Family trees- rooting out interesting ancestors

[Stretchington]

But if there is one thing I have learned doing my family tree, I would have to say that reading documents online is one thing, but actually putting in the legwork to go to the libraries, cemeteries, etc. can really pay off.

[Pax Nerdvana]

But if there is one thing I have learned doing my family tree, I would have to say that reading documents online is one thing, but actually putting in the legwork to go to the libraries, cemeteries, etc. can really pay off.

Can you a recommend a good website to start with?

[Stretchington]

The site I've most heavily relied on would be ancestry.com, but I do seek outside resources quite often, for example when I need to track down an American Civil War soldier I tend to use the National Park Service's Soldiers and Sailors database to find out their unit.

[The New California Republic]

Because of the meticulous record keeping in the UK I have traced some of my family back to the 12th. It is a bit of a lottery in terms of some countries, and means that it is family documentation alone that offers any hints for tracing ancestry, but even those can only go back so far, as most families do not make a habit of keeping birth certificates etc of grandparents or further back.

On one of the trees I did for a friend, I got to a point where a previous research said, "We have no documents to tell us if Person B is the son of Person A. The names are close and the place is the same but it would be a leap of faith to make that connection." Naturally, I made the leap and ended up in the 8th century among kings and dukes and Viking princesses.

I was actually lucky. The family that I am partially descended from is the Pitcarnes, which is a very well researched line of people in Scotland, right up to the present day, on account of them being feudal lords for about 7 or 8 generations, up until the 15th century. The Pitcarne line further back fades out at about the year 1230.

It was actually in the 13th century that their despotic reign over the serfs began in earnest their glorious leadership started, not the 12th as previously stated. It has been many months since I last looked at the family tree, so I remembered incorrectly.

[The New California Republic]

The site I've most heavily relied on would be ancestry.com

Yes, using that site alone my tree now has 1170 people in it! I did have to pay for several months to use the full features of the site though, in order to access the full records database.

[Stretchington]

The site I've most heavily relied on would be ancestry.com

Yes, using that site alone my tree now has 1170 people in it! I did have to pay for several months to use the full features of the site though, in order to access the full records database.

managed to get approximately 4000 myself so far.

[The Free Joy State]

On one of the trees I did for a friend, I got to a point where a previous research said, "We have no documents to tell us if Person B is the son of Person A. The names are close and the place is the same but it would be a leap of faith to make that connection." Naturally, I made the leap and ended up in the 8th century among kings and dukes and Viking princesses.

I was actually lucky. The family that I am partially descended from is the Pitcarnes, which is a very well researched line of people in Scotland, right up to the present day, on account of them being feudal lords for about 7 or 8 generations, up until the 15th century. The Pitcarne line further back fades out at about the year 1230.

It was actually in the 13th century that their despotic reign over the serfs began in earnest their glorious leadership started, not the 12th as previously stated. It has been many months since I last looked at the family tree, so I remembered incorrectly.

I admit that I slightly envy people who have so much information available about their genealogy.

[Pax Nerdvana]

The site I've most heavily relied on would be ancestry.com, but I do seek outside resources quite often, for example when I need to track down an American Civil War soldier I tend to use the National Park Service's Soldiers and Sailors database to find out their unit.

Thanks. I'll start researching when I get home if I have time.

[USS Monitor]

My grandparents worked on the Manhattan Project.

That is so cool. You have relatives who were a part of history.

I wish we'd done a better job of keeping the family stories straight, because my grandparents knew about some stuff that wasn't public knowledge, and some of it may be lost now that they are gone.

[Rio Cana]

About two years ago I tracked down my parents
My mom was basque and died pushing me out
My dad was basque and got shot in the head for reasons I’m still not sure of, maybe none
So I’d assume my whole family is just Iberian peasents who didn’t do much

You never know.

When Napoleon invade Spain -

There was little resistance to the French from the senior military officers in command. The resistance that did come, was from peasants and people in the middle classes

[Petroslovania]

On ancestry.com i have 506 members. But all there ecords are from Ireland, Britain and USA.

[Pax Nerdvana]

That is so cool. You have relatives who were a part of history.

I wish we'd done a better job of keeping the family stories straight, because my grandparents knew about some stuff that wasn't public knowledge, and some of it may be lost now that they are gone.

That's really sad.

