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Thanks! I did not know that 1890 was mostly lost, that helps. And re: names, yeah, I forgot to mention that Christine's birth name is actually Kirstine. Now that you mention using other sources though, I realized I may have a lead. Kirsten's husband/Kirstine's stepfather died shortly before they went to America & from the probate protocol it sounds like their guardian is handling it even after they've left. He must hace been in contact with them somehow. I'll have to check out the corresponding attachments if any exist, they might mention an address.
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Dec 20, 2017 17:53
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ComradeCosmobot posted:Christine in particular might be findable from children who lost her original surname as their mother’s maiden name upon marriage. But here, you’d need some idea of where Christine may have gotten married.
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Dec 20, 2017 17:57
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Christine was born out of wedlock & got her birth father's "Hansen" that way (whether as a normal surname or a patronymic is unknowable, his name was Hans Hansen  ). Her mom was born Olsdatter, but married Eriksen when Christine was 6. They don't seem to have applied for Christine to take the Eriksen name too, but in my experience that doesn't start becoming common until after 1900.The events are pretty compressed, too: Christine arrives in New York in July 1887, Eriksen dies November 1887, and Kirsten emigrates by July 1888. I guess she had no reason to stay in Denmark with her husband dead and her only child in America.
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Dec 20, 2017 18:08
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Does anyone know of an easy way to produce a GEDCOM that only shows direct line ancestors? My current GEDCOM file is based on my Ancestry tree, which includes siblings, cousins etc. I’d like to create a tree that just incorporates direct ancestors for the purposes of creating maps etc.
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Dec 21, 2017 18:13
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Wikitree has some instructions on how to split a GEDCOM using selected family tree software.
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Dec 21, 2017 18:18
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I know you can do it in Rootsmagic fairly straightforwardly yeah but you need some kind of software. Or just enter it by hand into a new tree I guess.
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Dec 21, 2017 22:08
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In GEDitCOM (mac) which I use, you can hit "ancestors" on a person, then go "send tree members to album" and then export that album as a new gedcom file.
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Dec 22, 2017 08:17
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 quote:The Riksdag decided on the budget on December 6, and it is clear that the [Swedish] National Archives will receive SEK 10 million in order to make digital archive information freely available, in accordance with the government's proposal. https://translate.google.com/transl...salen&sandbox=1 Access from feb 1st.
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Dec 22, 2017 15:55
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HELLS YEAH! Man why can't our government do cool poo poo like that (well ok they already have with a lot of records like a LOT mostly it's stupid states being stupid and greedy with their records)
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Dec 28, 2017 23:42
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ComradeCosmobot posted:Out of curiosity, has anyone here who has done US research made any FOIA requests for dead relatives with the FBI, USCIS or the Department of State? An update on these: I ended up filing with the FBI on their electronic FOIA site and skipped the others for the time being. It was fairly painless but you should make sure you have a solid proof of death for more recently deceased individuals (not an issue for the two I requested). No records found though, so I wouldn’t recommend it if you don’t have a reasonably good reason. The A-files were also painless. You can search for whether or not your ancestor has a record in the files online (this only applies to people born over 100 or so years ago; the remainder require a FOIA from the USCIS). The response was quick (possibly because it was the holidays) and the record had quite a bit of interesting bits of information. Most of the bits I already knew from digitized Viennese parish registers, but it was interesting to finally find out who sponsored this person’s citizenship and his movements in the US once he arrived. Ironically, I don’t know if they actually ended up naturalized, since they moved right before the final naturalization interview. There’s a letter from them to this effect, but nothing dated afterwards so there’s no way to know for certain if they naturalized in the end. Finally, I ended up signing for a monthly subscription for Newspapers.com the other day since the library edition apparently doesn’t carry the Publisher add-ons I was hoping to search (mostly in the LA Times). I figure I’ll unsubscribe at the end of the month since there aren’t that many people in recent history likely to require newspaper searches. If anyone wants some clippings made and forwarded to them I’d be happy to help over the next month while it’s paid up. I still don’t know why Family History Centers don’t have access to the site since Ancestry runs it, if I recall correctly (and it isn’t strictly covered by Ancestry’s own newspaper collection).
