the ancestry.com site

[budcrew08]

Has anyone else tried this? I've been seeing the commercials on and off, so i tried it. In about a week, I've already got my family back five generations and my (soon-to-be) wife's family back five.

It's almost addicting trying to find the next link and/or branch to the tree.

 

[buckweaver]

Use it quite a bit for baseball research, actually. Not sure it's worth $100/year if you're not going to use it regularly, but the trial version is pretty sweet if you devote an intense week or two to looking up your family history. I found about a dozen obscure articles about my grandfather from the 1950s when he worked in civil defense in California. A lot of WWII registration cards are housed there. Lots of other neat archives, too.

 

[Beaker]

My father's a published genealogist, and I know he finds the site useful. That being said, you have to use it enough for the site to be worth the price.

 

[KYSportsWriter]

Did the trial one a few years ago. Traced my roots back, i think, 14 generations.

 

[In Exile]

Many public libraries subscribe and you can use it for free on their computers.

 

[pseudo]

Still subscribe to both Ancestry and NEHGS, but wish they'd been around in their current form when I researched and wrote our family genealogy 10 years ago. I was glad I still had it over the summer, when the PFRA compiled an almost-complete list of AAFC players' vital statistics. (Think we only lack info for two now? Not bad for a league that went out of business almost 60 years ago.) Even helped me track down the son of Sam Cordovano, the original owner of the Buffalo franchise, for a friend writing a book on the AAFC Bills.

And budcrew, it can certainly be addicting. Whenever I speak on the subject, I compare it to a jigsaw puzzle ... except you don't know what the picture is going to look like, and you know you'll never find all the pieces. That can make it frustrating, or fascinating.

Here's another good (and FREE) one, courtesy of the LDS Church: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

It's great. Got to your local library if they have a subscription. So many more features than the free one.

 

[User 1019]

I've never met, nor been around my paternal grandfather, so I have absolutely no idea about his side of the family. I know his name and where he lives, but that's it. With that limited information, would the site be useful for me?

 

[buckweaver]

I've never met, nor been around my paternal grandfather, so I have absolutely no idea about his side of the family. I know his name and where he lives, but that's it. With that limited information, would the site be useful for me?

Try the two-week trial first and see what you can find. If you've got his years of birth and (if applicable) death, that will help narrow it down if he's got a common name. But if you dig hard enough, you might be able to find something to get you started.

One factor that will help is a lot of people have already created their own family trees on Ancestry.com, so if you find somebody who has helped fill in the gaps of your paternal family's side, they might have already done a lot of the work for you.

 

[imjustagirl]

I don't even know the names of my grandparents on my father's side. How does anyone go back 5 generations?

 

[User 1019]

I don't know his DOB, and he has about as generic name as one can have.

Don't even know if I want to. When I called him to tell him his son was dying, he said, "OK," then hung up.

I've always thought about it. But then again, I don't want to know I'm related to the sonuvabitch.

 

[RedSmithClone]

I've always wanted to do this, but the money is too much. Anyone who is registered that would be willing to do mine for me and I'll drop you a few bucks that would be cool.

 

[Songbird]

Found out about 5 years ago I'm related to (the assassinated) Yitzhak Rabin on my mom's side.

 

[Dickens Cider]

Not sure how useful it would be for me. I know my mom's side of the family, but my paternal grandfather was adopted, so I'm likely SOL.

 

[buckweaver]

I don't even know the names of my grandparents on my father's side. How does anyone go back 5 generations?

If you know your dad's name and the state he was born, you can use do a search through that state's birth index (many of which are available on Ancestry) to find out your grandparents' names, and start digging from there.

U.S. Census records are available from 1930, on back through the 19th century, and those can really fill in the gaps (they list addresses, occupations, names of kids, sometimes emigration years, etc.)

My uncle traced my mom's side back to the 1600s, I think, which just blows my mind. But in a couple weeks on Ancestry.com, I had my dad's side back to about the 1870s, when they came across the pond. I don't have a global subscription -- and can't read German well anyway -- so I'll need some help tracing my family back earlier than that.

 

[Rough Mix]

Both sites linked here are good. I've used both ancestry.com and familysearch.org quite a bit.

