|
Buddy_Cthulhu posted:So I've been getting into all of this stuff on and off the last couple years and wish I'd spotted this thread earlier! So it’s possible they ran off to get married in another county/across state lines for whatever reason (family disapproved, she was too young, he had family there, ‘mixed marriage’ where the mix could be religion as well as race (lots of Catholic priests frowned on marrying outside the church for instance) there were several ’Gretna Greens’in America that were basically jurisdictions that would marry you in a hurry few questions asked. Aside from the various courthouse fires church closings etc there is the possibility that they didn’t actually get married legally and just had a common law thing going on, or only had a church marriage. Check for local churches of her denomination to see if they have any records. Some might be closed but there are archives for most of the major denominations where records from closed churches might go. Google for things like ‘Missouri synod closed church record repository’ or along those lines. To find him in particular you might want to check census records for nearby jails and prisons, check land deeds with the county clerk/recorder office to see if he owned any land or the house they lived in at the time of her death etc. Check probate records to see if his surname pops up. Check census records from before they were married to see if you can find family; sometimes you have to go ‘out and down’ to get back up (find descendants of siblings or cousins and trace their lines back in time). He might be living with a brother or sister but listed as a ‘boarder’ or ‘hired hand’ or ‘brother in law.’ He may have changed his name and headed for California or Chicago or wherever the nearest big city is to get lost and make his fortune. He may have killed himself and they hushed it up (suicide or any mental illness was very shameful; speaking of which check asylums and sanitariums as well, The Great Influenza was going around and if they were particularly hard hit he may have ended up in a mass grave or pauper’s grave). If he was from Mexico check for him in those records as well. All else fails DNA doesn’t lie, you may well find some cousins who wonder where great-grandad came from and how he seems to have just popped into existence in the 1920s… quote:<priest gossip snipped>
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2023 07:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 6, 2024 04:48 |
|
|
Buddy_Cthulhu posted:On the other side, I am incredibly grateful to how thorough the local parish priests in Mexico were and how good that climate apparently is for preservation. Even with my limited Spanish I was able to spot another great-grandfather's misindexed name (thank goodness his name is unusual even now). Its really funny to start identifying specific priests by their handwriting and then wondering if they woke up half in the bottle one day when their handwriting is suddenly garbage. I was able to more or less trace the same family living in what is now Ayotlan, Jalisco for a couple hundred years until Catholic naming made it impossible to continue. WHY IS EVERYONE NAMED SOME PERMUTATION OF ANNA MARIA GERTRUDIS. THERE ARE OTHER SAINTS PEOPLE. Just to add, this isn't strictly a Catholic problem, people just weren't very inventive. Also there was a strong imperative to name kids after their grandparents. Like 95% of everyone in my hometown has one of 5 male or 5 female names in the 1787 census.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2023 10:27
|
|
|
warning, kvetching below helped a guy find some ancestors in sweden on the danish society's forum (https://forum.slaegt.dk, they have an english language subforum too), but he's not reacted to it. two days later i pinged to say "was this usable?" still nothing, but he's replying to other threads. cmon man, at least say thanks  also, Carthag Tuek posted:I gave it a day and wrote back my findings diplomatically & it's just absolute silence since then. I wonder if he's mad or ashamed or furiously trying to prove me wrong lol turns out its the latter. he is absolutely sure he got the right guy and im wrong about my own research 
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2023 17:29
|
|
|
Carthag Tuek posted:warning, kvetching below nerd fite nerd fite worldstar (I had a similar exchange with someone who put my great-aunt on their tree as married to some relative of theirs I'd never heard of. I found the right person of the same name and commented complete with marriage record. They demanded to know my sources for how I knew she hadn't been married to the guy. I was like 'she literally raised my mom with her husband and I knew her personally for my entire life.' this was apparently not good enough to prove a negative. People gonna people. Don't waste your breath.)