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Jan 9, 2018 04:01
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Genealogy sometimes come in handy in the real world. Like when you repeatedly own racist congresscritters who want to limit 'chain migration' by showing how they themselves wouldn't be here without it. https://twitter.com/CleverTitleTK/status/951830248794087425?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/12/trump-pence-migration-records quote:Like millions of other Americans, Trump owes his existence to ancestors on both sides of his family having been allowed to travel from Europe to join relatives who had already settled in the US. So Dan. Let's say Victor Scavino arrives from Canelli, Italy in 1904, then brother Hector in 1905, brother Gildo in 1912, sister Esther in 1913, & sister Clotilde and their father Giuseppe in 1916, and they live together in NY. Do you think that would count as chain migration? — Jennifer Mendelsohn (@CleverTitleTK) January 11, 2018 https://blog.eogn.com/2015/11/13/think-your-immigrant-ancestors-came-here-legally-think-again/ (This is how a bunch of my dad's side got here, literally just wandered over from Canada into Michigan. Course parts of that line had been back and forth from Detroit to Montreal since the 1700s so screw your borders). quote:An article by Brian Donohue, recently re-published in the NJ.com web site, will interest many genealogists, especially in light of the political issues in the Presidential campaigns that are receiving a lot of publicity lately. Donahue points out that a high percentage of America’s immigrants have arrived illegally for the past 150 years or more. Most of them stayed, raised families, and the immigrants and their descendants have contributed greatly to America’s industrial might, military strength, culture, and more. Oracle fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jan 12, 2018 |
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Jan 12, 2018 21:43
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Oracle posted:Genealogy sometimes come in handy in the real world. Like when you repeatedly own racist congresscritters who want to limit 'chain migration' by showing how they themselves wouldn't be here without it.  hypocrites.I've been looking for the probate documents re: the two ladies who went to America to see if an address is mentioned. That has turned out to be more difficult than expected because it seems the documents are archived by "last entry date" and so the 1887 box I ordered was no good. So I double checked the protocol and though the probate proceedings start on Nov 30 1887, so far they seem to still have been ongoing on March 29, 1890. It seems I'll have to find the entry that says "proceedings concluded" before looking for the attached documents, also I should read the entires closer but there are at least 22 so far, and several are multiple pages long. Luckily the protocols are online so I can do that in my own time and order the documents when I'm sure. I've also become curious as to his cause of death and their weirdly rushed leaving for America: girl leaves (lying about her age), 6 months pass, then her stepfather dies, 6 months pass, then her mother/his wife leaves too. The probate doesn't indicate any foul play as far as I can tell, but I wanna check out his death certificate & see if there's a funny cause of death. He was only 48, after all. It'd be kinda cool if there was a possible secret murder in my family tree  Also, I'm still working on that 4-house fishing hamlet. I refuse to accept that the 1733 cadastre, that as far as I can tell contains literally every other inhabited place, doesn't contain the hamlet. Wrote to the "ask an archivist" service and after some back & forth, they suggested it could be due to "flyvesand" and pointed to a 1720 royal decree that let several coastal places in the area temporarily pay less in their field rents. "Flyvesand" is I guess "wind-blown sand" – in earlier times, locals would let sheep graze all the way down to the beach, which caused the dirt to blow away and the sandy areas to widen. It became a huge problem during the 1700s. There exists a 1778 letter from some of my ancestors asking the king for help as their houses have become entirely overcome by wandering dunes. Lots of nature preservation laws were made back then, and replanting the areas & stuff. Interesting period! Carthag Tuek fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Jan 13, 2018 |
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Jan 13, 2018 01:07
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Krankenstyle posted:
If you’re looking for an address, I’d prioritize that death certificate. The probate may contain information that would help identify their address if they had real estate, or if the probate turned into a full-blown court case involving court summons. As a general rule, though, American probate proceedings don’t usually include anything other than a city and county name. Death certificates usually DO have their location of death, however, and would probably have just what you’re looking for.
