Stuck my toe in the genealogy pool...HELP!

[awp101]

A couple of weeks ago I found out the National Archives opened up an office not far from me with access to genealogy websites so I grabbed some information Mom put together before she passed and went down there this morning to see what I could saw. There's 13 stations with access to Ancestry.com, Heritage Quest and Footnote, microfilm readers and printers to print out whatever you run across. All for free, gratis, nada, zip, zilch, zero.

The first problem I hit was the info I'd brought. It had names and a few dates but it was mainly family medical info. That'll teach me to trust what I thought I remembered.

Second, I've never done this before. I was expecting to fill in what I could of the offered fields and get results like "These are possible matches for relatives" and be into the family history back to the 1800s (I'm only looking at Mom's side ATM). Well, to quote a sample used in a song by The Crystal Method: "Naw, it don't work like that!".

With their full maiden names, married names, spouse names and birthdates I couldn't find anything on my Grandmother or Great-Garandmother. I even started with my own name just to practice and found very little other than I was born (as opposed to being hatched ).

Can anyone who has used Ancestry, etc provide any pointers or advice? Once my maternal Grandparents and Great Aunt pass I'll be out of resources for that side of the family since my Grandparents outlived both of their kids and most of the rest of that side of the family never bothered to compile any of this info before.

Thanks!

BTW, I did find and print the quarterly muster rolls for my Grandfathers light cruiser in WWII. I also found an error in my Mother's birth records. Let's just say my Grandmother was mighty surprised to find out she'd given birth in a county roughly 350 miles South of where my Mother was born... It looks like the county code was incorrectly entered (at State level)?

[Booger Bill]

Just start here.
https://familysearch.org/

[Hobie]

Drop me an e-mail with specifics. I'll get you started and then some. I love the solving the mysteries!

[Gary]

Tracing family lineage can take up all your free time. It is fun and exciting. Misspellings and typographical errors always throw you a curve. Then, older records get REAL sketchy. There can be multiple spellings of an original surname.

Have you got access to any old family Bibles? Many have ancestry recorded.

Good luck on your quest!

[2571]

Wife & I got hooked. Spent a FORTUNE in parking meter fees outside Burton Historical Collection of Detroit Public Library. It was so neat when someone would find someone they were looking for -- they would just burst out in glee. This library starts you on city directories. Not hard to find your grandparents, you sometimes recognize their address or occupation.

I got all the way back to France. Local priest here was interested in that stuff & kept church records and published his work --Fr. Christian Dennison's History of the French Families of the Detroit River Region.

Good luck.

[Booger Bill]

I found one ancester that came over on the mayflower. It`s fun! Then again, you just might also find out something you dont want to know!

[awp101]

Thanks Hobie, I'll drop you a line tomorrow when I get a few minutes.

Then again, you just might also find out something you dont want to know!

My wife's family found that out. Somewhere back on her Father's side IIRC was a relative who killed a man under suspicious circumstances in the 1920s or early 1930s. There wasn't even a question of arrest since the man he killed was, shall we say, much darker than him. The relative who provided the information brought at least one newspaper article from the time to corroborate the story.

[Old Time Hunter]

Thank fully my Ma's side of the family is from Canada and they have a wealth of "free" information available, used to be more, but Ancestory.com paid someone off and now charges for it.

For anyone that cares, if you think any of your relatives arrived prior to Ellis Island ('92 or so) check out the site for Castle Garden (1832-1892).

[Rusty]

A friend of mine was looking a lot of that stuff up he got a lot of help from the LDS Church. I think he said they have a web site just for that.

[alnitak]

Tracing family lineage can take up all your free time. It is fun and exciting. Misspellings and typographical errors always throw you a curve. Then, older records get REAL sketchy. There can be multiple spellings of an original surname.

Have you got access to any old family Bibles? Many have ancestry recorded.

Good luck on your quest!

Yep. My Dad has been doing it for years and has traced our family back to something like 1730. But it is difficult, with many false paths, names that don't match, etc. Just approach like a detective story and try to corroborate information from three different sources.

