Family tree help

[thetruepandagod]

Wanted to start working on a family tree and i have no knowledge whatsoever on the subject. I was wondering if anyone else on bg has had any luck with websites like ancestry.com or anything like that and how far back they have been able to go.

[Zetanio]

My buddy traced his roots a year or two ago and said the best thing to do was to get as much done yourself as you can before you use the sites. The more you put in, the more results. I know he used Ancestry.com, not sure about other sites. That all being said, you are bound to find some crazy/scary/awesome shit out.

[Zeb]

Wanted to start working on a family tree and i have no knowledge whatsoever on the subject. I was wondering if anyone else on bg has had any luck with websites like ancestry.com or anything like that and how far back they have been able to go.

Unless you have someone moderately famous in your history, I doubt you're going to have luck getting past the late 1800s.

Here's a site you can use to get access to some searchable stuff like the census. This site is paid for by libraries and you're supposed to be a member of said library to use it. I used the # 13645 and it works. A lot of 5 digit #s probably works though. Personally, I couldn't find anything earlier than my great grandparents. Earliest of which was born in the 1880s.
http://www.henricolibrary.org/online...html?aid=28674

[Plow]

Unless you have someone moderately famous in your history, I doubt you're going to have luck getting past the late 1800s.

It's not that hard. I can take mine back to 1500's (maybe beyond) and the closest to famous is some Scots in the 1700's that were rich enough that their house is now a big nice bed & breakfast. It's amazing what you can find in the last couple hundred years since newspapers and shit came out, though.

My grandma has taken the stuff really deep, she has like an entire big bookshelf full of bigass binders full of the stuff. Basically what she's found is that those sites and stuff are useful, but the most helpful is the other people that communicate on them. Most people that are really into this stuff are super ready to help, so if you're pretty forward and whatnot with talking to others about it you should have pretty good success.

I have a bunch of information I'll get up here but I'm a bit busy atm.

But yeah I have like land and tax receipts and shit from well before the late 1800's.

[thetruepandagod]

Tried the library link but im first generation american so wasn't too helpful, do you know of any sites that are better in terms of international records? And as far as moderately famous im apparently related to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juscelino_Kubitschek im messing around on ancestry.com right now but keeps asking me to register to look at anything.

It's not that hard. I can take mine back to 1500's (maybe beyond) and the closest to famous is some Scots in the 1700's that were rich enough that their house is now a big nice bed & breakfast. It's amazing what you can find in the last couple hundred years since newspapers and shit came out, though.

My grandma has taken the stuff really deep, she has like an entire big bookshelf full of bigass binders full of the stuff. Basically what she's found is that those sites and stuff are useful, but the most helpful is the other people that communicate on them. Most people that are really into this stuff are super ready to help, so if you're pretty forward and whatnot with talking to others about it you should have pretty good success.

I have a bunch of information I'll get up here but I'm a bit busy atm.

But yeah I have like land and tax receipts and shit from well before the late 1800's.

They have forums and what not on ancestry.com? for people to talk on or is she just contacting them through other means after finding them on there? Also your grandma sounds badass i wish i had someone in my family researching it that far back.

[Rhinox]

Hey guys, I don't wanna brag but uh.. my family was a pretty big deal.

[Zeb]

Hey guys, I don't wanna brag but uh.. my family was a pretty big deal.

Don't think the Tarlys have any Targaryen blood in them.

[Cream Soda]

lol couldn't even go as far back as my dad w/ the library link.

[Vuitton]

lol couldn't even go as far back as my dad w/ the library link.

The census information it has only goes up to 1930. So, not surprised. Unless you're like really old.

[Cream Soda]

lol I won't get far w/ that then. Idk his dad's name.

[Necronus]

Using Ancestry.com after my mother gave me as much info about Uncles/Grandparents as possible. Ancestry does NOT do living people and as Vuitton said, they're up to the 1930 census with 1940 scheduled for release by the government in April 2012. I came up with the following in about 2 weeks of work. As you can see, some branches go nowhere fast, others get huge hits on the census. I only attached my direct pedigree. My tree has almost 300 people in it, including people who married into the family, etc.