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Jan 13, 2018 01:16
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The probate & death certificate are both in Denmark though, I shoulda clarified that  I know where he died, but I don't know where they went (other than what I posted earlier, oh also I changed my username for some dumb reason. I used to be Powaqoatse. I think I'll change it back when I have more money lol). Carthag Tuek fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jan 13, 2018 |
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Jan 13, 2018 01:20
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Also just noticed that whoever filled out the gender column for the passenger list I quoted on the previous page had their head up their rear end:quote:Name Kirsten Eriksen Kirsten is a female name, but gender is male. Alright, it could be misread Kristen which is the male name. So I look at the other entries & the next page has an "Anna Friis" whose calling is "Miss" and her gender is "m" Either they were woke as hell in 1888 or someone was drunk.
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Jan 13, 2018 01:29
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Krankenstyle posted:Also just noticed that whoever filled out the gender column for the passenger list I quoted on the previous page had their head up their rear end: Passenger records are about as reliable as census records in my experience. Both are taken by third parties from information that is relayed by someone else who is usually not the person described, sometimes by voice. As a result, both kinds of data are particularly prone to misspellings, rounding of dates (since they use ages not dates), misquoted occupations, and so on. They’re still fairly accurate on the whole, but it seems like at least 1 in 10 familial entries has an error of some kind.
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Jan 13, 2018 01:46
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Ah, yeah that makes sense that there'd be a lot of "telephone" in those records. FWIW, the girls age is wrong in the Danish ticket records too, so I'm somewhat sure she lied about her age – she turned 16 on March 16, 1887 and the ticket is dated April 23, 1887 but lists her as 18. Now I have those numbers from a transcript of the ticket, so I should check the originals that they didn't misread 16 for 18. That seems more likely than her changing her birth year on some document from 1871 to 1869. Also I wonder if it was legal for her to travel alone without her guardian (ie. her stepfather who is soon to die).
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Jan 13, 2018 01:59
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e: nevermind. Man it's sometimes hard to keep all the information in your head at once when working on hypotheses.
Carthag Tuek fucked around with this message at 11:11 on Jan 13, 2018 |
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Jan 13, 2018 11:08
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Does anyone have any tips on uncovering more information about my 4x great uncle, born in the UK but died in Illinois in 1867? My experience is limited to UK-based research so any ideas would be welcome. All we know about him for sure is his name (John Belshaw Buckley), that he was born in 1835 in Warrington, England, and died a farmer in Cook County, Illinois, in 1867 leaving his sub-£100 value estate to his wife Mary, who is listed as being in Warrington, England, on the probate record. In terms of Illinois/US records, I have identified a John B Buckley, born in England and the right age but listed as being unmarried and a saloon-keeper, who appears in an 1863 draft register document from Iroquois County. A John B Buckley also appears to have joined the 12th Illinois Cavalry in Cook County in December 1863 for a 3 year period, but was discharged for disability in June 1865. I’m trying to establish if these John B Buckleys are the same - it seems possible they are but I have no way of proving it at present. The non-draft register Civil War records literally just record the name unit, company and rank with no further information. Illinois only appears to have started recording deaths in 1877 so I have no info on the death aside from what appears in the probate record. Does anyone have any ideas for avenues I could explore to shed more light on the situation?
