Genealogy

[Deesse23]

I dont know if this topic had already been adressed here.

Anyhow. After many futile attempts in the past few years i (more by accident, as usual  ) found the link with the right sources. Although lots of documents were destroyed in WWII (paternal family is from the Baltic) there obviously was still quite something left. I was able to trace back 6 generations (4/64 great-grandparents of my great-grandparents) to the 1780s.  

Any of you tried this stuff as well? How successfully?

[grympy]

My sis is the family historian.

She has discovered : From the ship's manifesto. That dad's family arrived at the free settlement of Port Adelaide in 1870. We're pretty sure at least one of the men worked as a miner in Kapunda, South Australia . He is buried in the Kapunda cemetery.

Sis traced dad's family back to County Clare,Ireland She was able to trace the family back 300 years in Clare. Before that we were in County Galway. Apparently for several hundred years,.

Mum's family were traced back to county Galway. They settled in Canada, where they got rich in timber.

I guess I'd call those efforts successful

Sis made the discovery of a distant relative in the US. Sadly, he died before we could meet him.

Take care if you're thinking of using Ancestry.com. Not recommended. Try the Mormon database. It's one of the largest genealogical data banks in the world and is free.

[grympy]

[quote="grympy" pid='160640' dateline='1573295271']

 @Deesse23

My sis is the  family historian.

She has discovered :  From the ship's  manifesto, that dad's family arrived at the free settlement of Port Adelaide in 1870. We're  pretty sure at least one of the men worked as a miner in Kapunda,  South Australia . He is buried in the  Kapunda cemetery.

Sis traced  dad's family back to County Clare,Ireland  She was able to trace the family back 300 years in Clare. Before that we were in County Galway. Apparently for several hundred years,.

Mum's family were  traced back to county Galway. They settled in Canada, where  they got rich in timber.

I guess I'd call those efforts  successful

Sis made the discovery of a distant relative in the US.  Sadly, he died before we could meet him.

Take care if you're thinking of  using Ancestry.com. Not recommended. Try the Mormon database. It's one of the largest genealogical  data banks in the world and is free.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Family history begins at Ellis Island.

[Deesse23]

Thanks, for some reason the mormon database had a few more ancestors, otherwise it uses the same sources i found. Additionally i suspected some incest, then found out a possible error in the database. A father in the early 1800s wont have a son with different surname i guess.

Too bad its only a complete tree form my paternal grandmothers side, changing name with each generation. From my paternal grandfathers side (whose name i have) there is absolutely nothing to find. I am even struggling with my purely german maternal side. Well, ill research that one another day.

[abaris]

Any of you tried this stuff as well? How successfully?

My father tried for his line of the family, back in the 70ies. With the help of his cousins in all parts of the world, he managed to trace the family back to the 17th century, where a certain member had been a military surgeon as well as a veterinarian. Later on, during the reign of empress Maria Theresia, my paternal grandmother's family was granted the posession of a village in Hungary, along with a minor title. I know next to nothing of my paternal grandfather's family (jewish). He already died in '36, when my father was but 13. Truth is, I know very little about my paternal grandfather at all. One photo is all I have of him and the stories about him having been sort of a bon vivant, with frequent gambling trips to Monacco and vaccations at the coast of Abazzia. Being the head of a large insurance company, he could well afford it, until his company went down in the Great depression.

I know little of my mother's line as well. My grandmother came from a German family in Bohemia and seemed to have a district judge in her line. I still have a photo of that man, without being even being able to name him. He's standing there, looking pretty grim, in full regalia. My grandfather from that line (jewish) came from a family of general merchants in a small village, that once belonged to the Hungarian kingdom and now to Austria. He had many siblings, but I don't even know how many. Most of them did well before the war. But most perished in the Holocaust. One of my grandfather's cousins was Julius Deutsch, socialist politician, Union Rep for the military industrial complex during the first war and later founder of the first Austrian republican army. Later fought in the civil war of 1934 at the side of Otto Bauer and later commanded the coastal batteries at Bilbao as a republican general in the Spanish civil war. He's certainly the most prominent ancestor we know of, but all that I know of him, other than his name and his relation to my grandfather, I have from the internet.

