Need Help tracing my roots. family doesnt know anything?

Question

ok i want to know more about me, my ancestors. hello my im shanika im and afro american. however i feel that there is more to my life that i dont know about ... i want to do a reseach on my family life my legacy, so i can share that with my future generation...however its hard because most of the main people i need are decease, my father mother died 18 years ago, my father died 2 years ago and my big brother died 10 ago, he was shot and killed.. so as u can see i suffered big loses. you see im african american but i strongly feel that there is more about me and my roots that i dont know about, ,like my grandmother.. i know that she was not just a african american..seems to me that she was more of a indian decent, then black.. her hair and skin was very different ..and so is mine.. and my dad.. BUT its a mystery becuase on that side of the family they cant and refuse too tell you sh!t about her..my mother didnt no much becuase its not her mother. can u help me find facts on this journey

my grandmother name was ophelia clayton she died october 1991, was born , may 15 1921 i found it out on ancestry.com and that all i know

Answer 1

The first step for any geneaological research is your own family; in your case, it sounds like this isn't much help, however, all is not lost.

first - do you have any older aunts, uncles, etc. who may still be around? They can be a valuable source. Get names and dates, as well as family stories - where and when were they born, your father and mother born, your grandparents lived, etc. No-one's going to remember everything, but the dates, names, and places they can give you are critical to finding the right families (you always have to check everything, so don't worry if they might be a bit spotty).

As his daughter, you should be able to get your father's death certificate. That should identify his parents. You can then get his parent's death certificates, which may identify his parents, and so on. Once you get back to 1930, you can start using the census, which can be an invaluable help in tracing your family.

As an African-American, you should be able to get back to 1870 before hitting the Slavery wall. Researching slave ancestries is much more difficult (but NOT impossible) and requires deep delving into probate, land, and plantation records. BUT cross that bridge when you come to it.

I checked on your Ophelia Clayton and found nothing for the 1930 census. Is Clayton her maiden name? If not, I did find 13 African-American "Ophelia's" b. 1921 (listed below). Obviously, knowing a place, etc. is helpful, as Ophelia is the sort of name that a census-taker is likely to mis-spell, thus requring more advanced searches.

The Ophelia's I found:

Ophelia Smith McKenzie, Butler, AL abt 1921 Alabama
Ophelia Edwards Selma, Dallas, AL abt 1921 Alabama
Ophelia Jackson Atlanta, Fulton, GA abt 1921 Georgia
Ophelia Thompson Elizabeth Indianapolis, Marion, IN abt 1921 Indiana
Ophelia Landry Police Jury Ward 4, Lafourche, LA abt 1921 Louisiana
Ophelia Jones Anna Police Jury Ward 2, Rapides, LA abt 1921 Louisiana
Ophelia Ramsey Detroit, Wayne, MI abt 1921 Michigan
Ophelia Young Beat 3, Desoto, MS abt 1921 Mississippi
Ophelia Johnson Mont Clare, Darlington, SC abt 1921 South Carolina
Ophelia Boston Johnson City, Washington, TN abt 1921 Tennessee

If you would like additional help, I make a hobby of working on African-American geneaology and would be happy to help you (for free) in more depth. E-mail me via my profile and I'll see what I can do.

Answer 2

If you live in or near the town where your relatives died, their obituaries will sometimes tell you things about them; who their parents were, (30% of the time), who they married (almost always), who survived them (almost always), where they lived, what they did for a living.

To get the obits, you look through the newspaper on miucrofilm at the county library. You'll need exact death dates or a lot of time. Obits come out 1 - 10 days after a death, usually 3 - 4 days. Not all people get an obit. If all you have is a month and year, you'd have to look at the obituary page for every day in that month and 5 - 7 days into the next month. I look up obits for people in my county. I can read about 10 days worth of microfilm before I get seasick.

If you know marriage dates, and the town is small enough, there may have been an article about the wedding in the society pages. If so, it too will be full of interesting information, as well as stuff you don't care about. That the bride wore white and carried a spray of roses is not particularly useful, but if the matron of honor was her sister, Jane Smith, you've got a married name. You find wedding articles the same way you find obits - in the microfilm. Start looking on the day of the wedding and go forward 7 days before you give up.

The librarian will help you use the microfilm reader, and it is free. (They usually charge 15 - 25 cents if you want to make a paper copy.)

Answer 3

I did a quick search and found Ophelia Clayton born 5-14-1921 and died 10-19-1991 in Jacksonville,Duval,FL. That social security # is 266-33-8727. perhaps SS has some info for you. If you contact Duval County Health Dept., you might be able to obtain her Death certificate, which might list some family info, maybe the person who gave the info is willing to talk. Address there is 515 W. 6th St., Jacksonville,FL 32206. Phone # [phone]. One other source could be the Florida Times-Union newspaper, which might have an obituary in their archives. hope this helps.

