Family research

[bixaorellana]

Anybody here with an interest in genealogy? The internet has made this pursuit more open to everyone. People with an interest in puzzles can find the search addictive. And even the most sedate family provides glimpses of how life was lived through the ages.

My own patronymic was brought to what is now the US in 1674. The trail backwards to England runs cold in 1508, in Bedfordshire. There are very few people with my last name left in England, with far more in the US. And I am related to everyone with that last name!

The real excitement is when you realize how many other people out there are also teasing out the strands of their family webs. Through the miracle of search engines you can find reference to your family in the history of its neighbors or from that of a marry-in family from long ago. Because of that, I have a copy of a lengthy letter by a great-great-great grandmother. It's mostly about farming, animal husbandry, and commodity prices, but still a thrill to read something written by an ancestor so long ago.

After a while, you start thinking we've all been related since the ark. On one forum, a woman had found some books with a last name (mine) on the flyleaf that wasn't part of her family. She offered to give them to anyone who was a descendant. I was able to show her how the books had belonged to her g-g aunt, whose last name was until then unknown to her.

[Deleted]

I have a friend who is obsessed by genealogy and even has his own website on the subject of his family, which he has traced back for many centuries. I accompanied him to the departmental archives of his region once and saw all of the old yellow registers that he pores over. I could never be that passionate about such a subject!

[bixaorellana]

I think it's the puzzle and the treasure-hunt aspect of it that hooks lots of people. I got a great deal of information online about my family from the mother-in-law of a cousin I don't know. She did research on him because he was the father of her grandchildren. She was really a pure researcher, too -- the thrill of the hunt had her in its thrall.

[palesa]

I would love to spend some time doing this, especially my father's side who pretty much exited our lives after he died, I was 6 at the time.

[bixaorellana]

Palesa, you can start by finding forums for your last name, or just randomly sifting through stuff on the internet. Put [last name] family or [last name] genealogy into google & see what comes up. It's altogether possible you will find close cousins or aunts and uncles pretty quickly. You'll also be amazed at how much of the work will be done for you.

[tillystar]

Its something I am really interested in and would like to do some more research one day when I have the time. Some people in my family have tried but not got mcuh further back than we already knew about. My surname is very rare though and apart from my immediate family there is no one using it in Ireland and the UK. There are a few families in the US with it though, they must have come from Ireland.

One thing I am very lucky in is that I have a great deal of oral history on my mum's side going back to my great-great grandma's tale of her mother's burial, or my grandad's memories of his families gypsy caravans in Kent. I want to write them down one day and make sure that they are passed on; they are just day to day tales of deaths, births and memorable occasions (like the party my great-grandma drank too much at for the first time in Edinburgh the day that women got the vote) but I think is something special I hope to pass on.

I will also try and pass on the stories about MrStar's grandparents that we know (like being saved by a hair mattress while trying to escape the guernica bombings or just how they met while he was building) and hope that these are passed down generations as well.

In fact, I really do need to sort myself out and write them all down.

[bixaorellana]

Oh, Tilly ~~ you are so lucky to have access to those "just day to day tales of deaths, births and memorable occasions"! That's the stuff of novels and of true history. When I started doing this & comparing stories of fairly recent generations, such as my great-grandparents, I realized how much gets garbled and lost. My maternal grandfather wanted my mother to transcribe his WWI experiences. Later, he wanted me to do a family history. As feckless teens, neither of us were interested, and now he's taken those memories where we can't reach them.

[spindrift]

The family bible came to me when my father died. I was only 10yrs and it's lucky someone else didn't grab it. It's in my attic now. It's a huge tome and I've put it in a suitcase. In it I have my father's family records written back to 1640. I don't know much about my mother's family other than her father (my grandfather) was an artist working in the medium of mosaic in the churches in Dublin. The principal men in my father's family were mostly architects, indeed we built some fine squares and churches in and around Bristol.

I want to have my DNA sequencing done...and find out if I have nomadic blood in me.

