Introductions

Hi! I'm from Portland and I'm a female, so you can call me PDXWoman ;-)

I've been working off and on with my family history since about 1980 when my 6th grade history teacher spent the entire year drawing family charts on the board and telling us fascinating tales of royal families.

There are a couple of Family Tree Climbers in my family... folks who just like to hook up names that might be connected. I have found some of the info to be accurate, so I continue to do the actual research to prove/disprove what's already been done. When I come to a name that can't be proven, I clip that branch off my tree, but leave it in the data base in case I come up with something later.

One branch goes all the way to William the Conqueror (from there, it's all history), but I'm skeptical. So far, so good, though...I haven't had to clip the branch.

Another branch, fairly well researched, goes back to Switzerland in 1521. Hope I don't have to clip that one! It looks good -- and I got a lot of the info from folks with good research.

Another is giving me nothing but fits. It's the Fitzpatrick line...so I guess it's appropriate. Apparently, my GG Grandfather changed his last name after killing someone. Good luck growing that branch!

That's enough chatter for now... let's hear about your family! :-)

Oddly enough, I'm also female and originally from Portland!

I've also been working on my family history since grade school or middle school, but I had some major difficulties in those early years due to no understanding of Soundex, no money for subscriptions, and my dad's total inability to spell or pronounce anything Danish (that one caused me trouble for years... Tourshen and Thøisen are NOT the same thing).

I once had a great aunt tell me she was afraid of shaking the family tree because she was afraid of what would fall out. Oddly enough, I found out that my ggg grandfather was shot for some reason related to an 1869 election, and probably also just because he was a bit of a pompous ass (currently going through the microfilms on that one). I also found out that the great aunt who warned me about family tree shaking was a 4th cousin to Richard Nixon, so I guess she was right!

Hi!
I started about 35 years ago. Growing up in close contact with relatives who were born in the 19th century, I heard numerous family stories. I realized that those interesting stories, and the people in them, would be lost to memory when the older generation died. I bought a "how to" book and started the interviews, luckily in time to quiz the oldest relative before she died at age 96. I never thought of doing just one line - - - I wanted to find out everything about everyone.

No one else in my near family has been bitten by the bug. They think I'm nuts. "How are all your dead relatives doing?" :-) I've located, or been located by, cousins, from 3rd to 10th, on the internet. A few have been name collectors/tree copiers, but the others are great, and we've worked together to find more info.

What else? Of course some of the family stories weren't true. :-) (And others that the relatives didn't believe but passed on were true.) I have several brick walls, but have worked some lines back to the 1500s. I've found relatives who died in the poorhouse, and others who lived in castles. Some of the in-laws are cool; there's even a Salem "witch." And I'm a proud member of the IBSSG, with 3 ancestors who were convicted of rebellion in 1677. :-)

I made a start way back in the late 1960s when I lived near London but things got put on the back burner till I started in earnest about 12 years ago. Have one line back to late 1500s and a some lines into 1700s. But for some reason I've let myself stray by spreading 'horizontally' to various degrees of cousin at various removes. I've found several with quite interesting stories but nobody that could be called famous. Samuel Chatwood founded a safe/lock company which gets a mention in a well-known obscene ballad but that's something I won't enlarge on. Most of my relatives were (in 19th, 20th centuries) worked in the Lancashire (UK) cotton mills but one line came from near Ely in the Fens until they came north in search of work.

Hi PossMan,

I've often found my way back to the main lines by investigating cousins, and even in-laws. Of course, my ancestors had a tendency to marry their cousins and the cousins of their in-laws. (Grin.)

myshelves
Quite a few of those cousin marriages here as well - but not enough to account for a disconcerting number of suicides in one branch. And quite a lot of men marrying the sister of a deceased wife. As life was pretty short in nineteenth-century Lancashire it wasn't uncommon for a man or woman to marry three times, building up quite a net of relations.

myshelves: I checked out the IBSSG -- what a great organization! My family is full of Black Sheep, so I'll have to get my proof together and join...fun!
---
Right now I'm working on my partner's line. He was born in Germany and adopted by an American family. His birth father was a US serviceman and his mother was German. I've been told it's not difficult to find out about adoptions in Germany, but the only contact I made (a government records house) asked me to send the fee the European way -- through some kind of bank draft -- but I can't figure out how to do that.
---

PossMan,
I don't know that the suicides correlate to the cousin marriages. I think I recently read a news item about some research debunking the taboo regarding cousin marriages. In any case, my "kinship report" shows that I'm my own cousin more than a dozen ways, and I still know a hawk from a heron, even if I am unduly preoccupied with "dead relatives." There have been some nutty people on my tree, but they were more likely to try to kill someone else. :-)

Btw, what was the problem with marrying the sister of the deceased wife, or the widow of the deceased brother (a la Henry VIII), anyway? Or was only the latter banned?

My 17th century colonial ancestors regularly married 3 or more times, with some men fathering over 20 children. With a small population, some of the kids were sure to marry cousins. My 19th century ancestress in England married 4 times. And I have one 19th century ancestor in the USA who married 3 times, but the problem is that if one believes the dates in a later family bible, he was married to all 3 at once. :-)

PDXWoman,
I do wish the IBSSG accepted relatives other than direct ancestors. I could enroll dozens!

I hate all these exchange hassles! Why don't they take credit cards, or use WorldPay?

pdxwoman, yeah, the bank draft is the usual way of transferring money here, but I guess it would be prohibitively expensive for the small sum we are talking about here to do that from the USA (*all* banks offer this service, otherwise how would the millionaires get their millions to Switzerland ;-) ). You could try and ask them to accept a cheque (again, internationally valid, ask your bank). Cheques are still accepted here, when one cannot use transfer. Credit card payments cost the recipient a fee, like other commercial payment services, so government agencies never and small businesses rarely accept them. We always have the alternative of the EC/Maestro Card which is direct debit from one's account.

