18 replies to this topic

[Amigatec]

I have been doing some work on finding my Ancestors, and once in while you have one of those moments that make your jaw drop.

My GreatGrandMother was a Hudson, well in tracing her linage back I have found she is a descendent of the famous explorer Henry Hudson the person that the Hudson Bay and Hudson River are named for. I did find that one of the Hudson's in my past was personal friends with Abraham Lincoln. WOW!!! I don't have the actual connection yet, but I have found a reference to it in at least one document.

I grew up in a small town and am finding relatives I didn't know I had living in the same area. Most are buried in the same Cemetary.

I am also supposed to be related Woodrow Wilson. My maternal Grandfather's mother was a Wilson. I haven't had time to check that out yet.

This has been an amazing project.

[KennyP]

Wow! That's cool, Pat! Good luck with it.

[Michiganmobileman]

Sounds neat Pat, keep up the search.  My Father in laws lineage was traced by my SIL and she found some real interesting factoids also.  It is kind of neat to see where you came from, expect a hiccup or two in the search though, Good Luck!

[Amigatec]

I have found a LOT of hiccups. One I didn't expect was tracing back the same GGM, is that her mothers name was Sarah Young, well in looking for her mothers maidan name I found out it was also Young, she married a man named Young, but they were from 2 different lines. One was from Scotland and the other was from Ireland. The old records were hand written and a lot of people back then didn't read or write so the records are off. A lot of misspellings, and bad info. The States had different way to record and store the info, a lot of it was lost or damaged. Some was buried during the Civil War then the State Capitals were burned. Some States haven't released all the records yet. I have a GGGrand Father born in Pennsylvania in 1832 that I am having a very hard time tracing. PA has released all the records yet. I may have to contact the SOS of PA and see what I can find.

[caseguy]

It sounds like you have some very influential people in you lineage! My sister is attempting to trace our history but has hit a few stumbling blocks along the way. I wish you the best of luck in your search!

[HDWildBill]

Cool!  Hope you find the records you are looking for.

[Amigatec]

The biggest problem is both of my parents are the last members of their family and they're both in there 80's. My Dad couldn't provide much info, but my mother did provide some info. I've already found most of the easy ones, now it gets harder. I keep telling everyone I'm digging up dead relatives. HAHA

[Toolpartzman]

I have been doing some work on finding my Ancestors, and once in while you have one of those moments that make your jaw drop.

My GreatGrandMother was a Hudson, well in tracing her linage back I have found she is a descendent of the famous explorer Henry Hudson the person that the Hudson Bay and Hudson River are named for. I did find that one of the Hudson's in my past was personal friends with Abraham Lincoln. WOW!!! I don't have the actual connection yet, but I have found a reference to it in at least one document.

I grew up in a small town and am finding relatives I didn't know I had living in the same area. Most are buried in the same Cemetary.

I am also supposed to be related Woodrow Wilson. My maternal Grandfather's mother was a Wilson. I haven't had time to check that out yet.

This has been an amazing project.

Congratulations Pat-I know its great fun and a fantastic history lesson. Everyone should do it. I traced mine back 13 generations.

It all makes us realize how time flies. Good Hunting

[Kurtee]

Careful on shakin that family tree, you could shake out some nuts.

 

Can be kinda interesting though. The wifes brother researched their history and found out they were related to lots of local people, some that they won't admit to though. One thing they learned was that their paternal grandmothers father had worked for the railroad in WI and was killed by the train on his way home from the pub.

[Amigatec]

I haven't found any criminal yet, the connection to Henry Hudson turned out to wishful thinking.

[scotsman]

I also started working on my Genealogy about 4 years ago, working on the four names of my four Grandparents,

Lawrence, Hill, Talada and Kremer.

 

My Lawrence line I have traced back to England and the Norman Invasion,

George Washington is a very very distant cousin of mine.