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Jan 17, 2018 12:15
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If the individual naturalized before the 1890s (or didn’t naturalize at all) and didn’t live to appear in the 1900 census, good solid proof of immigration can be hard to come by without some received stories that help piece it together. The stronger piece of evidence of the two you have at the moment is the cavalry record. In my limited experience, men who fought (for the Union at least) were originally organized into companies of individuals from the same county. For example, Company K of the 10th Illinois Cavalry consisted exclusively of individuals from Brown County, a sleepy county of only 10,000 residents at the time. Another small, but potentially relevant point in favor of the Cook County record is that Union cavalry members were required to provide their own horse as part of their service. If John resided in Cook County prior to his death, chances are good that he would have joined a cavalry company from that county, and his status as a farmer would very probably provide him access to the horse he would need to join the cavalry (especially if his estate lists one as a possession). The Iroquois County record, on the other hand, looks somewhat promising but is flawed for reasons that should be obvious:
None of these points are necessarily disqualifying, and indeed the middle initial and English origins prevent the Iroquois County record from being easily discarded, but the questions above cannot simply be brushed away with “Well, the record is wrong” since it seems unlikely that a draft registration (or, for that matter, probate record) would be in these points. So in summary, I would file the Cook records as having the balance of the evidence in their favor (unless otherwise disproved), while the Iroquois record needs more evidence. Some questions I would consider for next steps to firm up these assumptions:
You could also search immigration records to find out when he may have immigrated, but since these records would precede his time in Illinois, the best they could do would be to cap the range of dates you’d be looking for court and land records. Finally, while I feel like it is a long-shot, if you can pin down the location of death to something more specific than Cook County, you may try looking to see if church records of nearby churches were kept that might list his death. Of course there may be no such records if he never affiliated with a church, and it might be difficult to identify his denomination in any case (probably Episcopalian, but it is hard to be certain).
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Jan 17, 2018 17:17
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I find a John Buckley who's listed as a smith from London, England arriving in New York on 10 March 1860 on the Devonshire. He's listed as age 25 which would put him at the right age as well. His destination is just 'U.S.' Source Citation Year: 1860; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897; Microfilm Roll: Roll 199; Line: 10; List Number: 150 There's another John Buckley from Great Britain listed as a laborer leaving Liverpool who's going to Hartford, CT (big whaling town at the time) 28 Sep 1855 on the Ashburton. Single male 21. I will note that Chebanse is only 68 miles from Chicago and was a stop on the railroad on the way from Chicago (first stop after Kankakee) as of 1854. There is a John B Buckley in Chebanse on the 1860 census, (taken in August of 1860) living with a woman Mary same last name (no marital status given - his wife?) and listed as a landlord (the Carter House Hotel aka the Carter Hotel built in 1857) who has several tenants. He is in fact the only John Buckley I can find in the 1860 census in Illinois born in England near that year (lots from Ireland though!) Another interesting tidbit: King Edward VII of England visited Chebanse on a hunting expedition in 1860 while touring the U.S. and Canada. quote:In 1860 the Prince of Wales, who was later King Edward VII and other English nobility stayed at the hotel in Chebanse and hunted in the vast surrounding prairie as wildlife was abundant and stories of the plentiful game brought distinguished visitors. It was said, 'The ducks and geese were so thick sometimes they blotted out the sun.') quote:On September 20, they boarded a ferry at Windsor and entered the United States at Detroit. The prince was met by the mayor, Michigan governor, and 30,000 boisterous Americans, some of whom rushed onto the boat, forcing members of the royal party overboard. (Oracle's note: stay classy, Detroit!) So many well-wishers poured into the streets of Detroit that the royal procession had difficulty moving through the city. Another place to check is findagrave.com. I took the liberty of looking for any Buckleys buried in Chebanse and found two: Ida and Thomas Buckley. Was John's wife's maiden name by chance Breatherton? Because if so I believe I found some relatives for you (read the obits attached to the record, click on 'view original'). I have driven through Chebanse, its right along I-57 which follows the railroad that has been there since 1854 and is still in service, its a main interstate to Chicago from the south. It is a teeny tiny little spot on the map even now maybe 1000 people live there, farming community. On the previous link to Chebanse you will notice the line: quote:1861: Civil War quota for Chebanse doubled in error, not rectified If you look at the history of the 12th Illinois cavalry you'll note that it was made up of several companies and several companies were consolidated within it due to attrition or whatever during the course of its existence. John B Buckley from Chicago is listed as being part of Company C (consolidated) and was enlisted by a Lt. Conroe as spelled out here: http://www.ilsos.gov/isaveterans/civilMusterSearch.do?key=33129 In fact I went through every drat John Buckley from Illinois who was mustered into the Union army on that site and most of them were native born or from Ireland, there are two records for John B but neither mentions he was from Iroquois Co. one says he signed up in Cook the other doesn't