#9
Yes, the banks here are likely to charge far more that the amount involved for a transfer or a check in foreign currency :(

A few years back, I wanted to join the historical society for the English village in which my ancestors lived. They asked for $1US. No big thing, until you try to convert it into pounds. I finally got them to accept a dollar bill, for the use of a local member who was heading for Disney World on holiday. :-) I later found out that I'd broken some law by mailing currency! They soon dropped the fee for overseas members.

Hi,
I am from Iowa. I have been interested in genealogy since 1972. My maternal grandmother's family is from PA and then Germany and Ireland, my maternal grandfather's family is from VA, KY and England. My paternal grandmother's family is from MD.>OH>IN and is English, Scotch and a lot of Quakers, my paternal grandfather's family is from PA> England and Germany. I belong to DAR, Colonial Dames and Mayflower Society.

Hi dara85,

Mayflower? So someone must have started out in New England?

Almost all of mine headed straight to New Netherland/New York, from various countries, and pretty much stayed put. I have one unproven line to a "Welcome" passenger.

My paternal grandfather came from a long line of New Netherlands Dutch folk in New Jersey. I've only recently learned that my mother has some of those ancestors as well; my parents are not only spouses, but, it seems, 11th cousins! My mom's ancestors came over right after the Mayflower to Cape Cod, then to Nova Scotia (cheap land after the English drove the locals out to Louisiana); intermarriage with exiled Skye Scots followed. Other ancestors were in Maine since 1630's.
Then there's the Irish Protestant college graduate immigrant in New York City, with the pseudo-wife (between 1st and 2nd spouses), including her kids passed off as his for "propriety" (I assume). His son dropped out of HS to work in the family biz. Ended up with a college graduate bride in 1903- talk about role reversal!
Everyone else seems to have fantastic luck finding living cousins, but not me! Oh well ... fun trying!

Hi Seajack,

You could private comment me about your NN Dutch folk. Some of my rellies moved on to NJ. We may be cousins. :-) What else have you tried?

Ah! Someone else with Irish Protestants. Trinity College Dublin grad? Where was he from?

I am Stacie (Sheyen) from Missouri, I have been doing genealogy since I was 10 and my parents decided they wanted to take a class on German history to find out about our name. I took the information and ran with it. Most of mine and hubbys family is from Germany, but I am finding out he has more English in him. And I am not that familiar with English history so this is getting to be fun, lol.
Sheyen

I sometimes wonder if I do this just as an excuse to buy more history books. :-)

#16, do you need an excuse to buy more books? I don't!

But you are right, I have read much more history books since starting the genealogy thing. But then I am from Schleswig-Holstein, whose history is said to have brought scores of historians into the madhouse. "Stolen by Denmark" vs. "occupied by Germany" were the arguments of the 19th and 20th century "national" historian (which still echoes in the assumptions of Americans as to why their Schleswig-Holstein ancestors left the place). No wonder the motto of the Land has been "up ewig ungedeelt" (forever undivided). Pure northern stubbornness! :-)

*Everything* and *anything* are both good excuses to buy more books... :-)

:-)

See new Genealogy thread called "An excuse to buy books?"

myshelves (#8) Btw, what was the problem with marrying the sister of the deceased wife, or the widow of the deceased brother (a la Henry VIII), anyway? Or was only the latter banned?
It was probably a very sensible custom but marriage to deceased wife's sister was prohibited (in England and Wales) by Lord Lydnhurst's Marriage Act of 1835 by which time it was a common custom. A Commission voted for it's repeal as early as 1848 but in fact it remained on the statute books, but very widely ignored, until 1907. As you say the example of Henry VIII must have been in people's minds. I suppose the theological justification is the 'one body' or 'one flesh' theory of marriage. This was why a wife could not be made to testify against her husband in court - as she *was* her husband she would be testifying against herself. And taking logic even further the husband *is* the wife so marrying (later) her sister is incestuous as he is marrying his own sister. My source says that clerical opposition to the Act's repeal was fierce so the logic must have been convincing to some people. As I say many people found ways round it and some clergymen must have turned a blind eye.

I'm sure you're right about the cousin marriages.

In colonial New Englands, marrying one's second or third cousin was quite common....far enough to not be problematical genetically but close enough to be 'in the family' and of a simialr socioeconomic background.

I haven't found any overlapping ancestry for my parents, but my maternal grandparents were cousins of one sort or another many dozens of times.

My maternal ancestry is primarily back to colonial New England, with a few stray Dutch and French lines. With second cousin marriages and the limited pool, I've found about 50 couples married 1600 or later where I'm descended from 2 or more of their children. Of course, in some of those cases, the couple in question married in the 1630s and the convergence happened with my grandparents in the 1930s ;-) And you don't want to know how many times I'm descended from John Putnam and Priscilla Gould, early settlers of what is now Danvers MA and the parents/grandparents of the Putnams involved in the Salem witch trials.

In an interesting twist, I haven't found any way that my husband and I are traceably related -- but we've identified at least 5 cases where our ancestors almost certainly knew each other: being thrown in jail together in Salem MA in 1658 for being Quaker, being in the militia together in Scituate MA in the 1640s (not the later Quaker branches........), in the RI legislature together in the 1670s, and so on.......

My father's parents were born in Scotland, with a mix of Scottish, Scots-Irish, and Irish ancestry.

I have pictures from a trip to Scotland tracing my paternal side's wanderings at Flickr and an out-dated tree at Rootsweb (updating that is on the short to-do list, so it may happen fairly soon) -- both with the same user name that I have here at LT.

I'm from England and I've been working casually on my family tree since I was 15, though I didn't actually start what I'd now call proper researching until my early twenties (I'm now in my early thirties).

