Have you traced your genealogy? How far?

[Bianca and Bernard]

I'm working on my genealogy. Some days go really well and some days are so frustrating. The internet has been helpful. The farthest I've gone to use a genealogy library is about an hour and fifteen minutes away.

I've traced one set of 4xgreat grandparents back to 1700's Germany. I'm working on another line now that has lots of dead ends.

Are any of you tracing your genealogy? Has it been easy? Enjoyable? Frustrating? I love to watch the tv shows " who do you think you are" and " finding your roots." They make it look so easy!

Frustrating at times. One branch on mom's side back to early 1800s starting in New York; the other branch to 1900s in Nebraska. One branch on dad's side to 1900s in Nebraska; the other to 1600s in Denmark. (that one side is very well documented, for some odd reason). I've not put much into the 1900 branches, though; maybe 30 hours of work total on both. About the same 30 hours on the 1800s branch, and probably 45 hours on the 1600s branch.

I get emails from FamilySearch about past family members, like my great great uncle who was a harness maker. A bunch of pioneers (into Utah). A great uncle who was a haulier in 1881, Wales. Things like that.

 

[wonder whisper]

xjillianpaige, you have another distant cousin: me. After applying and being accepted into the Mayflower Society (as a descendant of William Brewster) one of the staff up in Plymouth contacted me and said my Brewster lineage had a connection to Stephen Hopkins (through his son Giles). I'm currently in the process of filing a supplemental application to be certified as a Descendant of Stephen. The "dual lineage' person who makes me an ancestor of both Hopkins and Brewster is my 7th Great Grandmother Abigail Smith.

 

[leebee]

Sorry, already answered up-thread! Guess this one's been around awhile- I'd forgotten I'd answered!

 

[xjillianpaige]

xjillianpaige, you have another distant cousin: me. After applying and being accepted into the Mayflower Society (as a descendant of William Brewster) one of the staff up in Plymouth contacted me and said my Brewster lineage had a connection to Stephen Hopkins (through his son Giles). I'm currently in the process of filing a supplemental application to be certified as a Descendant of Stephen. The "dual lineage' person who makes me an ancestor of both Hopkins and Brewster is my 7th Great Grandmother Abigail Smith.

Hello & welcome to my (apparently very extended) family!

 

[Moana of Motunui]

I've wanted to challenge myself and look into my dad's history. Unfortunately my dad passed away when I was 7. After he passed, his father up and left.. as in, we don't know where he is! We don't know if he's living anymore! My dad and his dad were close and his dad is the only one who knows anything about the family history! My last name is of German descent but my grandmother thinks it might be Pennsylvania Dutch, not German.

My mom's side on the other hand is a complete mess. My great grandmother's family (both mom and dad) came over from Italy. There were... 3 girls born there and then the other 3 girls were born here (my great grandmother born here in the US). The family rumor is there is a child born out of wedlock and he stayed because the dad couldn't afford bringing everyone over at the time. But he never went back to get the boy! Apparently they have kept in touch and would send pictures of the family in the US with the promise to send money to bring him over. He grew up and the boy looks like people in my family (my great grandmother had 9 kids and her first born's family really resembles him). The rumor must be true! We haven't found his family since. The last picture we got from him was in the 1920s or 1930s. I feel for the boy having never seen his parents again and just abandoned.

In addition when they found our town, there was another Italian family with the same name and of course we couldn't have the same name so the dad made up a last name! It's similar to what they came over as but it's completely made up. I don't think he changed it legally!

Very complicated!

 

[DIS_MERI]

I had done some genealogy research off and on over the last 3.5 years or so, but in the spring, about the same time, my oldest brother and I both started thinking about Dad's impending 80th birthday and asked if he would get DNA tested. I did a Y-Dna test of him via one company and DB did the ancestry test of him. We were able to confirm some interesting speculations we'd run into (yes, a 2nd great grandmother really was born when her father was 60 and her mother was 56) and some others were in some puzzling roadblocks (on the Y-dna line, his 4th great grandfather isn't related to who we thought was the 8th great grandfather, so someone between them was either illegitimate or adopted). We also found out that my parents moved in 1998 to the county that the Y-line originally settled in Indiana in 1817. We married in with other founding families for the county. Our branch moved from there to the next county west during the 1860s-1900s (there were a dozen kids and they slowly moved that way until my 2nd great grandfather died there at 79. My brother and I went to the genealogy library for the original county and spent 3 hours there Friday and barely scratched the surface. Can't wait to go again (2.5 hour drive for me, but its 15 mins from my Dad and brothers, so I will go again when I go visit them sometime).