say just says he was discharged for disability in 1865 as you mentioned. Just for fun here's a history of the Illinois 12th Cavalry (Civil War records are extensive in the U.S. and you can basically follow step by step where your great-uncle may have been and what he may have been doing to get that disability. Illness like cholera was rampant, wounds would get infected, etc etc so it could have been in battle or otherwise. For the 12th, 38 enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 4 officers and 192 enlisted men by disease). The relevant time period: quote:On the evening of the 28th of November, the Regiment reached Chicago, and was received from first to last with one grand burst of patriotic admiration and enthusiasm. They wrote a whole dang book on the 12th Cavalry and here's a fun tidbit: quote:So great was the regiment's contribution to the Union victory that a monument at Gettysburg honors the unit for its place "in the first line of battle." I think I found your ancestry page, and looking at that probate record I'm going to guess the probate court did what everyone else does for all the little podunk towns/suburbs/etc around Chicago and just said your ancestor was from Chicago instead of Chebanse. Or maybe he died there in a disabled veteran's care home or something (lots of these popped up after the Civil War). Edited to add: poo poo I totally forgot about the penisioners files. They’re available on familysearch, see if his wife or kid didn’t try to get a widows and orphans pension from the government for his service. They would have had to provide reams of paperwork to prove their relationship. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GT5K-Y3B?i=1382&cc=1919699 Looks like Chebanse Mary did apply. Use the number of the application in that link to find out more (like whether or not it’s really him) quote:After locating an ancestor in the Civil War Pension Index, researchers are urged to request a copy of the case file referred to by the index. More info: J B Buckley returns to Chebanse according to the 1865 Illinois state census. Fathers a few children. https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=1079&h=675045&tid=&pid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=NgG6861&_phstart=successSource By 1870, Mary Buckley is living alone in Chebanse with four kids, James (from her first marriage to George Carter, owner of the Carter Hotel, you can see him listed as James Carter age 2 in the 1860 census) Thomas (on find a grave) Richard, and Ida (also on findagrave). John B is not found. Oracle fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jan 18, 2018 |
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Jan 18, 2018 07:37
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Swedish arkivdigital is free this weekend. https://arkivdigital.se
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Jan 18, 2018 10:50
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Thanks to both Oracle and ComradeCosmobot for your advice and information you've managed to dig up, it's very much appreciated. I've had quite a few breakthroughs as a result of what you've said - nothing entirely conclusive but all adding evidence. Also, Familysearch is a lot more useful for US records than UK ones! I've neglected it in the past. Through a bit of Googling and Wayback Machine use I managed to find the text of a book written in (I believe) roughly the 1880s, which is a history of Chebanse. There were a few key bits of information I got out of this: One is that the John Buckley who signed up in Chebanse survived the war but died of illness/wounds related to the war in Chicago (which I guess could account for the "of Chicago" bit in the probate). The other bit of info is that the Mary Buckley who appears on the census records was previously married to a George Carter, and married a John Buckley, described as "an English soldier" in 1860. I've tracked down the record of Mary Carter and John Buckley marrying in Kenkakee in July 1860. A findagrave search shows a George Carter, born in Lancashire, England, who died in Chebanse in 1859. Death records for both George and Mary's son James George and John and Mary's daughter Ida give Mary's name as "Bretherton", so this all seems to add up to Mary Buckley/Carter/Bretherton being the same person. Ida Buckley's death record also lists Warrington as the place of birth for both of her parents, which tallies up with my confirmed knowledge of John B Buckley. I also tracked down a newspaper story from 1886 about a Mrs Buckley of Chebanse being granted a widows' pension with a significant amount of backpay. When I did the maths it basically added up to how much she would have got had her husband died in 1867, which together with the previous info about a John Buckley from Chebanse dying in Chicago to me strongly suggests that Cook County John B Buckley and Chebanse John B Buckley are the same person. There's also the fact that in post-1867 censuses John Buckley disappears from Chebanse and we're left with Mary and the kids, with Mary listed as a Widow. John and Mary having a daughter named Ida is interesting as his sister, my great x whatever grandmother also had a daughter named Ida which suggests it could have been a family name (or just coincidence too I guess). The things I still can't quite square and make me hesitate to say I've definitively proved anything are John Buckley being described as a "farmer" in the probate record, and Mary Buckley being described as "of Warrington, England" - I wonder if this might be indicating where she was born rather than where she lived at the time. In terms of what I can do now, visiting records offices in person is a no-go as I live in London, but I'm toying with the idea of ordering the pension application we know Mary made, as looking at the amount of evidence and information that would have had to be provided it seems this could provide some definitive answers. It's fairly expensive and seems like it could take a fairly long time to come through but then again it also sounds like it could well answer a lot of the remaining questions. I'm also trying to track down John Buckley in British 19th century military records.