Spoiler: show

Edit: Find-A-Grave can also help get birth/death dates.

[Plow]

Tried the library link but im first generation american so wasn't too helpful, do you know of any sites that are better in terms of international records? And as far as moderately famous im apparently related to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juscelino_Kubitschek im messing around on ancestry.com right now but keeps asking me to register to look at anything.



They have forums and what not on ancestry.com? for people to talk on or is she just contacting them through other means after finding them on there? Also your grandma sounds badass i wish i had someone in my family researching it that far back.

You may want to start out at some of the immigration places. Try these:

http://www.ellisisland.org
http://www.castlegardens.org
http://www.immigrantships.net < log of immigrant ships

One of the biggest places is rootsweb, http://www.rootsweb.com , and you can find lots of people willing to help through there.

Here's a really good db someone's got up there, http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.c...lvy/index.html

Basic, free version of ancestry: http://www.familysearch.org
Similar deal: http://www.distantcousin.org

good commercial site: http://www.myfamily.com

Here's a few that probably aren't that useful for you:
http://www.dar.org (to find names of ancestors in the revolutionary war)
http://www.themayflowersociety.com
http://www.rootsweb.com/~engqfhs <quaker family history stuff

cool free site for pictures and stuff http://www.myheritage.com

http://www.findagrave.com do I really need to explain?

If you really want to get in depth, you should check out this guy, he's done some amazing shit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wilson_Coldham


You can get months worth of research to do out of just what I've listed here. Have fun, it's really cool to see where you came from.

[Necronus]

One of the biggest places is rootsweb, http://www.rootsweb.com , and you can find lots of people willing to help through there.[/url]

Be very careful of rootsweb, or oneworldtree, or even looking at other peoples trees on ancestry. Don't get me wrong, they're GREAT resources and I got a lot of leads from them, but on my first try, I made the mistake of using Ancestry's merge tool a little too much. In my tree above, if you look at that Van Buskirk tree and follow it back to Holland/Southern France ... turns out I had a LOT of distant distant relatives arguing whether or not we're the descendants of an illegitimate relationship of the Duke of Orange. I had to learn to ignore trees with that cause it was apparently disproven.

I guess the real lesson here is take your time on each relative, one at a time ... feel free to make a mass merge if you want, but make a checklist to go back and revisit each person added to attach evidence. This applies to ANY ancestry website or software.

[MaachaQ]

I've always kinda wanted to research my own family history, some of those links seem interesting and I'll be sure to check them out. My husband's family register goes back some 500 years, so it makes me feel terrible when I realize I don't really know about my family past my great grandparents on one side and grandparents on the other side...

[Rhinox]

lol I won't get far w/ that then. Idk his dad's name.

Black guy doesn't know his dad/granddad name

COLOR ME SURPRISED

Bill Cosby doesn't approve.

[Cream Soda]

Black guy doesn't know his dad/granddad name

COLOR ME SURPRISED

Bill Cosby doesn't approve.

No Guiles here. I'm not a family man, lol.

I talk to one of my four brothers maybe once a month, and my grandma once a month. Live w/ my uncle and hardly talk to him once a week. Aside from that, 3 brothers I haven't talked to in over a year, lol. Don't talk to my mom. Dad randomly visits like 4 times a year.

Have a bunch of cousins I've never met trying to add me to facebook, lol. Denied that shit real quick.

[solanis]

my family's history was destroyed in WWII for the most part, the only survivors were my grandmother and grandfather may their memories be a blessing we don't know much any further back, though we do know my great-grandfather was a rabbi and they lived dirt-poor in a shtetl!

[Gadritan]

Me and my dad started this about 3yrs ago. He never got to know his dad before he died and got new info on where he died etc, so we basically had a whole new side of the family.

The most amazing piece of luck in it all was finding out the second person we got in contact with from the family was a genealogist, lol. She's been able to trace our roots back to about 750AD so far. I'll see if she has any tips.

[thetruepandagod]

750AD god damn, ill be happy if i can make it to the 1800's

[Pyro]

Late 1500s is the best I've been able to do.