Genealogy and Family History

[Weedygarden]

I wonder how many of you know much about your family history? I have been researching my family history for most of my adult life. I am really intrigued by how what has happened in history has affected my family.

There is no nobility nor royalty in my roots, and some people think this is important. Not to me. I am descended from peasants, serfs, the people who did the hard work. My ancestors were mostly agrarian peasants, farmers.

There are many places to learn about your family, to research your roots. Some are free, some have a fee.

1.) Family Search is a site that is free. It is an LDS site. I have gotten some great information there, but dislike the ultimate purpose of "baptisms for the dead." One challenge for this site is that anyone can add, change or alter information. I have contributed many photos, documents, and connected many people. I have had a couple people who have tried to change things without documenting why, while I share as many documents as possible to help others know what and why.

One of the things that Family Search has is an annual conference that is free to participate in, Roots Tech. FamilySearch.org

You have to join Family Search, and then you can sign up for Roots Tech Conference. The conference starts in two weeks. I participated last year. One of the options you can opt in or out of, is to be notified of relatives who are also participating in the conference. Last year I had 15 relatives participating. I knew two previously, but have never met them. I reached out to every relative and heard back from some, but not all. I had third, fifth, and eighth cousins participating, from Idaho, California, Kansas, Canada and Limburg. One man who responded, an 8th cousin, lives in Limburg, The Netherlands. The line of family that we are related on is a line that every one who has been researching back to Europe, has struggled with.

2.) Find a Grave is a great site. Find a Grave - Millions of Cemetery Records I have made many connections here. It is a collaborative site. Again, if you want to add or change anything, you need to have an account, which is free.

3.) Ancestry--I think most of us know about this site, a pay to participate in site. Many libraries have special memberships, so you can go and research, but not develop a family tree. I have a membership there, but have been off and on as a member for 20 years or more. In my early days, there was just not much information for me there. At that time, Czech records were not public and there was little there for me. Now, there is much more information there, and some of it is due to my own research and sharing. I have some family records for some back to the early 1700's.

4.) There are several other sites, most for a fee, that I do not use.

For me, there are specific groups that have given me great help, for no charge. Without their help, I would still be stuck.

Anyone else interested in family history and genealogy?

 

[Bacpacker]

Wife is into it a good deal. She has traced some of her family back to the 1500s on one side and just found a bunch on the other side just the other day she wasn't aware of. She went a good ways back on on my mom's side and for my dads mothers side. But has hit a major roadblock with my great grandfather on dads side. So many people in same general area with same name and close in the years.
Its a lot of fun, but very time consuming

 

[Weedygarden]

Wife is into it a good deal. She has traced some of her family back to the 1500s on one side and just found a bunch on the other side just the other day she wasn't aware of. She went a good ways back on on my mom's side and for my dads mothers side. But has hit a major roadblock with my great grandfather on dads side. So many people in same general area with same name and close in the years.
Its a lot of fun, but very time consuming

One of the things that happened in some countries was that there was an official list of names you could choose from to name your children. Children had official names, recorded in the record books, but some also had nick names. In one of my family branches, I knew there was a child, grandmother's sister, who died at around the age of 2, shortly before the family came to America. I always heard her referred to as Lottie, but in the records she was Mari Magdalene, one of the approved names. I was going through the record book and saw her official name and it took me a while to figure it out. I have been looking at records for a gg grandfather this week, a man named Frank (English variation of his name). His father and many others have the same name. He was one of 15 children, and had an older brother named Frank who had died. This was another practice, to name the next child of the same gender after the most recently deceased sibling, just in case someone wasn't confused enough already.

 

[Bacpacker]

What we are hitting is multiple families with same names in the same county. So related, some no relation at all

 

[Peanut]

My dad has note books filled with names but we haven't been able to go further back than, see below... I think I know this ancestor's parents name. It's confusing because two men with the same name ended up in the same county at the same time around 1820. One came from the Knoxville area of TN. The other came from South Carolina.

