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Weedygarden said:
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.
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Today I received an email from Family Search regarding my relatives signed up for Roots Tech. The conference begins on Thursday, but they were informing me of relatives that are signed up. Last year I reached out to all 15 and only heard from a few of them. After the conference was over, we were no longer able to communicate through Family Search, so I decided this year that I would write a fairly generic message letting each of my relatives know that I am doing research and including my email address, as well as how important it is to save it, or we will not be able to stay in contact.

I signed onto Family Search and went to the Roots Tech part and I have 66 relatives signed up! Sixty six! We are not talking close relatives. We are talking 66 people that I have never met before, and most of them I have never heard of before. I see 8th and 9th cousins. Since we still have a few days left to register, there could be more that sign up.

@Peanut, I even have a relative in Alabama. I have not viewed the relationship of all the people yet, and I think I am going to have a busy week. My busiest state? Iowa!

Anyone else participating in the Roots Tech conference?
 
I am and have been interested to know more about my family, but I'm just not able to go down that rabbit hole, but have full respect for anyone who does.


The stories I and most of the family on my mom's side had heard, have since proven wrong. Supposedly my great grandmother (who lived from 1882 to 1978) was supposed to have been 1/2 Cherokee, 1/2 Dutch. Something she never denied and had even agreed or encouraged. Then a cousin had a DNA test a few years ago that said NO Native blood whatsoever, So that got me curious, and I wanted to know more about my husbands lineage as well, since it was never spoken of. I figured our sons might want to know, and of course so did I. I did know that on my fathers side was Swede & Dane as my aunt had traced both of their parents back a few generations and even visited Sweden & Denmark in the process.

Anyway, I gave my sons a DNA pack for Christmas and we recently got the results, that pretty much blew me away. Both are about a 1/3 Norwegian, then smaller amounts of English/Northern Europe, Swede/Dane, Dutch, Scot......and one son showed Irish and the other showed Northern India. Both boys are 100% brothers with the same parents, so I have NO idea how that happens. Unfortunately, the results didn't break down to show who gave them what.
 
JustMe said:
I am and have been interested to know more about my family, but I'm just not able to go down that rabbit hole, but have full respect for anyone who does.


The stories I and most of the family on my mom's side had heard, have since proven wrong. Supposedly my great grandmother (who lived from 1882 to 1978) was supposed to have been 1/2 Cherokee, 1/2 Dutch. Something she never denied and had even agreed or encouraged. Then a cousin had a DNA test a few years ago that said NO Native blood whatsoever, So that got me curious, and I wanted to know more about my husbands lineage as well, since it was never spoken of. I figured our sons might want to know, and of course so did I. I did know that on my fathers side was Swede & Dane as my aunt had traced both of their parents back a few generations and even visited Sweden & Denmark in the process.

Anyway, I gave my sons a DNA pack for Christmas and we recently got the results, that pretty much blew me away. Both are about a 1/3 Norwegian, then smaller amounts of English/Northern Europe, Swede/Dane, Dutch, Scot......and one son showed Irish and the other showed Northern India. Both boys are 100% brothers with the same parents, so I have NO idea how that happens. Unfortunately, the results didn't break down to show who gave them what.
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My ancestors were Czech and German for as far back as I can trace, but when my mother's brother had his DNA done a few years ago, it came back showing some Scandinavian and Jewish DNA. We can either blame or thank the Vikings for whatever Scandinavian blood shows up for people who have no idea where that came from. The Vikings raped and pillaged across Europe even into Russia, many, many miles from home. And that is how the Scandinavian DNA shows up when people least expect it. Must have been brutal times.

Being Native American is a very common thing claimed by people who are not, but told to them by their elders. I believe somewhere in the forum I have told the story of a woman who was in a genealogy writing class with me who had been told they were N.A. She paid for copies of a 400+ file from one of her grandfathers from the Civil War. She learned that she had ancestors who were African American, while she had no idea previously. Slave owner had children with a slave and one was light enough to pass, and did. But records go back to show his mother was black. Classmate's family included two wives for her father, so there were half siblings. Half siblings were older and never kind to children by second wife, but when the information about the black family came, one of the meanest older sisters tried to demand that this woman give her copies of the papers, but also tried to argue with her that she was wrong. Woman told me that N.A. have straight hair and that all of her family always had some curl in their hair, so it was another reason it made sense to her.

The studying of family history and genealogy can be so interesting. If you are of European descent, as probably most of us are, you do not have to go too far back to see how many of us descended from peasants, or serfs. There is much history that comes into play when you see the records from 100+ years ago.
 