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Jan 18, 2018 21:13
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Owlkill posted:Through a bit of Googling and Wayback Machine use I managed to find the text of a book written in (I believe) roughly the 1880s, which is a history of Chebanse. Yeah, a large number of local and county history volumes came out in the late 19th and early 20th century. Although the biographical sections can be hit or miss if your relative wasn’t alive or wasn’t prominent enough to get a spot, as you found out, they also tend to have rich amounts of military details (often duplicated from official roster lists and military action reports). Other than that though, it sounds like those pension records are your best bet. I haven’t used Civil War-era pension records before, but I have been meaning to do so for one relative, whose husband never returned from the war. She applied for a pension late in life though (after 1900) and her husband is marked as having deserted his post about a month after being reorganized from a guard duty role to a new army unit in 1864, so I’m not particularly hopeful that the record will have much. Even so, I still should apply for a copy while I’m thinking about it. I did manage to find a copy of a War of 1812 pension record for another individual in my tree, but that particular record ended up doing little else but confirming that he served and was wounded, without giving me any clue as to where he was living in the 1820s when he filed paperwork for it, or when he died, which is what I really want to know.
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Jan 18, 2018 22:18
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Krankenstyle posted:Swedish arkivdigital is free this weekend. Access is open now, even if it's not officially supposed to be until ~7 hours
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Jan 19, 2018 17:13
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Owlkill, everybody was a farmer in that era and area. It was like what you did in addition to whatever else you did. Shopkeepers also had a plot of land to farm on (you could either feed your livestock by growing hay or sell it, cheaper than buying it) and to homestead you had to also farm the land. Its Illinois, big wide flat rock free land with rich soil. You farm that poo poo, its like leaving money on the sidewalk if you don't.
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Jan 19, 2018 18:06
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Also this guide is handy if you like playing around on gedmatch and have never actually had any idea what the various admixture tools were for. Also I got my first homework phone call last night from my niece who wanted to know about immigration in our family line. She asked about a great-grandfather. I asked her how far back she was supposed to go. She said as far as she could. I cracked my knuckles and grinned. "Does it have to be immigration to the U.S. or does Canada count? What if they came before the U.S. existed?"   Sadly she only needed three.  And wanted to include a German who came over much much later.
Oracle fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Jan 23, 2018 |
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Jan 23, 2018 15:04
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My background is western/central European mutt so I was amused to see a small percentage of Micronesian show up in my report. Even though it's probably an error I like the idea that 200 years ago one person from Fiji found their way to Germany to work their way into my family tree. I was surprised to see 3% Finnish in there. Must be from before the late 1700s.  One of my oldest relatives is so far only in one historical record, a book of tax records from the 1780s-1790s. How did he get himself immortalized? By being unable to pay taxes! One year the reason listed is "weak legs" and the other entry says "too poor." I'm definitely not one of those people with royalty in his past. Dick Trauma fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Jan 25, 2018 |
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Jan 25, 2018 20:43
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Royalty is boring anyway. Imo it's a lot more fun to read about and piece together the lives of the little people.
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Jan 25, 2018 21:35
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The Micronesian is probably just some of that archaic DNA, Dick Trauma. I had Finnish in my background also, apparently there were 'forest Finns' who went to Sweden to live in the forests and basically be Swedish rednecks.
