Genealogy

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Plus, you never know exactly how accurate it is. People put a lot of faith in documentation and marriage, when who knows for sure what was really going on and whom you're really related to.

I'm quite curious and would like to explore mine at some point in the future.

My mother's last name is Norse in origin from my research. There is almost certainly some Northern English/Southern Scottish in me as well. My great grandmother once mentioned something about coming from Dutch immigrants.

What I really want to know, however, is whether I have Cherokee ancestry. A lot of people in my general area of upbringing are told they have this ancestry and then are found not to. In my case, two sides of my family claim it independently. My mother had features that did carry a resemblance. I also share features with my cheekbones and hair.

I became interested in genealogy several years ago when I was searching the internet for information about an ancestor and found a census record from 1910.
The more information I found (dates, names, places) the more searches I could do.
That was about 10 years ago when there was free access to census records and genealogy sites online.

I found two family trees and a genealogy book from different branches of the German side of my family.
There was a lot of information from that part of my family because they were homesteaders who bought cheap land from the railroad and for three generation they multiplied like rabbits.

I was exited to learn the town in Bavaria where one of my great grandmothers was born, then I found out she lost 3 siblings to scarlet fever before the family came to America.

I found out from an old newspaper clipping from an obituary that one of my great great grandfathers was in the Prussian army when Prussia was invading Germany.
He got into an argument with an officer and accidentally stabbed the officer in the face with a bayonet.
The officer couldn't testify because he had to be rushed to the hospital to have his face stitched.

Meanwhile my great great grandfather escaped over the alps into Italy where he worked as a papal guard at the Vatican for 3 years.
That's where he met my great great grandmother before they came to America.
And that could explain why I'm about 1 percent Italian.

I didn't find out much about the Irish side of my family, though there is Irish on both sides of my family, because a lot of Irish immigrant papers where destroyed in a fire.

But I did find out from relatives why my grandfather had a bad knee all his life.
According to my grandfather's story, he was out riding a horse while living in Ireland, when a leprechaun suddenly appeared and scared the horse. The horse reared up and knocked my grandfather to the ground and he injured his knee.
Darn those pesky leprechauns.

I'm bringing up this old thread since I just got bit by the geneology bug 4 days ago. Have probably spent 30 to 40 hours on a geneology website during that time. I agree with those who have said, "geneology is a very Aspie-friendly activity."

On Saturday, my wife asked me a question about my ancestry, and I couldn't answer it with any certainty. So Sunday morning, out of curiosity, I went to that geneology website, signed up for a trial membership, and found it very interesting. By Sunday afternoon, I had traced back 11 generations before me to an ancestor on my Dad's side who was born in France in 1612. I knew of the french ancestry but had no idea how far back it went. During that tracing-back process, I found I had ancestors who came to North America from France in the 1640s, and they settled along the banks of the St. Lawrence River a few miles north of what is now Quebec City, Canada. They stayed there for a few generations (in what was then called "New France") until around the 1760s when my 5th-great-grandfather moved to Montreal, then 20 years later, moved southward to French settlements in present-day Indiana and then the Michigan Territory near Detroit. Some stayed in southeastern Michigan while others moved to northwestern Ohio around the 1840s, where many still remain (although my grandfather moved away from there about 80 years ago).

In that same family line, I learned that around 1870, my widowed great-great-great-grandfather married his widowed neighbor. Both of them had a few kids from their first marriage, so from their marriage those kids became step-sibling neighbors. A year after their parents married, my great-great-grandfather married his step-sister neighbor, which I have been told, "was not that unusual during those times." Those family lines/branches look a bit odd on my family tree

The other 3 grandparent family lines stop around 3 or 4 generations before me, but it helped me learn more details about my ancestry than my parents or grandparents ever told me. My mother's grandfather's story was one I had heard before but had no real evidence of what really went on. Through speaking with my mother many years ago about it, I learned the story was that my great-grandfather was born in Poland, but in his attempts to emigrate to the United States around 1880, he ended up stealing a German man's passport, dashed off to the U.S., and to hide the act of theft, passed himself off as German when he arrived in the U.S., using the name on the stolen passport.

By obtaining the U.S. Census records from 1900 to 1940, I could see that in the 1920 and 1930 census results, he and the family members in his house were using what was said to be his original Polish last name, but by 1940, he and everyone else still living with him were back to using their German last name again. In the 1920 census, he used a totally different first name, probably still trying to hide something Those censuses also show he'd state the country of his birth and/or his parents' births to be somewhat different each year. Poland, or Germany, or Germany-Poland, those seemed to change nearly each and every census. My geneology search confirms that there really was likely something fishy going on with my great-grandfather, and very much in the way my late mother described it.

