Geniology

jenilake · Post by **jenilake** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 10:13 am

Does anyone know how to follow your family tree, check your ancestery?

I don't even know my grand parents names. I have checked the internet and there are a lot of places that say you can for a price. What is the best way?

I don't feel like getting ripped off by these net places.

Love, Kathyp

Post by **tex** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 12:01 pm

Hi Kathy,

If you don't know your grandparents' names, and don't have any easier way to discover that information, you're probably going to need a birth certificate for each of your parents, (they will list the full names of parents). You can locate the source for that information by clicking on the state where your parents were born, at this CDC site:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/howto/w2w/w2welcom.htm

Texas, for example, charges $22 for a birth certificate, and $20 for marriage, death, etc., certificates. The fee is for the search, and is not refundable, if no records are found. In general, vital records in this country go back to about the year 1900.

Unfortunately, I don't know of a free way to obtain that information, other than to search online newspaper archives from the city where someone was born, married, died, etc.. IOW, if you could find a newspaper account of your parents' marriage, their parents should be listed. Or, if you know when your parents were born, and in what city, a search of the local newspaper archives might turn up articles that listed their respective births, and the proud parents' names.

Maybe someone else knows of an easier, faster, and/or more economical way.

Love,
Tex

jenilake · Post by **jenilake** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 1:18 pm

Thanks

I'm not sure what the new interest in this is for me, but I can't deny it.

I will try the newspapers, and then the other suggestions you made.

Thankyou so much. Can you believe I went all these years and never even asked or was volunteered the info from my parents. Guess they weren't close. My mom was born in North Carolina, and only returned there to visit two or three times. I always felt like I missed out on so much not knowing her family. Four sisters and their familys. Never did understand why she didn't want to have any of them in her life. They couldn't have all been that bad.

I got to meet them when we went to my mom's baby sister's funeral. She was only 32. Had stomache cancer. Very sad!!! Maybe I should go take an anti-depressant. I got to meet her before she died. I loved all of them.

Kathyp

annie oakley · Post by **annie oakley** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:44 pm

Howdy! Family can sometimes be strange....my mother and Grandmother did nor speak for the last 20 years of my Grandmothers life. We have speculation on why but do not know the whole story. I hope you find out some stuff. Ancestry.com is a good site also. Love Oma

jenilake · Post by **jenilake** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:03 pm

OMA,

Thanks, I will give that a try. All my efforts with newspapers only frustrated me more.

I finally called a cousin, who I haven't seen in about 10 years. She only lives about an hour from me. Due to things going on with other family members, I hadn't contacted her sooner. She is a very nice person and always has been. It was just my hangup. She has answers and invited me to her house to go over old papers. I think this will help.

I am scared to go, only because I get nervous around people, even my own relatives. Her husband is a minister, how bad could it be?

I just know that I will cry and feel nervous. What a curse this can be.

If I told her that, she would think I am a brick short of a load, I am sometimes.

Love, Kathyp

harvest_table · Post by **harvest_table** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 7:46 pm

Kathy,

Oh boy, you might get into this and it's so neat!

I started family research a couple years ago and there is alot of free info on the internet if you have family names and such. I would also suggest getting in touch with as many living relatives of your mother and father now and get as much as you can from them. Start a folder with names, birthdates, marriages deaths and such and be sure to keep everything in this folder. You will become a detective.

I've been tracking my family in England for a couple of years with Ancestry.com, like Oma mentioned. I needed ancestry because I'm looking in England and there are awesome records only available if you are a member. I pay about 120.00 a year.

Or, you can go to a local LDS church and and do the research yourself for almost nothing. It just takes alot of time.

Have fun!

Love,
Joanna

jenilake · Post by **jenilake** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:35 pm

Hi Joanna,

I don't know the names of my grand parents, or any other relatives before them.

I am going to get together with my cousin, who has some info. I will try the church you told me about in your message.

I hope you are settled in to your new home. I hope it is what you really wanted. You seemed to love Alaska so much. I'm only saying this because I have lived in a place I hate, for so many years. It hardly seems worth it. I would never have moved here if I had known my SO really never planned to leave. He told me we would be here for a year. That was about 1989. Still here in 2007. Says we can't move because he has too much invested in his job.

Sorry to vent, I think I am tired of this.

Love, Kathyp

jenilake · Post by **jenilake** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 8:52 am

Joanna,

Do you mean a Mormon church? Why would they let me do that research there?

Love, Kathyp

jenilake · Post by **jenilake** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 8:56 am

Oh this is too funny, I didn't even spell it right.

I used to be a very good speller, wonder what happened.

Kathyp

Post by **tex** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:19 am

Kathy,

Yes, Joanna is definitely on to something there. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides an online search of the millions of names in its International Genealogical Index, and it appears to be free. It's claimed to be the largest collection of genealogy records in the world. Here's their website:

http://www.familysearch.org/

Great suggestion, Joanna!