I know this ancestor fought with Andrew Jackson and that he had a much older brother who also fought... could have been a parent...

 

[havasu]

That gravestone is really cool. I too had some relatives in the Tennessee Militia. I also have a handwritten journal from a soldier in the civil war, which I keep in my safe. It writes of always being hungry, what foods were eaten, the places he visited, the blood everywhere, and the general day to day issues for a confederate soldier.

 

[Weedygarden]

What we are hitting is multiple families with same names in the same county. So related, some no relation at all

This is exactly what I have going on with gg grandfather Frank. It is very confusing, so confusing that I thought I knew who he was, where he lived in Nebraska, who his children were, and then, lo and behold, ten years later I discovered it was not the right guy. He was from the same area in Bohemia. Same name. His records and his wife's are in the same books. Same children's names. I drove to cemeteries, found the wrong people's graves, connected my relatives to his relatives there, shared photos and stories I had found. The other part that added to my confusion was that they lived in the same part of Nebraska.

What happened for me after all that time was that I had help from the Czech Genealogy group to find his daughter, my g grandmother's birth record, and learned that the wife was not the mother on the record. Neither was the second wife that my gg grandfather married when gg grandmother died. Same names, same area, maybe related, but sure do not know how, yet. What also makes it difficult is that the family name is one of the 10 most common Czech names. So when the law limits you to name choices, and you are from a very large family, sooner or later, it is so confusing!

 

[Weedygarden]

My dad has note books filled with names but we haven't been able to go further back than, see below... I think I know this ancestor's parents name. It's confusing because two men with the same name ended up in the same county at the same time around 1820. One came from the Knoxville area of TN. The other came from South Carolina.

I know this ancestor fought with Andrew Jackson and that he had a much older brother who also fought... could have been a parent...

View attachment 80566

That is a great headstone and a great legacy. I wonder if this grave marker was added when he was buried, or if it was added afterwards? One of the challenges is when people are really poor, or on the move, is to get graves permanently marked. A Bohemian cemetery in South Dakota where I have 22 relatives buried (out of a little more than 200 graves), is that there were many unmarked graves. There has been an ongoing project to get all the graves marked with sturdy, durable markers. This is a thing that is going on all over America.

 

[Peanut]

That is a great headstone and a great legacy. I wonder if this grave marker was added when he was buried, or if it was added afterwards?

Here is his original headstone. It was an old "tent grave". I remember seeing it when I was a kid. Two of his sons and several of his daughters are also buried there along with a couple dozen other relatives.

The little country church and community where he's buried replaced all the tent graves with modern granite markers sometime around 1990. The old sandstone tents were in very bad shape, many broken. But, they had the church records of burials. So they purchased markers using those records.

(small world time... Grizzlyette's grandfather and I share the same last name, his people came from this same area... what are the odds?)

 

[Weedygarden]

(small world time... Grizzlyette's grandfather and I share the same last name, his people came from this same area... what are the odds?)

A DNA test might find that you are actually related, but there are many common names. I have never knowingly had a DNA test, and even though I am curious about it, I have no plan to do so.

 

[kenv1950]

I'm the last in the family that cares about the family history . I am mostly German so its really hard to search . ( most records were destroyed in WWII )

 

[Weedygarden]

I'm the last in the family that cares about the family history . I am mostly German so its really hard to search . ( most records were destroyed in WWII )

This is not uncommon, but my thought is that doing the research that I am interested in and sharing it wherever I can will help others in the future. Since I was raised by grandparents, there is much that I learned and know that others don't and in the future will be lost. I've done lots o driving across Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota to do my research, visiting relatives, cemeteries, libraries, churches and more to find information. Half of my family is German as well, and some of the records are there, but have not been released for research. There is a lot available online now, but not the region in Bavaria where my paternal grandfather's family is from.