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Jan 25, 2018 21:49
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Cool, just found this thread. I inherited my great-grandmother's genealogy research and have spent the last decade digitizing it and filling in spots with the help of the internet. The weird part was, while I can trace 5 different lines on my mom's side back hundreds of years (1,000 years if you want to get creative with sources), on my dad's side I only have my dad. My grandmother had a messy divorce and refused to ever talk about her first husband until the day she died. All I had was 'probably born in North Carolina', 'older than me', 'Alvin Hubert or Alvin Homer', and 'the kind of face you just want to punch.' After both she and my father had died I was cleaning out her old hope chest and found her decorative marriage license to her first husband. You know, the document you get to display on your wall that has very limited information and all the fields are written in by hand. It did have a date and a judge's name, which narrowed down the county/city where I was able to hit the probate and records department and find out his name wasn't even Alvin. Instead it was a similar name - so it looked the same on the handwritten document, but so unique that I can't post it for fear of being doxx'd. Like the moment I plugged this into Google and Ancestry I suddenly had my father's whole family tree dating back to 1805. So yeah, I've spent my whole life wondering about that side of the family and it turns out they live maybe 90 minutes north of me. My grandfather died in the late 90's and my father's half-sister in 2010. They don't even know this other family exists. I haven't reached out to them yet because they're the kind of people that post on Facebook that they're 8 years clean off the pipe, but hey...family. My grandmother's second husband actually has a case with his name on it that's taught in law school. Not a case he tried as a lawyer, but the one where he was in prison for kidnapping and was accidentally set free and the police tried to arrest him later for escaping.
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Jan 25, 2018 22:56
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Well drat, now that's a story Krispy Wafer! Dead grandmas are just repositories of information. We found photocopied handwritten notes in my grandmother's basement dating from the 80s from some distant cousin or other that fill three ring binder a solid inch and a half thick and so far DNA has confirmed all this lady's research (and that my family is hella faithful I think I've DNA confirmed back to like 4th great-grandparents on all sides that I can get back that far). Mostly farmers, farmers everywhere, as far as the eye can see. A few barrelmakers for a winery that died from inhaling sawdust and a hansom cab driver and a coffin maker, but even the coffin maker was a farmer or had kids that were. Also found an old trunk that belonged to my great-grandmother that has old pictures in it that I have no idea who they are, just what side of the family, need to post those online and see if anyone else knows (yes, I still know several of my 3rd and 4th cousins on several sides, the majority of the family stuck to Michigan. I swear you cannot throw a rock in certain parts of Michigan without hitting one of my cousins. I once had a babysitter that turned out to be a third cousin. This is what happens when your great-grandma is one of 21 and your other side is full of Irish Catholics).
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Jan 26, 2018 01:19
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As long as we’re talking about shaking the tree to see what falls out of relatives, don’t forget to reach out to cousins (especially your parents’ cousins) as you might learn a thing or two from them as well. As a case in point, I was recently browsing Ancestry for information on some relatives that I’ve been over several times in case something new had been indexed, and stumbled across a nearly complete tree down to my grandparents’ generation on a branch where I thought I was the only one doing research. It turned out that one of my parent’s cousins had done genealogical research on the family before he passed away in 2016. I reached out to his widow (who our side of the family barely knew due to a falling out between this cousin and the rest of the family) and as a result, as of this past weekend I am now the keeper of a 19th century German hymnal that contains valuable family records handwritten by two of my immigrant ancestors (along with several baptismal records and a naturalization certificate). Combined with corroborating evidence in the form of birth certificates and marriage licenses, these heirlooms have inadvertently opened up an entire branch of the family I had never heard of! I had previously found evidence that a great-great aunt had married once before the marriage my family had already known about, but knew little else than that it had happened. Among the heirlooms I received was a baptismal record for a child that, given the timing and names of parents, had to be of the first marriage (my cousin had not known about the previous marriage and had not known what to make of this kid or how he was related). Sure enough, armed with this knowledge and digging a little deeper, I found that this great-great aunt (born in the US) had married a man 30 years her senior and had at least one child in 1905. And yet by 1910, she, in her mid twenties, is back living with her parents in New Jersey, under her maiden name, while her 5-year-old child is apparently living in southern California with his fifty-something father. And yet she had somehow ended up with a photo of her son and his baptismal certificate which she presumably kept her whole life. (She never had any other kids and ultimately ended up running her own business in the 1940s and 1950s) So now I have a new fascinating story to research and new relatives to flesh out. And this just goes to prove what sorts of strange stories you might be able to uncover by contacting your cousins.
