Ancestry.com

[Dorado]

So I got a free trial to Ancestry.com. Kinda interesting. I found out that I share a birthday with my second great grandfather, both of us were born June 24th. Neat. I also found out his father got started young. My third great grandfather was only 13 when his first born came to be. 3rd Great was born Dec 10, 1846, 2nd Great June 24, 1859. Records are kinda shotty as this was leading up to the Civil War. Multiple sources show it to be accurate though.

This also follows my family's oral history. When he was 10, iirc, he was dropped of by His Father in Texas from Alabama to homestead and build a home so that his father could bring the rest of the family. It was a couple of years before he returned and found a working farm.

James (3rd great) had about 11 kids the last one born in 1881. He served as a private in the Confederacy, and died in 1918 of old age peacefully in his sleep.

I even found a muster card for James in the Confederate army, I think. It's not very clear. I'd like to learn more about him.

 

So, have any of y'all tried this out and discovered something interesting?

 

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

Be careful.......

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/ancestry.html

 

OLG

[Calico Mary]

yep.....I'm a witch!  (I noz, no surprise there.....) but really....my seven times great-grandmother was Sarah Cloyce, one of the women imprisoned during the Salem witch trials, and two of her sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Mary Eastey, were among those that were sent to the gallows....

 

oh, and I also found out that my German ancestors actually immigrated here from Russia, not Germany...

[Badlands Bob #61228]

My wife's many times great grandfather John Bridge Sr. has the distinction of being one of the first white men ever hung for killing indians.  He had participated in the Fall Creek massacre in Indiana back in 1824.  My wife's family tree is so much more interesting than mine.

[Subdeacon Joe]

My wife uses it and likes it.  We did the DNA thing  through them.  No real surprises, except that we both know that we have Native American in the mix.  For some reason Native American comes back as "Iberian Penninsula."  Crazy.    


One of my brothers uses it.   

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

Know any Mormons?

 

A couple of years ago I was at the local LDS Church for a Boy Scout leader's meeting.  After the meeting as I was headed out, I noticed a door open to a room with a bunch of folks working at computers. I popped my head in to see if I knew anyone there, and as a matter of fact I did.

 

Fella invited me in and made introductions, then explained that this was their Family History Center... and invited me to open an account.  FREE!  Do NOT have to be a church member, and there's no proselytizing.  And it was VERY cool!

 

After he set me up, I went home and logged in... very user friendly, and by bedtime had traced Ma's family back to early 1700's Prussia.  

 

You can access it here:  https://familysearch.org/   

[Rye Miles #13621]

I'm so skeptical about this company, how do you know it's not a hoax? There's a sucker born every minute!!!

[Pat Riot]

I have thought about it. My problem is that my Dad was adopted. I know a little about his birth family but not that much. They were all crazy people. Like Calico Mary, one of the relatives on my Dad's side was a witch. I am pretty sure that if I traced my Dad's adoptive family I would find more info but those folks pretty much disowned us after my grandmother passed.  On my Mom's side her family were all West Virginia hillbillies and all the birth records and histories were written in family bibles. I keep thinking about trying to trace my roots but never take the time.

 

Then there's that little thought way back in my head that maybe I really don't want to know. I am pretty sure I don't have any wealthy relatives that left me a huge sum of money. More like there's some ancient family debt and someone has been waiting for me to come along. 

[Ben Beam]

9 minutes ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

I have thought about it. My problem is that my Dad was adopted. I know a little about his birth family but not that much. They were all crazy people. Like Calico Mary, one of the relatives on my Dad's side was a witch. I am pretty sure that if I traced my Dad's adoptive family I would find more info but those folks pretty much disowned us after my grandmother passed.  On my Mom's side her family were all West Virginia hillbillies and all the birth records and histories were written in family bibles. I keep thinking about trying to trace my roots but never take the time.

 

Then there's that little thought way back in my head that maybe I really don't want to know. I am pretty sure I don't have any wealthy relatives that left me a huge sum of money. More like there's some ancient family debt and someone has been waiting for me to come along. 

My dad was adopted and all he had been told was the supposed city where he was born, and his birth date. He passed away in 2009, but a few years ago I opted to do DNA testing to see what else I could find, expecting to just get an idea that maybe he was Irish or something. Long story short, I now have positively identified his birth mother (confirmed with additional testing) and have his birth father down to a likely candidate. It took a lot of research, plus a bit of luck. His birth name was Ben Beam, hence my moniker.

 

That being said, I also found out through all of my research that I have an attempted mass murderer cousin on my dad's side (made CNN and has a Wikipedia page), and a direct ancestor on my mom's side was a torturer in the Tower of London who earned the epithet of "Rackmaster." If you dig deep enough, you'll find something unpleasant. I don't really care, I just find it interesting!

[Whiskey Business]

2 hours ago, Calico Mary said:

yep.....I'm a witch!  (I noz, no surprise there.....) but really....my seven times great-grandmother was Sarah Cloyce, one of the women imprisoned during the Salem witch trials, and two of her sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Mary Eastey, were among those that were sent to the gallows....

