Ancestry.com

[NCcarguy]

Has anyone here ever tried to track your ancestors through this, or some other site? I decided that I wanted to do this, so I signed up for a month to see how it was. I have been AMAZED as to what you can find out!!! It's been very exciting.

I'm a direct descendant of Francis Eppes, who is also the father of the woman that married Thomas Jefferson. I'm also a direct descendant of Christopher Newport who was one of the early settlers to Jamestown Virginia, in fact, he has a university named after him.

I actually started this just to learn a bit about my great grandparents, and maybe one more generation, but honestly, I've really enjoyed searching back as far as I have.

I can honestly say that it's probably worth the $30 to just try this.

 

[snickerd3]

very skeptical about that site. Does the paid membership let you actually see the documents someone used to prove so and so is related?

probably depends if someone in your family has spent the time to enter the family trees. then you are the mercy of their accuracy.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

I know some people get a real kick out of looking up their family tree, but I never understood the appeal.

 

[NCcarguy]

yes...most of the documents are scanned, and can fairly easily be read. Some of the time you have to rely on others that have done this before you, which makes it easy. I know that from what I was able to actually verify with family members, everything I found was accurate. ONE interesting tid-bit though, it's amazing how it get's easier and easier the further back you go. It appears there are two reasons for that, first...more people have researched the person you are related to, and second...it's amazing how much better record keeping in England was compared to how bad early American record keeping was.

I also find it VERY interesting how most of the people I've tracked have ALWAYS lived in the same area. I tracked some family back to 1700 that are buried in cemetaries very near my house.

 

[NCcarguy]

I know some people get a real kick out of looking up their family tree, but I never understood the appeal.

Honestly, I would have said the same thing not long ago, but maybe it's because I'm getting older? or maybe it's the realization that my father is 80, and a LOT of what he knows about his family history would die with him.....but for SOME reason I just recently decided I wanted to know.

I guess it's hard to explain why I all of a sudden felt the urge, but I can say that it's really been fun finding out, AND....It's been fun talking to my parents about it too.

 

[Master slacker]

Meh, just let your research savvy uncle do the work for you. That's the easiest way I've found to know your ancestry. My uncles found my mom's side of the family all the way back to 1180 and wrote a three volume novel that dates the family to 1997. One of my ancestors is buried at Westminster Abbey and another one of mine was beheaded.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

One of my forebears designed a revolutionary war fort a couple of miles from where I live. My dad's side of the family oned a peice of land up to the teens that my mom's grandparents bought n the late thirties (and Mom and Dad atill live there). Even a family cemetary on the property that has thirty graves. We only knew of two that were marked.

Dad foound all this out.

 

[Ble_PE]

Supposedly I'm related to George Washington on my mother's side. One of her cousins traced back their family and found out that the great-great-...-grandmother was George Washington's aunt. I haven't looked into it much, but it's still interesting.

 

[Supe]

Good luck tracing my lineage back. My name was a surname given to Slovak immigrants, which in Hungarian literally translates to "Slav" or "Slovak".

 

[Road Guy]

I played with it a little bit a while back, it is interesting to me, 3 of my grandparents were born in other countries so it gets a little lost after they came to America..

My moms dad came to NY from Italy in the early 1900's his parents both died shortly after they got here, he grew up with a family that took him, never formally adopted him, but its kind of humerous (not the death part) but that he is 100% pure Italian and his last name is Brent, not something Italian... We dont even know what his real last name was.

I wish I knew more about my grandparents, I learned about a year before my other grandfather died (not the one from italy) that (when he was young) he was engaged to another woman, he fell in love with a secretary at his office and they ran away together, apparantly it was a pretty big deal back in those days, and the girl he ran away with, he was married to her for almost 60 years before she died..

 

[Supe]

My grandmother on my mother's side was a secretary at the time, and married her boss at General Electric. Definitely scandalous for the 1940's!

 

[snickerd3]

Someone on my dad's moms side of the family did a huge lineage search and published a 2 volume book, lots of pictures and recounted tales. We are related to Lincolns wife, one of the family members owned a grocery store and owned several patents/copyrights back in the day. And there is a link to Massasoit during the time of the pilgrims.

 

[jmbeck]

I've always been leary to trace mine. I'm pretty sure it'll go something like this.

jmbeck -> Dad/Mom -> Granddads/Grandmas -> Great-Granddads/G-Grandmas -> Horse Thieves/Bootleggers -> Cowards/Deserters -> Perverts/Unchaste women

 

[FusionWhite]

My biggest piece of history is a book given to my by my grandmother about the town she lives in in Germany. It was founded in 790 and the town commissioned the book for the 1200th anniversary of the founding of the town in 1990. I dont know how far my moms side of the family goes back in this one town, but my grandmother has said as far back as she knows the family has always lived there. Its a little distrubing seeing the pictures of Hitlers motorcade driving through the town square circa 1938 or so.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

There was a guy in visiting our office the other day whose parents were born in China. He said that he'd like to go back and visit their home villages some time before they die, but he has no idea where they are. Apparently the villages weren't named...they were numbered...and they move sometimes. All he knows is that they were born in villages 49 and 50 somewhere in China. It's a small country...he should have no problem just wandering around until his parents notice something familiar.

 

[Dleg]

^LOL????

I went with the research-crazed uncle method. I haven't seen his detailed report, but what I remember of it is that I am a direct descendent of Davey Crockett's sister. Not Davey Crockett himself, but his sister.

Whatever that means.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

What the hell is it with uncles? My uncle is also a family tree nerd. Every once in a while, he'll send out an email about some distant relative. Also, somewhat creepily, he sent out a picture of my grandfather when he was about 10 years old visiting some beach in Texas with his next door neighbor. My uncle got this picture off of some ancestry website (may or may not have been ancestry.com). I don't even think my granddad knew the picture existed...much less was readily available online.