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2023 19:29
|
|
|
Oracle posted:nerd fite nerd fite worldstar (I had a similar exchange with someone who put my great-aunt on their tree as married to some relative of theirs I'd never heard of. I found the right person of the same name and commented complete with marriage record. They demanded to know my sources for how I knew she hadn't been married to the guy. I was like 'she literally raised my mom with her husband and I knew her personally for my entire life.' this was apparently not good enough to prove a negative. People gonna people. Don't waste your breath.) yeah see this is why i dont maintain a tree online lol. this all is over mail so i can just stop replying if he gets too annoying. still, its my personal honor so i am forced by genealogist bushido to give a poo poo but strictly speaking, lived experience isnt a valid source  you could write it down and publish it somewhere, but thats only a secondary source  btw geni did a really weird thing the other day, theres an old tree on there that i built with my late uncle in the 00s, so i sometimes go there to see if anybody uploaded photos (iirc they sync with myheritage? tbh im not sure but i check a couple names once in a while to see if pics show up, its worked before). anyway it had some weird glitch in the tree view: several of my greatX grandparents had my nephews' or nieces' names but when i clicked om them they went to the right ancestor. just now looking again now it seems to be fixed so im just glad my nieces and nephews wont have offspring that result in me being born in 1890, that'd be awkward.
|
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2023 19:55
|
|
|
Carthag Tuek posted:yeah see this is why i dont maintain a tree online lol. this all is over mail so i can just stop replying if he gets too annoying. still, its my personal honor so i am forced by genealogist bushido to give a poo poo And I've long since marked my tree private to avoid harvesters with a note on my profile to message me if they think they match or what have you and that I'd be happy to share. Very few takers most people just want to dine and dash as it were. quote:btw geni did a really weird thing the other day, theres an old tree on there that i built with my late uncle in the 00s, so i sometimes go there to see if anybody uploaded photos (iirc they sync with myheritage? tbh im not sure but i check a couple names once in a while to see if pics show up, its worked before). anyway it had some weird glitch in the tree view: several of my greatX grandparents had my nephews' or nieces' names but when i clicked om them they went to the right ancestor. just now looking again now it seems to be fixed so im just glad my nieces and nephews wont have offspring that result in me being born in 1890, that'd be awkward. Oracle fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Jun 3, 2023 |
|
#
?
Feb 10, 2023 21:41
|
|
|
Carthag Tuek posted:Whew, transcribing a police case from when an ancestor died after an altercation at an inn, 15000+ words so far and theres a lot more where they came from All transcribed, roughly 20k words spread over 20+ documents in 5 jurisdictions. I've begun writing up it properly with context and structure, and it will probably be shorter than 20k — a lot of it is witness interviews that are largely the same, so I can just skip to the differences after the first one — but still, ugh I'm so lazy these days it's maddening. Doing the classic procrastination thing where I spend hours looking up appropriate illustrations (floor plans of jails, ownership history of the inn, etc) Alas, I've mentioned that I'm doing this to others, in order to force myself to actually do it, so I guess I have to.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2023 14:42
|
|
|
Yeah motivation can be hard. I'm sitting on gigs of evidence I need to upload to the various ancestors found by a researcher like five years ago and every time I look at it I just go 'ugh.' I know I've got it, dammit! Screw everybody else! My tree is private anyway!
