OT: Family Tree

Congrats, Marcie!

I've been working on my family's genealogy off & on since the mid 70s (mostly off ). Got a free 30-day subscription to ancestry.com a week or so ago, so "dug up" 2 more potential generations of dead relatives today (the info's only as good as the source, & since I don't know that person & where they got the info, I'll consider it as a signpost for a direction to research first until I can verify it for myself).

Isn't finding new info about your family fun?! Watch out, genealogy can be addicting.

Alicia

Marcie that is great that you are researching your family. I keep saying I am going to but get boggled somehow. Here in Louisville,I am told,there are records of Kentucky families at the Pendennis Club.I have not tried this yet,but do know some people who have used the facilities to research their family. Good luck on tracing your roots! I think all of us scrappers are interested in this type of research.

Hugs, Sabrina in Kentucky

a good friend is a life long treasure

My cousin was working on a family tree and posted some names on a geneology site (I think it had something to do with the Family Tree software). She didn't have an internet connection so she used my email address. Within a few weeks we managed to find relatives all over the country. One man mailed her all kinds of documents on our great grandmother, he thought it was his great grandmother and had done alot of research but only the names were the same and they came to this country around the same time. Anyway you might try posting some info to the geneology sites if you haven't already and see what happens.

I was the first one of my family born in Canada, even my older sister was born in Belgium. It does make it hard to fing relatives! When my grandmother was alive she kept in touch with her sisters, I think grandpa who wrote beautifully did the writting as my grandmother was barely literate, though fantastically intelligent. Unfortunately probably because she couldn't write easily, she must have kept all those names and addreses in her head, because when I got her things there was no address book.

I think you are very fortunate Marcie to be able to have such success finding your ancestors!

M-C

A great resource online is

which is the family history & genealogy section of the Latter-day Saints (Mormons). They also have family history centers (libraries) scattered around the country. Their services are open to everyone & the only charge (at least back when I was doing it 30 years ago) was if you used the copier or had records shipped from their main library in Salt Lake City (65 cents back then). Since I did the bulk of my genealogy research in the days before the internet & lived 5-6 hours from where my ancestors had settled in this country (& couldn't drive yet), they were invaluable to my research. Plus, there are experienced people to answer your questions & they offer classes for beginners on up. Not sure where you're at in Kentucy, but there's a family history center in Louisville. I've heard good things on the alt.genealogy newsgroup about their Personal Ancestral File (PAF) software for keeping track of your info (free).

Alicia

As the scrapbooking addicted family historian, I too am addicted to geneology. They go hand-in-hand. Unfortunately sometimes the scrapbooking and the day to day raising of my family interferes with ongoing family research. But when I start in on it I can't be found for days/weeks on end as I'm too deep in the search. The frustrating thing becomes when i hit a roadblock or life interrupts and then I am back out of my own loop of where I am in the search. UGH!! Of course, somehow, that's all part of the addiction. Congratulations, keep on digging!

Melissa in Seattle pages in 2005 = 126 geneological finds for 2005 = 0

It's fun to learn where we came from. My mother found a relative on Vancouver Island. His marina is the same name as her maiden name. Which is a weird name. So one day she gets up her nerve and phones the place and it turns out his wife has a brother in Holland who traces family trees. He traced my mom's dads side to find out that both my mom and he share the same grandfather. As they spoke, before the family was traced, he told my mother a story that an uncle had once told him. My mother was shocked because an uncle with the same name had told her the exact story.

A few years earlier, my dads sister was tracing back dad's side of the family. She went all the way back to when our ancestors lived in Armenia. From there they travelled through Turkey and ended up settling in France for a few generations. Then from there they went to Germany and Holland. And now, Canada!

The censuses are only available to the public after 70 years to protect privacy. I agree it would be helpful for many genealogists with limited information to start with to be able to have more recent censuses, but especially in these days of increasing identity theft, do we want to make even more info about our families available to those who would use it for less than honorable reasons?

If the data's security could be guaranteed (unlikely considering what info the banks & credit card companies seem to be "losing" these days), then perhaps an option would be to have the more recent censuses available to a limited number of private research firms who would conduct your search(es) for a fee, after you've proven that the people you're searching for are indeed related to you.

It never ceases to amaze me as to what personal info people will post on the web. Someone posted my family's genealogy (distant relative who I'd never heard of before discovering the genealogy online) without the permission of the persons still living. Personally, I won't put the photo of anyone living on the web nor their genealogy info without their permission. Even then, with photos, I take out last names. Maybe I'm being overcautious, but better safe than sorry is my motto, I guess.

Alicia

(Less than 5 years till the 1940 census is out.)

I'm a first born Canadian too! Although I was made in Holland....... hehehehee My older sisters were born in Holland.

What makes it difficult for us to find relatives is our weird last name. Both my parents have names that are odd or spelled differently.

My Grandfather said when his family came to the United States that their last name was hard for others to pronounce so they shortened it. He doesn't remember what it was, because he was so little.

Lynne

I've often wondered if that's what happened to our last name. Because of where our family originally comes from you would think the name would be longer. It's a fruit now..... LOL A very stinky smelly expensive fruit.