QOTD - Genealogy - 01.02.16
 

We obviously all scrap, but have you also traced your roots back from whence you came?

I have done my biological father's side & my mom has done her side so I've discovered that I'm, like, 85% (maybe more) English. There are a few other lines here and there but mostly both side of my family have lived in America since it began (one of my mom's ancestors came over on the Mayflower!) and then lived in England for centuries before that.

I was really hoping for a wayward Caribbean pirate ancestor, but alas, no. :p

My mom did tons of research about 12 years ago and found out a lot of our history lesson. The coolest is probably that on my dad's side we have family history as bodyguards to the eileen donan castle in Scotland :) I would love to see it in person one day

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I have relatives who have traced parts of the family tree... on both my parents' sides my ancestors were free settlers from England who arrived in Australia in the mid 1800s (Australia was first colonised in 1788) to start farming. There might be a convict or two in a more distant family line. That's about as exciting as we get!

Yes! We are related to the witches from the Salem Witch Trials! I thought it was pretty awesome. Now we have excuses for everything....well....we're witches....what do you expect??

I had brief subscription to Ancestry and it was AMAZING!!!! It was very addicting as well. I did learn a lot about my family but there are still a lot of unanswered questions and a lot that I don't know. My dad's father was adopted so that is an extra curveball, and his father was a con-artist of sorts...basically lied about certain details.

My great grandmother has a sketchy past as well but she came from Poland before the Holocaust and before the Titanic. I do know some of her details from when she was alive, she lived to be 100. But looking into her past is where things get sketchy.

lol Apparently my family is full of liars! lol

my grandmother is the genealogist of the family so its all left up to her

I am fascinated by genealogy and DNA. I got sucked into doing my family tree for awhile. It's addictive!

I would love to do my genealogy but it'll be difficult for me because my ancestors was more of a verbal culture rather than paper. And if it was on paper, it was from a 3rd person point of view. I know only as far back as my great-grandparents and that's it. I'm Navajo and from what I know, we've always lived in Arizona. I'm sure there's more but there's no paper trail :(

Now my husband, I would love to learn his history as it is now my kids' history. I do know he has French roots so that would be interesting :)

I was always interested in genealogy as well as several other members of my family. We have traced my father's side back to the mid 1600s in England and actually made a hard cover book and had it printed for all our family that we were in contact with at the time. It was so fascinating to trace their journey over to New England and their settling of the colonies, etc.

My mother's side is a different story though. We have only been able to trace her family back to her grandparents, who were German Jews. Both of her grandfathers and 1 grandmother were orphaned during the Holocaust (which we already knew, since her parents made it out and came to the US as very young adults). Unfortunately we've never been able to recover birth/death/marriage records due to records being burned or destroyed in one way or another. We've done extensive research to no avail.

For a school project I had to do a genelogy and was able to trace back on my mother's side. One of my grandfather's came from Harper Ferry's VA (big Civil War history area) and ran away from home to join the Civil War as a drummer boy. My grandfather was part Indian and was more difficult to trace.

Funny story is that my husband's family has been traced back by a family member and one of his's great grandmother was actually scalped twice and we always joke that it might have been my grandfather scalping his grandmother.

I don't have time for another project so it is something I will leave to others.

We were able to track my dad's side back to Germany, just prior to the Civil War (he fought in the war)... but I think that's it, my uncle went over to Germany to research at one point, but didn't have much luck.

On my mom's side... most of the records for one line were destroyed in a courthouse fire in Michigan, so we can't prove that relative wasn't first cousin to Queen Victoria. My grandfather's line goes back to the Knights of the Roundtable - but I don't think we have all the pieces put into place... that side has German, English, and French Canadian. All the research was done prior to the internet...