 

oh, and I also found out that my German ancestors actually immigrated here from Russia, not Germany...

Wow, you can trace your direct ancestors back to the Mayflower.

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

16 minutes ago, Whiskey Business said:

Wow, you can trace your direct ancestors back to the Mayflower.

 

Estimates of the number of Mayflower descendants range as high as 20 million Americans... or one out of every 16 of us.

 

I have a friend named John Howland... descended from the John Howland, who fell overboard and was dragged back aboard the Mayflower.  Recently met another fella named John Howland [different last name] who'd moved here from Utah... and yep, and also descended from and named after the original.     

 

http://mayflowerhistory.com/howland/

 

 

[Cat Brules]

46 minutes ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

 

Then there's that little thought way back in my head that maybe I really don't want to know. I am pretty sure I don't have any wealthy relatives that left me a huge sum of money. More like there's some ancient family debt and someone has been waiting for me to come along. 

 

Sounds like, then, that it may be good that you're handy with pistol, rifle and and shotgun!

:-)

[Cemetery]

yeah, 1/2 great uncle was a marine in southern california in the early 70s who was killed by a serial killer.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

I can trace my ancestors in New Hampshire back 25 generations to 1625.

 

I learned that my grandparents were not married in 1922 like they told everyone but 1923 three months before George was born. 

 

There were a few strange people in the tree.  Great-great-grandfather Chase was said to have been 7 feet tall and "a bit peculiar".  His wife was Indian.

 

 

[Smuteye John SASS#24774]

I ain't certain about any results that Ancestry.com churns out.

 

My sister did a free trial a few years ago and the results were amazing.  By tracing back our grandparents on both sides, they found that we were the result of the crossing of no less than 5 different royal families.  One grandparent was descendant, through his mother, of the Lords of Galloway in southwest Scotland through a guy named Dugall who was the 2nd son of Fergus. Lord of Galloway.  His wife was descended from the Plantagenets- Richard the Lion Heart and his kin.  The other side of the family was a triple threat of the Dukes of Bavaria (through a guy with the cool name of Arnulf the Bad), Charlemagne and the current British royal family via their German ancestors.

 

The only ones I think they missed were the Hapsburgs and the Romanovs.

 

Sounds a mite suspicious to me since we're talking about West Virginia hillbillies and West Georgia sharecroppers.

 

On the other hand, I'm willing to believe their dates on when my ancestors came over from Europe.  One came over from Cornwall in 1680 and another landed in 1720.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

You can also find multiple versions of the same family tree.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Smuteye John SASS#24774 said:

 

The only thing ones I think they missed were the Hapsburgs and the Romanovs.

 

Sounds a mite suspicious to me since we're talking about West Virginia hillbillies and West Georgia sharecroppers.

 

Those folks are not all that far removed from the British royals of several centuries back.  It wasn't a huge country.

 

[Trailrider #896]

I need to get back on the trail of my family more than three generations ago.  Just haven't had the time...  One funny thing I've found by researching the U.S. Census records was my father's grandfather's birthplace was Riga, Poland in one census, and Riga, Russia, in another.  Depended on who had overrun Latvia lately!   He came over in 1870, married and had nine children, all of who survived into middle age. His oldest son, my Dad's father lived to be just short of 90, and was born a year after the Chicago fire. All-in-all, however, I think I have more info than Ancestry.com .

[Ben Beam]

One problem is that anyone can add information to Ancestry.com. In some ways this is helpful, as you may find things you were having difficulty finding, but it means that you have to consider it all to be speculation unless it matches other records you can find. 

 

In my history there's a very long line of people named "John." That's really hard to sort out.

 

It has been traced back on my maternal side to 1032 in Sharpenhoe, England, and relatives worldwide are using DNA research to confirm as much as they can. I actually found a copy of a will from one of my direct ancestors dating to the 1600s. They kept excellent records in England thanks to the Domesday Book!

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

3 hours ago, Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967 said:

Know any Mormons?

 

A couple of years ago I was at the local LDS Church for a Boy Scout leader's meeting.  After the meeting as I was headed out, I noticed a door open to a room with a bunch of folks working at computers. I popped my head in to see if I knew anyone there, and as a matter of fact I did.

 

Fella invited me in and made introductions, then explained that this was their Family History Center... and invited me to open an account.  FREE!  Do NOT have to be a church member, and there's no proselytizing.  And it was VERY cool!

 

After he set me up, I went home and logged in... very user friendly, and by bedtime had traced Ma's family back to early 1700's Prussia.  

 

You can access it here:  https://familysearch.org/   

Mighty fine option.  Being from a Mormon family I've used this for years and was even Family History Counsellor for a while before I stopped going to church.  Costs very little (usually copier fees and the like), they offer a lot of volunteer advice, no one will bug you about not being LDS or try to convert you.  Treat them right and they'll treat you right.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

Misinformation pretty much stays there.