I have a typical UK 'mongrel' background ;-) with ancestors from England, Scotland and Ireland!

killearnan,

Be darned! We have connections. Pieter Cornelisse Louw & Elisabeth Blanchan are on my direct line. And your Judith Bradbury, wife of Caleb Moody, is a very distant in-law on another branch. :-) I notice you don't list Judith's parents. Not ashamed of the connection, I hope. :-)

Hi, I'm new to this group, just reading the intros, but I have Rebecca Nurse and Martha Carrier as ancestors --both of whom died at Salem in July 1692. Who is yours?

Killearnan ...

I discovered last year that my parents are 11th cousins. Came as rather a surprise as I thought my mother's ancestors were all New England/Nova Scotia Yankees. However, there's this pesky branch of hers going back to Michael Jansen Vreeland, the original Vreeland emigrant to New Amsterdam. Typing in all those Dutch names, with all the cross-relationships intect, in a single setting almost caused me to break open a bottle of besen genever!
I haven't tracked down my grandmother's Weston ancestors from Nova Scotia, supposedly the same family for whom the town of Weston, MA was named.

Hi lopemopay,

My "witch" connection was a distant in-law. My GGF's sister married a descendant of Mary Perkins Bradbury.

Hi, I'm new to this group. I have been casually indulging in my genealogy since about 1990. I inherited some wonderful research done by my grandmother on one side, and some cousins on the other. I realized that my grandmother, in her 90's, was a great source of information when my children were young, so we interviewed her and her sisters and taped the interviews. I teach my children at home, so we have used our genealogy to enhance our history lessons. My mother also interviewed my grandfather from my other side.
Our records go back to the 1600's in America, mostly Maine and Massachusetts. Virginia on my father's side. From there to the Illinois area in the first pioneer wave, then on to California in the 1860's. My family all comes from England mostly, some Wales, Scotland and a bit of Ireland. We have records back to the 13th century in England, who knows how accurate!
My husband family history is challenging, part of his family were the original rednecks, immigrants from Scotland who ended up in the South, another part is from Mexico, with records back to the war for Independence from Spain. The third is from Bohemia, we have no records there beyond the fact that his great grandmother's maiden name was Dvorák, which I believe was a common name there. At the turn of the beginning of WWI, she told her son, who was a merchant marine, not to come home as he would be impressed into the Prussian army. His father was so impressed and never heard from again.

I am trying to put together photo albums with the stories of the people in them and the times they lived in. I have the photos done for my mother's side and my father's side, though I haven't finished with the stories yet. I've yet to do my husband's family, though I am trying to collect information. His parents think I'm foolish and wasting my time. Sigh.

Welcome Mrs. Lee! My maternal grandfather's line goes back to 1600's Maine and maternal grandmother's to the same period in Massachusetts.

Hi,
I am new to the site also. I live in Indiana and most of my relatives are from here or Illinois. My husbands family is from Pennsylvania. I have been researching for about 10 years, but only during the winter months, to much gardening to be done to do it in the summer.
We did take a trip to Pennsylvania last winter and found out that my husbands Aunt was really his Grandmother, what a shock that was to the family! To bad all of the people involved are gone, I would have loved to have heard the comments about that little tidbit!

Welcome vonlafin!

My maternal grandmother's family is from the Elkhart Indiana area. Our last known relative still living there just moved to Indianapolis last year. My maternal grandfather's family is from around Chicago.

Seajack - I'm going away this weekend to work on my albums, so I'll make a note of the towns my family are from and we can compare.

Hi! I'm glad I found this site. Thanks, myshelves!
We've traced my husband's family back to Lancashire, England, 1120. What's neat is that the line is unbroken from father to son, all the way to my 2 sons. (I think it's 29 generations.) They don't move around much. The family stayed there until a father and son got adventurous and sailed to Virginia and settled in what is now West Virginia. They pretty much stayed in the general vicinity until my husband moved south. The key to finding out all this was a great-great, etc. grandfather that wrote a history book that is still in print. From there, it is pretty boring because I was able to tap into research others had done. The original ancestor was a scribe and a knight, so that probably explains why there are records of him. I thought that perhaps he was the son of someone involved with the Norman Conquest, but in searches that I have made, I have found reference to the family name in some Anglo-Saxon records, although no direct connection because the records are too sketchy.

My own family has been traced by others too, and I could be part of the DAR if I was so inclined, something I may do when I can find the time. On all sides, my family is English, Scottish, and Irish without any other nationality that I can find.

I'm grateful we have the information we do to give to my sons. What a special gift!

Hello, I'm also new to this group.

Mrs. Lee-I think we have all the same groups :)

I have been tooling around with genealogy since about 2001. I was lost on my mother's family as my great aunt literally passed away a week before I went home. With her went all the information. Luckily, she knew I was looking for information so had written some down. However, it was just basics, mostly out her mother's family. I knew nothing of her father's family.

A year later, we were contacted by a distant relative in Delaware who was doing research and he is related to my aunt's mother's side. Luckily, while doing research, he's unearthed a great deal of information about my aunt's father's side to give me a rather good starting point.. I'm excited, but haven't done much yet.

My father's side is supposedly somehow related to Davey Crockett, but I haven't had much luck in asking questions there.

Good luck with research to all!

genea1,

Tried to send you a comment on your profile page, but you must have them disabled. I have several Stoneys
in my Anglo-Irish database, some from Tipperary.

Interesting bunch you have. Btw, have you read Sharyn McCrumb's The Songcatcher? I love her Appalachian/Ballad novels, but with genealogy mixed into that one, I couldn't put it down!

dara85 - I recently moved to Iowa from Texas. I recently finished my MLS and haven't found a job in Iowa, so started working on my family tree. My paternal grandfather and grandmother's lines both entered the US in PA around 1743, coming over from Germany also. My great aunt produced a family history with a distant cousin from another branch of the family. It is in the LOC. Supposedly their common ancestor's grave (in Westmoreland County, PA) has a plaque from the DAR. I would like to apply to gain membership to the DAR but need further documentation to support my claim. My great aunt fell ill before she submitted any DAR paperwork, so it won't be that easy to connect the line as I had hoped.

