Genealogy

[Peacock]

Anybody do this? Have you ever found anything surprising or shocking about your family heritage? Got any tips to share?

I just started the odyssey into tracking my family history. My mom did some of this so I have a head start; I'm just continuing her work.

There are boxes full of papers, letters, etc. from the past - my mother's generation, my grandmother's generation, and even before. I even found a letter dated 1874 from a relative I've never heard of, a letter from Dr. Isaac Peets of the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, and a divorce document from my great-great-great grandparents citing "habitual drunkenness."

My parents never talked too much about their family history; it wasn't always a nice story, so I'm turning up names that are totally new to me.

And ethnic heritage? I'd always thought I was English and whatever...some kind of western European mutt. Turns out my DNA is at least 75% German, by way of PA and NY Dutch! I had no idea.

But I will say this -- all of my family lineages have been in the US for a very long time, from the early 1700's.

Assuming they're right, of course. Following the "hints" on Ancestry.com is addictive. My father's paternal lineage is supposed to go way back to 1500-something in England ending with a Sir John Farmer who was knighted by Queen Mary. Wow, I'm descended from nobility!

Amazing, then, how many poor dirt farmers are in that family lineage. Mostly on my mom's side, though. They traveled from NY to PA to Iowa to Missouri to Illinois to KY, all over the place via covered wagon, and finally ended up in Frankfort.

I also have 6 paper ream boxes full of old books dating from the mid 1800's. Many of these are school books with kid scribbles in them - McGuffey Readers, etc. Very cool. Now I know who some of those names belonged to - cousins of my mom's, cousins of my grandma, books were shuffled around and shared.

One day I want to have the whole story of my mom's family and write it down. There's a lot more to go on with that part of the family. I tried to trace my dad's mother's family and couldn't believe how hard it was. One problem is that her father's name was down in various documents SIX different ways. Either he couldn't spell it (though he should've been able to, he was a grocer) or the person writing the record couldn't spell it or write legibly? He's down as Rupert, Rupard, Rubart, S. Rupard, Syrus R., Sirius R....

Mysteries. I never knew my dad's mother had siblings. One woman I remember as being "family" but I never knew how she was related, she was her sister, but there were three other sisters and a brother. My mom's mother was the third-youngest of 13; she always said the second-youngest of 12, but the last one died in infancy. One of the families...I think someone on my dad's side...had 16 children. Of course, it's not clear how many survived their childhood.

(sigh) I wish I knew more about this when there were family members around still to ASK about it. There is so much I will just never be able to know.

One of my favorite things I've turned up is a letter written from my mother's cousins to their grandmother when they were about 8-14 years old, three little girls' letters in one envelope, all written in pencil on stationery that had a little Indian girl printed on top, with a matching envelope. All three of them talked a lot about their chickens. "We sold our black hen and bought 6 Plymouth Rocks," one said. "My hen has 6 chicks, she is a good momma." and "My chickens are all colors, I think a whole lot of my chickens."

[Elffriend]

I love genealogy, so much so that I frequently go to the message forums at genforum.com and just pick random people to help out. It's a little like detective work and great fun.

I have a great-greatgrandfather who was in the rubber manufacturing business. He invented a few machines for making elastic cloth. One of his inventions is in the Smithsonian, with a piece of the original cloth. One of my greatgrandmothers made a quilt that her daughter donated to The Newark Museum. When I wrote to inquire about it, they sent me a picture.

I think one of my favorites is a newspaper clipping from 1928. The title says "Five Generations Celebrate" but it doesn't say what they are celebrating! In the picture are my grandparents holding my mother's older brother, who was a tiny baby. My grandfather's older brother, his wife, their married son and his wife holding their little baby, my greatgrandmother and my greatgreatgrandmother who was in her late 90s.

The biggest scandal I've found was that one of my other great-greatgrandfathers was a crook who spent a couple of years in Trenton State Prison. He had been a doctor and an upstanding citizen, or so we thought. He, and several of his cronies, got caught stealing from the county. There were several articles about the trial in the New York Times. They were called "The Warren Ring" because they were from Warren County, NJ

That's all on my mother's side of the family. She is descended from some of the first English settlers in MA and the first Dutch settlers in NJ. On my father's side I think they beamed down from the mothership and hid amongst the Famine immigrants from Ireland to escape detection. No one in the family knows where in Ireland they came from. Nobody ever talked about it or passed the info down. My greatgrandfather had 18 children by two wives and I have yet to run into any distant cousins working on our family.

