I would love a genealogy forum. Back in the 1980's and 90's I did lots of geneaology when writing a family history and story book. All the sources you mention are great. I loved the Allen county library
There is one marriage I'm still looking for and this might just be the way I can find it.

I learned to be a bit wary of those who are doing "geneology" instead of genealogy.

My aunt traced back my dads side of the family years and years ago. We originated in Armenia then settled in Turkey. Later ancestors moved to France, then Germany and finally settled in The Netherlands.

My mom found a cousin on Vancouver Island. His wifes brother in The Netherlands found that our ancestors are from France, with some from Israel. They settled in Germany. A few generations back, they moved to the Netherlands.

I am the first born Canadian, but am a Dutch citizen born in Canada. Only because my parents had only been here a few months when i was born. I was "made in Holland"... :) Turns out, the cousin on the islands' grandfather, was my grandfathers brother.

Not so sure about either of my grandmothers. I do know my mothers mother fled Germany when Hitler began to rise. She was 16 and got out of dodge. We still have relatives in Germany, some of which are living in the house my grandmother was born in. So cool!

I would love to see a genealogy forum! I belong to Ancestry.com but seem to have exhausted most of the info on my ancestors. I need to try using some of the ones listed above. Thanks for posting this!

A genealogy forum is a great idea! I'm fortunate that my family name (on my father's side) is unusual, plus many of those relatives were successful in the arts, so it has been easy for me to find lots of information simply by Googling the name. I'm not skilled at genealogy, but I followed that line back to one set of g-g-g-grandparents in the Netherlands.

KT friends have helped me fill in some blanks. We have some good genealogists here!

My great-grandmother Esther Phillips was a bit of a mystery to me. I suspected that much of the family's musical talent originated with her family, but Phillips is not an uncommon name--and as I said, I'm not particularly skilled at this. All I knew about her was that she was born in Prussia. But last year I met (online, through my Geni.com family tree) a distant cousin in England who is passionate about genealogy and knows everything there is to know about the Phillips line.

Turned out that they are a musical bunch, as I suspect. I also learned that the part of Prussia where Esther was born is now Poland--and the original Phillips family name was nothing like Phillips! It's all fascinating.

My father's mother was a Campbell, and her parents, who emigrated from Scotland, were George and Margaret. Talk about common names! But a KT friend on Facebook actually found a cousin (not so distant) from this line, and we connected in a big way. She came to visit me this past summer. We both had major misconceptions about each other's part of the family. It has been so interesting to get the story right.

I haven't been able to discover a thing about my mother's family, even though the names aren't terribly common. But I'm in the process of having my DNA tested, and they use the mother's line to go back 500 years to at least tell me where my ancestors came from.

BTW, years ago I came upon a photograph of the gravestones of my great-great-grandparents, who were buried in England. The writing was in Hebrew, but a friend translated it. I was so moved at the sight of those stones, and the knowledge that a stranger had taken the time to photograph them, that I was inspired to volunteer as a gravestone photographer myself. I've been taking pictures for FindAGrave ever since.

2 more options above. DNA testing, if you're so inclined. And searching names on Find-A-Grave. Thanks.

I've done genealogy, more for adding or correcting info on Wikipedia sites on well-known people, living or dead. Lot of BS out there.

I started out using Ancestry.com probably half a decade ago, then hooked up with some people in genealogy forums, some of whom sent me scads of info from local newspapers, courthouse records, public libraries, etc. I even had a pleasant hour-long conversation with the granddaughter of a well-known deceased man, who telephoned me after I dropped her a snail-mail note telling I was adding (or subtracting) from her grandfather's Wikipedia page.

There used to be an extremely helpful genealogy group called Random Acts of Genealogy Kindness (something like that) where volunteers from every US state offered look-up services, but the lady who started it died a few years ago, and the site went down with her. I did a lot of volunteering through that site for my California county---I especially liked old Courthouse records.
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The other service my library subscribes to is "Newspaperarchives.com", where I can do name searches on people going back to the 1800's.. Needless to say I've found a lot of information there. One of my old contacts from RAOGK (see above) also subscribes to the archives of the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and other major newspapers that have been digitized (quite expensive to access) and I've found excellent & often surprising stuff through him.

So many different places...

I have a few brick walls myself. I've exhausted ancestry.com for the time being and won't subscribe again for at least 6 months. I connected with distant cousins through there but even banding together, we can't break these walls.

I'm in the process of writing the story of each couple now. I hope I can have them done within 2 years. Sometimes I think that's an accurate estimate and sometimes it seems like I will never get a couple fact checked. But it's a good thing. Proof reading isn't enough. A time line tells it like it is. I do get bogged down in the Mayflower people because there's so much out there and I have to remind myself that three sources are enough and the same story told 10 ways doesn't change anything. Some of them were awful people. Unfortunately some of those awful people were related to me.