Dear GirlFromIpanema - Your posting about Schleswig-Holstein are of Germany caught my eye while reading the postings. Two years ago I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but now I live in a part of Iowa that has a large population from that area. I went to a program presented by our local library and genealogy society last fall with a speaker from Schleswig-Holstein, giving an overview of the area. My neighbor who lives across the street came to the U.S. from that area when he was 14 years old. He is now in his 60's and still speaks with a slight accent. He is one of the nicest neighbors I have ever had. His cousins from S-H came over last summer and we had dinner with them. I'm afraid some of my Swedish ancestors may have been guilty of invading your part of the country, as mentioned in the program I attended.

Hi I just joined the site today. What are the surnames for the WV relative you spoke of ? My husbands line is from Wv , Carrs with Whites, Summerfields, Bonners, and others. Do you have any of those names?
bush09a Thank You

I am also new to the group, started doing genealogy in 1990 as a 4-H project. My grandma was the president of our local genealogical society, and was surprised when I surpassed her in generations on my other side of the family.

Genealogy has opened up my career path, I would eventually like to become a Genealogy Reference Librarian. I've got a few years of college before that can happen. I did 4 yrs of volunteer work in my High School library, then 5 years part time at the local public library, now i'm full time at the University Library, working on my undecided Bachelor.

I'm over 1/2 German, plus 1/4 English, and a hint of Welsh - my main direct line, with Swiss, Irish, and American Indian possibilities. My relatives came to Ohio from VA, WV, PA, and NY. My longest lines are Seely/Seeley/Seelye and Shepard both going back to the 1500s in England.

Hi! I'm from Australia, and have been researching my family history for about 30 years! (I can't believe it's been so long).

I've been tracking the Van Cooten line back to England (during the mid 1800s), then to British Guiana (about 1770 onwards), and then originally back to the the Netherlands.

In the process, I've learnt a lot about slave trade, the emancipation movement, the sugar industry, and slave rebellions.

I've also made good friends with others researching West Indies colonial family histories, as original sources are rather hard to come by.

rodneyvc: sounds fascinating! welcome to the group...

I have been watching my parents research family roots for decades, usually with a bit of interest, and a bit of amusement. Now, I find myself more and more involved. I have a feeling the body of work will be my inheritance. ("Betty Jayne gets the oak dresser, Mary Lou gets the computer and the notebooks!!") That's not to say I'd be disappointed if it turns out that way.

My family lines seem to be English-Irish and Scots-Irish. My parents visited England a few years ago and found where one of the main lines came to America from Devonshire. Names include Spray, Lincoln, Hayworth, Burns, Coon, Barrows.

My husband's family was 100% German (I was the first non-German person to marry into the family - they weren't sure what to make of me!!). My side has been in America for more than 10 generations, while Lee's family was a relative late-comer, arriving just 3 generations ago. The surname is Miller, but it surely was Mueller or Moeller originally, don't you think? Other names on Lee's tree include Strate and Puls.

Hi MerryMary,

What are some of the English-Irish surnames? What era?

I have Miller ancestors; started out as German Muller in their case.

For many years, I was told my grandparents were German (and with a name like Miller, that's not surprising); however, then I learned that they were GERMAN-RUSSIANS. Most evident in the plains states (Dakotas, Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas) these immigrants from Russian retained their German language and culture through several generation along the Volga and near the Black Sea. My grandfather was Muller (with an umlaut over the u). I believe that the Mueller, Moeller, and other variations was one way folks handled getting rid of that pesky umlaut!

#46

That's interesting. When did these German-Russians immigrate?

Hi idmiller! It's definitely time I made my introductory message to Genealogy@LT too. I'm 1/2 Volga Deutsch, and I didn't know that my grandparents came from Russia until my aunt came to visit us when I was in high school. I also learned at that time that my father could speak German or at least did when he was younger. He could still recite the Lord's Prayer in German though. I was impressed. My grandparents emigrated to Calgary, Alberta in 1911.

On the other side, my grandmother came from N. Ireland, my grandfather from England, both to Alberta, also in 1911. That must have been a busy year on the shipping lanes. ( I've been busy this past week looking up ship's passenger lists at http://www.ancestorsonboard.com/ including families of Germans coming from Russia to NA via England .

Hi, just getting around to reading this thread and noticed how many of us have English/Irish/Scottish/German ancestors who came to America in the 17th/18th centuries and settled in Pennsylvania/New Jersey/Massachusetts for awhile before moving to Ohio/Indiana/Illinois. We must all be related in one degree or another!!!! ;D

I traced one family line back to about the 12th century England, though I haven't proven it yet. Some of my ancestors left their home in Ayno-on-Hill in England for religious freedom and settled in PA on land granted to Wm. Penn by the King. A ggggg-something grandmother was born in the mid-1700s during an Atlantic crossing from Ireland. A number of ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War, at least one of whom was kicked out of the Quaker church for it, and one fought in the Spanish-American War. Biggest claim to fame was Jack Kelso, a lateral relation, who shared a "duplex" with Abe Lincoln in New Salem. At least that's the family lore, and I even read it in a book on Lincoln's life once, though I question the validity of the story myself. All that was on my dad's side.

On my mom's side, nothing past her mother, who emigrated from Lithuania at the beginning of the 20th century. One of these days, I hope to locate some kind of records for her family line, but I know it's not going to be easy. Like #46's ancestors, my mother's people changed their names when they came to this country, so Barkauskus became Birkitis or Burke, and Karpinskas became Karpson or Carpson.

Oh, well, that's what makes genealogy so much fun!

*Edited to change "Civil War" to "Revolutionary War"*

Another Intro ...

My ancestry is also Scotland/Ireland by way of western Massachusetts. I've been researching the family genealogy for many years now and have, over time, made some interesting progress.

Some of my surnames are Miles, Smith, Houston, McGarvie, Dollar, Harris, Cathro, Gow, Sloan, Thomson.

