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.

There will be no Social Security records because Social Security did not exist yet in 1900. You do have some data: the first marriage and the birth of the first 2 daughters. Does the marriage record contain the bride's maiden name and the names of her parents? If so, gather as much information as you can on these persons: 1st wife with married and maiden names. the 1st 2 daughters. Her parents. If the 1st bride had siblings, check these out for additions to their households. Sometimes, children from a failed marriage were placed with and Aunt or Uncle. Also, check out siblings of the grandparents. If you find nothing, look for death indicies in the area where they lived. If nothing, then run the indicies of local newspapers. If the bride's parents had siblings, check these out for additions to their households. Sometimes, children from a broken marriage were placed with an great Aunt or Uncle instead of the grandparents. Also, check out the siblings of the bride. If there was a divorce, there should be a record of this at the court house. If there is no record, the first wife could have died. Look up listings of major disease outbreaks in the US. Did one of these plagues hit at a time that could have wiped out the mother and her daughters? There is a possibility that the mother left her husband and spirited her children away. She went into hiding and her record might be cut at this point.

My experience in genealogy research has shown that mostly it was the immigrants themselves who were the ones to change their names. For example, many/most Italians changed one vowel of their surname - either dropped the ending vowel altogether, or changed an "i" to an "o" or an "e" to an "a," etc. To me, they did it as a way of representing their new start in a new country. No, "Michael" most likely wouldn't be the name given in Austria. It would more likely be Mikkel, Michel, or Michal. In Italy, it would be Michele (pronounced mick-ELL-ay). Yes, Ancestry's search engine leaves much to be desired. I wish we had the ability to click on a column heading to sort by the spelling of the surname, or the date, etc. But, you *can* filter the results to a small degree. For example, you can narrow the name results by changing to "Exact," "Sounds Like," "Similar," or "Soundex," or a combination of those. You can narrow the date range to the exact year, or plus-or-minus 1, 2, 5, or 10 years. And, as Raee mentioned, you may need to look through lots of results before you find what you're looking for. After all, someone has to be the last one listed, and that could be the one you want! Alisande, send me an e-mail with all of the information that you currently have, and I will see what else I can find for you.

I have gone back to the early 1600's for my family but it took years of searching the internet without using any paid sites but with help from others who did. Two of the family names i was searching for any info on were my English Booth, Chase and Hulley or Hooleys. Any tme I typed anything into the search bar with Booth or Chase surname the results were people who had info on or wanted to say they were related to John Wilkes Booth or people who were related to the Chase's of New York and the search for the Chase fortune. Neither of those were my Chase's or Booth's. I didn't have access to any paid sites at the time. I posted on a geneaolagy message board asking someone to help me find info on my Booth family. Because I knew my Grandfather's brother was adopted by a Booth Aunt after his mother died after giving birth to him someone was able to find all my Booths from the census. Wonderful, that brick wall fell. I think he got the family back to the late 1600's. I also posted once on a message board years ago I was looking for info on my Grandfather's English family. I received a message back and the person said we were looking for one of the same people. She said her 80 year old Mother was my Dad's cousin and she remembered him coming to England during WW2 when he was in the Navy and on leave while the shipped docked in Liverpool went to visit their family and he brought citrus fruit, candy and other food that had been rationed. They they called me on the telephone. My 3rd cousin was also doing our family tree and with our combined info we have gotten pretty far. I sent all kinds of old family pictures to her Mom and she was just thrlled and she was thrilled again when I gave her all the Booth info. Sadly Mary died but I still keep in touch with her daughter. I posted one of my recent finds on my Grandfather's family on the Anglophile thread. My Dad's Mom's Chase family was really hard to find without going to paid sites. I didn't even know where they came from except somewhere in Lancashire. My Dad's Mom and her sisters and her parents eventually all emigrated to Canada so I don't think anyone is left over in the UK that I know of. A family member gave me some books of old postcards that belonged to my Grandfather thinking I might like them. What a genealogical gold mine. I found out my Dad's Mom and her family were from Bury and Rochdale in Lancashire. I also found out my Grandfather emigrated to the US first before he ended up in Canada. He landed on Ellis Island so I went to that site and found his ship listing. I never knew that. I laughed when the ship listing said he was going to visit his Uncle J.W. Booth in New Jersey, but thankfully not that JW Booth. I was at the library one day having access to the library Ancestry and I typed in my Chase Great Grandfather's name and this Chase family tree appeared and it listed my Dad's Mom and her parents and sisters. Another brick wall solved. I have been trying to contact the owner of the tree on Ancestry but she hasn't answered my messages so I don't know if she is alive or not. I was just thrilled to find that. I haven't been back to the library to print up that family tree. I think one of the Chase members that ended up in Ireland way back might have been from France - possibly Huguenots that had to leave France. I still have more checking to do on that side. My Mom's Scottish family was difficult to find any info as well because of no access to paid sites. I couldn't find any info for years. My cousin called me and said our Mother's cousin Jimmy passed away so I went online to the funeral home in Michigan which was owned by my Grandfather's brother's family to send my condolences and to say who I was and that I had been wanting to talk to him about our family history. A few weeks later I had be using the libraries Ancestry access at home and I came across a family tree with pictures. I was pretty sure one of the pictures was my Scottish Grandfather but the info listed with the picture was wrong. I kept looking at that picture and knew I had seen it before in a frame at my Grandparents but the info just didn't match. I finally contacted the owner and told them I think you have the wrong picture or the info was wrong on Andrew. That same day I found that family tree I heard the I heard the mailman put something in my mailbox so I went to get the mail It was a large white envelope with a lot of US stamps and postmarked Florida. I opened it up and to my surprise it was the family tree I was just looking at on Ancestry. What a coincidence. I think I stirred up the family ghosts that brought this to me. My 3rd cousin who I never knew about and was the funeral home owner saw my condolences on Jimmy's online obit. So he sent me his family and my Mom's family tree to me. It was huge. I found out my Great Grandmother's family name was Berry or Barry and she was from Ireland as were most of my Grandfather's family. I think my Great Grandfather's family was originally Scottish but ended up in Ireland somehow. I think they were sheep poachers haha. Here we were all thinking we were totally English and Scottish and now I find we have more Irish in us than either of those. Now I have 2 new cousins living close to me in Michigan I didn't know about and we are now connected on FB and the family resemblance to my Aunt Elsie is remarkable. I haven't been able to find much on my Mom's Grandparent's from Scotland, the Paul's and my Great Grandmother her maiden name was McLauglan. Sorry this has been so long, I am just fascinated by genealogy and finding those little bits of info on family members from the past.