[Deleted]

My current name (after adoption by my stepfather) is too common for me to want to bother with any research, but the name I was born with is relatively rare and easy to trace. In 30 minutes on the internet, I was able to find information going all the way back to the 12th century in rural Switzerland.

[spindrift]

Are you a mountainy man (as my Swiss friends might say!)?

[Deleted]

Well, the family was based in Glarus and then went on to found New Glarus, Wisconsin -- the most Swiss city in the United States.

[bixaorellana]

This is one of the very first threads from the early days of AnyPort. It's been buried at the bottom of The Library.

It's an interesting topic and there is some unfinished business here. *clears throat* Tilly?

And in accordance with the migrations that make the history of so many families interesting, this thread is migrating to the Container Terminal.

[Deleted]

My (somewhat Mormon) nephew promised that he would do some research when visiting his mother and stepfather in Salt Lake City. "There's nothing else to do there." Maybe he'll get back to me with some information some day.

[bixaorellana]

Going to the Mormon records is great if you are already armed with some knowledge and how to research the records.

For other people, who'd like to know more about the family, but don't know how or where to begin, I suggest picking an ancestor and concentrating on that person at first.

I not only didn't know anything about genealogy, I pretty much didn't know anything about the internet when I started. I chose my father's paternal grandmother, so didn't go that far back. It was a true thrill when I encountered her traces for the first time online -- really, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, but still being able to discern something unexpected.

As I said, the genealogical forums are great. Just be sure to frame your question specifically -- Looking for Joe Blow, b. 1872, Smith Cty, MO -- that sort of thing.

People who enjoy puzzles or detective stories can get really absorbed in the research.

[hwinpp]

My mother's side is very easy.

All bound, goes back 28 generations to some ancestor who was sent from Beijing to Hainan. Last one in is my youngest male cousin.

I'm not, as no women are in it

No idea about my father's side.

[bixaorellana]

The record leaves out all daughters and their offspring?! , indeed.

Someone in the family could use that record and work backward to make it complete. You'd need one person willing to make up a questionnaire and to send it to all the living relatives. Then it would be a matter of compiling the information and using it to re-work the family tree to include as many people as possible.

Getting the questionnaire out online would be a good idea, so that it would passed along to the maximum number of relatives, increasing the potential knowledge base.

[Deleted]

My former Chinese colleague (now retired) floored us one day when she talked about her brother on the continent. "My parents sold him to get the money to go to Taiwan." She made it sound like it was so normal and reasonable.

[bixaorellana]

Others on here will know more about this than I do, but I believe it is or was part of the culture to give up a boy to a family who had none so that the family line might be continued. If a family were desperate -- as your colleague's family may have been -- it would make sense to let a child go to a family with the wherewithal to "pay" for him. It would take some burden off the birth family and theoretically give the child a better life than he might otherwise have.

[hwinpp]

The record leaves out all daughters and their offspring?! , indeed.

Yes.

But I'm doing nothing about it. If they aren't interested, I don't see why I should be.

I was the first one from my generation to go back to the ancestral village and nobody wanted to come along. They don't know what they missed.

Years later one of my cousins went too, with her father (who was of course in the book).

[bixaorellana]

That's always the problem. I didn't care about this stuff when my maternal grandfather was alive, or my dad, even though it was a subject that interested both of them. Now I scratch and scrape to find information that I just could have asked them.

[joanne28]

My father had the family tree done in the 60s. Since we're from Québec, it was very easy. Our ancestor came over from France in 1666 from Saumur in Anjou. My OH and I visited Saumur the last time we were in France and had a very sweet visit. Next time we intend to spend a week there.

On my mother's side, I can only go back to my great-grandfather so far. He may have been born in a workhouse. My great uncle was born in a workhouse around 1900, which is so Dickensian!

[bixaorellana]

Fascinating, Joanne. It also shows that we don't have to go very far back in 1st world countries to see how life was before any kind of official social safety nets.