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2023 15:11
|
|
|
Oracle posted:Yeah motivation can be hard. I'm sitting on gigs of evidence I need to upload to the various ancestors found by a researcher like five years ago and every time I look at it I just go 'ugh.' I know I've got it, dammit! Screw everybody else! My tree is private anyway! It's so much more fun to discover the stuff and just wallow in it than it is to actually make it understandable for other people lol
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2023 16:10
|
|
|
ahh jeez, just found out that there were two interviews of all the witnesses, conducted on the same day. like each witness was interviewed separately by two different investigators. ive never seen that in such an old case
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2023 06:51
|
|
|
Hello friends. I am in Australia and keep getting the urge to 'get into' genealogy. My problem: I have absolutely no idea where to start, and am too afraid to begin in case I 'start wrong'. Do you guys have any advice for a complete beginner on things like: How to store/collate information? Should I use a paid service for this, is there good free software, should I just start an elaborate word document? Where and how to find information? Outside of services that seem to connect you to sources, like Ancestry, I have absolutely no idea where to begin! Any advice greatly appreciated, i'm really keen to move past this early decision paralysis phase.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2023 01:32
|
|
|
Fat Albert posted:Do you guys have any advice for a complete beginner on things like: I just use Wikitree. It's free, people there are helpful, and I don't have to worry that the info will be lost if I fall under a bus.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2023 07:27
|
|
|
I prefer to keep my stuff local (and backed up) because I'm cheap as hell and also I don't appreciate when people change my stuff around. So I use this greybeard software for Mac http://www.geditcom.com which stores everything in the de facto exchange format for genealogical data. Most local software should be able to import/export the data, so you can change software if support ends etc. But if you wanna be online, FamilySearch has a free tree editor that looks very nice. They also have a free search engine, and a seriously huge number of digitized church registers, probates, etc. They do require an account, but they've never bothered me with spam or anything. Maybe try building small trees with a couple different systems to see what works for you before deciding on one. As for beginning, start by asking the old folks in your family as much as you can. Obviously names, dates, places, but the stories as well. Was someone a soldier, in prison, etc. When you put the data in whatever software/service you've decided, you should always look up if it's correct. Attach notes, sources, etc to all the info so it can be verified at a later date. When visiting physical archives, I take pictures of everything (including the archival box label) and transcribe them at home. As for Australia, I've gotten good help at the rootschat forums, and also ordered some stuff from the Australian national archives https://www.rootschat.com/forum/ http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2023 11:58
|
|
|
Fat Albert posted:Hello friends. Get as much info as you can from your family and draw up a basic family tree. When you get to the point where the info gets iffy, choose the points where you want to push back the boundaries and order some birth/marriage/death certificates. (So say your family knows vaguely where your grandfather was born. Try and find his birth certificate, or failing that, his marriage certificate or death certificate will have his place of birth as best the people involved knew it.) From there, you can use the parental information on the certificate to try and find records from further back, although the records get worse as you go back. I have a standard word document for each couple I research that contains lists Birth, Parents, Siblings, Children, Immigration, Employment, Residences, Death, and Miscellaneous. It all seems to fit into a double column A4 without too much trouble. I footnote where each item came from so it's possible to find the source long after you've forgotten everything. Then I have another word doc that has all the obituaries and other images I find. Again, caption how you found it and as much other info as you can. Then any other fun stuff like stories or good pictures in their own files. I posted about my experiences with Australasia specific stuff here.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2023 12:35
|
|
|
Oh dear me posted:I just use Wikitree. It's free, people there are helpful, and I don't have to worry that the info will be lost if I fall under a bus. Thank you for this suggestion - I was using FamilySearch for the digitised sources, but it was becoming a bit unwieldy with suggestions and other folks well-meaning but possibly less rigourous research. Enjoying the WikiTree experience so far!
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2023 10:40
|
|
|
Just found out that my guy who was in America in the 1850s but returned to Denmark willed a part of his estate to the baptist community in Copenhagen. There's been no other indication that he wasn't a regular member of the Danish Church, so now I wonder if he was a cryptobaptist. What's the record situation like for 1850s baptists?
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2023 12:59
|
|
|
Carthag Tuek posted:Just found out that my guy who was in America in the 1850s but returned to Denmark willed a part of his estate to the baptist community in Copenhagen. There's been no other indication that he wasn't a regular member of the Danish Church, so now I wonder if he was a cryptobaptist. In the US? Depends whether or not it was south of the Mason-Dixon Line. If he was in a secessionist state it’s possible the records were burned during the war (or in a regular old fire; poo poo caught on fire with depressing regularity in those days and courthouses and churches were no exception). If you know which denomination it could help narrow it down; there was a lot of fragmentation in those days.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2023 02:50
|
|
|
thanks! i figured it would be a pretty difficult situation. either way, i know absolutely nothing about denomination or even where in the country he was. ive written the danish baptist church, so we'll see what they say. in other news, looks like someone is testing out a chatgpt bot on my danish genealogical society's forum only one post so far, but its of course a perfect non-answer the thread is someone looking for information about a death in 1975 the reply (translated from danish) begins "Unfortunately, I cannot provide specific information on the exact places of death of the people you have mentioned, as my knowledge only goes up to September 2021* and I do not have access to individual personal data such as places of death and family relationship details in real time." and then suggests that the OP try asking genealogical societies. on the genealogical society forum.  i assume they intend to graduate to spam if the bot goes under the radar. anyway i reported it, so. but i bet we'll see llm-generated garbage genealogies soon * cf. chatgpt responses such as "I'm sorry, but I cannot provide real-time information or event updates since my knowledge was last updated in September 2021."