On my hubby's side, his uncle did the whole family tree... I asked for a copy, at least the first three or four levels to put in J's baby book and Hubby's uncle is a jerk. Refuses to give me anything because I should do the work and just get it handed too... yeah, why would I research hubby's side - not my family. :mad:

I haven't done any, but when I was a kid and working on family history stuff for school my grandmothers both showed me research their relatives had done. I only saw it when I was a kid, but I remember there was a connection to Winston Churchill and the Duke & Duchess of York. It was funny to me because those are both obvously English, but my grandma it came from claims to be mostly Irish, must be some English there.

I love tracing my family tree. With collaborations from other family members I have I have a fully confirmed branch of my dads tree (his mother's side) as far back as the 1500's. A cousin of mine had given me his works on our tree and a family member on my mother's side had given me his collection also. I have taken both branches back farther, but still have more research to do to confirm my findings. My mother's fathers side is very difficult... she never knew him, and his family never cared for my grandmother (or my mother), due to not being high enough on the social ladder.... but I have managed to trace that side a bit (which is the most interesting to me as it is the most unknown).... I did find a news clipping on ancestry about their marriage and there was a picture and it was my grandmother so I know I at least got the right start to that branch. It is fun, but it is also easy to get off track so I have two trees going right now... that with the confirmations and that with my findings and guesses that I need to further dig into.

My husband has spent a lot of time going back and researching. We found out that we have mutual relatives, back in the 1700s. I don't do it myself, I just like to see what he finds.

I have researched both my line and hubby's...I find it addicting. In fact, it's how I spent most of my time on the computer until I discovered digi in '07.

I've gotten my mom's line (confirmed) back to the early 1600s when one of my ancestors migrated from England to Jamestown, VA. We also have an ancestor who was one of the first settlers of Nantucket...hate to say that they basically helped steal land from the natives :( I have a lot of English lines on that side of the family, with a few Irish and German lines as well. Most appear to have come to the American South in the 1600s, and then moved to Texas in the days of the Republic of Texas or soon after. Mom still lives on the land that our family was given in a land grant back in those days.


Dad's side was harder to find...for ages I could only get to my great-grandparents. I don't communicate with that side of the family, so that made it more difficult. However, one day this summer I decided to do some searches on a great-aunt on that side and was able to get to the info that I needed. She had hired a profession genealogist and I was able to access the records they had located. Woohoo for breakthroughs! That is my Cajun line...family came from France to Nova Scotia/Acadia, and was then forced to move and landed in Louisiana.

Hubby's line has been the most interesting for me. He didn't know that he was adopted by a relative...we have learned A LOT about everyone. I've gotten his maternal line to Russian migrants in the late 1800s.

Both sides of my family have done a lot of work. My MIL is excited because a lot of info from Lebanon (she's half-Lebanese, and half-Italian) is now available.

My brother actually got to visit the old farmhouse in Denmark of an ancestor who came to America. His brother stayed in Denmark and his decedents were still living there.

I also recently discovered that my 10th great-grandfather was hanged as a witch in Salem, so this summer I want to drive down there and visit his grave. He had "super-human strength" (and some people who didn't like a business deal).

I love doing family history! My husband's line and my father's line both have multiple people working on it so I've mostly focused on my mother's line with her. There is SO MCUH available online now. It is awesome! My mother is 1/2 Italian and 1/4 Polish. We recently discovered a box of photos my 96 year old great grandmother had stashed away. It was amazing to go through them with her and see people we have been researching. <3

Oh yes! I'm addicted to genealogy and finding out where I come from. I have and still do spend way too many hours researching. I have traced my maternal grandfathers lineage back to the late 1500's / early 1600's in Holland. The first known ancestor with said grandfathers last name was a illegitimate child of a wealthy nobleman and his mistress in Holland. He set his mistress and said child up in a cottage on the estate and then from there that family migrated to New York / New Jersey, which was surprising to me since all other family is as Southern as can be and knowing I had a Northern ancestor who moved south to NC is amazing.

I get.sucked in every time I go.to search. The LDS church actually has an awesome free site to aid in genealogy researching called familysearch.com ��

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