The newer stuff is more interesting. Most things that happened in my family from 1800 to 1880 were the most interesting and made the best stories. And the only thing I knew when I started was my grandmother's name. I should have paid attention years ago and I should have asked questions when there was someone to ask. I had no idea I was related to almost everyone in town when I was a little kid. And that's what happens when a child in a family of 10 or 12 marries into a family of 10 or 12. And each child in the family does it and pretty soon you have a lot of people in your family! And then someone dies and the survivor remarries!! Ai yi yi!! A person could end up whimpering and drooling just trying to keep everyone straight.

My least favorite genealogy forum question: Does anyone have any information about "Joe/Jane Smith"? Please reply ASAP. He/She's my __________ and I don't know anything about him/her.

Yes I love genealogy too! The Random Acts of genealogical Kindness is now active as a Facebook group if anyone wants to post to it. I belong to Ancestry and have for many years. I redo all my searches every couple of months because new records are being added daily and you never know when something will pop up! I just solved a brickwall a few weeks ago when Ancestry added a lot of New York records to their site! So I would love a genealogy forum here on Garden Web! The more the merrier!
Joann

Great idea. Wasn't there a genealogy site on Garden Web some time ago and then it seemed to disappear. My husband does a lot of genealogy and he uses the library and mostly free sites. He has used ancestry years ago. I think it would be used a lot.
Mary

A Genealogy Forum sounds great!

I tried a little research only 'dabblingly';
I seemed to go from link to link to link & then forget where I was, & I got overwhelmed & frustrated & gave up.

Maybe gw's vast pool of knowledgeable & helpful souls all concentrated on a special forum are just what I & other rank amateurs need!

Maybe if more of us requested a genealogy forum, they'd add it.
How do we do that?

Yes, years back there was a genealogy forum on here.

Sue

I have often wondered why GW doesn't have a genealogy forum. I've been researching my family's genealogy for over 30 years. I welcome all avenues for research and information.

Even though my father's side is Italian, and my mother's is Irish, my parents both come from small families. My mother was the younger of two daughters (and my aunt only had two children. My father was the oldest of four children, and fathered the greatest number of children -- I am one of four. His brother had two, one sister had two (but one died as an infant), and the other sister had two. Add to that the fact that my father was in the Army and we were moved around the world, and you'll see that my siblings and I didn't grow up around any relatives or hear family conversations about other relatives/ancestors.

My maternal grandfather was one of 10 children. My maternal grandmother was one of only 2 children, but her mother was one of 14. Most of my maternal great-grandmother's siblings had at least 9 children (one had 14 and another had 16).

My paternal grandfather was one of at least 8 children. He was the only one to come to the USA from Italy, and I don't have a lot of information (not much at all, really), on his siblings and their children. My paternal grandmother was one of 6 or 8 children (not certain of the number), but only 3 lived to adulthood. My paternal gradmother's mother was one of 8 children, and I know that several of her siblings had 8 to 14 children each.

My parents died in 1970 (when I was 21) and by the time I became interested in genalogy all but one of my aunts and uncles had passed away. The one aunt who is still living (she will be 91 this summer) has Alzheimer's, and even if she didn't, I don't know how much help she would be with my father's family history, as she was married to my father's brother and probably doesn't know as much as she would about her own direct ancestors. (But, unfortunately, she can't even help with them.)

I've had a full-access, worldwide membership at Ancestry.com for over 25 years. I have made many wonderful discoveries because of their information. My husband and I have made one trip to Salt Lake City but didn't get to spend nearly as much time there as we would have liked. We were only there for 2 and a half days. We're planning another trip that will give us at least a full week there.

Through my membership at Ancestry.com I have found the information necessary for two different women here at the KT to become members of the D.A.R., and that was a lot of fun. I've also found various bits of information and documentation for other KT members, too, as well as folks from my workplace as well as my husband's.

I use Family Tree Maker software and like it very much. It's the only family history software I've ever used, so I don't know if there's anything better out there, but I doubt it. I also have my tree online at Ancestry.com, and I have a web site for our family genealogy. My husband and I both have been contacted by previously unknown distant relatives because of my web site as well as the tree on Ancestry.com. It's always so exciting to be contacted like that!