There are also many people who are interested in helping others with their research, some for free. I belong to a Czech genealogy group, run by professional Czech genealogists, who have given me and others great help with finding the record books, translating, and reading the outdated script. Without their help, I would not have found the European records and information that I have.

 

[rice paddy daddy]

I have dipped a toe into genealogy.
My Mom, Great Aunt, and others were DAR. Daughters of the American Revolution.
We filled out the forms to get me into SAR. Sons of the American Revolution.
My great (X4) grandfather joined the Army in July 1775, just one month after it was formed. He served in the 30th Regiment, and survived the war.
To prove my eligibility, the SAR forms list the generations down to my Mom, proving I’m a direct descendant.
I have often wanted to flesh out this condensed family tree, but life keeps getting in the way

 

[TeeJ]

I really enjoy researching my family history when I get a chance. We've worked visits to family history sites into vacations. A while back we located the land where my ancestors 1st settled in the US - Newton Township, WI. As of the early 2000s, it was still farmland.


I've got a mix of regular run of the mill Joe's and more interesting folks in the old family tree. When I was little my parents would point out big cranes/earth moves with the P&H logo and tell me about great-great grandpa Pawling and how he lost the company on a coin toss.

I never seem to have much time to do the research, but when the bug bites me I thoroughly enjoy it!

 

[DrJenner]

This is something I really got into the last couple of years. My grandmother has handwritten notes she compiled from years of researching books in Nova Scotia and Toronto. I also have documents compiled by other family members for my father's side. I am descended from several people on the Mayflower (Tilley/Howland and Alden), plus have about 10 relatives that fought in the Revolutionary War. My dad's family were the rebels who fought and my mom's family were the ones who fled to Nova Scotia! I joined DAR last year, and am working on my Mayflower application.
I've traced our roots all the way back to English and Scottish nobility. It's been quite fun, piecing it all together and reading the stories - and a good downtime activity.

 

[kenv1950]

I had found one relative that was in the Civil War I thought that was kinda neet until I found they kicked him out , figured he was a bad guy but nope ( severe hemorrhoids ),

 

[dademoss]

I did the family tree long long long ago, when the internet was young, and found another lady from a "branch" doing the same thing. We compared research and found all the branches and roots. It was fun, it's in a big envelope because nobody else seems to GAF.

Well, when I go tits up, the executor will send a big envelope to my brothers son, he can do what he wants with the artifacts and information.

 

[Amish Heart]

I don't much know about my dad's family tree, a little on ancestry.com, but didn't search much. But I didn't really know the man either. My mom's side is a whole different story. Our line on that side of the family has already been researched and put in a two volume set called Unser Leit. The Story of the Amish. There were two amish boats that made it to America, and my family was on the first. The man's name was Christian Yoder. My great grandparents are buried right down the road from where I live. All except for Great Grandma Anna Yoder. She is buried under a tree in northern Kansas (Garnett), where she died in her mid 20's. Great Grandpa Shem married again, he was a widow with two young kids. He married Betsy, who is buried here. I do have a somewhat "famous" relative (if you want to call it that), nicknamed Derr Weiss Stutzman. He's easy to google and he built a giant chair for Jesus to sit when he returns, that is in a museum. Nicknames are common in our family tree. My grandpa was Buck Enos. Whenever anyone asks who my grandpa is, I say, Enos Yoder, and I get this blank stare unless I say Buck Enos. Also, a married woman here is called by her husband's name first. So my grandma would be called Enos Lydiann Yoder. And there were not middle names, just initials. So Grandpa was Enos S. Yoder. The S is for the first name of his dad, Shem Yoder. We have Bontragers and Borntragers. Somewhere along the line the R was dropped. My relatives are the Bontragers. Only a few with the R around here. Keeping up with names when everyone has 5 to 10 children is a challenge. Family reunions around here are interesting. We host a Shem reunion every summer in August.

