Tracing your ancestry

#27
#27
n_huffhines said:
I grew up Mormon and genealogy is a big deal in the faith. I never cared about doing my genealogy until now that I'm not Mormon, and I wanted to know about my non-Mormon lineage. Not a lot had been passed down to me from that side.

I did a DNA test last year and got 3 months free with Ancestry and I dinked around for a while building out my family tree. I didn't know my Dad's Mom very well and I found HS yearbook pictures of her. I discovered she was on the basketball team. I had no idea and I'm nuts for hoops. How many girls were playing hoops in 1930? Not many. The other crazy discovery was that I unknowingly named my daughter after my Grandma's closest sister. It is a traditional name, but it's not very common so this is a hell of a coincidence. My great Aunt had a nickname unrelated to her given name, and we only knew her by her nickname.

I came away from this feeling two kinds of ways...sad with a more clear realization that I didn't know my Grandma well enough, but I also felt more connected to her. I was left with a feeling that I'm connected to her in other ways that I'm still not realizing.
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My big reason for even getting into it was due to me liking history. While I have 100's of books on U.S. and world history I know none of mine. It's to long of a story to dive into my family, but my father was a bit older then my mother. The gap in age made it so I didn't know anyone on my dads side but for a few people that hadn't passed. I was tore on even getting started since even if I find out nice little details, I'll still never have any time with them. What changed my mind was most people don't seem to care about family anymore. My wife lost her Papaw a few months ago and her biggest regret was that after she got done with college life became "to busy" to make time to go see them that often. Even if mine are gone I would like to have the information of their life, what they did, where did they serve if they did, stuff that if me and my wife have kids I can pass on to them. Or maybe I am just vain haha.


walkenvol said:
Do you have no concerns about sharing your DNA with folks on the internet? While unlikely, it’s entirely possible for you to be linked / or set up for a crime
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On my part no. Any information that is needed for that is already all over the internet. If the government wants your DNA they can get it, if they don't already have it. Heck my coworker is in to that bitcoin stuff and talks about it all the time. I had never even typed it in my phone or looked anything up about it and I started getting bitcoin ads on youtubes app. I'm not keen on the 119$ to trust that some one is doing a DNA test and not just throwing stats and traits at the wall because I wouldn't know if it was true information of not.
 
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#28
#28
Rasputin_Vol said:
A judge said police can search the DNA of 1 million Americans without their consent. What’s next?
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Not saying I agree with the Judge or that I think the Government should be able to force them to had over the Information. Just that a in few cases police has followed people to get their spit cups, paper they have wiped their mouth with, or picked up a butt after they got done smoking. Again not agreeing that its right just that they will get that stuff anyway if they want it. I have thought for years the school system has been collecting samples to send in, but thats for a conspiracy theory topic.
 
#30
#30
Firebirdparts said:
They tell everybody they're a descendant of Edward III. That's how they suck you in.
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Discovered a couple of Henry VIII links on maternal grandmother's tree, which leads back to an antebellum governor of Georgia who also served in the US House and US Senate.

Wife and also I did tthe Ancestry.com. saliva thing about 5 years ago. I was surprised to come in as 95% English. Maybe that explains my musical tastes in rock'n'roll,.
 
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#34
#34
I traced back 6 generations on my paternal side to about 1800. Turns out my grandfather (4-greats) resided near Sneedville before migrating to Kentucky. Yes, I have lineage to the Melungeons which I had heard about for 25 years after moving to this area. I have either Indian, African-American Or both in my recent family history on my Dad’s side. My Mom’s history is not as well documented. Earliest documentation is my (great grandfather and grandmother) and my grandfather listed in a census when he was under the age of ten around the turn of the 20 century.

Just a note: I joined ancestry.com for a little time about 7 or 8 years ago but most of my information I found out free by googling. Ancestry.com really didn’t provide any new that I had not already obtained on my own.
 
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#35
#35
golfballs said:
Mormons are very big into ancestry. They’ve been providing this service for a very long time. Before the internet my grandmother used to write them letters and they’d reply with the information they had.
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They do that because current living Mormons believe they can be baptized today for one of their deceased relatives or something along those lines.
 