[Deesse23]

I know next to nothing of my paternal grandfather's family (jewish).


I know little of my mother's line as well.

Same here

[Dancefortwo]

Yes! Genealogy!    I've spent the last 5 years doing our family genealogy.  Traced one of my family line back to the 13th century in the England. They were wool merchants  and made wool fabric so because of tax records they were required to keep I was abe to see written records and even court records of the paper trails they left behind.  There are several written wills which I found online but they're difficult to read.  Also some portraits were painted of some of my ancesters. This would be like my 9th or 10th  (or something like that) great grandfather.  

 

On my fathers side I couldn't go back as far but  I traced that side of the family back to London fire of 1666.  It seems that as a boy George Bailey (something like my 7th  or 8th great grandfather) was left without any family either by the Bubonic plague that preceeded the fire or by the fire itself.  Somehow in 1669 he came to be an indentured servant to a gentleman who was going to the American coloney.  George was 11 years old at the time.  He worked his way out of indenture servitude and saved enough money to buy some land in the Virginia area....probably stolen from the Indians.  I came across his will and some local historical documents in which George Bailey describes the fire of London and his lifetime fear of fire.  It was so neat to find. He wasn't just a name anymore but someone with fears and problems just like the rest of us.   In his will he gave his wife his best milk cow and their prized four poster bed. Awww      She died a few years later.

[SYZ]

My late father and his sister attempted to construct a family tree, but encountered numerous roadblocks
along the way.  We have a fairly unique surname, so it should've proven easier to construct.  I've never
had any particular interest in my family's genealogy.

BTW I agree with Grympy's warning about Ancestry.com.au as they're borderline scammers.  And their DNA
testing procedure/results are total bullshit and should be investigated by state consumer affairs departments.
There is no way they can compare your DNA with billions of other individuals globally, and there is no
global "master database" of that information anyway.

Check out the mainly negative Aussie reviews HERE

The trap for the unwary is that in order to get your "free" 14-day trial, you have to supply them—in advance
of receiving any product or service—with your credit card details, as per:

"We'll use your payment details to provide continued service after your trial ends.
You can cancel at any time and you will not be charged until your trial is complete."

One should never supply credit card details or bank account direct debit details before receiving any goods or
services confirmed as legitimate for that unique, once-off authority.  Ancestry.com's trap is the word "recurring"
hidden in the relatively small print.

[Alan V]

Starting just a few generations back, it's farmers as far as the eye can see.  

[no one]

I was produced in a lab, by someone named Kahn.

[Alan V]

I was produced in a lab, by someone named Kahn.

[no one]

[grympy]

Family history begins at Ellis Island.

 Not in Australia

For all states except South Australia it begins at the old bailey,London et al.. It continues from one of the several penal colonies. Penal transportation to Australia  ended in 1867.

There was also the massive gold rush in 1851  to Victoria.

[Dancefortwo]

While I was searching through my genealogy I came across a portrait of  what would have been my 10th or 11th great aunt, Alice Sherman.  She married well enough to have a painting done of herself.  She looks a little constipated.



She was the second wife of some guy named Richard Percivale who was a sort of minor government person during Queen Elizabeth the First's  reign and wrote one of the first Spanish-English dictionaries.   He has a Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Percivale

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Family history begins at Ellis Island.

 Not in Australia

For all states except South Australia it begins at the old bailey,London et al.. It continues from one of the several penal colonies. Penal transportation to Australia  ended in 1867.

There was also the massive gold rush in 1851  to Victoria.

The original eight sets of immigrants changed their names at Ellis Island to avoid being followed in the US.

[Fireball]

One of my sisters went to the trouble of finding our ancestral tree hangers. Got back to 1820 on my mother's side, and 1890 on my father's. I know that some brothers left France for Canada in the late 1800s, so I expect that some of them fled the law filtered down into the US to produce my father's father in 1890, in Ohio. Lots of people with my last name. We breed like rabbits. 

