What have YOU done to trace your family history? Find any skeletons in the old family closet?

Answer 1

Wow! I was hoping someone would ask this question. First, I discovered my family migrated from Albemarle County, Virginia. The same Albemarle County, Virginia of Thomas Jefferson. I am currently trying to confirm the parents of my great great great grandfather who was born circa 1805. He was the same age as Madison Hemmings, the son of Sally Hemmings. I found an article published in 1995, in The Magazine Albemarle County History which list the Hemmings along with individuals with whom I believe my great great great grandfather shares kinship. This is amazing because all of these people in this article are people of color and they were put in this unofficial census-- because the local and State governments--under the auspices of the American Colonization Society-- were about to ship these individuals to Liberia. I am trying to read history to understand the economic, political, racial factors which were at play.

Again my family migrated from Albemarle County, Virginia and land in the Old Northwest Territory--Ohio. I wonder if they used the Underground Railroad? Were they involved with the UGRR? I just recently found a family in the 1840 Census which resembles my family. This is amazing because people of color or black people weren't officially counted until the 1870 Federal Census.

Through the use of military records, I discovered I have two relatives who fought in the Civil War. I have their pension records.

Answer 2

Ihave worked my ancestry (and helped others) for 20+ years. A family without any skeletons is boring, I think The best results for me, resulted from organizing a family reunion.

Of the many fun stories... the best was helping someone track down details about her family member, who was murdered in the mid 1870's in Texas. In the process, google turned up a group called the Blacksheep list, which requires descending from someone notorious. You got it... I found a living descendent of the family who was on the other side of the pistol. Actually, her direct line was a child, and the only family member who was not hung by a vigilante posse.
The two got to know each other by email, and it was really intriguing, that there was still emotion that surfaced after all those years. Not hostile.. forgiving and healing.
It is addictive... there are SO many sources for information, and the challenge is that they keep changing, depending on the time and place.

Answer 3

just yesterday i recieved three disks full of genealogy that my grandfather had spent a large part of his life working on. I did find out that my great great great grand father was the first reported murder in Cook County Illinois! My granddad has that side of my family traced back to the 1700's and i'm sure it could go further, i'm going to try to continue his research.

Answer 4

The undesirable element approximately criminals is that the kinfolk will shun them and refuse to talk them. the good element is they flow away an excellent sort of civil records. paintings backwards with what you be attentive to approximately everybody, amassing vitals, census records, and so on. this could help be certain which courtroom records and which locales could be searched first. do no longer forget approximately church records, the two. learn the technique of kinfolk tree. there are an excellent sort of books at libraries which you would be able to study for loose. Many kinfolk tree websites have tutorials. you will could desire to stay with ideal techniques; this may well be an prolonged, incredible journey for you, and you do no longer opt to finally end up lost in a dismal alley with the incorrect boogie guy... Spit on his grave in case you will, yet basically bear in mind that if that guy had no longer created a particular spermatozoa and fertilized a particular ovum at a particular 2nd, you may basically end to have ever existed.

Answer 5

I've researched my genealogy for 10 years now. I found out that I'm distantly related to many of the people I went to school with. Also, I'm a descendent of a cousin of Daniel Boone, and my ancestor Barbara Leininger was kidnapped by Indians in 1755. One of my ancestors, Hayraddin Saladin, was kidnapped by the French in the First Crusade in 1105

Answer 6

When my aunt died in 2000, I inherited all her family history research, that she and her aunt had worked on. It had a lot of names and some dates for births, marriages, etc., but no proof of anything. Most of my non-internet search has been at my hometown library and county records building, but I've also made a trip to the ancestral home of Clarksburg, WV, to get records. Thanks to my internet research and meeting distant relatives on surname forums and other places, I've been able to find out a lot more, and prove a lot of it. Found one branch of family going back to 1650 in America, found ancestors who fought in mostly every war (haven't found any in Spanish-American war yet), a husband and wife killed and scalped by Indians in 1790, a POW of the War of 1812, lots of sad deaths (one woman died of TB five days after she got married), lots of people who lived to be more than 90 years old, and a distant relationship to Jamie Lee Curtis. No real skeletons, but discovered some facts that no one ever talked about, like my grandfather had two siblings who died in infancy that I never knew about before.

Well, there is one sort of skeleton, I guess, although I don't think of it that way any more - a great-great-great grandmother who was apparently abandoned by her husband so she divorced him. Before the divorce was final, she was living with someone else. At first I thought that was pretty shabby, but when I started putting things together, I just felt sorry for her. It took four years for the divorce to be finalized - I guess because the husband wasn't around to participate. This was 1878, and how was Mary to support 3 kids back in those days? There weren't many jobs for women, and her parents and in-laws were gone and she had no one else. Her step-mother's brother was her divorce attorney, so maybe he represented her for free? Anyway, John Reed moved in with Mary, and there's no marriage record for them; I guess it was a common-law one. By the time the divorce was final, they had already been living together for a couple years, which I only know from seeing them in the same household in the 1880 census and finding the divorce decree in the county records books.

Lots of fascinating stuff in family history!

Answer 7

I have a vicar from Boston in my family tree, and a mass murderer, also in Boston, both from the 1800's.
I can also trace back a line to the landlady of the first woman who was murdered by Jack the Ripper.
It's fascinating stuff.

Answer 8

General Sherman is on my family tree. He was the yankee who burned across Georgia during the Civil War. I agree with his cause, though. But I'm not so sure about burning across Georgia

Answer 9

Been researching my family tree for just over a year now.
I found out that one distant relative was a policeman investigating the Jack the ripper case and my Great Great Great Grandfather was jailed for nicking 4 loaves of bread.

Lol. Dont run in the family though :)

Answer 10

One day I sat down and asked my mother where we came from - who we were - I still have the pathetic notes from that day - my grandma myrtle, says she, myrtle who? Don't know - my uncle "toad".. toad? toad who? don't know... LOL... Then, as I dug into the genealogy (over 10 years now, libraries, internet, LDS, etc..) I found some interesting things... A story of a family member writing an unpublished book about "passing for white" and always being afraid someone would discover "the family secret"... never validated what I thought that meant, but in researching that family was lead to an indian tribe who knew of my family and was waiting for us to "come back home"... Chief drew a map for me which led to an old family cemetary where I discovered my relatives were buried on the mounds in a town called Mounds.... Then, happened onto a story of an Uncle who remembered a "blind old indian" who sat in the corner, but always knew what us kids were up to... researched her and found that she had been coming out of a smoke house, got hooked in one eye with a meathook, got infection, lost sight in both eyes... found that both grandmother and greatgrandmother were "indentured" when their parents died young... met a great grandfather in history books who fought a bear and carried a corpse to a graveyard, but decided it was too cold, laid him on a table in an old house he and his friends found... decided to play a game of poker, by then the poor chap had gone solid, so they stood him up against the wall while they played a couple hands... Found out that my mom's family were hunted by the british for being land pirates... they would walk around and around in a circle with a lantern on a donkey's neck making ships think they were a lighthouse offering safe harbor, of course the ship would run aground, they'd take everything then wait for high tide to wash the evidence away... Beginning to find my roots was the most amazing choice I ever made and has led me to some interesting and facinating people and places I never would have been. After almost 20 years of not talking to my dad I chased him down and demanded he tell me all he knew of my blood and family despite his feelings. Shake that family tree, see what falls out.