Love,
Tex

starfire · Post by **starfire** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 6:51 am

Interesting...........They had no matches on my married name, using date of marriage, or my maiden name, using date of birth, but my Dad showed up: . Ralph Howington - U.S. Social Security Death Index Birth: 10 Dec 1919 State Where Number was Issued: Georgia Death: 28 Dec 2003

I think they picked him up when his death was reported to social security.

They had nothing on my Mom either (I presume because she is still alive).

I was just curious.

Love, Shirley

jenilake · Post by **jenilake** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 12:38 pm

Thanks Joanna and Tex.

I will give this a try.

Love, Kathyp

harvest_table · Post by **harvest_table** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 3:49 pm

jenilake wrote:I hope you are settled in to your new home. I hope it is what you really wanted. You seemed to love Alaska so much. I'm only saying this because I have lived in a place I hate, for so many years. It hardly seems worth it. I would never have moved here if I had known my SO really never planned to leave. He told me we would be here for a year. That was about 1989. Still here in 2007. Says we can't move because he has too much invested in his job.

Sorry to vent, I think I am tired of this.

Love, Kathyp

Kathy,

We are not really settled yet.....in fact we still have tons of boxes to unpack but we have been pretty busy with yard, vegetable gardens and canning up until last week. Will probably have our first hard frost within the week so outside stuff will be over soon. This feels like home already and we know we made the right decision- it's so nice to be near our family. Not sure you know this but my FIL is living with us and that's going smoothly.

I'm sorry to hear you sound so depressed about things- glad to see you posting here though. Great group of folks. Maybe your new found interest in tracing your family history is will lift your spirits as you uncover names, dates ect. As Tex mentioned, start with your parents and get copies of their birth certificates- that will give you info on your grandparents and then you can work back from there.

Shirley, most all of the records research I've been doing is in England so I have little experience digging around in the US. I also had some trouble finding some info on my great grandfather in the US so it doesn't surprise me you did too- I don't think the US has been as careful to keep good records until more recently.

Wasn't Janet into geneology?

Love,
Joanna

jenilake · Post by **jenilake** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:49 am

Hi Joanna,

I'm glad you are happy with your decision to move. It definitely makes a difference in how your life goes.

I don't know if I am depressed or not. I went off my anti-depressant a few weeks ago. I don't really feel any differently now than I did on it.

I notice, I do cry easier and more often about a lot more things. But some of them would make me cry anyway. Child abuse, animal abuse etc.

I used to live in West Seattle, on Puget Sound. We looked right off our deck onto the water. Ferries, boats, a lot of activity. I am a water person, I love the ocean and lakes. I cried all the way down here to Portland area, on the day we moved. Now, I think that should have given me a clue to stay put.

If I had it to do over again I would have stayed. Now SO tells me he wanted to get away from his family.....He told me then that it was to go to school.

We had a lot of good schools right there.

He tells me now he would move back, but has too much invested in his job. He wants to retire or be able to work from home first. He may be able to work from home in a couple years.

The problem is, he is 9 years younger than me, when he retires, I could be dead.

You don't have to answer this, but thanks for letting me vent. Living someplace you don't want live that long, can take a toll. I really don't mean that I am really depressed, just the way I usually feel.

Love, Kathyp

Gloria · Post by **Gloria** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:32 pm

There are many free websites for genealogy. FamilySearch contains names of deceased persons, that's why you couldn't find information on living persons, Shirley. There is a lot of information for beginning researchers on the site. It even has free genealogy software you can download. It is free to all as are the Family History Centers, located throughout the world. The Salt Lake City Family History Library is the largest genealogy library in the world. I was just doing research there last week while visiting my daughter. Both church members and non-members can use it for free.

One website, CyndisList.com, contains over 200,000 links to genealogy websites. It's probably not the best place to start because it's pretty overwhelming, but it's worth a look. Other free sites where people post and seek information are RootsWeb and GenWeb.

Joanna is correct in writing that you should contact your oldest living relatives first. And as Tex said, birth, marriage and death certificates provide many clues, though they aren't free. Several states have begun posting early vital records online. A good site to find what records are available online is: http://www.progenealogists.com/genealogysleuthb.htm . You always want to find these three minimum pieces of information about each person: names, dates and places.

While Ancestry charges for home access, many libraries subscribe to it and it's free to patrons. Heritage Quest is another site that libraries subscribe to, but it can be accessed from home via your library website. Ancestry and Heritage Quest both allow you to search and look at censuses, which are extremely valuable to the genealogist. I'm still looking at censuses after more than 30 years of doing research.

You'll find genealogy to be fascinating and, as Joanna said, you'll feel like a detective. You get very excited when you find a new piece of information.