In western MA, I have seen many of the Mueller/Müller/Miller names mentioned elsewhere in this thread, as there was a fairly significant German community due to a large manufacturing company that settled in the area.

Hi All! I'm new to the site and the group. Have been researching on and off since my senior year of high school (late 70s) when my grandparents shared a bit of family lore that intrigued me. My research tends to be project-oriented, focusing on particular ancestors and uncovering/building their stories. For example, my current "projects" include a GGUncle whose WWI diary I'm transcribing and annotating (and placing into the context of his short life); a GGAunt who defied gender roles and dedicated her life to the study and teaching of science; a GGF's fall from grace (i.e. prosperity, power, respect) as an attorney and politician in early 20th century Cedar Rapids, IA; a GGGUncle who was an esteemed physician but a bit of a womanizing scoundrel in mid 19th century central Illinois; and a GGGUncle who was shot dead on the streets of Sioux City, Iowa in 1870. I would love to converse with other genealogists/historians interested in any of the following topics:

Irish Famine emigrants
Chicago history/life
WWI medical volunteers
19th century shoemaking/bootmaking
Canada to U.S. Irish immigration
Rhineland immigrants (c.1840s)
(and lots more)

Surnames: Morris, Rees, O'Sullivan, Miles, Kanealy, Hartney, Hoffman, Smith/Smyth, Engels, Gleason, O'Sullivan, Donahue, Sullivan, Corcoran, Kevil, Mornane, Dowdall, Hill, Ducey, O'Keefe.

Hello there,
I'm Aleksandra. I'm 21 years old and have been working on my family tree for the past 5 years. This has proven to be rather difficult becuase, despite now living in sunny California, I am originally from Russia. In fatc, I have only been in th United States for the past 8 years.

Tracing my family lines is relatively difficult. I don't have access to documents, such as birth and death certifucates sicne I am overseas. Also, many such record have been "lost" throughout time in Russia (thank you, Soviet Union!). But I did manage to go back 5 generations in my genealoby with the help of some old photogaphs.

My grandmother on my mother's side kept photographs of her relatives - parents, grandparents, uncles, etc... - and wrote little notes on the back of them (such as "My great grandmother Sasha"). Most of the photographs are from the 1800's; some earlier and some later... After my grandmother's death, I inherited these photographas and began to look deeper into our family tree. The little notes on the back of the pictures really helped me get a sense of my relations on that side ofthe family.
As for my father's side, I was in more luck. My grandmother on that side of the family is still alive, so I am able to communicate with her. I asked her to write down anythign she might remember about her side of the family, and she sent me a letter with names, surnames, occupations, and little anecdotes about her own ancestry. This, of course, greatly aided in the compiling of my family tree.

My hope is to collect as much information as I can about my family tree and then travel back to Russia. There, I will hopefully be able to find further records - marriage certificated, baptism records, military records, etc - that will help me to further find out the history of my family.

Well... I have rambled on enough. I thank you for creating this group! It is always great to find people with similar interests. And if anyone stubles across a book on Russian geneology, do throw me a line. :)

~ AleX

Alex, If you check rootsweb.com you will find several Russian genealogy mailing lists and message boards. Also if you look under Eastern Europe on Cyndislist.com you will find some more Russian genealogy resources. HTH

I'm new to Librarything as of this week, so have just joined this group. I am a self taught genealogist, began back before the craze started with Roots. I started in 1963 as the age of 13. Not satisfied to trace just one line I'm working on them all and when a new generation is found that means more lines to trace. I also don't just do the line of descent I do the brothers and sisters, etc. in so doing I have connected my some of my lines together, a very inbred group. My blood lines come from England, Ireland, France, Germany, Norway, Austria, and Switzerland to name just a few.
As far a famous people in the line I am a descendant of the Hapsburg Royal houses as well as some of the German Nobility. My direct ancestor born c1603 in England, Rev. Michael Gilbert, was a classmate of Roger Williams at Cambridge. I like to play the six-degrees of separation game and connect my way around the world and through time.
Some of my lines are harder to trace than some but eventually I will find the answers I'm looking for. I'm big into collecting photographs to go along with the data collected.
Genealogy isn't a hobby it's a life long work in progress.

Hello Everyone,

I am a self taught genealogist. I became interested in our family history when my Grandmother told me that I was decended from some of the passengers on the Mayflower. Since then I've been working on proving a few different lines and am very close to having 5 fully documented lines. I also was recently approved for membership in the DAR and am working on my second patriot line there.

I don't own that many genealogy books, but what I do have is pretty region/person specific. I added 3 books today that were not previously listed on LT.

I live overseas, my husband is in the service, and
I have had some trouble in the past with getting records, but the past few years have seen great improvements in availability of information over the internet and that has helped greatly.

I'm glad to have found you. :)

Thank you to fleela regarding the note on the National Archives digitizing project. I'm the archivist and genealogy researcher for our family, and hope to learn from enthusiasts here at LT.

I'm from Portland, OR, and have found Oregon Trail ancestors in my family tree. My husband's lines include Germans from Russia(Odessa), and on his mother's side lines back to the Mayflower.

Most recently, I'm studying Organizing & Preserving Your Heirloom Documents by Katherine Scott Sturdevant, so that I can make a history out of papers my mother left me, which include WWII letters to and from my father.

Pandababy,

Welcome!! How fun to have gone back so far in your lines. I'm still in the mid 1860's, no luck with any Oregon Trail ancestors as we were mostly east coasters.

I've been very hit and miss lately. In fact, I don't think I've even touched genealogy for about six months!

Hi Neighbor (well, almost a neighbor). I live just outside Tacoma, WA. I have family in PDX and spend time there often. My mother got me started in family history when I was just starting high school some 45 years ago. My parents moved from upstate New York to California the year before I was born so I never really knew my extended family. Genealogy has been a way to connect to them. Over the years I have validated some of the family stories she told me and debunked some fantastic family myths (We used to own the land in Holland where the Dutch royal palace sits, but we were not allowed to sue them by the US government in the 19th century).

