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Merski
2-1-11, 7:06pm
I LOVE doing genealogy! Would love to know if there are any others on this forum who do as well. We could even share frugal tips related to this subject. My roots are Polish, Irish and Swedish. Can't wait for the show "Who do you think you are". My one grouse is that very wealthy people are getting their genealogy done for free.

Greg44
2-1-11, 7:40pm
My roots (name sake) Danish. Great Grand father immigrated in late 1880's. Family farm is still owned by members of the family in Denmark - since the 1700's. I have done a lot of family history research over the years - and now do newspaper research for people who are searching their Oregon roots. [/URL] and have published several "indexes" of newspapers. Sort of a hobby side business.

Family history research can be very addiciting!


[url]www.OregonNewspaperResearch.wordpress.com (http://www.OregonNewspaperResearch.wordpress.com)

iris lily
2-1-11, 9:53pm
I think it is a pretty boring topic although I've been forced to pay attention (for various reasons) for some years.

I am just finishing up with a family photo project on my mother's side and when that is done, I am finished with it all for that group.

I like Scotland and so, would love to know really where my dad's side came from but I am letting others do that research.€ which has been largely fruitless for many years. Our Scottish ancestor seemed to come from no where, leaving no trace of his original home town. We particiapte in genetic tests for the Scotland project but have had mixed results over the two year period that we have belonged. NO conclusive results yet.

Hattie
2-1-11, 10:39pm
I LOVE genealogy....Unfortunately I hit a dead end on my grandmother's side of the family (the side I REALLY want to know about *sigh*). Hubby has been very successful with his and his family tree goes back to the 1600's!! My only beef with trying to find out information is the cost!!! It seems you have to pay for everything you want to search - even if you don't find anything useful. I wish there was a way to do it without paying an arm and a leg.

Merski
2-2-11, 8:22am
Greg, I also make some $ on the side doing obituary look ups and research especially for County Kerry immigrants in Massachusetts. I have amassed a pretty large database of Worcester mass. irish and where they came from in Ireland. I find the more I do, the more of an understanding I have to proceed further. I do have lots of paid databases which I pay for because I'm frugal in other places.

JaneV2.0
2-2-11, 2:35pm
I've dabbled in genealogy and found it pretty compelling. I have a couple of interesting ancestors (Hey Gregg--have you seen my g-g aunt Mary Ann in your travels? ;) She disappeared--perhaps to "pass" some time after 1880...) One was a diarist who died on the Oregon Trail, and another was a light house keeper on Lake Pontchartrain (another introvert, perhaps). One of these days I need to get back on the trail of lost relatives.

JaneV2.0
2-6-11, 11:44pm
Who Do You Think You Are? (celebrities dabble in family history) is back for a second season on NBC Friday nights at eight, and they seem to be re-running season one on Sundays at eight, as well. I really enjoy this series, which you can also watch on the NBC website.

Greg44
2-7-11, 12:26am
JaneV2.0, I just watched this for the first time. I was very impressed -- this is why doing family history work is so exciting. When I do research for others I have brought them good news -- and not so good news. I remember looking for an early obituary for a lady whose ancestors came over on the Oregon Trail.

There is a lot of romance about those who crossed the plains on the Oregon Trail in covered wagons, their hardships and triumphs. When I searched her ancestor I learned he was killed one night in the family's cabin by his son. The father had been known to beat his wife, so the son witnessing this again - shot and killed his own father. Wow, how do I deliver that type of message? I have learned to just deliver the facts and the family processes them in their own way. She wrote me back thanking me for my research, but the disappointment in her words was touching.

iris lily
2-7-11, 10:41am
My aunt, the one remaining person from that generation who has full brain power, just reminded me that we had a signer of the Declation of Independance as an ancestor. I'd heard that years ago but forgot about it because family history just isn't interesting to me unless it takes place in Scotland. I guess that's my ticket into the DAR should I wish to join, which I don't.

I am a little curious to know if this is real information or if the George Mason IV we are supposedly decended from is a great great great great uncle, not a grandfather. I'll probably poke around a little on this question since my great grandmother Mason would be only 2 generations removed from the George Mason IV famous guy. I mean, it's not like we are going back centuries.

And here I am quacking on about my family brgas, just the thing that I hate with genealogy people.

iris lily
2-7-11, 10:42am
JaneV2.0, I just watched this for the first time. I was very impressed -- this is why doing family history work is so exciting. When I do research for others I have brought them good news -- and not so good news. I remember looking for an early obituary for a lady whose ancestors came over on the Oregon Trail.

There is a lot of romance about those who crossed the plains on the Oregon Trail in covered wagons, their hardships and triumphs. When I searched her ancestor I learned he was killed one night in the family's cabin by his son. The father had been known to beat his wife, so the son witnessing this again - shot and killed his own father. Wow, how do I deliver that type of message? I have learned to just deliver the facts and the family processes them in their own way. She wrote me back thanking me for my research, but the disappointment in her words was touching.

Greg, that was interesting about the father killer. We have a family tragedy on the Scottish side: a Great great grandmother died in a fire in a barn where she was staying with her children. She threw the kids out of the flaming barn and they all survived. We've never been able to find the newspaper account of it (that supposedly exists) We theorize that she was staying in a barn becuase her no-good alcoholic husband had not provided for her. I theorize that the large gap in our Scottish family history comes about due to drink.