One of the tools that people use when researching for genealogy is census records. Some of you may be able to find yourselves in the 1950 census records which are to be released on April 1, 2022. I wasn't born yet, but I will be looking for family members when they become available.
 
Weedygarden said:
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?
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Yeah, me. I've done the DNA tests for 23 and Me and Ancestry...both said I have some Ashkenazi Jewish DNA (I was not raised Jewish) and actually found a Jewish cousin. I have a few suspicions about who my Jewish ancestor is but I can't prove it.
 
Mel said:
Yeah, me. I've done the DNA tests for 23 and Me and Ancestry...both said I have some Ashkenazi Jewish DNA (I was not raised Jewish) and actually found a Jewish cousin. I have a few suspicions about who my Jewish ancestor is but I can't prove it.
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The Ashkenazi women have some special health problems that I do not remember off the top of my head right now. I'm about to leave the house and will be gone for a few hours and then I will look for that again.

I don't know about you, but I find it very interesting. I do know I have a fraction of Jewish blood, but no idea where it came from. My maternal grandmother's family line is a brick wall. I have connected with an 8th cousin from that line who still lives in the Limburg area, where they were from, but we have not figured that part of the family out.
 
Weedygarden said:
The Ashkenazi women have some special health problems that I do not remember off the top of my head right now. I'm about to leave the house and will be gone for a few hours and then I will look for that again.

I don't know about you, but I find it very interesting. I do know I have a fraction of Jewish blood, but no idea where it came from. My maternal grandmother's family line is a brick wall. I have connected with an 8th cousin from that line who still lives in the Limburg area, where they were from, but we have not figured that part of the family out.
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Yeah various cancers. Pancreatic is one.
 
I've since been doing some digging with Family Search and a bit on Ancestory and found quite a few questionable things. Was trying to do a family tree, but noticed there is very few backup sources to any of the information. Census were the most common, if used and was about the only source in many cases. Strange thing in checking the same person(s) on different census resulted in the parents including different kids, with different ages on each census. So it was obviously not the same kids, but even the parents had different ages and names were sometimes spelled different This happened alot with my great grandmothers ancestors (atleast 4 generations before her birth) that were supposed to be Native American. On all the census they were listed as white, but all had been born and living on Indian lands. And when they moved, they moved to other Indian lands.

There were a few documents of one of those 'children' as an adult had applied to the Cherokee Nation and that 'parent' had testified on his behalf, saying his mother was in question, as if they weren't sure who the mother was. That cousin X times removed was accepted into the Nation and was listed as being 1/4 and his kids were named and listed as being 1/8. But I couldn't find anyone else in the family included or that had applied.


My questions here are......did they not know how old they were & were just guessing? Did they trade kids around? Who was actually the ones filling out the information that is used as sources?? Did they misread or misunderstand?


Then to add to that......my oldest son finally got his results. His father is my ex, who had atleast some Polish, but that didn't show up on sons results at all either and in fact, his results looked just about the same as my 2 younger sons but with different percentages,


This makes me question, just how accurate are these tests or does it not include actual blood lines but just characteristics only???
 
A family friend was renamed by his mother. She remarried and told all her kids they weren't Smith anymore they were all now Jones. No legal documentation no paperwork just you're now all Jones. Birth certificates were rare in OK back in the 20s and 30s. The Kids and Grandkids go by Jones.
My Uncle's Dad changed the spelling of his last name. He was Dutch and figured there were too many A's in his name so he just left out one.
I worked with a guy that was having a hard time tracing his family history until he was contacted by a woman on AOL who was related. She sent him all the history. One of his relatives changed the spelling of the last name and that ended the paper trail.
 
I've been going through the 1950 census records and have found some family members. I have many more to search through and for. 1950 is the year my parents were married. I found my dad, living at home with his parents where he had probably been since he came home from WW II. I found my mother's parent and most of her siblings. I thought I knew where my mother was living when she was engaged to be married, but I have not found her, yet. I have spent much time looking for her.

I had the same problem with my maternal grandfather, Mom's dad. I have never found him in the 1910 census records. I think that people who move during the year that census records are taken could possibly miss being included in the census records. Dad was record in early May, and parents were married in June. I am seeing records of the area where Mom was living having been taken later.

I am viewing these records through Ancestry, and the connection of the census records are often given as hints to people. Many relatives have come up with a hint to the census records, but not Mom.
 
I've been meaning to share this, but you can see that I haven't. Family Search, a genealogy site on an LDS site, has been having an annual conference, Roots Tech. It started yesterday, but I had registered in January, when they first notified me, because I have participated for the past two years.