The majority of my research time is spent on the Rickersons (my mother's paternal line). I have been attempting to further the work done by a Grace Edes in 1917 by continuing to track the descendants of John Rickerson, who dropped from the clouds to answer the Alarm at Lexington.

Need to get back to work.... I'm loving LT!!

58> My in-laws are in Lakewood, so we're up in your area frequently, too... Welcome to the group!

I'm Julie from Michigan. I'm researching family who landed in Tuscola and Sanilac Counties of Michigan. I started a genealogy for a college project in the 80s and then dropped it. Last summer I dug out that information, joined Ancestry (user name wlancestors), and am completely sucked in again. I really enjoy researching!

Hi Everyone I am Robin from Vancouver, Wa I have been working on my genealogy for on and off the last 25 years right now I am back on. I have been trying to dig a little on my brick walls, most of my research has been in Minnesota and Wisconsin and since I live on the west coast most of my work has been from the internet and folks from Raogk. I really enjoy working on it and finding the missing pieces its like a jigsaw puzzle.

Hi All, I am Ruth from Raleigh, NC.....moved from MA last year. Just in time to miss a really bad winter. :-) I have been working on my genealogy for about 30 years..on and off. I have finally found my packed boxes and hope to dive back in. My mother recently died and she was the last of that generation. Discovering LibraryThing seems to be a breakthrough that I need, from some of the other postings I have read. Hope to be chatting with some of you.

Welcome Julie, Robin, and Ruth!! Enjoy your research! Feel free to share!

Hi Everyone, I'm Susan from the San Francisco Bay Area. I've been doing my family genealogy for about 8 years now. I really love it! There are over 2400 names in my database. I have a home office, so sometimes I get off track and do more "digging" than working. My paternal line that I can trace coming into America were part of the first migration of Ulter Scots in the 1730's passing through Pennsylvania and settling in the Valley of Virginia--primarily Rockbridge County. My dad's line moved onto Georgia in 1864 and then my grandparents settled in San Francisco in 1930.

My mother's line is harder to research because they immigrated to California's "Barbery Coast" in San Francisco, and many records have been lost to fire, etc. I have found though, a wealth of information in newspaper articles using the National Archives "Chronicling America" online resource, an effort to digitize America's newspapers for the years 1900-1910. There was a story in our family about my great-grandfather having been killed by an angry neighbor. Supposedly shot in bed. I found out the true story (the neighbor thought my grandfather had made a pass at his wife) and read about the extended trial and the neighbors eventual acquittal! It made my mom sad to know they real story, but things made more sense afterward.

It's fascinating to me to be able to go to google.com/books, enter in a surname and read about my ancestors and see their names in the history books. I love buying old out-of-print books that detail regions and family names--especially if it's MY family name! My interest in reading history books coupled with genealogy makes my understanding of past generations, why they lived where they lived, married who they married, did what they did, etc. much more colorful and dynamic.

I've met wonderful people. In fact, I found my mother's second cousin and she just got back from visiting the family for the Easter holidays.

I was warned by another genealogist when I started that it was addicting...boy, is it ever! However, I think knowledge is a healthy pursuit.

I'm looking forward to stopping in from time to time to rub elbows with other family history buffs!

Susan

Mostly wanted to say thanks to Fleela for directing me here.

I'm an English amateur genealogist (my family tree/history is very much a W.I.P) and I'm chuffed to bits (as we say over here) to have found this group. All I have to do now is read all the threads which should take me about 20 years then I'll have caught up with he rest of you!

By the way, I'm kinda disabled so can't dash about too much but if any of you find you have family in the South West of England (that's basically Devon, Cornwall, maybe Somerset) and there's anything I can do from this end to help with your research, please ask - I can always say no, after all, and I'd love to be able to help out if I can!

Hello all! I've only been researching my family for about 3 years now. I lucked out in finding a few distant cousins who have been doing research for 30+ years and who passed along to me their information. My lines are Greek, Italian, Swedish, Irish (brick wall), and English (American colonist). I am also a social historian and a bit anal about sources. My website is www.shawgenealogy.org Check it out and let me know what you think.

I've been researching my family for almost twenty years. That's not as long as some of you but since I'm only 32 I've still got plenty of ancestor-hunting years ahead of me I hope.

I'm from the Netherlands and my ancestors are about 95% Dutch. I recently found a Scotsman in my family tree which was pretty exciting. Some other branches lead to Germany and France (huguenots) but the majority is from the east and south of the Netherlands.

I'm researching all my ancestors in male and female lines and am working on complete population reconstructions of several of the towns they came from. For one of these towns, Winterswijk, I'm also researching where all of the approximately 3,000-5,000 emigrants ended up who left for the US in the middle of the nineteenth century. I have several American genealogy friends helping me and also use http://www.ancestry.com to try and find them. I maintain a website in English about researching Dutch genealogy: http://www.dutchgenealogy.nl. My Winterswijk database is available at http://www.dutchgenealogy.nl/tng.

I've got a lot of genealogy books and even wrote one on internet genealogy (Internet bij stamboomonderzoek) together with a friend. Genealogy is my biggest hobby. Related interests of mine are local history and cartography.

I've been doing genealogy with increasing seriousness for about 10 years. It turns out that living halfway between Fort Wayne and Chicago is a pretty good deal that way!

Not to waste any electrons, I'm usually at
http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com

my data is/are at
http://wc.rootsweb.com/~hendersonscholes

and some stories and recommendations at
http://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:Hh219

Harold AKA hh219

Welcome Harold!!

I've had some pretty good genealogy finds the last few months. I just found www.tribalpages.com where you can post your family tree, so I'm busy putting that together now.

Enjoy your searches!