I had a great-aunt by marriage who was put into the Mother Cabrini orphanage in New Orleans by her mother after the death of my aunt's father. When the mother re-married, she went back and got all her children.

[lola]

While waiting out a tornado warning in the basement last night, I amused myself by looking at a box of family memorabilia. My great aunts at one time wanted to join the local DAR, and they wrote inquiring letters to people with our uncommon last name, got and preserved the many replies. It may be that the DAR fad had faded by the time they got the necessary documentation linking us with the revolution, or maybe they could never prove it, but I have a box full of handwritten, sometimes cryptic, genealogy notes.

My sister's been doing a lot of heavy lifting on Ancestors.com, has uncovered some real gems about my mother's side. Genealogy isn't nearly as tedious as it was when my husband spent hours researching his family in microfiche census records at libraries and at the KY state genealogy center. He also spent some time disproving -- to his satisfaction-- that my great g g grandfather settled Wayne County MO in 1807 as oral family history has it. I prefer to believe the oral version rather than mere written records.

I'd like to learn about any family scandals or horse thievery. We were overly sheltered from that sort of thing. Except, by family oral history: Jayhawks hanged my grandfather's great grandfather with a grapevine as he was going about his peaceable border state life. Also, my father was for one year prep school roommate and pals with the son of -- and future himself -- dictator of Nicaragua, Tacho Somoza.

[bixaorellana]

Great stuff, Lola! Whether or not anyone is interested now, your kids or their kids will be one day.

The accumulation of genealogical data does turn into either a disciplined obsession or a guilt-inducing pile of random data. I'm always resolving to change b into a.

Everyone in the US with my paternal last name is related, no matter how distantly. We're all the descendants of three brothers who arrived in the 1600s.

I have no idea exactly how I'd be related to this person, but offer the story as an example of the kind of family oddity for which you claim to yearn:

ODD CASE HERE
Woman Impersonator Dies When Hit by Car

Lawmen are still trying today to unravel the strange Sunday morning incident west of Paris that took the life of a 33-year-old carnival performer, David Rush L--- of Louisville, Ky.
Dressed as a woman, L--- was struck by an auto he tried to flag on Highway 82 near the Ranch
Deputy Sheriff Loyd Mathews said the vehicle apparently struck the carnival man as he stood in the middle of the highway.
An ambulance took L--- to St. Joseph's Hospital where he died two hours later at 6:15 a. m.
L--- was billed as a woman impersonator and sword swallower with American Midway Shows.
Officers said the show had closed a three-day stand at the Choctaw County Fair in Hugo Saturday night and was en route to Bowie, Texas.
Both the driver of the car, Thomas Watkins of Snyder, and ambulance attendants were unaware that L--- was not a woman until he was taken to the hospital here. They said the victim had several broken bones and other severe injuries.
Watkins was absolved of any blame in the death. He told officers he was traveling east toward Paris in a 1949 Chevrolet when he saw a woman standing on the center line of Highway 82.
"I dodged to the right but she just seemed to jump in front of the car," he told officers. "My left headlight struck the victim, tossed her onto my windshield and across the car."
Watkins struck a stop sign and finally came to a halt.
Two men who said they were traveling with L--- in a 1949 Buick and house trailer were parked beside the death scene. They told officers that L--- had been trying to flag a Paris bound car to pass along word to other carnival people there that they were going ahead to Bowie.
Adding to the confusion, a drunk man turned up at the City Hall earlier Sunday morning with a story that his girl friend had jumped out of his car on Grand Avenue. The feminine clothing worn by L--- fitted the description given by the man.
Police arrested the drunk. He was released Sunday morning after paying a fine. He told police he had picked the "girl" up in Hugo and brought her to Paris.
Investigating officers said the auto victim wore a woman's brown skirt and dotted blouse, and had long, real hair like that of a woman.
Later Sunday the body was shipped to Shepherdsville, Ky., by Gene Roden and Sons. Maraman and Sons there will make the burial.
L--- was born in Belmont, Ky., on June 15, 1920.
Surviving are these brothers and
sisters: [etc.]