One thing that helps when you find yourself constantly hitting a brick wall in research is to step back, take a deep breath, and then look at it from a different angle. And by that I mean you can't get caught up with specific spellings, places, or dates. I was frustrated for so many years trying to find my father's maternal grandparents on the 1910 Census to no avail. I had them on the 1900 and 1920 Census, and I had my great-grandmother on the 1930 Census (she was widowed by then), but I just couldn't find them in 1910. I knew with certainty what town they were in, and I even looked at every line on every page of every Census district in that town, but didn't find the surname. Then Ancestry started putting a lot of old City Directories online. I found my great-grandfather listed in the 1910 City Directory, showing his home address. I then found the 1910 enumeration district number for that address, and looked at the Census records for that district. Lo and behold, there was the family at that address, but with a grossly misspelled surname! When I had gone through the Census page by page, I was looking for the correct name (a four-letter name) as well as three common misspellings of it. What was written was a seven-letter name that was nowhere close to what the correct name would have sounded like even when said with a very heavy/thick Italian accent. And, the enumerator included as members of the family three children who lived in another house entirely.

Another spelling-change "incident" involved my paternal grandfather. I knew exactly what day he arrived in the United States at Ellis Island. But, no matter how many times I searched, I could not the find the ship manifest with his name on it. His first name was Joseph, which in Italy would have been Giuseppe. I've seen a lot of people write it as Guiseppe, and I've even seen it as Giusepe, and Guisepe. So, I was searching with it with all four "Italian spellings" as well as with Joseph (even though his Italian name would have been on the manifest). Nothing. One day I decided I might as well look for the ship manifest for my grandfather's best friend, who had also emigrated from Italy (and this man ended up marrying one of my grandmother's first cousins!). I quickly and easily found Angelo's manifest. He arrived at Ellis Island two years before my grandfather. But imagine my surprise when I saw my grandfather's name written right below Angelo's on that manifest! His name was lined out, which meant that he didn't make the trip. (This made sense since he was only 15 at the time, and no one 16 or under was allowed to make the trip unless traveling with an older relative.) Still, I was puzzled because even though I knew this was my grandfather (name and residence of nearest relative in the home country was without any doubt my great-grandfather), the surname was spelled differently (one vowel was different). Nonetheless, it gave me a different spelling to use in my search efforts. As soon as I searched with that spelling, I immediately got the right manifest. And again, his name was spelled "wrong." Turns out that my grandfather, along with most Italians, changed the spelling of their surname when they came to the United States. I guess it's because it represented a new beginning in a new country. (By the way, the change was usually just one vowel -- replacing an i with an o, or vice versa, or replacing an a with an e, or vice versa; or just dropping a final vowel altogether.)

Well, goodness, I guess I've babbled on long enough. I'll just end with saying, Yes! Let's get a genealogy forum here at the GW!!

Lindsey (a KTer who has given me lots of help--thanks, Llindsey!) mentioned the D.A.R., and that reminded me that my husband's mother had an extensive history of her family, which included a soldier in the American Revolution. This qualified my daughters to join the D.A.R., but so far that hasn't happened. ;-)

The interesting thing to me is that on their paternal grandmother's side my children are 17th generation Americans!

One annoying problem I've run into is that my grand uncle's Civil War pension file is sealed by relatives. We presume his relatives from 100 years ago. What would have been the criteria for sealing them? Is there any way we could get them unsealed now?

Before Ancestry.com, I started with my family genealogy years ago using the LDS family history centers and city hall records in Philadelphia. Went through a lot of books and microfilm back then.s
Went down to Tenn and found most gravesites for more info.

Walked through a few graveyards, too. I used "find a grave" .com, and contributed there.

It's a fun thing you can do , and I love puzzles.
I went through ship's manifests from Europe, Found the ship's manifest my GGrandfather sailed in from England in the 1800's and that info led me to UK census info and even the name of his boarding school.

I even have records of my dad's family, who came here to the US well before the revolution.

it's not only fun, but it's something you can take up and leave when you get the urge.

I'm reading a book called The Jugglers Children by Carolyn Abraham. It's a true story about Ms. Abrahams search for her roots on both sides of her family. She uses DNA, specifically the Y chromosome to do her research. It gets bogged down a little in the science of chromosomes and genes but it's quite an interesting story as you follow her to various countries as she looks for her relatives. She researches baptismal, wedding and death certificates and graveyards.

One thing that was interesting from the book is that apparently it is really tough for North Americans to research family genealogy in Britain. The British don't register with sites focused in North America because for them it is investigating the future and not the past. Whereas for many North Americans Britain is the past.

I am third generation (my kids are fourth) British Columbian on both sides and on my Dads side can be traced back to - United Empire Loyalists. Family lore says we were kicked out of Scotland for stealing sheep. Who knows.

Beyond that I'm not all that interested. Like most I figure some Y chromosome will take me back to Charlemagne.

My mom has done up a family tree and one of my relatives wrote a book about where we came from.