Michelle in Japan

Hi all -- I can't believe I haven't found this group on LT before now! My interest in genealogy began with a scrapbooking project a few years ago and has bloomed into a potential business. I've found a wealth of information, including this book on my father's father's family, but the trail ends in 17th-century Virginia. I'm now trying to ascertain whether his ancestors are English or Irish. Surname is Corley, which is both a common Irish name and a place in England. My father's mother's maiden name is Hill (*waves to anniebharts*) and I know she was a born to Irish immigrants in the Philadelphia area, but I don't know much more about her than that.

On my mother's side, a relative did an extensive family tree in the 1980s, tracing our ancestors back to the Spanish Canary Islands. Some of our ancestors were among the original settlers of San Antonio, TX. I'm also distantly related to the original brewers of Becker beer in Germany. My mom got to visit the brewery in St. Ingbert as a teenager in the 1960s.

About me: graduating with my MLS at the end of August and considering certification as a genealogist. I'm also considering starting a business offering genealogy/local historical research and archival-quality scrapbooking materials/services. Beyond research into my own family, I've done pro bono work for a local historical society that involved tracing family lines of local ship captains -- really interesting stuff!

Well I have always had an interest in genealogy but left the hard work to a cousin and my brother.

However, a couple of years ago I took all my cousin's work on my mother's side of the family and decided to do some digging in more depth on one particular part of the family. These people emigrated to New Zealand from Northern Ireland in the 1880s.

As I now live in the UK, I decided to spend a weekend in Northern Ireland visiting the village they came from to see what I could find.

It was so interesting - the two families, the Jamisons and McMullens are both still well represented in the area, and I spoke to some, the eldest of whom, at 90+ remembered Jamisons living in the house that my group had emigrated from.

I even met an old brother and sister who looked and sounded like my mother - really quite spooky, but also very rewarding to see where and how they lived.

That really is what the whole game's about, isn't it? So envious of you tracking down such great links!

This is my first message to the group. I thought I would introduce myself. I have been interested in Genealogical Research for some time but only recently became active (since I retired). I am impressed by everyone's credentials and I hope to learn a lot from all of you. My family lines are almost all in the U. S. after the Civil War so I haven't had much experience with international research yet. So far I have managed to identify all of my and my wife's ancestors back to the great-great grandparents and some beyond.

One of the interesting side effects is that I have come in contact with some long lost family (3rd cousins) since I have been doing this.

I am presently using Ancestry.com for my tree but it is interesting to see all of the other options that are out there.

Bill in Seattle

Hi there and welcome, Bill in Seattle! You'll have a lot of fun here, I'm sure!

I started actively working on my genealogy in 1986 when I was unable to work because of an injury. I have not been actively working on it in ten years and have even lost information thanks to a computer crash and my poor habits about backing up data.

My mothers family are some or those "sausage-eating Germans" Toni Morrison mentioned in Beloved. Dad's family is more interesting, the Crawford's go all the way back to 1764 and, according to the evidence, never get out of Kentucky. The problem is that in 1764 there was not any Kentucky, it was not even a county in Virginia. Dad's maternal grandmother was half American Indian from the Kentucky-Tennessee border area. They were dirt poor so I have not been able to find out anything else about them like what her other half was.

Currently I am working on a history degree from Miami University in Oxford Ohio.

Hey, I've got something that was unusual. My mother had been researching some Welsh ancestry and came to a stop and couldn't go any further. She didn't know what to do so she left it alone and went to another line. After her death, I picked it up and looked at it. I thought I would give it a try. There was nothing. Elizabeth was named after her mother and her father was Owen Evans. That was all I knew, plus approximate dates of their birth. I was puzzled when I came upon middle names that were "AP" and "Vetch" and didn't even know what they meant. I was stumped and then it dawned on me when I came upon Evan AP Evan whose son was Owen Evans who married an Elizabeth. I didn't have an exact date but the year and town were the same. His father was Evan AP Robert Lewis and his mother was Jane Vetch Cadwaladr. What was this AP? Why did his father's last name change? I looked it up and found that "AP" means "son of" and "Vetch" meant "daughter of." What do you know! It sure makes it easier to research if you know what some words mean.

#76-That's great! And very helpful! I never would have guessed that's what that meant.

Still working on mine. Its hit or miss there. I can't seem to find much more out on my one line in TN. I know that they were all born in TN, but can't find them on any census records.

Take care all!!

Hello all, I've only just discovered this group although I've been on LT for some time. I started investigating my family in january of this year - I'm well impressed by some of you who've been doing this for 30+ years!
I live in the UK and have been using the recently released 1911 census for most of my research. I'm hampered by the fact that all my older relatives have died, including my parents, so I'm racking my brains for stories my granny used to tell about life in the old days, i.e. pre-WWI. But what she didn't tell me, and which I've recently discovered, is that her father was German, and was probably interned as an enemy alien during WWI in a pow camp on the Isle of Man. However, the internee records got destroyed by fire in the 1970s - the only place which has a full set is the International Red Cross in Geneva, and they charge huge fees apparently to do a search of the records.
I'm probably not going to be able to trace his German family though, because I don't know which part of Germany he was from. All I know, from his marriage certificate, is that his father was a farmer, and their original surname was Braun.
I have however been able to track other branches of our family back to the 1700s, using census returns and BMD indexes. I'm planning on doing a tour of various towns in the north of England to visit local history records offices some time this summer.

Margaret from Croydon UK

Margaret,

welcome in this group! I wouldn't want to raise your hopes, but if you want to give it a try, you could use http://gedbas.genealogy.net/ to trace your grandfather.

rfb

Margaret,

Welcome to the group! A good bit of my family is from England, Scotland or Ireland. Unfortunately, the names I am researching are Cook, Brown, and Boyle. Well, at least I don't have any Smith's in the family.

Actually, I've had pretty good luck researching the Cook family. They lived in Wolverhampton through most of the 1800's.

Margaret,

I don't know if it would help, but how did Mr. Braun list his birthplace on the census? Sometimes people put additional information, not just the country.