[stirfamily]

[QUOTE=edayna;3176912]Anybody do this? Have you ever found anything surprising or shocking about your family heritage? Got any tips to share?

My dad has been doing some genealogy work and found some neat old pics. What was really neat is that my dad and my great-great granddad could be twins! My dad is the spitting image him!
karen in Indiana

[Maura]

We discovered that one of my Dad's ancestors died in the poor house in England.

My Mom always said that her relatives came to Ville de Troit (Detroit) when it was a fort with Cadillac (rich guy that the car is named after). Turns out, we met him when he docked.

[Horse Fork Farm]

I got hooked years ago and am still doing it. SInce the internet arrived its so fast and easy. Well, what I mean is it is easy to look, but its not always easy to find. I originally went searching to find my Cherokee ancestors name. I wasn't very hopeful cause there wasn't much to go on. I actually looked for over 20 years. A few months ago, it fell to me to clean out my Grandmothers house when my Aunt had to be hospitalized for Alzheimers. There was years and years worth of accumulation and endless papers. Guess what I found? In a desk, on a folded piece of writing paper, in shaky handwriting----- yep, a note with his name!!! With that name I have been able to find several land grants to him from 1830-50. I still can't prove he was Cherokee because hes not on the rolls but maybe someday I will!

[yarrow]

My daughter & I were shocked & happily surprised to find a website FILLED with info & pics of my mother's side of the family... all sorts of family stories, info dating back hundreds of years. (someone has done a lot of work!) My favorite is the following picture. It shows my grandfather's father. Who I actually remember from my childhood! Great Grandpa Lee. Who everyone called Dr. Mac. for me, as a small child I just remember a big man.. with pretty blue eyes & white hair that was all stiff & sticking up (flat top LOL) he was always sitting by the *swamp cooler* sipping sweet tea...
here's my g-grandpa, (he's the little feller, on the left..looking really ticked off!)


susie, mo ozarks

[Clifford]

I've recently started to continue the work of my great uncle who has documented some great data on our family. My Dad's maternal great-great grandfather fought in the civil war in the Illinois 7th Cavalry with Grierson's Raiders. We've been able to trace lineage back to one relative who came to this continent in 1751 on a ship called "The Queen of Denmark." Still waiting to hear details.

[Heidi's_Goats]

Be CAREFUL. It is very addictive. You'll be dreaming about your next lead in your sleep, if you sleep!

I started using genforum in the 90's. There is lots of good information there. Right now have pretty much all the pertinent information gleaned from familysearch.org. Now it is just a matter of taking advantage of the loads of census information that ancestry has, and connecting with cousins there and on rootsweb.

One of my gggg....-grandfather's was King Henry VIII's henchmen. On a day such as today I'm very proud of the numerous men that I am descended from that fought to keep us free. My mother is a Wheeler from Concord, MA. They were the first men to respond to the invasion.

If you get bored you can always see if we are related. On rootsweb my gedcom is heidi_ho. On ancestry.com my gedcom is uptodate.

Something funny we learned on our last visit to Vermont was that apparently my great-grandmother liked to sleep with women. Of course my grandmother was horrified that her mom would write about that in her diary. *L*

[MisFitFarm]

My Dad has traced our family tree since before I was born. He has his Mom's side back to the 1500's in England. He can't go any further on that particular branch without actually going to England. Problem is, he won't fly and Mom won't go by boat!

The earliest one I remember is Ralph Hunt, born in 1613, sailed to the States in 1635 on the good ship Primrose.

His Dad is the Cook side of the family, and to my knowledge they were originally from Ireland. That's the side I really want to trace.

[homesteadforty]

The more you search the more... ummm... unexpected stuff you're likely to find. The whole prim and proper stuff about generations past is bull (in many cases).