Answer 4

You have a few very useful bits of information. Send for or go to the courthouse if it's nearby to get genealogy copies of the birth and death certificates (don't pay for official ones) of your father and his mother (your grandmother). Best of all, spend what it takes to order your grandmother's Social Security application. You will have her maiden name and any names she ever used plus her birth date and place and mother's maiden name as well. You can order your father's also.

Any way you can, such as your library or LDS family history center, get access to census, someone there will show you the ropes, and start following her - YOUR - family backward through time, history and geography! Document each find by making a copy for your file. Someone will show you how to do that, too. So far your expense will be spread out and well under $100 including copying, I think.

Next you may want to think about having census access for yourself at home, especially ancestry.com's, it's the best, at around $100/year. You'll have a lot of family to be tracking down and you can only do so much online, and on foot at your local historical resources.

Don't forget the family cemetery! It's also a resource, may lead you to more family buried close by, and to the funeral home which may have obituaries on family records. Do you realize that if that side of your family is native American there may be more historical records than for your mother's side? BTW are you ready to begin on your mother's side now, too? Genealogy research is addictive ...

Whoa, I need to slow down. You need genealogy software. You can buy that fairly inexpensively or use ancestry.com's world tree for free, how you get to it is read carefully - all they want is your name & a password for the free stuff there. It suggests matches, some may be good, many not. You'll learn how to play with it effectively.

Answer 5

Starting with your dad's mother, your dad, and your older brother, note their names, their birth and death years (dates if possible) as well as their Social Security numbers (if you have them), and the places where they were born and died. I (or another member of Ancestry.com) will then be glad to look them up if you can furnish at least some of these details.

If you know of any relatives that would have been alive at the time of the 1930s Census, and you furnish their possible birth dates and places of birth as well (or for that matter the town and state where they were living in 1930), we can probably fill in additional information. This will give you a jump start on your family's history.

Good luck!

Answer 6

If you don't have any family members alive or willing to help, you can start with birth, death and marriage certificates, which are usually kept near in a townhall or courthouse. This is easier if they lived in the same area for a while. If you aren't in the area you can request copies but that usually costs money. Certificates usually list parents names, dates, places of birth.

You can also get copies of the US Census to try and locate information. Those are available on ancestry.com I also like rootsweb.com for searching.

There is also a good website called familysearch.org They have charts and free software for keeping track of your information.

Just be careful. Genealogy is addictive! I haven't stopped yet. Good luck!

Answer 7

I've been doing a family history of my own. Ancestry.com costs$$$. A good free site is www.familysearch.org. It's from the Mormon church. I found info there on my relatives in Ireland that I did not find anywhere else. You can also go to your county and request copies of your parents birth certificates which should have their parents names on it.
Good Luck!

Answer 8

The best way I know for you to learn about your roots is to:

Build your family tree on line yourself.

You can do this for free on:
http://www.tribalpages.com/

Start with yourself, Add other family members with as much information as you know. Name, Birth date ect. You should be able to find information on your brother and father.

You can get information the other living family members who are not forthcomming with information. Whith there name and place they live you can get Information from payed sites like:

http://www.peoplefinders.com/

or http://www.ancestry.com/ whitch has a live people search


Now it is time to look for historical records and attach the info to your tree:


It is ALL about census records, and other historical records!

You might get lucky and others may have done some work on your family tree. Google family members names ie. "Mary Smith" + "family tree"


Free sites:
http://www.usgenweb.com/

http://www.rootsweb.com/

http://www.ukgenweb.com/

http://www.archives.gov/

http://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/

http://www.cyndislist.com/

ect.

The time may come when you want more information than you can find for free. When this happens you can back up your "tribalpage" tree to your computer on a "GEDCOM" file
You can then go to (I think it is the best payed site)

http://www.ancestry.com/

upload your "GEDCOM" file
and start to work!
you might need to make a few ajustments to your tree to make it look better.

Answer 9

im sorry about you loses, i lost my parents 3 yrs ago. my dad killed my mom then killed himself, my brother is doing life in prison. my grandfather died also , so i really dont know where i come from except for where my grandfather was born . try looking it up in ancestry.com

Answer 10

Often the standard method is traceing documents one by one . These are goernment records you should be able to get access to, such as birth certificates and death certificates, and sometimes marriage certificates. Once you get far enough back to be beyond government documents, sometimes church/parish records are useful. Good Luck!