[jlchucker]

A friend of mine was looking a lot of that stuff up he got a lot of help from the LDS Church. I think he said they have a web site just for that.

Yes they do. Every couple of years our State Historical Society has a big exhibit at one of the fairgrounds. Towns and groups from all over participate. The LDS people have a large exhibit there every time the Historical Society exhibit is held, they are very helpful in getting you started. One of the people in my town was a member of a nearby LDS church (no offense intended if it goes by another name) and I asked him for some additional insight as to how to start looking up family history. One day I went over to that church, and found several people in there doing different projects. They didn't try to push any religion on me, and were very glad to provide me with info on how to get started. It turns out that doing genealogy is part of their religion. One guy told me that his wife did most of it for his family, and she'd already collected 100,000 names. He said anyone who goes looking up family histories will be very surprised and what they will find out. Those LDS folks are nice people, and are real experts at how to trace family histories.

[mikld]

I'd like to try that too. My Dad did a search in the 50s but on his side of the family the records died out in the Kentucky hills and my mother's side went back three or four generations to an Indian reservation in Oklahoma. But I'd really like to know more about my mother's family. Her father was an honest-to-God cowboy and also broke horses for a living, and spet a lot of time around Cut and Shoot, Texas. My mother's grandmother (?) was a 4'-6" full blooded Cherokee. I'd really like to have these family "stories" confirmed...

[Marlin32]

I heard Obama had same trouble. Plugged in his own information and couldn't find any birth history, at least in a country that keeps such records.

[TMair]

I found one ancester that came over on the mayflower. It`s fun! Then again, you just might also find out something you dont want to know!

True, on my mothers side we have a relative who was sent by Brigham Young as a Dr. to southern UT. and from that same family was one of the members of Butch Casidy's wild bunch, he was arrested and tried in ID. and died in an asylum in WY. Personily I find it all interesting, it is what makes us who we are!!!
Terry

[Booger Bill]

We moved here to utah in 2005. I met a old woman that told me she had a friend that was butch cassidys kid sister. Told me where butchs house was out of circleville etc. I know where it is. No marker or anything. I suppose people would jump the fence for souvineers if it was posted as such.
We arent mormon but my wifes stepmother is john doyle lee`s gr,gr, grand daughter. Lee was the only one exicuted for the mountain meadows massicure where the mormon battalion from here in cedar city whipped out a wagon train of 120+ people on 09-11-1857. The first 9-11. They saved 16 kids under 8 years old as they thought they wouldnt remember the details of the event and adopted them out and sent some back to familys back east where the wagon train started.
Strickly by chance my wifes daughter (my stepdaughter) got married last year to a decendant of one of those orphans! So you might say if they have any kids, the kid would have a ancester on each side of that terrible event. My gr,gr, gr, gr grandpappy killed my other gr, gr, gr, gr, grandpappy!

[shooter]

I'm in the same situation. I have ancestry back a few generations from living relatives, but I've always been interested in seeing how far back I can go. I'd like to know when my family got here, where they settled, and where we went from there. I know in the big scheme of things it doesn't really matter, but I'm a history nut, and I'm pretty sure my family was among the earliest to settle here. I don't know if I am a direct descendent of the earliest settlers of my namesake, or if my direct ancestors came later, but it would be cool to find out.

[C. Cash]

Take stuff posted on the internet with a grain of salt. Some is OK but I've found from personal experience that it is often incorrect. Sometimes you luck onto some good info. But confirm before you take it as gospel.

[awp101]

I heard Obama had same trouble. Plugged in his own information and couldn't find any birth history, at least in a country that keeps such records.

*rimshot*

[Gary]

Some OLD churches keep birth records for its congregations. That is where some missing pieces of my family history were found. (Dutch reformed Church, N.Y.) Then, cemeteries were located for those people. Online, there were photos of the grave markers. It was found that other relatives were buried in the same area of the cemetery and more piece fell into place.

My nephew has traced our lineage back through the American Revolution, to the Mayflower, to 1535 Appleby, England.