Geneology

[shirlthegirl43]

Sounds really interesting TonyF. Apparently some of my mother's acestors were from Mongolia, how far back or whatever is going to be very difficult to discover though!

[HeyWayne]

Don't fancy my chances of going back very far. My first name derives from "wagon" and my last name from a plough of some description. I'm guessing I'm from farming stock!

[TonyF]

Sounds really interesting TonyF. Apparently some of my mother's acestors were from Mongolia, how far back or whatever is going to be very difficult to discover though!

Shirl, Mongolia is easy!!!! As are Hindu, French, Armenians but not the Swiss, the records are sealed for 100 years.

The real thing for me are the people who have been told by 'experts' that their families went to Britain with William the Conqueror, fought with Hereward the Wake etc etc. According to my calculations, the Norman Conquest had more French participants than D Day twice over on both sides.

[shirlthegirl43]

Shirl, Mongolia is easy!!!! As are Hindu, French, Armenians but not the Swiss, the records are sealed for 100 years.

My problem lies in that I don't speak to my mother or any members of her family so finding out names or anything will cause problems.

I would love to know why I know the dates of birth for both my parents, but they have never been able to tell me their paren't birthdays never mind year of birth!!!

[Nicos]

See....I said alive and kicking relatives are harder work Shirl!!!!

[Chiana]

www.genesreunited.co.uk can be a handy way of linking up with family members who are also interested in researching the family tree.
It's great the amount of information you can find for free, but I've found that when I've exhausted these resources, and can't go back any further, buying a certificate can make alot of difference, and is worth the money for the time/frustration saved.

[daineal]

My family are from Ireland originally. We have relatives in Scotland & Wales that we know about. On my dads side though one of his uncles was in the British Army & got sent to India. His wife was pregnant at the time so we think we've possibly got relatives over there but we're not sure. Also, on my mums side we have a relative from Roscommon who sold her farm & pub & went to America with 2 of her 3 sons & 1 of her 3 daughters.
I think I've found the records on the Ellis Island website but because we don't know how old she was when she went I can't be sure.
We've got a German name in the family too, at least we think it's German (Bovenizer) so we've possibly got relatives there. I find it fascinating & would love to have the time & money to properly research it but unless we get a nice windfall from somewhere there's just no way it'll be done until the kids are grown & left home.

[Seahorse]

The real thing for me are the people who have been told by 'experts' that their families went to Britain with William the Conqueror, fought with Hereward the Wake etc etc. According to my calculations, the Norman Conquest had more French participants than D Day twice over on both sides.

I used to work in a county archive and the same goes for the amount of Americans who are descended from the Pilgrim Fathers! Those boats they sailed over in must have been HUGE

We also had a sweet old chap who had a very common surname and happily collected info on anyone and everyone else who shared it, confident in his beilef that he must be related to them 'somehow'

Despite (or I dunno, maybe because of!) having a degree in history and working in that field, I've never felt the urge to trace my own family history.

[Digger-07]

Just started researching our family tree & I'm amazed at just how many different surnames there are in it, 23 so far & counting! Can anyone beat this?? I'm sure they can.

Surely the number of names in a family tree is an exponential factor.
For every generation the number of names should double, unless of course the same name occurs in different branches by chance.

[daineal]

We've got 2 different branches of the Jordan family from different parts of Ireland. 3 branches of the O'Donnells, 1 from Ireland, 1 from Coventry & 1 from India.2 lots of Tooher, 1 from Ireland & 1 from Philidelphia U.S.A. 2 lots of Farrell from different parts of Dublin. Wilson,Hill,Charlish & Smith from Coventry. Adams from Banbury. Willem from Preston. Whaley & Jones from Wales.
Also we've got Lunney,McDonnell,Bovenizer,Halford,Gahan & Donoghue from Dublin. Hanafin & Norris from Kerry. Davies from Mullingar & Conlan from Roscommon.
There's bound to be more though as people married into & out of the various families.

[Alison]

Have been doing this for a few years after I discovered a secret side to my mum's family. I've found ancestory.co.uk invaluable along with the Mormon's site and various other bits and pieces. Within a couple of months had located an auntie and 5 cousins I'd never even heard about plus various other great aunties who had died young who my nan knew nothing about either. Got my mum's dad's family back to about 1650 before I came to a brick wall and managed her mum's side back about 6 generations. Need to get back to it when I have the time. Dad's side is harder as there are very few living relatives and more common names but have manged a few generations of that too. Started looking at OH's a bit back and didn't discover that much although disproved several family legends and also discovered that my grandad was born 2 doors away from OH's great grandad's house and as far as we knew we were from different parts of the country!

[TonyF]

Top tip: The Mormon site/Family Search is never ever used by pro. researchers unless they want to make a lot of money quickly.

Regardless of why they have done the work they have done - it's all about their religion, it's definately not a public service - many churches do not allow them access to their records and when there was a long term study done on its content, it was only found to be 60/65% accurate. If you do find your ancestors on Family Search, double check where ever you can to make sure that the core information is accurate, go back to the original records. I have one family I do a lot of work on where names - not common names either - many have up to 11 different spelling/locations/dates of what should be very easily copied material and 6/7 variations on the same source is very common.

The number of mistakes in straight forward transcription of easily read Huguenot records from the UK is really a disgrace.

[shirlthegirl43]

Boosted by this thread, I decided to have a go - via findmypast.com I have started a basic family tree. Have run into a slight problem - all the facilities you can access seem to be England and Wales, my family are all Scottish - are there any sites that list births marriages etc for Scotland?

[Nicos]

Ancestry.co.uk has census details for Scotland- but you'll need to pay £10 a month ( less if you subscribe for a year) but if you sit down and get stuck in, you'll get a lot done in a month and then unsubscribe.

[shirlthegirl43]

Thanks Nicos. Will wait till I have energy to devote time to it then.