Community Chat

[onewhiteSparrow]

I wrote to The National Archives in Washington, D.C..   I ask if they are holding any records of my family.   They sent me a photo copy of old looking papers with torn edges...loved the look.   I was shocked what I found on those papers.  Really interesting stuff.  

Write them and see what you find.  Write your birth name, parents names, and grandparents names.   See what happens. Maybe they are holding your records too.

[Lovethesea]

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@Moonchilde wrote:

Using Ancestry.com and the (I thought) little information I knew (grandparents names and state/city), I have been able to find out more about both sides of my family than I ever dreamed I would know. I started out using only census records, and suddenly there were grands, great-grands and their entire families.

From there - if you let your tree/research be public (no reason not to for most people), Ancestry emails you "hints" for other peoples' public trees that share matches with you, and you can add *all their research* to your tree!

In this way, I traced both sides of my family back to Shakespeare's England, and one side to the Mayflower - not something I would have dreamed of before I started. My family didn't know, either.

I found a second cousin who sent me priceless family photos (I never had many, and lost what I'd had in a fire) and put me in touch with three first cousins I didn't know existed  - and we have since met and they have also given me photos. One of them did the necessary paper-proofing to join The Mayflower Society. I could use her papers and also join, but it's not so much my thing.

I did the DNA testing (I have no male relatives to test), and what came back was 99% exactly what my family tree said - no surprises - which was interesting in itself.

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Thank you so much for this information.  I haven't done the Family Tree, but I will now thanks to you!!

[MariotaMurielle]

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@MyGirlsMom wrote:

@MariotaMurielle, I did a dna test and the results were more than I expected! I hope you have the same expectations. 

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I did the DNA test with the NatGeo project a couple of years ago using my brother's specimen. that gave us both paternal and maternal results. it showed that the majority of people sharing our DNA populate Ireland on the paternal side and Ireland & Scandinavia on our maternal side. that was very interesting, but I want something more specific. the FamilyTree DNA project will give us information specific to our surname. I won't have results until sometime in October or November, so I am (im)patiently waiting .

[Lovethesea]

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@onewhiteSparrow wrote:

I wrote to The National Archives in Washington, D.C..   I ask if they are holding any records of my family.   They sent me a photo copy of old looking papers with torn edges...loved the look.   I was shocked what I found on those papers.  Really interesting stuff.  

Write them and see what you find.  Write your birth name, parents names, and grandparents names.   See what happens. Maybe they are holding your records too.

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Thank you for sharing this!  I'll write them

[Lovethesea]

@151949  Thank you so much for starting this thread!  I've found useful information here that I have not found elsewhere.

[Moonchilde]

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@Lovethesea wrote:

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@Moonchilde wrote:

Using Ancestry.com and the (I thought) little information I knew (grandparents names and state/city), I have been able to find out more about both sides of my family than I ever dreamed I would know. I started out using only census records, and suddenly there were grands, great-grands and their entire families.

From there - if you let your tree/research be public (no reason not to for most people), Ancestry emails you "hints" for other peoples' public trees that share matches with you, and you can add *all their research* to your tree!

In this way, I traced both sides of my family back to Shakespeare's England, and one side to the Mayflower - not something I would have dreamed of before I started. My family didn't know, either.

I found a second cousin who sent me priceless family photos (I never had many, and lost what I'd had in a fire) and put me in touch with three first cousins I didn't know existed  - and we have since met and they have also given me photos. One of them did the necessary paper-proofing to join The Mayflower Society. I could use her papers and also join, but it's not so much my thing.

I did the DNA testing (I have no male relatives to test), and what came back was 99% exactly what my family tree said - no surprises - which was interesting in itself.

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Thank you so much for this information.  I haven't done the Family Tree, but I will now thanks to you!!

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It's really through putting your info (tree, or whatever) "out there" on Ancestry that you find more and more. And there are forums for surnames - that's how I located a second cousin on each side of my family to start with, and corroborated some info that for me had only been a story.

[Lila Belle]

My mom asked what I want for Xmas and I've asked to do the DNA thing with Ancestry. I'm really curious to find out. I know we're mostly Scot-Irish- English but I hope there's more to learn.

[Lovethesea]

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@Moonchilde wrote:

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It's really through putting your info (tree, or whatever) "out there" on Ancestry that you find more and more. And there are forums for surnames - that's how I located a second cousin on each side of my family to start with, and corroborated some info that for me had only been a story.

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The Surname Forums that you mentioned, are they the Message Boards that I mentioned?

[MyGirlsMom]

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@Lila Belle wrote:
My mom asked what I want for Xmas and I've asked to do the DNA thing with Ancestry. I'm really curious to find out. I know we're mostly Scot-Irish- English but I hope there's more to learn.

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More than likely, you may have Scandanavian ancestry mixed with your Scottish @Lila Belle

[MyGirlsMom]

@Lovethesea

http://www.archives.gov/contact/inquire-form.html