Genealogy - Anyone have experience in family research?

[Scott Shepherd]

Several years ago some information was giving to me by a relative. I never spent much time looking at it. About a year ago, I signed up for Ancestry.com for about a month. I felt like it was a waste of money. My concern was it was $30 a month or something and it never ended in the expense, so I cancelled it. I just bought a family tree program and it's tied into some free search stuff, and I started filling it all in and working through the documents I have. So far it's going well and I'm really enjoying it.

I honestly don't know anything about researching family history. I do know that I have a family tree that took us back to a castle in England, a castle at which I have personally visited when I worked there.

In looking at that documentation now, I see that they just picked off one relative in the chain and followed them back to that place. Now, as I look at all the 100's of other relatives on the list, I wondered how the heck someone just randomly picked that relative to trace.

I can now see how complex this can all become. With so many relatives and then their children, it gets a bit overwhelming and I'm wondering how you deal with it. How do you handle that? Surely you can't research every single relative, their spouses, their spouses parents and families, etc. If you did that, you'd be following 1000's of people, I'd guess. How do you handle that?

Also, it seems like most all the sites basically just give you census information. I'm really baffled by the census data. Is it often really, really, really wrong?

An example, I have a relative named Robert M ----------. In the 1910 and 1920 census, I seem him and his wife, and children, all the way they should be. But in the 1940 census, it shows the head of the household as Charles T ----------, with the same wife name, the same people living in the house. No one is the family has any knowledge of him being anything but Robert M. When I look at the handwritten census, it's clear as it can be, it's handwritten Charles T.

Stuff like that is really confusing to me and I'm not sure how to process it. Just discount it as a mistake or did something odd happen that I need to look into?

It's all really quite interesting and fun, but I don't know anyone that's every done it, so I'm not sure if I'm doing the right things or fumbling along the hard way.

Any suggestions?

[Shawn Pixley]

Its really hard to answer your post. I have built upon some genealogy that my great aunt started. One thing to consider is that our conceptions of life spans is not terribly applicable in genealogy. People died younger. Women died in childbirth, men died of other causes. Several of my ancestry have two spouses. I wouldn't be surprised that "Robert" died and his wife remarried to support her children.

In terms of your more general question, you only need to make yourself happy. There is no defined endpoint.

[Greg Peterson]

My mother is very active in genealogy. It has become a passion of hers. Very time consuming as you can not rely on one record source for all the information. Birth/death certificates, marriage licenses, census records, immigration rolls, city, county, state records...... you get the idea.

As you have seen yourself, sometimes the oral record doesn't match the written record. That's where more digging is required to get to the bottom of the mystery. Once that mystery is solved there is usually another one just waiting.

It's kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes you just need to move on to another part of the puzzle for a while.

[David G Baker]

It is a lot of work, is very time consuming and requires a lot of dedication but in the end it is worth the effort. Not sure how it is done but the records that the Mormons have is probably one of the better sources for gathering information. I do know that I do not have the patience.

[phil harold]

I have had good luck with the surname forum at http://boards.ancestry.com/
make sure you use an email that you will have forever and always check
I have people contact me every couple years...
found a lost cousin
found a line of ancestry that went back to the 12th century
Takes time and patience, then out of the blue you get a new connection or a new census is released that helps you in your search
have fun!

[Chuck Wintle]

I have done some genealogy work myself and have found census records can help a lot but sometimes they cab be wrong. One example, a long dead relative of mine was listed as having 5 children and then only 2 on the following census.

[Keith Outten]

Steve,

My Father decided that he wanted to trace our family name as far back as possible when I was very young. He spent ten years but he found every one of our ancestors all the way back to Abraham Outten who arrived in the Virginia Colony in 1634. I remember endless trips to graveyards, court houses and hours upon hours looking at News Paper micro-film in the Library of Congress. We visited every living member of our family to get any information that they had, the most accurate information was recorded in their family bibles as there were no birth or death certificates until later years.

Should your search lead you to the South the difficulty will increase tenfold because the Court Houses were almost all burned to the ground during the Civil War.
.

[Belinda Barfield]

Steve, you've asked a lot of questions. I became almost obsessed with family trees and histories about 8 years ago. It began to consume all of my free time and I finally stopped searching and stored all of my records. I tend not to do things half way. IMO, no, you can't trace everyone and I chose to follow my immediate line. Do you watch the TV show "Who Do You Think You Are?"

It is possible for the census listing Charles T as the HOH that he was a son of Robert M. Property laws being what they were before us women because all powerful made things a little different. I'd search for a death record for Robert M (if you haven't already). Does Robert M show up in a census after 1940?

Don't believe everything you see on ancestry websites. If a connection seems plausible and fits with your own research, then pursue and verify. My SO's mother is convinced that some 40th degree relation has traced their family tree to Constantine the Great, which is totally ludicrous.

