Your Geneology....

I have been doing genealogy for a number of years and I am always skeptical of people who got back that far so easily, unless they get lucky and someone reliable already did most of the work. Real records are so scarce and it is difficult to prove this person or that. If you have a common name it is nearly impossible if Joseph Jones is your great grandfather, as there could be a million of them.
 
I may be wrong about getting email notifications from ancestry.com. Either I missed it, or they don't send one. Ancestry.com is currently advertising free access through July 8th! :D

Edit: free access to records from the 13 original colonies
 
Some families do have records, but census records are surprisingly informative. We only knew my husband's parents names, and from a census record, learned each of their parents' names and where they were born. When looking at my mother-in-law's parents census record, we found their parents and where they came from in Italy. Census records have those names on them quite frequently.
My father's family had an old family bible, in which were recorded the names, dating back to the 1790s.
Cemeteries have info, too, you'd be surprised.
However, I agree about having a common name and only being able to go back so far.
 
And my family is full of obscure last names that are not very common...except for those Irish ancestors...those last names are all common Irish names. Lol...though my maternal grandmother's maiden name was Jones. That was her step-father's last name. Plus we have enough information leading back to my great and great-great grandparents that really got us jumpstarted on our search for ancestors.
 
Luckly mine came from a small counties lol until it got back to Albany NY I am a bit confused because my 3x great grandfather was said to have been born there what confuses me is his stone says died in 1890 aged 90 I would have assumed he was born in 1800 since he died in Dec but the only records that kinda match up I can't see them yet (they cost) but they (I think) say 1797. Oh and some records are impossible and then there are the reservation stories :confused:

Another thing is why does every one have the same given name lol I know they named after fathers mothers and grandfathers/mothers back then but when it comes down to trying to dig through about a dozen or more Samuels on BOTH/all sides ...ugh :eek: yikes

Some of those last names the spelling was changed when they got to America...to add to the confusion lol
 
I was lucky because I have some of the pages from the old family Bible dating to the early 1800's. Plus several distant cousins (our grandfathers are brothers) have done a lot of the research that I hadn't done, and we were able to fit everything together. Very few gaps are left to fill in other branches.
 
There are about 20 "Robert" "James" and "William" 's in my ancestry that it makes my head spin.
I have since learned more about my grandmother's biological father. His parents and three older siblings immigrated to America in the early 1900s from Hungary. He was born here in the States though in 1905...amazing.

So I'm 1/8 Hungarian and my grandmother is 1/2 Hungarian. Who knew? My grandmother didn't even know!
 
Not trying to be a party-pooper, but signing up for Ancestry.com can become expensive. As much as I love watching 'Who Do You Think You Are', I feel that it is more or less an hour long commercial for Ancestry.

If you can go to your local library and access it that is good. But even better is to find your local Latter Day Saints Church, and find out if they have a 'Family History Center'. If they do, go there and they will gladly let you use their resources to search, and they have many portals, including Ancestry that you you can use.

For those at home, FamilySearch.org, is a free website and service, that is courtesy of the LDS Church. The problem with this site is that everything that is put online, is dependent on volunteers. They are currently working on uploading the 1940 Federal Census.

As always, do not necessarily trust whatever you find online, but use that as a starting point. Verify whatever you find with another source, if possible. For example, if Joe Smith died in Nebraska on June 6, 1930, verify that by requesting a death certificate from Nebraska's Bureau of Vital statistics.

I've done this type of work for years, and I have seen too many people get their hopes up only to have them dashed, because of poor research.

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Okay, I'm off my soapbox. This IS a fun thread. On my mother's side of the family, I have a line that goes back to Elder John Strong who came over to this country from England in 1620, on the ship, Mary and John. Through his many descendants--and there were MANY--I can trace relationships to Princess Diana, and the Bush family, among others.

For myself, my husband and I met in a cemetery...... :D
 
On re-reading, I realized that some of the above sounds really "stuffy", and I don't mean it to be. I haven't actually done a lot of work on my Elder John Strong line, myself, but I have met several people that have, and when hearing that I belong to one of those lines, I am flooded with all kinds of information and documentation. Which is a very good thing to have happen. Just verify....
 
For me, I'm not paying a single cent. I'm on my uncle's account. He's had it for a long while and still pays for it.

I found another family tree (when I discovered the things I discovered that I talked about before) that held the name of my grandmother's half-sister and it turns out her daughter runs the page. I sent her a message saying that I've been told my entire life that (insert name of my great-grandfather here) is my biological great-grandfather and that if they knew of him having another child besides the one they had listed for him. I am impatiently waiting a response. I told them I could give them more information about it if they messaged me back...

Meanwhile, through the powers of the internet, I have found my grandmother's half-sister's obituary and the names of her children and grandchildren. Creepy? Sort of, especially because I managed to find their Facebook accounts as well... but honestly, it's just through the powers of the internet. Be careful what you post. Anyone can find anyone nowadays. I was honestly just curious as to what they looked like... they are very much Jewish (no, I did not base that on their looks....more from the "Happy Hanukkah" posts from December...) which my great-grandfather was.

In fact, it's the entire reason he and my great-grandmother did not stay together. His parents sent him away to Illinois (from Georgia) because she was a gentile and he was jewish but his parents did not know that my great-grandmother was pregnant. Six years later, he was married and had another daughter. He paid for my grandmother's nursing school and as a young adult, she had lunch with him semi-frequently but she never met his wife or daughter because his wife was not thrilled about it. (and all of THAT I found out from my grandmother directly)
 
I was over at Ancestry when they had the free period for the 1940 census, but did not have much time. Well, they have been sending e-mails ever since. I was notified Saturday evening they had a free 5 days for the 13 colonies, which would end July 8th. So Sunday afternoon, after church, I went looking, typed in a couple names. So they popped with a list of that last name, and a lot of different first names, even though I was specific. When I click on one for the "report", up came the "you have to join to get this". Was super annoying and very deceptive.
It is very difficult when there are tons of the same name, but the spouses or birth dates don't match, which I have from a family bible and other sources.
I keep getting the two week free membership offer from Ancestry, but...it is not "free" either.
My ancestors on my father's side were all over the U.S. so it is not possible to visit churches, libraries, etc. for them.
By the way, you can also check the Ellis Island site. There are tons of records there.
 
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