On Dad's side, we can trace to at least his 2nd great grandparents on all sides, and includes an 8th great grandfather who was a Quaker martyr in England. His widow remarried a friend of William Penn and they were early settlers to Pennsylvania. The house they lived in is still standing and I definitely plan to visit. We are DNA confirmed to those. Family lore said Dad should be 1/8 native american, but the only family we can't go back farther than that on came from Germany, so that seems pretty doubtful.

I later did the ancestry test on myself to find out more about my Mom's family. I can't find much of anything about her Dad's family, except things we already knew, and no DNA matches (my grandfather was born in 1892 and his father in Germany in 1843, so records are more difficult to find). Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to find we aren't dna related to them, though. My maternal grandmothers side is a little more fruitful, but very confused by there being another man with a very similar name (Henry Saurwein vs Henry Sauerweine) born within 20 miles, in the same year. I've being using census matching and which children are listed with whom. My Henry Sauerweine has a harder to trace father and mother, and I dead-end on them. I can go to my 3rd great grandparents on her mother's side, by DNA, but that still only gets us to the early 1800s. Still, better than many can do, and I've had a lot of fun doing it.

 

[ELKA]

Hello & welcome to my (apparently very extended) family!

I am hoping soon, I can add me to your very extended family. I am adopted and I did a DNA test. One distant relative got in contact and I looked and saw that they traced back to the Mayflower. The part of my DNA that was the most surprising was that I had sub Saharan and Native American DNA. I saw another relative that I had no contact with came from Jamaica. So, I googled who was a pilgrim and went to Jamaica. Edward Winslow was the answer that came back. Then, another relative contacted me, also adopted but had a last name of Erwin. I plugged in Erwin and Winslow into google and came up with Stephen Hopkins and Francis Cooke. All three, Winslow, Cooke and Hopkins were liaisons to the Native Americans at the time. Problem is I still don't know my immediate biological family.

Another thing about Stephen Hopkins is that he made a trip to Jamestown, Virginia. He stayed for about a year and went back to England, then made the journey on the Mayflower to Plymouth. He is supposed to be the person behind the character Stephano in Shakespeare's play The Tempest.

 

[wonder whisper]

Hello & welcome to my (apparently very extended) family!

Glad to be a member!!!

 

[wonder whisper]

I am hoping soon, I can add me to your very extended family. I am adopted and I did a DNA test. One distant relative got in contact and I looked and saw that they traced back to the Mayflower. The part of my DNA that was the most surprising was that I had sub Saharan and Native American DNA. I saw another relative that I had no contact with came from Jamaica. So, I googled who was a pilgrim and went to Jamaica. Edward Winslow was the answer that came back. Then, another relative contacted me, also adopted but had a last name of Erwin. I plugged in Erwin and Winslow into google and came up with Stephen Hopkins and Francis Cooke. All three, Winslow, Cooke and Hopkins were liaisons to the Native Americans at the time. Problem is I still don't know my immediate biological family.

Another thing about Stephen Hopkins is that he made a trip to Jamestown, Virginia. He stayed for about a year and went back to England, then made the journey on the Mayflower to Plymouth. He is supposed to be the person behind the character Stephano in Shakespeare's play The Tempest.

One of the best Plymouth Historians is Caleb Johnson, who wrote a wonderful biography of Stephen Hopkins titled "Here I Shall Die Ashore."

 

[xjillianpaige]

I am hoping soon, I can add me to your very extended family. I am adopted and I did a DNA test. One distant relative got in contact and I looked and saw that they traced back to the Mayflower. The part of my DNA that was the most surprising was that I had sub Saharan and Native American DNA. I saw another relative that I had no contact with came from Jamaica. So, I googled who was a pilgrim and went to Jamaica. Edward Winslow was the answer that came back. Then, another relative contacted me, also adopted but had a last name of Erwin. I plugged in Erwin and Winslow into google and came up with Stephen Hopkins and Francis Cooke. All three, Winslow, Cooke and Hopkins were liaisons to the Native Americans at the time. Problem is I still don't know my immediate biological family.

Another thing about Stephen Hopkins is that he made a trip to Jamestown, Virginia. He stayed for about a year and went back to England, then made the journey on the Mayflower to Plymouth. He is supposed to be the person behind the character Stephano in Shakespeare's play The Tempest.

Yes! My dad did tell me that. Quite an interesting person, it seems. Best of luck in your search to learn more about your biological family!

 

[wonder whisper]

Glad to be a member!!!

Hi, if it would help you dig deeper into your ancestry, I can share the lineage synopsis that is in my supplemental Mayflower application to be certified as a descendant of Stephen Hopkins.

