I've got my genealogy back to 1545!!

[Critters2]

Ancestry.com is really amazing. It keeps linking me to other family trees that people have done, with people in my tree. I could never have done this work without ancestry.com

But I have...found relatives living in Poitiers, France in 1545. Completely amazing.

Off to bed, now. :hi:

[REP]

1. ...you might want to do your own research

A lot of of those trees are ... erm ... built on wishful thinking and little hard fact. I've found a crapload of errors in other peoples' charts when they intersect with my family.

[Critters2]

5. I did find one error, a birthdate that didn't make sense,

so I had to delete one whole branch.

I have done quite a bit of my own research, using a site called scotlandspeople.gov.uk, which has photocopies of old parish records. I try to verify as much info as I can using such resources. I admit, I do need to find ways to verify the French line. The German lines, my paternal grandfather's side, hits a dead end real early on. Even using family trees made by others on both sides of the Atlantic.

So, I'm trying to be careful. Thanks for the caveat! :hi:

[csziggy]

7. I've had Footnote.com recommended as a place to get copies of original source material

To verify information from Ancestry.com or other sources. Of course, they will not have privately held sources, such as family Bibles, but they apparently can get wills, deeds, and other public information documents. So far, I have no enrolled in Ancestry.com or Footnote.com but I intend to soon.


http://www.footnote.com/

[Sebastian Doyle]

8. And many of them are LDS church operated.

They'll help you find your dead relatives - as long as you let them baptize them and convert them to Mormonism.

[Critters2]

10. I've used their site, but so far, they haven't asked me to let

them baptize anyone by proxy. If they ask, the answer will be a firm "No!". My ancestors were, for the most part, active members of their own chosen faiths. I intend to respect that.

[DemBones DemBones]

11. It's my impression that they never ask permission

to baptize by proxy, they just do it. We're probably all Mormons in their books.

[Critters2]

12. That's what I figure. I don't think such a "baptism" actually does anything.

Well, nothing except demonstrate a remarkable disrespect for people.

[Skittles]

2. assuming those fathers were all the real fathers

:rofl:

[Critters2]

4. Hey! Do I pee on your parade? nt

[DFW]

3. You're lucky

I can only find my own as far back as the mid 1800s. It seems that there were a few recent
immigrants from Eastern Europe who became Mississippi Riverboat gamblers who fled east to
New York to escape some debts they couldn't pay. One of my grandfathers was born dirt poor
in South Carolina, worked his way through college as a part-time janitor, and ended up on
the Supreme Court of the State of New York. I don't know much about his background, either.

My wife, on the other hand has a bound book with her family ancestry starting with some minor
northern German nobleman in the year 1473.

[applegrove]

6. I got back to the 1600s in the USA by linking to somebody else's family tree. Tis

fun.

[bikebloke]

9. Went back to the 1600's in Scotland

Someone went waaaaaay overboard with lateral research. After seeing their whole tree, I'm not sure who the present people are. Anyway, my branch matched names from my own research through census records in the National Archives (a bout of unemployment in the DC area does have an advantage). Luckily, I've had kin who had creative names to keep my on the right branch.