Family Search is free to join, as is the Roots Tech Conference. I think you can still sign in for the current conference, and the conference will go on for a few days. There are seminars and classes, some live, some that you can replay.

When I signed in yesterday, I was shown 89 family connections of people who are participating in the conference. Last year I had about 120 relatives, one in eastern Canada. I have some closer relatives on there, a couple that I have been in contact with, second and third cousins, in the United States. I saw several 8th cousins and even a 9th cousin yesterday. We can look at each relative and see our connection. It is one way to fill in some gaps in family research.

I have been formulating a message to reach out to everyone with my email address so that we can potentially be in touch in the future. I reach out every year to people, but not everyone responds. I can only keep trying and trying to make connections.

Most of my relatives that showed up were in the greater Kansas City area, which was a little crazy for me to see 48 people there, in that area. I think that my Bavarian gg grandparents who settled in Iowa must have many descendants who are involved in genealogy. They might be Mormons and that would be one reason that so many are involved. Certainly not everyone who participates is a Mormon, and I am an example of that.

One of these people who I see on the list, reached out to me last year, so I know how we are connected, through those Bavarian gg grandparents. Her g grandmother was born in passage to Iowa, while her brother, my g grandfather was born a few years later, when they lived in the Guttenberg, Iowa area. They later moved to another part of Iowa. I have a photocopy of the family record (written in German) from the German family bible, in possession of a cousin who still lives in Iowa.

It shows that I have relatives in Iowa, Illinois, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, Texas, Tennessee and Ohio who are participating. Ohio showed a few more than the rest. There are a few people from the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Czechia. What is great about this is that we can all share our research, our photos, our information with each other, for those who are willing and interested. Not everyone shares. I think they got stuck in the toddler stage of life, where they got stuck saying, "Mine!"

https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/
 
Thanks for making this thread active again, Weedy. I've been meaning to do a DNA test. My niece did one with interesting results. My family is half German, half Norwegian. Niece's mom is very much Irish. But the DNA test came back majority French! We all got a big laugh out of that one.

I've been digging into my own family tree, specifically my paternal grandmother. I had hit a dead end in the mid 1500s in Scotland. They were from the far north side, Orkney Islands and Caithness, and were seafarers. Norway isn't far by sea and there were some connections there. One of the websites finally had linked my family tree to the Mowats from there, going all the way back to the time of the Norman conquest. If it's correct, that line is prominent in Scottish history. Some of them were knights who fought alongside Robert the Bruce for Scottish independence. I thought that was pretty cool...
 
some of my ancestors several centuries ago came to Britain from Europe because of religious persecution.
my grandfathers father and those before him were all farmers and fishermen as were most English back then.
my mother was a farmers daughter before she married my father.
my own DNA is part British, part western European and par Scandinavian.
 
lonewolf said:
some of my ancestors several centuries ago came to Britain from Europe because of religious persecution.
my grandfathers father and those before him were all farmers and fishermen as were most English back then.
my mother was a farmers daughter before she married my father.
my own DNA is part British, part western European and par Scandinavian.
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Anyone who is from Europe or has ancestors from Europe may come up with Scandinavian ancestry due to the Vikings. They wreaked havoc all over Europe. We were surprised when my uncle's DNA came back with Scandinavian ancestry, but that information came to us before I really got deeper into the information about the Vikings, and learning that they were in Russia. Now, when we see anyone who is blonde, we can wonder what Viking contributed to their DNA. I also wonder which Viking warrior was the most prolific spreading his DNA across all of Europe.

Off track, but relative to those Vikings raping across Europe and leaving their DNA behind. 40 years ago I did respite care for a man dying of cancer while his wife was at work. They were from Hungary and she told me about how German soldiers invaded her home town. She was not the most attractive woman, but evidently her sister was attractive. Soldiers lined up to have their way with her sister, while she had been cooking in the kitchen when they came to their home. The soldiers left her alone so that she could continue cooking for them. War can sure be ugly.
 
This thread got me interested in revisiting the DNA testing that I had done forever ago. It lists me as being 72% German and 12% Danish. This fits pretty well. My paternal grandfather is German, paternal grandmother is Danish, maternal grandfather is unknown (but the family is from Milwaukee as far back as I can go, so German is a pretty good guess) and maternal grandmother is Austrian/Hungarian (which 23&me probably tagged a Bavarian German).
 