I do have a photograph taken in about 1890 in Ontario (not the original ) of my GG grandparents, my Great grandmother and a great great uncle who went down with Titanic. He was, it is quoted "almost inseparable" from a male friend and they traveled to Europe together. Mmmmm, I wonder what that means.

This post was edited by blfenton on Tue, Feb 4, 14 at 13:35

I love the idea, I'm in to Ancestry.com now and learning daily.
My sister had the idea to open a facebook page for all the family members from my grandmother and grandfather. As a result we're headstrong in to finding out more of our backgrounds. We always knew we had Micmac Indian blood but had no proof. As a result of our FB sharing, we located a cousin who's Mom was my grandmothers sister. She found a photo in the basement of her house years ago, it had been there for many years. Lo and behold.it's my Micmac grandmother and my Scottish grandfather, both from Canada. It was hidden because it was not acceptable in most communities to sanction a mixed marriage. Sounds so silly now but they worked a farm, had 6 children. We're so blessed to have this photo. All the children left Canada for the U.S. at their mother's urging. They all succeeded in life and now the mystery is solved.

At the bottom of every page is a "contact us" link. Use it to make suggestions, report problems, complain to GW.
Any reasons they quit such a forum before? Perhaps it got too far off topic, as is happening here. Rather than a forum, it may be better to just ask the occasional question if help is needed.

Just spotted a blog about LDS (Family Search) trees. Although you submit, it seems ANYONE can, and does, go into your tree to delete or change data(???) I'm not wasting putting my information on LDS if that is the case.
Sounds quite stupid to let the public do what they want to your research.

My wife and I use Ancestory Tree. The wife was introduced to Legacy in a class and reports it would have been her application of choice had she known about it earlier.

Old Fixer, although I use the FamilySearch.org web site, and have also used the LDS Family History Library as well as a local Family History Center, I do not have a tree uploaded to their web site. So, I cannot say whether or not "just anyone" can edit information on a tree that is on their site. I will look into that, though.

I do know with certainty, however, that if you have a tree on Ancestry.com, you can mark it as Private. No one can see info that is on the tree unless you send them an invitation to see it. If you add photos or images of documents, etc., to a Private tree, small thumbnails will show up when other people do a search on a name, but if anyone clicks on the thumbnail to see a larger version, they will get an error message that the tree is private.

You can also have a tree on Ancestry.com that is marked as Public. When a tree is Public, anyone can see information/photos, etc., for anyone who is deceased, or presumed to be deceased (e.g., they were born in 1884 and you don't have a death date, but it's easy to see that the person would not still be alive - they'd be 130 years old this year). If the person is still living, or presumed to still be living, all anyone can see is a shadow profile of either a male's head or a female's head. For the name it would say Living Fixer, so no one can even tell what the person's first name is (this example uses "Fixer" as the surname).

And, even if a tree is marked Public, no one can change anything on it, unless you invite the person to be an editor. You can invite people to just view the tree (they would be invited with a "Guest" designation); or you can give them the ability to add to the tree (they would be invited with a "Contributor" designation); or you can invite them as an "Editor" with full ability to add/change/remove information/people. People who are invited as Guests and/or Contributors can be given the ability to view living persons, but that's not the default setting. You have to deliberately give them that ability. Anyone invited as an Editor automatically can see everything.

A membership is needed to create/view Ancestry tree, either private or public. Why such a secret to be private? I like to look for public trees and compare data. Not interested in any ability to fiddle with someone else's data beyond looking. For those marked "living", I just use the parent name to locate them on a census, and see the children names, then track them from there.
I'm happy, content, pleased with the Rootsweb/Ancestry offer of unlimited free genealogy webspace at "Freepages". You do have to learn web design to create your site.

Here is a link that might be useful: Request for Freepages Web Space

jemdandy - Legacy software, right? But not free. I believe you can just "import" your files from one program to another. Not re-entering every piece of data. All are different, and care must be exercised to be right. Never have done it myself between programs. Found the link on Legacy imports, if it helps.

Here is a link that might be useful: Importing Into Legacy

Maybe we need an Outer Space category. We all have relatives from there.

As for on line family trees. I'll stick with my public tree at ancestry, editors invited specifically because we are collaborating. Other relatives invited to see it all. I absolutely positively will not put a tree on familysearch. I've worked so hard, documented so much, paid for documents and spent thousands of hours working on it. Why on earth would I want a stranger on the street changing anything? I too, check other trees to see if there's any clue there for any of my brick walls. The errors I've found!! Some people can't possibly be paying attention. There was no incest! I'm careful not to hurt myself patting myself on the back but my tree is accurate. It's the only one there that is. I've offered documentation and I've left the correct information but no one changes anything so if the day ever comes that someone is seriously looking for my family I hope they find my tree first.