[Stretchington]

On ancestry.com i have 506 members. But all there ecords are from Ireland, Britain and USA.

I hope y'all'll take me at my word when I say you don't even want me to start listing all the nationalities I've found in my tree so far.

[Pax Nerdvana]

On ancestry.com i have 506 members. But all there ecords are from Ireland, Britain and USA.

I hope y'all'll take me at my word when I say you don't even want me to start listing all the nationalities I've found in my tree so far.

Is it a long list?

[Valentine Z]

I wonder, is there an ancestry test that works on an international scale? Or am I out of luck and have to seek my own family for Burmese stuff?

[Stretchington]

I hope y'all'll take me at my word when I say you don't even want me to start listing all the nationalities I've found in my tree so far.

Is it a long list?

Quite a bit of Europe.

[Pax Nerdvana]

Is it a long list?

Quite a bit of Europe.

So it is a long list.

[Stretchington]

Quite a bit of Europe.

So it is a long list.

yep

[AquilaJordyn]

I wonder, is there an ancestry test that works on an international scale? Or am I out of luck and have to seek my own family for Burmese stuff?

Ancestry will do it, but let's just say it's harder if you're not from Europe. For example, for native Americans, a people spanning two continents, there are like three or four 'gene pools' basically, the site cuts areas up into identifiable groups of people irrespective of national boundaries or anything like that. They do this by having a large pool of people who have given them samples of their DNA. The more DNA they have, the better and more specific they can get. Most of their donors are of European descent, so while I can say I am Irish but not probably not Welsh, a native American couldn't tell if they are Mohawk or Sioux. In your case, you should be able to see if you're from South East Asia, or say, India, China, Japan & Korea, (Japan and Korea combined, you couldn't figure out which). But you'd never know if your Burmese specifically, unless it picks up on an immigrant group from there. For example, my family from Ireland came from Cork county Ireland, and I know that (Besides my grandmother telling me so) because the site figured out that I'm related to the waves of Irish from Cork that moved to the U.S.A. it did the same for my dad's French immigrants to Quebec. In short, no, unless your family immigrated from there or has some documented group the site knows about. It would just come up as South East Asian. I'm sorry, the site told me I was 'Eastern European" but couldn't say country I was from, where my family lived specifically. You can however look up DNA matches. I found a huge clump in Hungary, so I'm presuming I'm probably Hungarian. You could see if you have a lot of DNA matches from Burma, that might help, but you can't be 100% sure on it.

[Reploid Productions]

All I know is that two of my great great uncles worked for Al Capone.

Oh dear, then your great-great uncles and my extremely distant relative were probably trying to kill one another at one point or another.

We seem to have a disproportionate number of people related to gangsters.

I only count two in the thread so far!

[The New California Republic]

That is so cool. You have relatives who were a part of history.

I wish we'd done a better job of keeping the family stories straight, because my grandparents knew about some stuff that wasn't public knowledge, and some of it may be lost now that they are gone.

My paternal Grandfather was a driver and bodyguard for one of the Generals during the Normandy campaign. He never said anything about it in detail. He died when I was very young, too young to shake the information out of him, stubborn man that he was, and now that information is gone.

[Valentine Z]

I wonder, is there an ancestry test that works on an international scale? Or am I out of luck and have to seek my own family for Burmese stuff?

Ancestry will do it, but let's just say it's harder if you're not from Europe. For example, for native Americans, a people spanning two continents, there are like three or four 'gene pools' basically, the site cuts areas up into identifiable groups of people irrespective of national boundaries or anything like that. They do this by having a large pool of people who have given them samples of their DNA. The more DNA they have, the better and more specific they can get. Most of their donors are of European descent, so while I can say I am Irish but not probably not Welsh, a native American couldn't tell if they are Mohawk or Sioux. In your case, you should be able to see if you're from South East Asia, or say, India, China, Japan & Korea, (Japan and Korea combined, you couldn't figure out which). But you'd never know if your Burmese specifically, unless it picks up on an immigrant group from there. For example, my family from Ireland came from Cork county Ireland, and I know that (Besides my grandmother telling me so) because the site figured out that I'm related to the waves of Irish from Cork that moved to the U.S.A. it did the same for my dad's French immigrants to Quebec. In short, no, unless your family immigrated from there or has some documented group the site knows about. It would just come up as South East Asian. I'm sorry, the site told me I was 'Eastern European" but couldn't say country I was from, where my family lived specifically. You can however look up DNA matches. I found a huge clump in Hungary, so I'm presuming I'm probably Hungarian. You could see if you have a lot of DNA matches from Burma, that might help, but you can't be 100% sure on it.