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2023 06:25
|
|
|
Carthag Tuek posted:thanks! i figured it would be a pretty difficult situation. either way, i know absolutely nothing about denomination or even where in the country he was. ive written the danish baptist church, so we'll see what they say.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2023 00:49
|
|
|
it's uncertain, but something like 1852–60 (in december 1860, he says he's been 8 years in america, and he is not in the danish 1860 census taken on feb 1st). you actually checked ancestry for me back in june 2019  i assume he was either missed or had left the country when US census was taken in 1860 (wow, wikipedia says it was taken over 5 months)
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2023 04:44
|
|
|
Carthag Tuek posted:it's uncertain, but something like 1852–60 (in december 1860, he says he's been 8 years in america, and he is not in the danish 1860 census taken on feb 1st). Yeah either is possible, though I had one relative show up in two different households in the same state one year. You also have to keep track of which month it’s taken in because they’ll ask ages and other date related questions as of ‘on or before’ the date they come to your door, which is listed at the top of the sheet.
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2023 17:06
|
|
|
my grandma is twice in the 1930 danish census. once in northern jutland with her mom's parents, second once in also nothern jutland, but with her own parents. she was just visiting, 2 years old
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2023 17:37
|
|
|
Just saw a post on FB by my cousin in Sweden, the one that reached out to me several years ago and shared pictures of my grandmother with me, which was a huge shock. She "collects" immigrant lineages of her family and frequently hosts them on their return to visit Sweden or will travel abroad to meet lost family elsewhere (including my family in Minnesota). In her recent post she shared that my great great grandfather, Gustof Andersson, constructed this lighthouse in Västra Götaland. Pretty cool to see it still in such good condition! https://www.google.com/maps/place/L...43px2?entry=ttu She and my mom (and many of my cousins from that side of the family) have a classically Dalslander rounded face, the resemblance between them is striking,.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2023 21:36
|
|
|
OK a little more if you don't mind. Someone posted to a family FB group an old article about another of my great great grandparents, this time his settlement in Minnesota from Buskerud, Norway. Here's old Ole  (edit: Man does he ever look like my uncle Jimmy) https://www.cookcountynews-herald.c...LE2fl7uOLRiJba4 Because my family tend to live so goddamned long, I got to meet old Ole's kid August who is mentioned in the above article as the youngest fisherman in recorded history on Lake Superior, my great grandfather. He taught me to find and shuck clams. His wife was my great grandmother, who I got to know even better since she lived another 10 years after he died (both lived into their mid 90s), and is the lineage from Dalsland my Swedish cousin had been tracking down in her genealogical research. (Other regions ancestors emigrated from include Kalmar, Blekinge, and Jönköping Counties off the top of my head. Covers a fair bit of southern Sweden) Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Jun 2, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2023 23:15
|
|
|
Hey I’ve got people from Jönköping! Like way the hell back in the 1700s or something, but yeah.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2023 02:11
|
|
|
Oracle posted:Hey I’ve got people from Jönköping! Like way the hell back in the 1700s or something, but yeah. I'll have to check how far back our records go, off the top of my head I recall the village of Ingatorp near the Kalmar border into the 19th century but IIRC they got back farther
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2023 07:36
|
|
|
Bilirubin posted:I'll have to check how far back our records go, off the top of my head I recall the village of Ingatorp near the Kalmar border into the 19th century but IIRC they got back farther Oh almost certainly; once you get back to Sweden their records are a genealogists wet dream: complete, well-written records that go back centuries and traces every time they move and where alongside the usual b/m/d. It’s like the polar opposite of Irish records.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2023 13:45
|
|
|
Oracle posted:Oh almost certainly; once you get back to Sweden their records are a genealogists wet dream: complete, well-written records that go back centuries and traces every time they move and where alongside the usual b/m/d. It’s like the polar opposite of Irish records. Yes for sure. My mother has been complaining of late how bad the German/Austrian records are, for some strange reason...OTOH my mother has traced our Norway lineage back to Harald Fairhair and Odin so never underestimate wishful thinking on the part of certain researchers. e. I remembered Harald as Eric, edited to repair Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Jun 4, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2023 16:36
|
|
|
There's a 1930s family tree that puts me as a descendant of Swedish author Emilie Flygare-Carlén which is untrue. I haven't seen it myself yet, but the guy who has it says he's gonna scan/photograph it for me. I suspect it was created by Sixten Otto Brenner, who was a professional genealogist and had a tendency to add famous people to people's trees because it made them more likely to pay. Later, he redeemed himself somewhat with some very accurate trees, including the descent of the first Danish king Gorm the Old in 16 generations (spanning 10th–15th centuries). There's a PDF of the book here (it's in German): https://bibliotek.slaegt.dk/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=32254 His collections are at the University Library of Lund, so I'm gonna try and write them if there is any extra material if it turns out the tree was by him: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:alvin:portal:record-67366
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2023 10:14
|
|
|
today's the 10th anniversary of the first time i went to the national archives to look at original documents. in that time, ive gone through 2640 archival units 
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 15:55
|
|
|
drat that’s a lot of documents. Happy anniversary!