The bad stuff can be more interesting than the good stuff, as in real life.

pinkytoe
2-7-11, 11:47am
My brother has devoted all of his spare time to tracing family lineage and has turned out a book of sorts for both sides going back as far as he can find. He actually made trips to cemeteries across the country and also met with people who might have known family members.There is not much left to discover as he has done it all. The books are fun to read though trying to imagine how all these ancestors made it to America and how much they moved around. Mother's side is of the mutt variety - English/Scotch/Irish and who knows what else - with lots of Civil War stories. I even recall reading of one ancestor falling off a steam boat on the Mississippi and drowning. Father's side is 100% Norwegian starting off on an island village in Norway, emigrating to Minnesota and the whole clan moving to Colorado in the 1800s. DH and I would like to take a European trip in a few years and see if we can find some of the ancestral villages.

JaneV2.0
2-7-11, 1:20pm
I agree with Iris Lily that the most interesting family lore is often problematic--like my great-grandmother dying in an insane asylum, or a great-great grandmother having a mixed-race child (which must have surprised her husband, as they subsequently divorced). Another great-great grandmother died near Barlow Road on the Oregon Trail and was buried there. She kept a diary until she loaned out her glasses, and her impressions of the journey are in one of a series of books on the subject. My sibling and I used to joke about the snooty DAR, but lo and behold, there's our German paterfamilias and his son listed in their roster. Genealogy combines the thrill of the hunt with the fascination of seeing yourself through the lens of long-ago lives.

IshbelRobertson
2-8-11, 5:38am
I'm lucky in that I still live within shouting distance of my ancestors, and a family member still farms the same place as they have since the mid-1700s when they were forced out of Argyll. I am doubly lucky in that there is no other nationality in my ancestors, not even a smidgeon of Irish (quite unusual in lowland Scotland, as most families have SOME Irish blood!) There may be some Norman and Viking blood, but that is waaay back before records were kept!

We lost land at the time of both the '15 and '45 Uprisings. Latterly, my family were solicitors, Dominies (teachers) and doctors - so well-documented in most cases. Mind you, one of my ancestors was amongst the last Scotsmen to be hung for sheep-stealing in Scotland!

The Storyteller
2-8-11, 10:54pm
I find family history fascinating. I have a line that I have been able to trace back to Elizabethan England. Edmund Knell was a trugger by profession.

But have no recent immigrants. All of the lines I have been able to trace have ended up here prior the Revolution. So far have found 6 or 7 Revolutionary War participants, including one pirate (captain of The Revenge). I was surprised to learn my surname is Dutch or Germanic, as it sounds Irish. A great uncle was leader of the Fancher Party, a wagon train massacred by mormons on 9/11/1857. He was on his way to CA to join his brother, my great grandfather. But was killed along with 140 other men, women, and children at Mountain Meadows. Lost a great great grandfather fighting on the wrong side during the Civil War, died in a Yankee POW camp in Chicago.

History never seems so alive to me as when I follow my ancestors through it.

JaneV2.0
2-8-11, 11:26pm
"History never seems so alive to me as when I follow my ancestors through it. "

That's exactly the way I feel. History as generally taught is as dry as dust. Dates and wars, generals and kings. A snooze-o-rama. Genealogy literally brings it home.

early morning
4-10-11, 2:39pm
Free access to Civil War records- genealogy - I put this on the family thread also....
I'm a little late with this, but Footnote.com and I believe Ancestry.com are opening their sites for free this week (well, Footnote is through the 14th, not sure about Ancestry), if anyone wants to take advantage to do some poking around about the Civil War or use the 1860 census.

catherine
4-11-11, 4:19pm
I love it, too--I have a subscription to Ancestry.com, and if you are into it, it's a relatively cheap hobby. Ancestry.com is amazing--you can see all the census documents that pertain to your family, they give you "hints" when you they find something that might be relevant to someone in your family tree, they link you up with other people who have submitted information about the same ancestors. It's really cool.

I watched the Ashley Judd episode--at first I thought "why the heck would I care about Ashley Judd's great-great-great grandfather?" but I kept it on, so I guess I did!

Greg44
4-11-11, 4:58pm
I watched the Ashley Judd episode--at first I thought "why the heck would I care about Ashley Judd's great-great-great grandfather?" but I kept it on, so I guess I did!

It is surprising how his story was lost over the generations. I find it interesting when we can attach our family to important events that shaped this country and beyond. I think it makes history come alive!

IshbelRobertson
4-11-11, 5:33pm
I feel very lucky about tracing my ancestry. Most of them are buried only a few hundred miles from where I presently live. I have been able to trace my family back to the late 1500s, but that's IT. A brick wall. We have dominies, lawyers and doctors in our family tree after the Uprisings. We lost lands after the '45. Stolid, solid middle class scots. Info is available for them. It's the poorer people, with little written history that I am always admiring.

How foreigners with ancestry in Scotland manage to find connections is amazing.

earthshepherd
4-12-11, 7:00am
I have been doing genealogy research for over ten yrs, and I love it. I got my dad and several of his family interested too. One family reunion in SE MO, we tramped through several cemeteries and had a great time! I was able to trace my paternal grandmother's family back to the 900s in Britain. There are many connections that aren't confirmed, many that are impossible to confirm, but we do have an outline of where to look at least.

Two years ago when my sis and I traveled to England and Scotland, we toured Raby Castle, the ancestral seat of the Neville family, and that was wonderful. The line going back to the Neville's is fairly easy to trace. If you can trace a line back to anyone with money or power, the rest of the research is usually already done for you somewhere.

One of the many stories I uncovered was in the household of William Boarman, my 10th great grandfather, who lived in the colony of Maryland. He reluctantly gave his blessing to one of his Irish servants to marry one of his African slaves. For several generations the descendants of this couple were slaves owned by the Boarman family, until one of the grandsons of William Boarman granted the family their freedom. The ancestral home, I understand, still stands in Maryland, and this summer my sister and I are planning a daytrip to find it.