Ahh, bummer. But hey, at least finding the nationalities is pretty close enough, so... that works with me. Thanks for the huge amount of info!

---

Based on my own knowledge, I should see Chinese ancestors from my mom's side. My great greatmother was a PRC, or HK Chinese, so yeah, that I know because my mom told me.

[AquilaJordyn]

Ancestry will do it, but let's just say it's harder if you're not from Europe. For example, for native Americans, a people spanning two continents, there are like three or four 'gene pools' basically, the site cuts areas up into identifiable groups of people irrespective of national boundaries or anything like that. They do this by having a large pool of people who have given them samples of their DNA. The more DNA they have, the better and more specific they can get. Most of their donors are of European descent, so while I can say I am Irish but not probably not Welsh, a native American couldn't tell if they are Mohawk or Sioux. In your case, you should be able to see if you're from South East Asia, or say, India, China, Japan & Korea, (Japan and Korea combined, you couldn't figure out which). But you'd never know if your Burmese specifically, unless it picks up on an immigrant group from there. For example, my family from Ireland came from Cork county Ireland, and I know that (Besides my grandmother telling me so) because the site figured out that I'm related to the waves of Irish from Cork that moved to the U.S.A. it did the same for my dad's French immigrants to Quebec. In short, no, unless your family immigrated from there or has some documented group the site knows about. It would just come up as South East Asian. I'm sorry, the site told me I was 'Eastern European" but couldn't say country I was from, where my family lived specifically. You can however look up DNA matches. I found a huge clump in Hungary, so I'm presuming I'm probably Hungarian. You could see if you have a lot of DNA matches from Burma, that might help, but you can't be 100% sure on it.

Ahh, bummer. But hey, at least finding the nationalities is pretty close enough, so... that works with me. Thanks for the huge amount of info!

You might be able to find out more specifics if you do a tree and find documents. See, you build the tree largely on government records (Marriages, Birth's, census's.) My family lived in places where the government kept compulsive records, so that helped me. I was able to find that my family from Bavaria lived in this one town in upper Bavaria, moving to Frankfurt once only to move back to Bavaria. Burma was a common wealth nation, so assuming that I'm not insane and the English kept records of everyone in the country, if you can provide the site with at least Great Grandparents, you should be able to find something. (The more information you have to start your tree, the less guess work you have to do). Congratulations friend! Rampant Imperialism might've worked in your favor.

[USS Monitor]

I wish we'd done a better job of keeping the family stories straight, because my grandparents knew about some stuff that wasn't public knowledge, and some of it may be lost now that they are gone.

My paternal Grandfather was a driver and bodyguard for one of the Generals during the Normandy campaign. He never said anything about it in detail. He died when I was very young, too young to shake the information out of him, stubborn man that he was, and now that information is gone.

That's still kind of neat, though.

[Valentine Z]

Ahh, bummer. But hey, at least finding the nationalities is pretty close enough, so... that works with me. Thanks for the huge amount of info!

You might be able to find out more specifics if you do a tree and find documents. See, you build the tree largely on government records (Marriages, Birth's, census's.) My family lived in places where the government kept compulsive records, so that helped me. I was able to find that my family from Bavaria lived in this one town in upper Bavaria, moving to Frankfurt once only to move back to Bavaria. Burma was a common wealth nation, so assuming that I'm not insane and the English kept records of everyone in the country, if you can provide the site with at least Great Grandparents, you should be able to find something. (The more information you have to start your tree, the less guess work you have to do). Congratulations friend! Rampant Imperialism might've worked in your favor.

Hehe, thank you! Ironically, learning Chinese is definitely not second nature for me. It was just ancestry, but still, I was wishing for Chinese-learning superpowers.

I... I never thought of that, actually. With the British rule in the past, there has to be a large amount of documents in regards to the ancestors. The slight problem is, I don't know who will be willing to help given the lack of direction, and it is most likely still all in paper. But now I'm aware that the information is out there somewhere.