 

[Weedygarden]

I don't much know about my dad's family tree, a little on ancestry.com, but didn't search much. But I didn't really know the man either. My mom's side is a whole different story. Our line on that side of the family has already been researched and put in a two volume set called Unser Leit. The Story of the Amish. There were two amish boats that made it to America, and my family was on the first. The man's name was Christian Yoder. My great grandparents are buried right down the road from where I live. All except for Great Grandma Anna Yoder. She is buried under a tree in northern Kansas (Garnett), where she died in her mid 20's. Great Grandpa Shem married again, he was a widow with two young kids. He married Betsy, who is buried here. I do have a somewhat "famous" relative (if you want to call it that), nicknamed Derr Weiss Stutzman. He's easy to google and he built a giant chair for Jesus to sit when he returns, that is in a museum. Nicknames are common in our family tree. My grandpa was Buck Enos. Whenever anyone asks who my grandpa is, I say, Enos Yoder, and I get this blank stare unless I say Buck Enos. Also, a married woman here is called by her husband's name first. So my grandma would be called Enos Lydiann Yoder. And there were not middle names, just initials. So Grandpa was Enos S. Yoder. The S is for the first name of his dad, Shem Yoder. We have Bontragers and Borntragers. Somewhere along the line the R was dropped. My relatives are the Bontragers. Only a few with the R around here. Keeping up with names when everyone has 5 to 10 children is a challenge. Family reunions around here are interesting. We host a Shem reunion every summer in August.

You have a rich family history. The two volume set of your family history, Unser Leit, is wonderful. Do you have a copy of it? The time and work that goes into these can take years. The research never ends. My family doesn't have any books or documentation. I have 4 notebooks for my ancestors, one for each grandparent, of different photos, documents and clippings that I have found.

 

[Spikedriver]

Three of my four grandparents families can be traced back to the 1500s, and if the website I checked is correct, my maternal grandmother's Scottish/Norse family can be traced nearly back to the time of the Norman conquest of Britain. They were a family of some notability and fought along with Robert the Bruce during the war for Scottish independence. However my dad's grandpa is a total mystery. He just appears in America in the 1860s and there's no immigration record. No info on where he came from in Germany, no birth or baptism records. He doesn't seem to exist. We only know from some written family stories that he served in the German army as a boy and he traveled to America with a man named Mr. Scheuneman.
It has been suggested here on the forum that he changed his name upon arrival but I find that dubious, as our last name is typically Jewish, and he was not Jewish. Back in those days I would think that one would not be very keen on the idea of being considered Jewish if you weren't Jewish. (The name is also somewhat common among the Amish, curiously...)

 

[Amish Heart]

Yep! I even bought the leather bound editions in a case. They are fun to read, the author loves to tell the stories with the names. The author's grandson married one of my favorite cousin's granddaughters a little while back.

 

[Weedygarden]

Three of my four grandparents families can be traced back to the 1500s, and if the website I checked is correct, my maternal grandmother's Scottish/Norse family can be traced nearly back to the time of the Norman conquest of Britain. They were a family of some notability and fought along with Robert the Bruce during the war for Scottish independence. However my dad's grandpa is a total mystery. He just appears in America in the 1860s and there's no immigration record. No info on where he came from in Germany, no birth or baptism records. He doesn't seem to exist. We only know from some written family stories that he served in the German army as a boy and he traveled to America with a man named Mr. Scheuneman.
It has been suggested here on the forum that he changed his name upon arrival but I find that dubious, as our last name is typically Jewish, and he was not Jewish. Back in those days I would think that one would not be very keen on the idea of being considered Jewish if you weren't Jewish. (The name is also somewhat common among the Amish, curiously...)