Mel said:
Yeah, me. I've done the DNA tests for 23 and Me and Ancestry...both said I have some Ashkenazi Jewish DNA (I was not raised Jewish) and actually found a Jewish cousin. I have a few suspicions about who my Jewish ancestor is but I can't prove it.
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My sister did that and Presto! my little brother found out that he had an illegitimate son that he never knew about :oops:. Looks just like him:).
Be very careful before sending off your DNA.
Once that door is opened, it cannot be closed.
 
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Supervisor42 said:
My sister did that and Presto! my little brother found out that he had an illegitimate son that he never knew about :oops:. Looks just like him:).
Be very careful before sending off your DNA.
Once that door is opened, it cannot be closed.
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One of my coworkers found out he had an uncle that way. His grandpa had a dalliance back in the day. Coworker connected to this uncle via Facebook and said there was no DNA test needed, the guy looked just like his dad.

I'm a bit afraid to do a test like that. There may be things that are better left unknown. My oldest brother is 3 inches taller than me and my other brother, and he looks like my mom's side. His kids don't look like their cousins, either. His personality is different too. Other bro and me look more like our dad, and our personalities are more like him too. His kids look more like the rest of us. I have wondered...
 
Spikedriver said:
One of my coworkers found out he had an uncle that way. His grandpa had a dalliance back in the day. Coworker connected to this uncle via Facebook and said there was no DNA test needed, the guy looked just like his dad.

I'm a bit afraid to do a test like that. There may be things that are better left unknown.
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Me too.
I sowed a lot of 'wild oats' back in my youth. :confused:
If I don't have one or two roaming around out there, I would be surprised.
 
SheepDog said:
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.
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Same here... except I covered Enduring Freedom myself...so we just skipped the Gulf War in my family tree.
 
Last week was an hour long biography about General Omar Bradley. I watched with renewed interest since mom told me we're related.

"hi mom. You missed a great biography. I tried to call you when it was on. How are we related again?"

"Omar was my grandmother's brother. You know we're also related to Annie Oakley?"

"I remembered that one!"
 
I’ve done a fair bit without going out of the country so more on one side than the other. I recently signed back up to try to fill in a few of the gaps. Unfortunately, time is short these days but doing what I can.
 
TeeJ said:
This thread got me interested in revisiting the DNA testing that I had done forever ago. It lists me as being 72% German and 12% Danish. This fits pretty well. My paternal grandfather is German, paternal grandmother is Danish, maternal grandfather is unknown (but the family is from Milwaukee as far back as I can go, so German is a pretty good guess) and maternal grandmother is Austrian/Hungarian (which 23&me probably tagged a Bavarian German).
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When people arrived from Europe and wanted to head west, going by ship through the Great Lakes was a very common way to travel, especially before trains. The alternatives took much longer and were perhaps not as safe.

I found my g grandmother's brothers and other relatives in a Chicago census record, 1870. They were there for the Chicago fire and helped to rebuild Chicago. One was a carpenter, but later had a shop. I do know he was a locksmith also. I think people did what they could when there was a need for work or help. The interesting thing about the census records is that several related people lived on the same block. The brothers, my gg uncles, were Joseph and Jacob. Joseph was married to a woman named Mary. Her brother, August, lived on the same block with his wife. There is missing information. We haven't figured out is August's wife died or if they divorced. Jacob and his wife divorced, and she married August. We had a volunteer help us with much of this information, and drove around Chicago, helping us figure it out. At a certain point in time, I felt guilty for all the help he had given us. After the divorce, Jacob moved to Wisconsin and remarried. He made a spinning wheel for my g grandmother that sits in my living room. Jacob and his wife had an infant son and the son stayed with his mother, and August in Chicago. A few of us looked and looked for the son. He had taken August's sir name.

What I wonder is if August might have been his father. Only DNA of his descendants could tell us and we haven't reached out to them. But perhaps, someone has done DNA from his family. I feel leery about getting my DNA done, although, probably by now it doesn't matter. Enough other people have done it that it wouldn't be difficult to connect the dots.
 
Weedygarden said:
You can only imagine how bad it is. What is hard to even imagine is that it isn't just women and children who are assaulted. Men are as well, and this is truly a power play.
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the Russians are doing the same to the Ukrainian population they did to Germany in WW2, even their military tactics are the same.
the ICC has now issued an arrest warrant for Putin for the war crime of ordering the abduction of thousands of Ukrainian children.
 
LadyLocust said:
Are you scared 😳
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They should be.
I am related to a gazillion people.
My ancestors from England hit the ground running (mid-1700's) here and they were 'procreators'!
7-8 kids for each was common :oops:.
 
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