I guess you've tried the Manx Museum?

Vic33,

Boyle in Ireland? That can get interesting if they are descendants of the Earl of Cork. And his descendants seem to include about half of the Western world. :-)

I've had luck with my English Simpsons --- another terribly common name. They obligingly stayed put in a little village in Worcester for all of the 1700s and into the 1800s. Be nice to know where they were before they showed up there in the late 1600s, but the records don't say.

Vic33, I'm doing JONES and have had pretty good luck finding the family in Tettenhall and Codsall, (just outside Wolverhampton), easier than my DYKES in Wolverhampton, but then I searched the census records on microfilm before they were indexed. Those were the days.

Margaret, just a thought,though your grannie's father might have been German, that does not necessarily mean he was from Germany or from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Many if not most of the German emigrants, (to North America at least, and probably England), came from farther east. Russia was on 'our side' in the war, and ethnic Germans from that area were not interred. See msg #48, my Grandparents emigrated to Canada from Russia in 1911, they passed through England on the way.

Just joined so thought I should say hi.

I am the beneficiary of a lot of previous research. I have all 16 at the "gg" level and 30 of 32 at the "ggg" level. (One of my gggrandmothers appears to have been a barmaid during the California Gold Rush and is living with a different miner during each census before dying in San Francisco in the 1906 earthquake. She appears to have had the habit of adopting the name of her previous "husband" as her maiden name at least where there is a record of marriage, so I have largely given up hope of tracking down her linage). I can track most lines back to arrival in America which is kind of my mental stopping point.

Right now I am concentrating on getting solid documentation and on getting beyond the basic genealogical facts. A couple of years ago, I inherited several hundred family photos (all unlabeled) plus about 100 letters to various family members from the late 1890's-1920 and some family diaries from that same era. I am still sorting.

What a blessing to have gotten those letters, photos, diaries! I wish I was so lucky!!

Been working on my family tree in NY. We are supposedly part American Indian but no one could trace it. We've only been here two or three generations and then from Canada or Germany or Scotland. I'm thinking maybe the Canadian branch has some of the Indian in it and then of course, we would be Canadian Indian. I'm figuring of course, that the German or Scottish side did not have an affair that produced an illegitimate child. I don't have much info on the Canadian side yet, so I'm going to dig into that. My great aunt is still living and remembers her grandparents quite well so I'm trying to get stories from her.

just stopped in to say Hello. I have been working on my family for so long. I have found quite a bit of info but of course would love to find more. I am researching the Hill family from Mo. Dallas County to be exact Have found them from McMinn Co. Tennessee and then maybe Scotland. Still need to verify so much. But love the info you have all listed...

Hillgirl, I'm the descendant of Hills from Ireland who were in Philly.

I have found a couple of people from Philly from not exactly from my group but I will keep you in mind if I find a connection that can be traced.

Thanks! And likewise, if I come across any Scottish Hills, I'll let you know.

Hi - I have just discovered this group. I am originally from South Australia and have been researching my family for several years, mostly online.

Since I uploaded my family tree to the internet I have been contacted by some very, very distant cousins, mostly in New Zealand and America.

And I have realised that most of the stories which are a part of my family history are glorified fiction.

Research is difficult in Australia because all census records were routinely destroyed until quite recently and trying to find out how, where and when people arrived here is not easy. However, I have records going back to the 17th century in some branches and three branches almost no information at all.

>89 pinkozcat: Well, that's interesting - why did they destroy the census records?

To protect the privacy of those who took part. The government has now realised the error of its ways but valuable records have been destroyed in the meantime.

There was a census in 1841 and for some reason those records were kept but nothing since then. But most people arrived in Australia after that year so the pickings are very small.

I've always been interested in family history but have spent a lot more time on it over the last 14-15 years that the internet has been widely available. People are incredibly generous with their information and I have been able to connect a lot of lines to what my relatives had already told me. I have done very little personal story gathering but am trying to pay better attention these days. I also keep a little notebook handy! I live in the North Texas area and my family lines all come through Northeast and East Texas.

On my mom’s side I am descended from the Somerville family of Ireland, Scotland and Normandy; the Chambers family of Texas, Tennessee and Virginia; the Ballard, Ayres, Hubbard, Thomas, Leake and Clopton families of Virginia; the Allen family of Virginia and Kentucky; the Hart family of Texas, South Carolina and England; the Boyd family of Alabama, Georgia and Ireland; and numerous others including the Hervey family of Tennessee and North Carolina and the Murphy family of Tennessee.

On my dad’s side I have the Moore family of Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia and possibly Virginia and/or Maryland; the Harris family of Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia; the Maynard family of Mississippi, Georgia and Virginia; the McMaster family of South Carolina and/or Michigan; the Spell family of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana and England; the Cash family of Georgia, Virginia and Scotland; the Alford family of Georgia and North Carolina; the Ritchey family of Kentucky and Virginia; the Allen family of Virginia (no connection so far to my mom's Allen family) and various related lines.

My heritage is mostly Scots-Irish with a few English and Huguenot families thrown in. I was not aware until a few years ago that most of my people had been here since the 1600-1700s and that I had several Revolutionary War ancestors. I am very close to finalizing a DAR application for the Hart line on my mother's side and will follow it up with the Hervey line before switching to my dad's side to work on one or two lines there.

#93 I can understand your distress. The archived Australian newspapers are gradually coming online and I have discovered that a lot of my mother's family were either outright crooks or seriously depressed, possibly borderline personalities.

It can come as a bit of a shock but it is not about you yourself but about your colourful forebears.

#93

Of course, from a genealogical point of view, anyone who has family records going back 2000 years should be laughing. Most people only manage to get back to the 15th or 16th century.

>93 Britni_baby:, 95

But think of what a colorful family history it is! Most of us have farmers, clerks, servants, laborers.....I guess from a genetic point it might make you wonder how you or your kids might turn out, but what great dinner table stories you have now.