Here are more genealogy links from the best site for research around:

http://www.cyndislist.com/

State records have been very helpful to me, such as immigration, naturalization, birth and death. My maternal great-grandfather had a number of newspaper obits written about him that were also very helpful. I found those through a paid request I put in with a state historical society.

I took my mother's side back to the 1600s. My dad's side is harder because many records were destroyed in that part of the world. One thing I found on that side was the ship passenger list showing the address where my paternal grandmother was going to after she landed at Ellis Island. She came over as an indentured servant I guess you would call it. The address is for the family who paid her way over here in return for working for them as a housekeeper in their boarding house. She told me they treated her badly.

It's important to keep in mind while doing this that what you think you know to be true may not be. My grandparents were immigrants and changed names several times. Dates of birth and death, places they were born, dates of marriages all may be different from what you may have been told. I wanted to trace my side back for my kids, so I just kept at it. Eventually I was able to put enough pieces of the puzzle together so I could cross reference everything and it fell into place.

 

[Bob Crotchet]

Well, this thread is timely: I need to find information on my great-grandmother, who supposedly was a member of the Choctaw tribe, but I've never done any genealogical research. I'd be happy to pay for someone to do this, if 1) it wasn't outrageously expensive and 2) I could be sure of a reliable researcher. Or I'd do it myself if the odds were with my finding it. So, how does one find a good genealogy researcher? Or figure the odds on finding it oneself? ... And my local library does indeed have an ancestry.com subscription.

 

[Rough Mix]

A quick search of CindisList shows several pages of Choctaw and Native American links. There are also professionnal services linked. Give it a shot yourself. It can take time, but I find it educational and interesting.

 

[HandsomeHarley]

I cheated. Found a relative online who did our entire family name.

I would like to go back and do my mother's line and both maternal grandmothers' lines, but I would probably use the one at the library.

That said, I am related to Phyllis Diller and Truman Capote.

 

[pseudo]

It's important to keep in mind while doing this that what you think you know to be true may not be. My grandparents were immigrants and changed names several times. Dates of birth and death, places they were born, dates of marriages all may be different from what you may have been told. I wanted to trace my side back for my kids, so I just kept at it. Eventually I was able to put enough pieces of the puzzle together so I could cross reference everything and it fell into place.

A follow-up to that: sometimes they weren't the ones changing the name or birthdate. If you're relying on census data or info from Ellis Island, the surname could be spelled however the person writing it down thought it should be. Same with date/place of birth. I know without a doubt where one of my great-great grandfathers lived (less than two miles from where I'm typing this right now), and exactly where to find him in the census. But if I'm to believe the three consecutive listings from 1860-1880, he was born in three different states -- including "Rodilan," which we finally figured to be a phonetic misspelling of Rhode Island, instead of some obscure foreign country -- and three different years. Just something to keep in mind. If you think you've found the right person, but something is off by a letter or two (or a year or two), don't automatically dismiss that record. Like Rough Mix says, keep at it.

And sometimes, those "mistakes" are intentional, like the family member who discovered that his parents' marriage certificate was filed a year later than he'd been told ... and approximately two weeks after he was born.

Well, this thread is timely: I need to find information on my great-grandmother, who supposedly was a member of the Choctaw tribe, but I've never done any genealogical research. I'd be happy to pay for someone to do this, if 1) it wasn't outrageously expensive and 2) I could be sure of a reliable researcher. Or I'd do it myself if the odds were with my finding it. So, how does one find a good genealogy researcher? Or figure the odds on finding it oneself? ... And my local library does indeed have an ancestry.com subscription.

For something that specific, cyndislist is a good start. You might also try http://usgenweb.org/, a nationwide network of researchers committed to keeping this information free. (Yeah, if any of y'all ever need a lookup in McKean or Potter counties in Pa., give me a ring.) And checking out the Oklahoma GenWeb site brings me to Choctaw Nation. Lot of info there.

You know how to research and report a story, right? This isn't any different. If you currently live in the same area that you'd be researching, compile as much info as you can before consulting a professional. (Most charge by the hour once you get past their base rate.) Start with your parents and get every date and place you can think of, work your way back through each preceding generation, and you may well find everything you need without going out of pocket. On the other hand, if you're on the other side of the country, then get what you can and find somebody local to take it from there.

Good luck, and happy hunting.