 

[Grumpy's Gal]

My DH says if we ever win the lottery, we will hire the people at " who do you think you are" tv show and see what they can find! I'm sure they could get past a few of our dead ends!!

 

[RangerPooh]

I too am related to Edward Winslow. My Mayflower ancestor was Mary Chilton (said to be first female to step off the boat) who married John Winslow, Edwards brother.

As for my ancestry, we can trace it back to the 1100s on my dads side. Along the line is Benjamin Lincoln who was a former governor of Mass and accepted General Cornwallace's sword at the surrender of the American Revolution. I'm also related to King Edward I who killed William Wallace (Bravehart). We also have loads of family members that were part of the Salem witch trails as accusers. On my moms side of the family we can go back to the 1500s I believe.

 

[PigletsPal2]

Two of my cousins have done extensive research on my father's side of the family. Dating back to my great-great grandparents, we're Austrian and German on my great-great grandfathers side and English and Irish on my great-great grandmother's side. The most interesting thing I've learned about my ancestors is that my paternal grandfather was the most successful bookie in the metropolitan Washington DC area in the late 1920s-early 1930s and that my father and his brothers ran numbers for Pap.

Ww haven't done any research on my mother's side of the family, but my grandmother and great aunt (sisters) were both dressmakers in the Washington DC area and they claimed to have made most of the clothes for several Cabinet secretaries' wives, along with some some special occasion dresses (Inaugural Ball gowns?) for several Senate wives. This is just family folklore until someone can come up with some proof.

Queen Colleen

 

[aprilgail]

Our family tree is a mess LOL- For my family that I was adopted into my daughter has it back as far as Thomas Jefferson- many plantations and slave owners in there, then we have my "branch" with my birth family oh and can't forget my daughters branch that practically tips the tree over- with her 32 half siblings and their families! Ancestry DNA helped me with a lot of the cousins 4th and up that I didn't even know.

 

[DisneyOma]

My dad was really into genealogy - he left a pile of stuff for me to go through, and I gladly handed that over to my husband. We've got so much info it's hard to absorb all the connections. My favorite info came from my dad, when he called shortly after hubby and I moved about an hour away from where just about everyone in both our immediate families still live. "You know that town you moved to? Well, it's the town one branch of the family moved from, back in the 1700's..." Yup, I moved and am still a 'Townie'!

 

[Mermaid02]

During a conference with my son's English teacher freshman year I mentioned to the teacher that my Mom's maiden name was the same last name as his. He was really into genealogy and asked me questions about her parents etc... come to find out, we were distantly related and he said he traced our relatives back to 2 brothers who left Salem Massachusetts for Maine (which was part of Massachusetts at the time) during the time of the witch trials. It all made perfect sense.

 

[lovesmurfs]

1. We are English & Scottish, and at one point the Scottish folks moved to Ireland so we have family who were born in Ireland.

Us, too! We had a MacDonald who turns out changed his name to "Smith" because he did some work for some king traveling through the village and helped him repair something or other on his carriage. The king couldn't be bothered to get his real name, and gave a note or certificate of thanks to "Smith." Then they moved to the north of Ireland (by the border).

We're going to Scotland next month for vacation. No time to do genealogy stuff, but it was cool to find out the tartan, etc. before we left!

 

[clori]

I've done some ancestry.com research. It is definitely hard being from Eastern European Jewish descent. My relatives on both sides come from Lithuania when it was under Russian control though the families didn't know each other there. For names Lithuanian and Russian and mixed in with Hebrew and Yiddish then add in American names plus changed last names. My mother is 88 so she was able to help with some information. I've gotten to the late 1800s.

On ancestry.com I noticed someone having info on family members. I contacted her and turns out we are 2nd cousins. She even remembered meeting my mother and grandmother (she is older than me and my grandmother died when I was a baby). They live about an hour from me. It even turns out that one of their daughters is a principal in my city (I've never met her) She even set up a brunch for me to bring my mother and sister to meet her and several other cousins. My mother was so excited. From them I got some Ellis island documents, we shared some family history etc

On my husband's side we have Hungarian roots. He has a fairly big tree thanks to a cousins. His great uncle worked with Raoul Wallenberg and settled in Sweden. His great granddaughter reached out to my 17 year old daughter on instagram. We were able to confirm a bunch of family connections for both sides. The girl is in her 20s and does Swedish voice overs when Disney Films are done in Swedish. Fortunately she knows a lot of English since my daughter doesn't know Swedish.

 

[HarperLeigh]

I just did a DNA test, but I didn't do it for the genealogy. I did it more for fun to find out where my ancestors came from...like you are 50% western European, etc. That is the only thing I'm interested in finding out.