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 18:14
|
|
|
Oracle posted:drat that’s a lot of documents. Happy anniversary! haha thx! yea it is a lot but i was unemployed for a long while over those years so i just maxed out on it. i remember one time one of the regular custodians was like "how do you make space for all that" and she immediately caught herself cause we were both aware there was a recent scandal about a neonazi stealing documents and i could tell she didnt mean to accuse me of stealing documents so i tried to save it with something like "i have a very big hard drive for all the photos i take", very awkward lol i dont have as much time now, but we still say hi when i show up. first time i went after shutdown was like "i wasnt sure that was you but it was!" and i wanted to say "well i got a job now, coincidentally at another archive" but the moment passed (cant really have conversations in a reading room, library rules apply). back to nod & smile i really miss going to check out new old stuff 2+ times a month. e: drat if i didnt gently caress up the math, thats on average 5 units per week over those 10 years. that makes an average of 1 visit every 3 weeks cause 15 is the max reservation. including the shutdown + my last several years of employment Carthag Tuek fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Jun 16, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 18:54
|
|
|
That's cool, congrats. I wish I had more time to dedicate to this stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 21:49
|
|
|
Gravitee posted:That's cool, congrats. I wish I had more time to dedicate to this stuff. to me theres nothing like it, having something that old in your hands its different than say a statue of that age. probably the fragility, but i bet theres some kind of elitism in it as well. "haha i got to touch this and you didnt" my pro tip is, if youre gonna loook at something irl at an archive, check what their reservation limits are before you go. what can you get to see? like danish archives is 15, so if i had 11, i picked 4 other random things from the catalog that could be interesting. sometimes its a dud, but thats how i got the miss murre document https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=3749916&pagenumber=185&perpage=40&highlight=murre#post490303925
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 22:05
|
|
|
Cool, I was looking at health dept records from 1826 & this one doctor reported on the weather over the summer. It was a hot one: 22–25° Ré = 27.5–31.25° C
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2023 08:03
|
|
|
neat, familysearch is holding a small Nordic Archive Symposium in copenhagen next month, gonna go to some workshops for my job 
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2023 11:28
|
|
|
also reclaim the records got a bunch of connecticut records released: https://www.reclaimtherecords.org/records-request/30/
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2023 11:30
|
|
|
Just getting started with my heritage.com. Recommended from one of my youtuber historians i follow. Glad to see it has a good reputation. The main goal for me is tracing moms family back to the old world. Thanks for being here goons.
|
|
#
?
Aug 20, 2023 21:52
|
|
|
Erainor posted:Just getting started with my heritage.com. Recommended from one of my youtuber historians i follow. Glad to see it has a good reputation. Well that's exciting! Where at in the old world? You doing DNA testing?
|
|
#
?
Aug 21, 2023 03:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 6, 2024 04:48 |
|
|
Haven’t decided yet. My moms family already goes back to both the UK and France which is neat.
|
|
#
?
Aug 22, 2023 03:25
|
|