Among Friends

[ThinkingOutLoud]

Just did a search and these might be worth looking into. I'm not familiar with them though but maybe others here are.

Find My Past

Geneanet

American Ancestors

Filae

[ThinkingOutLoud]

Just thought of another gift option - print out a family fan chart and frame it. Basic ones are available for free or there are companies that do more fancy versions. 

[henderson]

I used 23andme.  I thought I had some American Indian, but found out I didn't.  That's what i've been told.  However the shocker was that I had a half brother from my dad.  He was born in 1941 and a month later my dad married my mom.  What a secret!!  Unfortunately, I never got a chance to meet him as he passed away.  I'm in contact with his daughter.  My mother will be 102 on Dec. 31 and I don't think she ever knew this.

[Kachina624]

The BIL of my second cousin is really into genealogy, so much so that he did extensive research on his wife's (my) family.  He then wrote a rather extensive book about the family and its most interesting character, my great grandfather.  The book was published and can be purchased on Amazon.  We've bought copies for all the kids in the family.

[Melzie]

There is also Finding Your Roots on PBS.  The most interesting episode I saw was when they discovered that Larry David and Bernie Sanders were related!  Maybe that's why Larry does such a good imitation of Bernie on SNL.  

[ALRATIBA]

We've been working on ours for over 40 years.  Way before the internet and DNA testing.

[Melzie]

I tried it many years ago before they had so many kits available.  I haven't had much success because I'm only second generation here and most of my family is from pre-WWII eastern Europe so I doubt many of them or their decendents would be doing any DNA testing.  That's the rub. You can only find connections if others have done the DNA tests as well.  I did have an interesting hit from a 16 year old girl in Austrailia, who was adopted, and traced back to me.  She was able to trace back to her birth father who traced back to me through my mother.  He was Hungarian.  I am not, to the best of my knowledge, but my family does come from that part of the world so who knows.  It is interesting to learn things about yourself when you do get a hit.  Good luck with it if you/he decide to pursue it.   

[ALRATIBA]

We've been working on our family history for close to 50 years.  My mother started it back in the early 70s - and I inherited it in the late 90s.  Well before any DNA testing was available.

The DNA testing from Ancestry is interesting - you'll link up with some living relatives.  We did Ancestry about two years ago.  I found a couple of cousins who we had lost track of over the years.  And, one branch of the family that we didn't know existed (second marriage of my father's uncle).

Companies like Family Tree DNA (FTNDA)  have various tests available.  In 2006 we did mitochondrial DNA and Y-DNA - for ancient ancestry. 

The easiest way to get an good understanding of this is through two books that I can recommend:  The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes, and The Journey of Man by Spencer Wells.   Tracing the mutations of DNA over the centuries.  

FTDNA also has a Family Finder test that's similar to Ancestry's.  We've done that one also.

If you just want to find  living relatives - Ancestry is probably the best.  But you (or DH) will stiff have to do the research. 

Once you trace your family out of the US - you are going to have to learn to read handwritten foreign languages records ... not an easy task.  

[Anniedog]

We've been researching our family history for several years primarily through Ancestry.com.I did Ancestry's dna test and had results I was not aware of. I also heard from a relative I wasn't aware of so its been a good experience using Ancestry. Definitely worth it for our family.

[patbz]

I gave my DH Ancestry as a Christmas gift two years ago; he loved it!  There were aspects of his ancestry of which he had no idea.  We now have a family joke:  when we were dating I asked him if he had ancestors of a certain ethnicity and he said absolutely not, he thought he was completely Irish and Polish.  Surprise, when they sent back his breakdown he was 1% of what I asked about ( we still laugh); when you go by hearsay sometimes you don't get the whole picture.  Gave a kit to DIL ( about 90+ % Navajo); because of Covid haven't checked back about results.  As a previous poster mentioned, your results are only as good as who in your " group" has been tested, so we shall see.