In any case, I find this whole geneology search thing fascinating, and I might even pay for the geneology service's monthly membership beyond the free trial period

I am managing current stress with genealogy. At least an hour each day --- while working full-time and with young kids. Hours more when I can. I'm even researching the great uncles and aunts.

I've mostly been focussed on the DNA side of genealogy for the last 5-6 years in the hope it'll match me with cousins who can push some family lines back a few generations . Unfortunately though the cousins I'm linked to have managed to get as far back as I have .

I've not added to my family tree since a not so good adding of supposed ancestors via My heritage .

I have Group 2 obsessions as well. I'm glad I found this thread and at least a couple of active members who are still into Genealogy. I cycle through MAJOR obsessions about every 12-18 months, and binge for 24 hours a day for a week or two. My problem is that I can't organise all the info because of executive dysfunction. I have notes all over the place but have never even made it into a proper "tree" because I don't know how.

In terms of cost, one of my cousins pays for a World membership and we all use her login to get access for free. The problem is that I don't want to start making trees of my family on her account because we have different histories. Rather than make a tree I just take notes by hand. I suppose I should suck it up and get my own account, but you'd never see me again.

In general I can get back to about 17-18th century on most lines but then you get to a point where it's impossible to know someone's parents, because the names were so freakishly common and there are 10-20 couples who had babies with the same name in the same week in the same county. Then I give up.

My father's paternal side is my main obsession, but they are very hard to trace. I emailed a distant relative I found via Ancestry, and he could confirm there is a history of people being "just like my dad and grandfather" (code for Autistic -- but this was before I knew we were Autistic). I should re-email that guy and mention the word Autism now.

Highlights:
My GGG died from drunk-driving his horse and buggy
Many ancestors were wool combers in Haworth (christened by Patrick Brontë)
Someone was a roller coaster engineer at the turn of the century
My great aunt may have murdered two husbands

I'm really with you on the difficulty organising the info! People talk of 'mirror' trees, and I'm completely flummoxed .

What the heck is a mirror tree? I'm scared if I google I'll get sucked into the vortex again.

https://www.familytreemagazine.com/prem ... ror-trees/

That may all be interesting, but one of my ancestors was fined for dumping manure on the King's highway.

Isabella, you can open an account on Ancestry and make a tree for free, based primarily on the info you already know. You can access some hints and material for free if it’s public information such as census records. Family Search, run by the LDS (Church of the Latter Day Saints) is free as well. Lots of free documents. I found my grandparents marriage certificate! WikiTrees are good too. Guess what I’ve been doing these past few months.

One of my Norwegian ancestors was not thought well of by his neighbours. They beat him to death and tossed his body into a pond. They kindly named the pond after him. Whoever wrote up the story gave a lot more detail though about the man’s handsome brown-haired hound! My Norwegian grandfather had a family pedigree record put together. The Norwegian’s have some excellent records.

A great-aunt received a Queen Elizabeth II Coronation medal and I’m trying to track down why she received it. A cousin has the letter from Buckingham Palace that went with it. The letter has been folded up in a drawer for decades and we have no idea where the medal went.

I somehow became the family historian and have scraps of papers with dates and places; files others have sent me; old photos with no names and very poor executive function too. Thankfully the increasingly nice weather is dragging me outdoors! My fingers have been cramping up working on my tablet. ASD and ADHD hyper focus!

I love your stories Anne! That's crazy about the pond, the hound, and the Coronation medal.

I've been able to do tons of searching on my cousin's account going back a few centuries. I have all sorts of wedding and baptismal certificates printed directly from Ancestry. It's not really a shortage of information that I'm facing, it's just that I can't make the actual tree design because I don't want to save very much on my cousin's account. I've had free accounts as well but they always expire. I wish I could have my trees on a big fancy scroll like I've seen on TV but for now it's lots of random notes and one notebook that is somewhat-but-not-so-much organised. I've even tried typing it all up but it's still not visual like a tree would be, since I go overboard with life details instead of making a diagram like normal / sane people would do.

A genealogy program is best as you can save your whole database and print trees and reports as you like, but these printable pdfs let you enter and save data so you can make nice charts and keep a connected file of them:

http://misbach.org/free-pdf-charts.html

Nice! I have some “old-fashioned” versions that you fill in by hand. How tedious

I’ve been using the Family Tree Maker programme since the days of dial-up internet and getting your record information from CDs. Much, much better now.

I just fainted a little bit. Thank you soooo much!! !! !!

Which one do you use? Everyone had lots of children so I need lots of space!!