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I have helped my mom through the years with genealogy for our family, I'm good enough with research thanks to my education and job and can think more about the history which may impact how to research. Traced back family in the US to basically the boat after the Mayflower, though we cannot find the actual boat and there's historic reasons why we may never find the boat. We have visited Barnstable MA which the helped found, one family member was so cruel to their indentured servant that they were taken away from them. While my family fought in the Revolutionary war, they appear to have sided with the British... On my dads side, found the towns in Germany where family is from and have visited them, which was pretty cool. Saw that someone from the German side f the family that fought fought and died for Germany during World War One while two of my great grandfathers brothers from America fought on the side of the Allies during the same war. It feels a bit strange knowing that. As far as the Mormon thing goes, you kind of have to deal with them for a bunch of this stuff. They have the records, it's generally made things a little easier, but when you trace family back 400 years, sometimes you luck out and there are independent historical societies for early colonial towns on the East Coast. Also, if you get your family back to Europe, town church records can be helpful(if a bit difficult for language and distance). Careful with family that does genealogy as well, I have one family member who does as well and their stuff is full of errors. I am much more thorough with my research and confirmation of finding legitimate information before accepting it.
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May 24, 2016 06:33
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Cheesus posted:Ha! Same boat with first hand knowledge contradicting my own research. While my mom's side is generally okay with names since it's English going all the way back with a few Dutch, French etc.. marrying into the family, my dads side is a whole different story. They came over in the 1860s from Germany and over the course of a couple generations significantly changed the last names and named their children with anglicized names so no Johann going by John, all the records are for John (last name). Luckily I found an old family religious book brought from Germany, which I cannot read but it includes a family tree going from the ancestors who married in Germany and came to America up to my grandparents. Since we know when and who adopted the last name changes(that took place over about 3 generations) it was not bad to follow it.
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May 24, 2016 19:52
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Shampoo posted:Both my grandfathers were into their Genealogy as "something to do while retired" My maternal grandfather even wrote up a little spiral bound book of the family history and had a few dozen copies made. I think my mom still has one. He was able to go back to Rollo (Rolf) [the guy from The Vikings TV Show] in Normandy in the late 890s, early 900s. My paternal grandfather was able to go back to Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (who miiiight be the one the christmas song is based on) Yeah, once you get back far enough, there are millions of people who share ancestry with historic figures. I think it's Charlemagne that everyone in Europe is mathematically related to. It is nice if you can pick up even minor royalty in your family tree because that is all traced and kept track of well(at least in England) and from there you can trace back to the first rulers of Europe and sometimes beyond. There are also other historical societies that keep track of this stuff so if you can get a connection to say a family that had a member who fought in the Revolutionary war, the the Daughters of The American Revolution often has their history traced back even further. Random people posting these connections on the internet is much sketchier, but it sometimes provides a place to start looking or at least discounting certain family lines.
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May 25, 2016 23:17
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skipdogg posted:
I lucked out that one of my ancestors was a police officer in St. Paul Minnesota when there were literally two dozen officers for the city. The old newspapers are all digitized and I was able to go on there and read about his exploits, family tragedy and his unexplained death. It also included stuff about when his children had important parties, etc.. really great information. One day when my life is not in eternal chaos, I want to go back and see what other family information is hidden in there. Crotch Fruit posted:So, I think my last name was sort of bastardized during the immigration process. . . Makes me wonder are people with the last name "Johnson" descendants of someone who said "I am yo'han's son" as they walked through Ellis island and got their papers stamped "Johnson"? My cousin, an Ellis, claims his last name was just a generic stamp put on from Ellis island when they had no idea what else to put, although searching google brings up more elaborate tales of grandure and royalty associated with the Ellis surname. . . Really what I am most interested in the history of last names in general, things like supposedly the last name Miller is a descendant of someone who milled grain. It may have been bastardized during immigration or after by your ancestors. A few years ago I found an old German prayer book that had been brought to America by my ancestors. Inside of it is a bunch of hand written family records including marriage in Germany, then future generations born in America. Along the way the hand writing changes so different people were keeping up the records but it clearly shows that they arrived in America and the parents kept the original German last names and over a few generations the surname changed a couple times until it's current form which is a much more English spelling and pronunciation.
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Jul 15, 2016 22:50
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