Another person with my surname was hanged three times. It's a gruesome story, but one version ends this way:

L--- proclaimed,” If I am hanged for a third time on this day, you will all know you have hanged and innocent man, as there will be three days and three nights of rain as never seen before in this county. Tomorrow will be the biggest flood that was ever on the Obey River. Also, 100 years after my hanging, on the place of my burial will emerge poison snakes of a multitude that will be unheard of. If I am guilty, these things will not be.”
They strung him up with the third rope and that time it did the job.
Immediately on this beautiful sunny day, it started raining. The crowd panicked and ran to their buggies as the rains came from out of nowhere. The rains came in unheard of quantities. It rained for three days and three nights straight and the Obey River were permanently transformed by this flood.
One hundred years later, 1972, behind the Elementary school in Jamestown, Tennessee, where Cal was buried, the poison snakes came in multitudes. Professionals from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, were called in to help in ridding the area of the snakes. In the area behind the school, where the snakes were emerging, rests the body of Cal L---. His tombstone remains there today with the simple inscription...Cal L- - - (last name misspelled) hanged 1872.

[onlymark]

Apparently my great grandmother was an excommunicated French nun who married a Greek diplomat and set up a French school in Alexandria, in Cairo and an English school in Nairobi.

This is a picture of a get together many of us had last year and includes the only known photo of the South African diamond smuggler we harbour -

[Deleted]

Does he/she smuggle the diamonds in or out of South Africa?

[onlymark]

It's a he. And out.
He ran a small factory that made little Cessna sized planes for the farmers etc in east Africa, probably under licence of some sort. He used these in rather shady ways, landing at remote air strips, and I'm sure you get the picture.
He then had the factory closed down (I think he lost the licence because of safety factors with some of those that he built) but moved from the east to the south and kept a couple of them to do what he needed to do.
He then fled to the UK after realising various authorities were closing in on him.

Unfortunately he isn't eligible to reside there, even though many of my relatives (the three old ladies in the front row for instance) who were born outside of the UK, in Kenya, were eligible due to their father being English. I know the qualifications have changed, quite what they are now I've no idea. Suffice to say he can't get citizenship and is probably there still illegally.

[bixaorellana]

Reply to Bjd about a conversation on another thread:

You probably already know this, but it might be of interest to others -- Several years ago there weren't all the sophisticated methods for making websites that now exist. But potentially valuable areas for research then were the Genealogy.com forums. Some of them are barely updated anymore, but the Polish one seems to be thriving: genforum.genealogy.com/poland/

A quick way to get an idea of what's out there is to type "[last name] genealogy" into google.

[bjd]

Yes, Bixa. I have been spending hours these past few weeks. I have been doing some research on and off over the past years, starting with your original idea of googling the name, which led me to find out stuff about my father's brothers who took part in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.

About 2 months ago, my husband discovered that all the French departments have put online their records from before 1890. That got me started again and led to my finding a second cousin in Poland who has been doing research for the past 25 years. I have now been added to his family tree on MyHeritage, leading me to connections to other family members.

Rereading this thread from the beginning, I had to smile at Lola's comment, " I prefer to believe the oral version rather than mere written records".

She sounds like my mother, every time I call her to tell her of new discoveries, and often to discredit things she has believed for years. It makes me realize that we all like to believe that our family backgrounds are more exciting and romantic than they actually were -- at least for most of us.

Another thing I find striking, and it's supported by what my husband finds for France, is the sheer number of children people had and the high mortality rates among them. Out of about 10 kids, maybe 3 or 4 would survive. People would name more than one kid with the same name, since the first one would die. These poor women spent years of their lives being pregnant, and many died in childbirth or shortly after, and the husbands would remarry within a few months.

[htmb]

It sounds like you've made great progress in your research, bjd. I know from my adoption research that following links and lines can be very time-cconsuming, but fascinating at the same time. How wonderful that you've been able to connect with cousins in Poland.