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Jan 26, 2018 02:16
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One thing 23+Me was good for was validating just how much loving around my maternal grandfather did during WWII. Guess one family wasn't enough for the lovely old goat! But grandma didn't take it lying down. Oh, actually she did, and that's where my aunt came from. That explains why she looks like one of their neighbors and her DNA is different from my mom's!
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Jan 26, 2018 02:49
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23&me is good. We've always been told my great-grandmother on my dad's maternal side was half Cherokee and she legitimately looked Native American. But my grandmother couldn't prove her lineage for casino money and I couldn't figure out where Indian blood crept into the family tree. 23&me settled that. My sister got it done and we don't have a lick of Cherokee. But we do have a surprisingly large amount of Neanderthal DNA. My wife did the Ancestry DNA and if you were debating between the two of them, 23&me seems to give more information.
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Jan 26, 2018 04:02
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Krispy Wafer posted:We've always been told my great-grandmother on my dad's maternal side was half Cherokee... You have described the story of pretty much everyone not already a member of the tribe who claims they are “part Cherokee.” But you still might find a little Arabic or Subsaharan admixture in such cases. The edges of civilization in the 1600s and early 1700s were wild places for sure (Lumbee Indians, Melungeons, and the like)
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Jan 26, 2018 06:26
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quote:And this just goes to prove what sorts of strange stories you might be able to uncover by contacting your cousins. quote:My wife did the Ancestry DNA and if you were debating between the two of them, 23&me seems to give more information. I do wish I’d have jumped on that 49 dollar sale 23&Me had running back in December. Found out a first cousin did it and that at least forced me to update all my poo poo to Genesis on gedmatch.
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Jan 26, 2018 06:36
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I have unusually low neanderthal in my DNA, which as far as I can tell only means I won't get much back hair.  My 23+Me was free because they were hungry for sarcoma victim DNA. Who says there's no upside to cancer?
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Jan 26, 2018 07:42
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ComradeCosmobot posted:You have described the story of pretty much everyone not already a member of the tribe who claims they are “part Cherokee.” Yes, I can feel for Senator Warren's situation. The irony is my grandmother's people looked Indian. Beardless, high cheekbones, dark skin and hair. So I guess it's possible my mom had an affair and my sister has a totally different paternal lineage. My wife wants me to do Ancestry DNA, but it seems pointless when my sibling already did it. Might be good for potential family drama though. quote:But you still might find a little Arabic or Subsaharan admixture in such cases. The edges of civilization in the 1600s and early 1700s were wild places for sure (Lumbee Indians, Melungeons, and the like) All that Neanderthal DNA means my family tree does not fork outside of the English Isles and maybe the tiniest sliver of northern Europe. So nothing from the sunny Mediterranean climate or North Africa. My sister did find a relative in Eastern Europe that we can't figure out. One of the family lines ends hundreds of years ago in Switzerland, but that's as far South and East as we get.
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Jan 26, 2018 13:20
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Went to the archives & got some leads! Obtained the death certificate I was looking for, for the man whose step daughter & wife "fled" to America suspiciously near his death. Turns out he died from tuberculosis, and the certificate was written out by the doctor who was treating him, who says that he had had TB for "several years". So no suspicious death, after all! Also narrowing down what's going down with the fishing hamlet. It seems to be partially missing in the accountings in the period 1718–37; and I know from other sources that the wind-blown sand was an issue in the area 1720–36; those periods overlap quite nicely, so I was looking at royal decrees regarding the district, which should be where to find information about such matters. Went through the indexes of decrees 1720–44 & will now sort them out to see which actual decrees I'd like to look closer at.
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Jan 26, 2018 14:27
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