#36
#36
That family search page is great. Just by putting my father's info there I found someone has traced parts of our family back to 1171 England.
 
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#37
#37
I've gone back to around 1250 with one branch of our family tree.
A little time comsuming, but fun.....
 
#38
#38
I have a sister who spent a month in Salt Lake researching the family and I have a degree in history and used some of those skills to add to what she found.

Here's some of the fun/interesting stuff

The family was run out of England in 1626 and came to America (we have a copy of the ships registry)

One relative was one of the first missionaries to Hawaii in 1828

Another relative with a "delivery business" back in the 1700s messed up the family tree a bit. He delivered good from town A to town B to town C then back to town A and he had a family and kids in Towns A, B & C.

My Great Great Grandfather was an officer in the Union Army in charge of a Black engineering company. I have copies of a large collection of letters he wrote during the Civil War. From sailing out of NY harbor and heading to Pensacola to operations across to St Charles LA

Also located the town of 150 population in France where my mother's family came from.

Lots of fun stuff out there.

As for DNA did that a couple years ago and have located a niece that a sister gave up at birth. She's pretty cool.
 
#39
#39
BilboTN said:
That family search page is great. Just by putting my father's info there I found someone has traced parts of our family back to 1171 England.
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Yep, Familysearch.org pretty interesting...I'm still digging through the different branches of my tree, etc. So far, on my mother's side I've run into a lot more Welsh and French than I was previously aware of...Dad's side is 100% German/Bavarian, until one gets back to the Ostrogoths.

What's really interesting is the supposed (or real?) lineage from historical figures...I can't help but wonder how accurate some of the links/connections really are given the fog of historical records, but it's kind of really dang cool to see names like William the Conqueror, Karolus Magnus/Charlemagne, Charles Martel, Clovis, Caesar Augustus, etc.
 
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#40
#40
GoDucks349 said:
I have a sister who spent a month in Salt Lake researching the family and I have a degree in history and used some of those skills to add to what she found.

Here's some of the fun/interesting stuff

The family was run out of England in 1626 and came to America (we have a copy of the ships registry)

One relative was one of the first missionaries to Hawaii in 1828

Another relative with a "delivery business" back in the 1700s messed up the family tree a bit. He delivered good from town A to town B to town C then back to town A and he had a family and kids in Towns A, B & C.

My Great Great Grandfather was an officer in the Union Army in charge of a Black engineering company. I have copies of a large collection of letters he wrote during the Civil War. From sailing out of NY harbor and heading to Pensacola to operations across to St Charles LA

Also located the town of 150 population in France where my mother's family came from.

Lots of fun stuff out there.

As for DNA did that a couple years ago and have located a niece that a sister gave up at birth. She's pretty cool.
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I'd be checking for ties to Rush Propst.
 
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#41
#41
MyHeritage.com is a good site/App for building out your tree as you research it. I really like using it.
 
#44
#44
GoDucks349 said:
Another relative with a "delivery business" back in the 1700s messed up the family tree a bit. He delivered good from town A to town B to town C then back to town A and he had a family and kids in Towns A, B & C.

.
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My mothers side is similar, ole boy had a family in the Maine Woods and one in the coast in New Brunswick.
 
#45
#45
golfballs said:
Mormons are very big into ancestry. They’ve been providing this service for a very long time. Before the internet my grandmother used to write them letters and they’d reply with the information they had.
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They do this for their baptisms of the dead rituals. Had a close acquaintance who was Mormon. And there is a saying that has a lot of truth to it, "Have you ever met a Mormon that wasn't nice?"

Anyway, said friend was doing some looking up on my family tree on a site only available to LDS members and ran across my great-great granddaddy, who spent the War as a Confederate partisan in Missouri, stayed in northern Arkansas after the war, was ambushed and shot off the back of a mule on his way to kill the folks who ambushed him. Well, apparently, some Mormon woman in Idaho or Montana was baptized in his name years ago. I told my friend, well so much for all Mormons being nice. ;)
 
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#46
#46
Its fun to pass time with. I have started scanning and editing old photo albums to USB's to have copies incase something ever happens.
 
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#48
#48
Once you take one of those ancestry tests, your DNA goes straight into a government database And they OWN you. It ain’t worth it
 
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