I always find it amusing when people tell me they are descended from a famous historical figure - not that it doesn't happen, a lot. It's much like "past life regression", the person undergoing it "remembers" being someone famous. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say, "Wow, I traced my family tree and my ancestor was a stable hand muck raker for King George.", but it's possible that muck rakers weren't important enough to have births, deaths, and marriages recorded anywhere.

[Bruce Pratt]

Try contacting the Virginia Genealogical Society in Richmond. They should be able to get you started in the right direction.

[Scott Shepherd]

Thanks for the input, all. Fortunately, for one side of my family, I have very very good records back to the 1700's, and even some line of the family traced back into the 1400's, that that 1400 one was a great great great great aunt, and it was her spouse that seemed to trace back to their, which is why I asked how do you actually determine who to trace. To me, tracing a spouse of the bloodline doesn't accomplish much, but maybe I'm not right on that.

Keith, I was reviewing one thing last night and one of my great great great great (I just make up greats when I don't know how many it should be) was from Gloucester. He father was a minister there, so I'm sure my travels will lead me to your back yard

I think the thing I am enjoying about it so far is the computer side of it. I can see the entire tree, as it stands right now, visually, and I can print all sorts of reports on people, the line, etc. It's very well done. I have started uploading media to the names and people I have, so when time goes on, it'll end up being a really nice piece of work, I think. Plus I can export it all, even as PDF's, so it'll make sharing it with others easy.

For decades I always heard about the work some of our relatives had done on it, but weren't allowed a copy because it was all just "too delicate", so now I'll be able to pass it along to anyone that wants it and maybe they'll take it further.

On the Robert M vs Charles T thing, Robert had a son, Charles R, and he's listed on that very census, as a child, living in the household. It was my father's grandfather, so he remembers him and he has no knowledge of him ever being called Charles or why it would show up that way, as Robert was alive in the timeframe that the census shows.

How do you find people when they are in other states? I have some very very vague information about some originals in Kentucky. Without having to drive to Kentucky, how do you flush out leads?

[Belinda Barfield]

How do you find people when they are in other states? I have some very very vague information about some originals in Kentucky. Without having to drive to Kentucky, how do you flush out leads?

Put out a request on some of the genealogy boards. Lots of folks will offer to do a little research in their "backyard" in exchange for you doing some in yours. Particularly if you need someone to visit a cemetery, since they may already familiar with the ones in their area. You could also contact historical societies in the area and they may have information that would help.

[Keith Westfall]

Lots of sites to look at - some free and some not.

This site has extensive information about genealogy and is free...

https://familysearch.org/

[Dave Lehnert]

I never did much tracing of the family tree. But just wanted to point out a web site called "Find a Grave" (Dot com) People kinda adopt graveyards and will photograph and list each grave as to date of birth and death. Just all depends how much time a person puts into it to the quality of the information.
The web site is interesting to look at just for the famous graves.

[phil harold]

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say, "Wow, I traced my family tree and my ancestor was a stable hand muck raker for King George.", but it's possible that muck rakers weren't important enough to have births, deaths, and marriages recorded anywhere.

So true the only way i was able to trace part of my line back so far was because they followed bloodlines of a knight (well actual 2 knights and one sheriff).

My wife's aunt could not even get my living family right and few others but she still added to the LDS database, so be carefull all records can be questioned

[Scott Shepherd]

Lots of sites to look at - some free and some not.

This site has extensive information about genealogy and is free...

https://familysearch.org/

That's one I was using. To me, it seems like all those sites, this one and paid ones, are just census records which seem to be riddled with errors. Am I wrong in that? Is there a lot more information on those sites than I'm able to find?

On a side note, I hit the jackpot this morning. I had one side of our family traced back to 1700 or so, which someone else had basically already done all that work for us. I found a site in a search that showed two or three levels above him, and that search led me to a site that showed all the way back to 1450. The records on that document that went back to 1450 seem to link really well into the information I already had, so I trust that it's a fairly safe bet to tie it all together. I have some family notes from the 1700 and 1800's and they all reference people I found this morning but previous had no record of. So by finding those and seeing that they correspond with personal family notes as well as some documentation written in books in the era, I think it's a good find.

I think that ends the length of the search on that side of the family. Next steps will be for us to widen out that side of the family with all the children, all the way back to 1450, which we have, but need to enter. Then we'll need to start the other side of my family, which currently stops around 1870 in Kentucky. Not sure how to piece that one together, since they seemed to live in the wilderness at that point in history.

The goal would be to get back to 1450 with that side of the family!

I'll also contact the Virginia Genealogy office in Richmond.

Thanks again, this is quite interesting!