The more detailed information you find the easier it will be to spot illegimate children, children born 6-8 months after the actual marriage, divorces and such... if you're really lucky to come up with family letters and stuff you may even find extra marital affairs, two "bachelors" living together or two "spinsters" living together. Not to mention the n'er do wells that most families had.

I've got a pretty good history on most of my family (but always looking for more details) and I've done a number of friends and aquaintances families and they've all had this stuff.

I have a great-grandma that was a bank robber and killed in a shoot-out with local law enforcement in Missouri (1920's) after the divorce from great-grandpa, a cousin that was on the FBI 10 most wanted list (1940's), a great aunt that was "lose", an uncle that was born 7 months after the wedding, etc. But I've found much more family that had much better reputations.

Tips:

a. get a good genealogy program
b. learn how to properly cite everything... and cite everything
c. use other peoples research as starting information but don't count on it to be correct
d. keep an open mind and when you're stuck... think out of the box
e. remember... you're looking for a lot of people... the number of g-parents doubles with each generation (4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 gg grandparents, etc.)... you're bound to find "bad apples" in the bunch
f. back up your information... whether on paper or on disk, I lost 3 years of research in a computer crash one time
g. be prepared to get hooked... it's a lot of fun and often very interesting.

[chickenista]

I have it all on my Dad's side of the family back to 1664 when the first DeHart (Simon Artz DeHart) came from Holland to New Amsterdam. He opened a house for folks that were arriving in the New World. You can read accounts and letters and diary entries on line from some of the people that stayed in his house. They talk all about what was cooked and in one instance, the meat was dry. oops.
His son was the first DeHart born here.. Simon Artzen DeHart. And in the 344 years since they got here there has not been another Simon DeHart until I named my son that. DS is very proud of his name and the story behind it.
My family tree intertwines a little bit here and there, but I just look at it as good line breeding

[dale]

Interesting.. Well my great-great Grandfather married his Step Niece.
How it came about was that His blood sister married his wifes Dad after her mom died.

kind of scarry when you hear of the step niece part without knowing the whole store.

Have a neighbor that was working on hers and found a great great grandfather with the wife name Elizabeth with six kids but the kids had the wrong names. After searching more she found that this was his second wifes name also and his six other kids.

dale.
Now I livein the ozarks and you can find some interesting stories.

[chris30523]

I got a box of pictures and notes when my dad died. I think my grandmother was trying to trace a family tree. No one left though to tell me who the ones who are not labled are though. I found land grants to my ggg grandfather sighned by buchannan. On my moms side I had an uncle that had a photographers shop next to the OK corral and took pictures of "Geronimo".My gggrandfather left home and lived with the Sioux indians.One day when I have time I would like to dig a little deeper but I have too many irons in the fire right now.Any Bobst,Fly(Fleigh),Wallrich,Thompson (Changed from Tortenson) out there??

[mommagoose_99]

I have been studying my family history since I first got a computer in 1999. I have found 3,000 lost relatives. The most exciting day for me was when I was at my county library looking up a family file and a woman passed by me and asked if she could use the same file when I was done with it. A short time later she came by with an old photo and asked me if I knew any of the people in it. I was so excited , it was a family reunion photo taken in about 1920 as there was my grandmother, grandfather , great grandmother , great grandfather and about 20 other people I had never seen before. I am afraid they heard me hollering in the whole library . Turns out the woman knew the names of everyone except my part of the family. We keep in touch although she hasn't been doing much research lately.
I had heard family stories that our family went back to the Mayflower. It turns out we are related to 7 of the Pilgrims. We are also related to the Terrible Tuttles notarious axe murderers. We have a branch of my mother's family who were Quakers in Phillidelphia. Recently I discovered a relationship to a French Hugeonaut (sp) who helped settle New Amsterdam in the late 16th century.
Genealogy has made me learn more American History than I ever did in school . It has helped me to understand how they lived and struggled. Most of them we not much different than we are just trying to survive.
Linda

[Bernadette]

What a wonderful thread!

If you read through all of the posts here, I wonder if some of you/us are distantly related?