Im a descendant of a woman who was accused of being a witch during the Salem witch trails,

(but later found innocent and released! ;)

I have an American indian ancestor, and lots of other cool stuff:

 

http://1stclass.myla...hase-Genealogy/

 

One thing to be aware of, and be very careful about..

the internet is a great resource for information..but more than half of it is simply flat-out wrong! ;)

I haven't bothered to pay for the "ancestry.com" service yet (because I haven't needed to, because im still

sorting out all the info I have found for free) but one of the good sources of data is this site:

 

http://wc.rootsweb.a...cgi-bin/igm.cgi

 

(and others like it)

 

Great source of info! but..you have to be very discriminating about what data you use, and what data you have to simply ignore.

because lots of people are not very concerned about documentation or using good sources,

and they just upload whatever they have, and often its just guesses or just plain wrong..

but they dont SAY they are just guessing! so how do you tell??

you have to look at the "proof" they themselves provide..

Do they have good source data? and what is the source data?

If its something like a birth or death certificate, or census data, then that is often reliable and accurate..

but often you will find data with NO sources listed at all! or they use as their source another page someone uploaded, and *that* page has no source information at all! (people use bad info all the time, and incorporate into their family lines, the re-post the bad info and spread it around even more..)  in those cases, you have to just completely ignore that

information, dont even use it..because its probably wrong, but you wont know its wrong, so you start following

children or ancestors that aren't correct, and it just messes up your whole family line..

 

So, gotta have good sources! ;)

if a piece of information doesn't have a good source, dont even use it..

people upload a ton of junk data..

 

They say genealogy is the largest, by far, "hobby" on the internet..

in fact, I have seen this "statistic" several time..it goes like this:

"The entire internet is made up of: 1/3 Genealogy, 1/3 Pornography, and 1/3 everything else"

no idea if that is true or not! (it probably isnt)..but still, genealogy is great fun! just have to be very careful

and meticulous about it, if you want to find the truth.

 

Scot

[backwoods]

i had to make a family tree many yrs ago for a high school project i think it was last year that i decided to get back into it and got more info from my mom and info i found in my house(my grandma gave it to me) so there was a lot of hidden things that she had forgot about. her mom came from wales her dad from jersey. my grandfathers partents were both from pa this is on my biological fathers side if i remeber right i found 4 or 5 generations back. on my moms side i found much better info my great grandma was the daughter of an indian if im correct my ggf was polish an i found out a lady from spain did a geneology and met with my ggf. its interesting what info you can find out about your family if you do a little digging

[TAHOE]

Pretty cool findings for you.

My daughter did an ancestory project for 4H couple years ago, luckily I had relatives who had done a lot of legwork. We found out my mom's dad had royalty from England in his history, their is a dutchess in his line. We also have some American Indian on both sides of our tree too. We found out my wifes tree may have had some "straight" branches, haha. Seriously, way back in 1800's there was a brother and siter, 1 was married into her mom's side, the other happen to marry into her dad's side. Crazy things.
Oh, the most interesting for me was my grandpa ( dad's dad) was born Feb 9, 1899. He had a twin brother born Feb 16, 1899....1 week apart. The twin ended up only living 3-4 weeks leaving my grandpa with no twin. Kind of weird twins bron a week apart, and my grandpa had 16 other brothers and sister...wwwooooowweeee!!!

[Toolpartzman]

I haven't found any criminal yet, the connection to Henry Hudson turned out to wishful thinking.

  HA---I did the same. I thought sure I'd find a cattle rustler or gunfighter, instead it was WORSE.

   They were all LAWYERS and civic leaders!!

[Toolpartzman]

You probably know by now but just in case. Names were repeated from gen to gen to honor a mothers surname, so its pretty common to have repeats. Each bit of info has to have a date to sort it out. My G-G-G grandmothers name for example was Alice Taylor Thornton. Thornton for her dad and Taylor for her mother's maiden name. She was Zachary Taylor's cousin.

 

You may be in luck if many are buried nearby and have access to Obits and Cemetery records