[Deesse23]

I talked on the phone with my dad today after i sent him the result of my investigations.

He confirmed that i found indeed my family and ancestors back to the mid 18th century. He then revealed that one of his aunts (sister of my grandad) emigrated to Australia (Melbourne) after the war. I might try to investigate this as well. Maybe the australian denizens of this forum can point me in the correct directions where to search for archives or registered persons.

Even more, dad revealed that one more aunt (next to the one living right next to him, age 90+) seems to be alive still in Königsberg/Kaliningrad*. Lately she must have asked him if she can pay a visit, but he seems to be a bit coy since he is a bit embarassed because he is living on a very small pension. I told him that he shouldnt worry, i got plenty of $ to cover this. Lets see whats gonna happen.

Thanks for pointing me towards the mormon database by the way.


*Russian enclave between Lithuania and Poland

[GenesisNemesis]

I did a bit of Googling on my last name. Turns out it's at least 800 years old- goes back to the 1200s. No idea if I'm related to those people from the 1200s, however. They were also nobles.

[Cavebear]

My family history is pretty straightforward. One side is almost entirely French. Part was Northern French and the other half was Southern French. Separately, they went to French Canada in the 1600s and then to US New England in the textile industry.

The other half were downtrodden English serfs who went to the pre-US as farmers in New England and married some Pennsylvania Deutch and stayed pretty poor.

The two sides met in college. Lapsed French Catholic and vague English Protestant deist. Being atheist was easy for me...

So it was a real surprise when the first DNA test I got said I was mostly Eastern European and SE Asian. It took months to get them to send me a 2nd kit (free), and that one made some sense. French, German, and a slight Middle East involvement. Cool.

I asked them why I didn't show up as "English" and they said "English" is too mixed to be identifiable. That makes some sense. I know European history. Among the various names I know of my lineage, German/French/Angles is about right. Sure would like to know more about that one from the Middle East, LOL!

In my case, the DNA tests (and I had one from another source that said the same thing) was more confirmation than informative. But it was worth the tests.

On the other hand, I'm a dead end. My siblings' children have a much more varied ancestry and I think that is a good thing. Genetic variation is healthy, so they will be.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I did a bit of Googling on my last name. Turns out it's at least 800 years old- goes back to the 1200s. No idea if I'm related to those people from the 1200s, however. They were also nobles.

My family name is embedded in Kimberlite.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Cavebear, I asked a prof "who invaded Britain" and he said "who didn't?" He then excepted the Hittites. Not sure why.

[Cavebear]

Cavebear, I asked a prof "who invaded Britain" and he said "who didn't?" He then excepted the Hittites. Not sure why.

Bad boats?

Seriously, everyone seems to end up in England. I'm not sure why. But it seems to be the last refuge of so many ancient peoples. A recent National Geographic even has the Yamnaya people from the Russian steppes bringing horses and wagons there and finishing building Stonehenge.

Well, maybe there is nowhere else to go after England. As best I can tell from my readings, there were Neandertals, Cro-magnons, Picts, Celts, Scotti, Romans, Danes (Angles, Saxons and Jutes), Norse Vikings, and Norman French Vikings.

Now compare that to Spain. They went straight from Picts to Greeks to Romans to Visigoths. So simple...

And BTW, I am an evolutionary multi-regionalist regarding older migrations...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I suggested that people invaded Britain because it was a way to get out of Europe.

[Cavebear]

I suggested that people invaded Britain because it was a way to get out of Europe.

From here, Britain seems like part of Europe.

But maybe I get your point. If you want to get out of the way of land borders in Europe, Britain is the place. Bismark once said the the US was so fortunate because it had oceans on 2 sides and weak neighbors. Britain has some of that. I sometimes wonder if that has had an effect on the general tendency toward democratic government. Freedom for constant border warfare has benefits. Although, it doesn't seem to have helped Italy much. Maybe it is leftover Romanism... Or separate trading city-states. Who knows?