I've been researching my husband's family on his mother's side. One of the family names is Ostrander - they came over on the boat "De Bonte Koe" (The Spotted Cow) and settled in New York (Newark and New Haven). The other family name is Kitchell - and they were Puritans who settled in the same area. Moses Kitchel fought in the civil war. There's some difficulty finding his marriage records and the birth records of his children because we believe he married his first cousin once removed - so things may not have been recorded. If this marriage can eventually be proven, then my very Canadian daughter can become a "Daughter of the American Revolution"!!!

Sylvania Jane Ostrander married Peter Gilchrist in New York, (she was 13, he was 27) and they travelled through various states, often by covered wagon, and ended up in Nebraska. They had seven children between the years of 1859-1887. The second youngest, Mona Itaska Gilchrist was apparently named after an Indian Chief who helped them through an unusually rough winter. I cannot find anything about Itaska - I would assume he'd belong to one of the Plains Indian tribes.

Aww look - now ya got me started.....

[Elffriend]

Originally Posted by mommagoose_99

I had heard family stories that our family went back to the Mayflower. It turns out we are related to 7 of the Pilgrims.

We are probably distant cousins. I'm descended from Alden, Standish, Soule and possibly Warren. Who were your ancestors?

How many of us here have Mayflower lineage?

[Ninn]

I've been working on my tree for years. I have traced my great grandmother's family all the way back to the Netherlands in the 1500's. If you have a Driggs in your tree, we're family. Every Driggs in the country, no matter where, can be traced back to one man and his incredibly prolific family.

I've had more trouble tracking Mark's family than mine. He has a ggma that came over from Ireland. However, we think she was married once before she married his ggpa. The county Kerry records don't show a single solitary individual with her last name in them. However, her marriage lines say she was born in Kerry. Someday, we'll get over there and get lost in the parish records.

[Still Learning]

I haven't personally gotten very far with genealogy -- but my mom & several great aunts have. I enjoy reading what they've found, it's all so neat.

I've learned that my gg-grandfather Smotherman was a Methodist minister at a little church not too far from where we live now. He had 21 kids (with the same wife!) and he committed suicide soon after his last child was born I think. Funny --> Come to find out, a distant cousin is who put the metal roof on our house! He was around my age and was a gg-grandchild too... small world!

I learned that we are distantly related to Davy Crockett through my g-grandmothers line. I thought that was neat and that reminds me to share it with my 9 year old son (he'd get a kick out of that).

I learned that another gg-grandfather Marshall had inherited the big family farm (several hundred acres) that had been in the family since before 1840... but he hated farming so he sold it (blah!) and he moved the family to Nashville. Man, how I would *love* to still have that farm in our family. And it's not too far from where I live now (I left Nashville to move to the country! backwards, huh?).

No-one from my dads side has never done any of their genealogy. I tried and made it back to the Baskerville plantation in Virginia -- but couldn't get farther back than that. I'll keep working on it once I have more time to research it more.

~Ashley

[Heidi's_Goats]

Originally Posted by Elffriend

We are probably distant cousins. I'm descended from Alden, Standish, Soule and possibly Warren. Who were your ancestors?

How many of us here have Mayflower lineage?

Many of us are cousins. I'm related by marriage to Donna (SimpleFarmGirl) in NH. Also a descendant of Alden, Soule, Warren, Allerton, Billington, Howland, Mullins, Bradford, and Tilley. I'm almost finished on my first Mayflower Society application. The chairperson up here said that she was able to complete the most generations of anyone that has applied through her. Less work for me. It was also fun to find out after Ben and I were married that we were distant cousins. My mom and Dad are also distant cousins. My poor children. They are so inbred. *L*

[sheepish]

No Mayflower lineage, but my husband's ancestor is the first child born in Woburn Massachusetts, Increase Winn. Through this line of the family he is related to 9 US presidents and a whole lot of British royalty.

Most of his family are Scots or Scots-Irish. My Family is mostly Scottish, with 1/4 Welsh for good measure.

My husband and I were both born in Manitoba, grew up on the west coast, where we met, married and began our family. We have been living on a farm in Ontario for the past 27 years. Recently I discovered that members of the family who lived in our farm before us were married to members of my own great grandmother's family, the part that didn't go west 100 years ago. What a small world.