[Calico Mary]

Yeah, I wonder too about some of the information on Ancestry, but after looking at that site I did more research on a couple of other sites and came up with the same thing on the Barton family line.  One of Sarah Cloyce's daughters, Hannah, married a man named Samuel Barton, then the line goes through sons--Joshua, Timothy, Alpheus, Enos, and Orlo until one of Orlo's daughters, Ora Barton, married George Sisson.  George and Ora are my paternal grandparents...never have been able to find much on the Sisson line.

 

As for the Meier/Bieker lines on my mom's side, didn't get much beyond both sets of great grandparents, all four immigrated from Russia to Kansas in the late 1800's, but all the family names are definitely German.

 

Would be interesting to find out more, but I just don't have the time

[Boon Doggle]

Sometime back in the '50s when I was in high school, studying European history, I asked my dad about our family history.  He told me it was probably wise not to dig to deeply, as I might not like what I found.  One of the few times I followed his advice.

[Outrider Outlaw]

My local library has an Ancestry.com membership.  So I can just go to the library and use their computers to access it.  I've also used the Mormon site mentioned above and am currently using a service called geni.com.  

[Ranger Clayton Conagher #43872]

I still cannot fathom why anyone would give their DNA to a complete stranger.

[Rye Miles #13621]

42 minutes ago, Ranger Clayton Conagher #43872 said:

I still cannot fathom why anyone would give their DNA to a complete stranger.

+ 10000

[Ben Beam]

You can create your account under an assumed name if you're concerned about privacy, although I'm not sure what the fear is. Do you refuse to give blood at the doctor for fear that what they find might be used against you by your insurance company?

 

I took my genome and uploaded it to a different company (promethease.com) and used it to get all kinds of health information. It informed me that I had a serious condition which no one else caught because it usually kills people in infancy. I had suffered effects from it, but never knew what was going on. Now I know what to do about it. So it was incredibly helpful in that regard. 

 

I believe the next frontiers in medicine will be genetics and gut biome. 

 

Anyway, to return to the original topic, if you're looking to do DNA research I'd recommend either 23andme or fanilytreedna. I used both to narrow down my history. 

[Allie Mo, SASS No. 25217]

Hi Dorado,

 

I've traced my maternal grandmother and grandfather names only. That took so long, I never got around to looking in depth. I only used free sites.

• I traced GM's ancestors back to Adam de Southhange Wyatt 1285-1385 in England. Most of her relatives lived to very old age.
• I traced GF's ancestors back to Hans Georg Molt 1580-1645 in Lorch, Württemberg, Germany. Family story is that the name Molt was derived from Moltke when the family came to the U.S.

 

The records on my father's side of the family did not go back very far.

GF to 1820s in Ireland..

GM ?

 

On one of the sites, I think it was Roots, I saw a picture of my mother's headstone. I wrote the lady who posted it  Her daughter wrote me that she was dying. We are somehow related. I know this as I have an old birth certificate with her family name on it. I couldn't trace it forward very far. Her daughter never provided any of her mother's records.

 

I'm sure I could find out more if I'd pay for Ancestory,com.

 

It is very interesting stuff.

 

Regards,

 

Allie

[Cemetery]

Oh, and my paternal great-grandfather was mobbed up, and killed during a gang related incident revolving bootleg liquor in NYC in the late 1920s.

[Tom Bullweed]

My DNA is no one's business, especially a non-medical non-profit.

My heritage is no one's business.  I learned enough from my family, photos and family bibles.  

The risk and exposure is simply not worth the gain.

My opinion.  I am sure that others disagree.

[Crooked River Pete, SASS 43485]

7 hours ago, Ranger Clayton Conagher #43872 said:

I still cannot fathom why anyone would give their DNA to a complete stranger.

That was pretty common back in the 70's.

[Dorado]

I don't know why y'all are talking about DNA. They never once asked for that. That's actually a separate service that I don't care one bit about.

I think it's fairly accurate as has so far exactly matched what I know about the family tree. I like that I can get a lot of my family's military records there as well. Before my trial ends I think I'll print off what I have of my family tree and a few facts about them.

Really I'm just finding a lot of very interesting things out.

 

Oh, and yeah I have run into a few things that are not so great. None worse than some of the things I was told though. I know for a fact that a couple generations back that some of my ancestors were avid hunters. They had a lot of success along the Mexican border......

[Ben Beam]

I brought up the DNA because Pat Riot was talking about his father being adopted, and I was just noting that I was in the same boat and found out all kinds of stuff with DNA testing. 

[Allie Mo, SASS No. 25217]

I just Googled Adam de Southhange Wyatt 1285-1385 and found out he was an Admiral.

[Pulp, SASS#28319]

I've tried it a bit, but get bogged down real quick.  I just don't have the brain organization to figure it out.  I need to get back into it.  I remember my paternal grandmother talking about some relatives being Deputy Marshalls under Judge Parker.  I went to the Parker Museum in Ft Smith, and three of the mashalls on the roster are McDaniels', so I reckon I ought to look up some of that.

If you google "Geronimo, OK bank robbery" and read the story, you'll find some of my first wife's kin in the story.  The shooter was her cousin on her father's side, a lady that survived two shots to the head is a cousin on her mother's side.