One of my German families came over in 1852, to settle in the Dubuque, Iowa area. These were the first of any of my ancestors to come to America. German Catholics were encouraged to come and settle the area. I have found their ship records, although their name is misspelled, and I have learned that they were Bavarians. What made them easy to find was the fact that they had a bible with the gg grandparents and their children information that family members took care of, along with the wedding photo of gg grandparents from April, 1850. I have photocopies of the bible pages. Photography was really new at that time, and they were poor people, so that is a real blessing. Being so closely connected to grandparents has helped with this family group as well. I have found their ship records, gg grandmothers (not gg grandfather's) homestead information near Dyersville (where Field of Dreams was filmed). I've been to their graves at St. Mary's, Iowa.

Records from Bavaria are not easily found, in my experience. You can hire someone, or go there and bumble around until you get lucky with finding the records. I've done a lot of bumbling around in my years of research. Somehow, some of those areas records are tightly held and they are not letting anyone copy them to share publicly.

My other German ancestors were from the Aachen area, in the Rhine Valley. Their information has not been easy to find either. Some of them were actually Dutch, but considered German when they came to America. Gg grandmother, who was born in Limburg, The Netherlands, had to register as a German national during WW I.

I have a couple family groups who have been difficult to find information about. No ship records, no idea where they died or were buried. I believe part of the problem has to do with the potential for misspelling for the names.

 

[havasu]

Has anyone ever considered that some of us in here might be related?

 

[Spikedriver]

Has anyone ever considered that some of us in here might be related?

Very possible. If anyone here has any ties to the Norwegian communities of Central Iowa, it's likely that I am distantly related to them.

 

[SheepDog]

My family and friends call me the alien so I'm not even sure I have DNA...

 

[Spikedriver]

Has anyone ever considered that some of us in here might be related?

I think we're all mainly of European descent here. I read somewhere that it's mathematically impossible for any one person, mainly of European descent, to trace his family tree past the middle ages and not be related to every other person that's mainly of European descent. By the time you reach the year 1000, the amount of people on the last line of your tree will be greater than the total population of Europe at that time. There will be quite a few multiples in there as well. But that is difficult to prove because very few people have complete trees going back that far, and the accuracy of the tree would be very questionable anyway. Over 1000 years, it's safe to say that there were probably a few foxes that got into the henhouse...

 

[Weedygarden]

Has anyone ever considered that some of us in here might be related?

We are all related, if you can trace your ancestry back far enough. It is a matter of how far back you go. The challenge, the records do not go back very far. In Czechia (formerly Czech Republic), records go back to the early 1600's for most areas. I know that there are a few places that go back 100 more years, but few. I have seen people say they have their lineage traced back to Adam and Eve, but no one does.

 

[Neb]

My cousin chased us back to the Mayflower. Secord if I remember correctly.

Ben

 

[Weedygarden]

It has been suggested here on the forum that he changed his name upon arrival but I find that dubious, as our last name is typically Jewish, and he was not Jewish. Back in those days I would think that one would not be very keen on the idea of being considered Jewish if you weren't Jewish. (The name is also somewhat common among the Amish, curiously...)

I've been thinking about this. There is a series of volumes of books called "Germans to America." I don't remember exactly how many books are in the series, but I think around 50. There is a floor at Denver Public Libraries Central location that is for history and genealogy research. They have this set of books. I have found a number of my relatives in this book, including the ones whose names was misspelled. There are some who I have never found in those books, and they should be.

One thing that I was told was that if people wanted to leave Europe to come to America, they had to obtain permission from some local magistrate or overseer. For peasants, the estate owner had to give them permission. One part of my family lived on the Jenikov and Villemov estates in Bohemia. If the person who sought to leave had a debt or something similar, they would not be given permission to leave. In an area such as a city, I was told, that people pretended to be someone else to get their permission to leave. I'm sure that people get creative when they want to. Another thing is that spelling was not as exacting then as it is now. People were largely illiterate, and many had no idea how to write their own names. I have seen one family name spelled 4 different ways.

 

[SheepDog]

My wife has run both family history. My family was here to fight the revolutionary war and fought both sides in the war between the states. I had family in every war up to the middle east.