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From: Julia's Nana
Date: 07-02-2005, 06:23 AM (1 of 10)
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We just returned from a trip to the town where I was born and raised. We took a trip to the cemetery and I discovered that my great maternal grandmother, both sets of grandparents and my parents plus many family members are all buried there. I have avoided the cemetery for years so it was amazing to realize that I had so many loved ones from both sides so near each other. I wrote down several birth and death dates that I didn't have a record of. Now I think I would like to know more..............fill in the dates and names of those who are buried elsewhere. Has anyone out there done a family genealogy search like this and do you have any tips? I did a search and found several free sites that seem to have lots of helpful ideas on them but thought it would be nice to have some personal tips before I start. I just want dates more than anything so that if my kids want to know more, they will have a place to start their own with more solid information than I have at present. I also have a lot of my mother's old family pictures that I want to label with names and dates...........several of which I may be the only one alive who remembers who they are.............so it is important to write it all down NOW while I still remember. It may take forever but definately a project that needs to be completed before it is all lost info. Norma |
User: Julia's Nana
Member since: 08-28-2001 Total posts: 361 |
From: Dede
Date: 07-02-2005, 08:34 AM (2 of 10)
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Norma, there are a few programs that will make it easy for you to keep track of everything. Power Point have charts possibilities and I think Excell does too. Might be worth it for you to invest a little and keep things organized. My cousin did our family tree on my father's side a few years ago. Went back to the 1700's. Our family name has changed a bit since those beginnings. It was very interesting. |
User: Dede
Member since: 03-23-2001 Total posts: 469 |
From: DorothyL
Date: 07-02-2005, 08:45 AM (3 of 10)
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For information contact local historical societies. Many have someone who specializes in helping people with this kind of search. Often they have records, sometimes photos. Counties keep track of land records so, if there was a family homestead you can find information there. Dorothy |
User: DorothyL
Member since: 12-09-2002 Total posts: 3883 |
From: Julia's Nana
Date: 07-02-2005, 02:29 PM (4 of 10)
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Thanks for the suggestions...........there was land somewhere in my father's family that was sold before I was born. I have his military records, death and birth certificate so that is a great help. I am trying to pull up stories I heard as a kid and believe me, that was a long time ago. My advice to anyone with older folks still living in their families is get the information NOW as I find I am relying on a lot of memories that might not be quite right. I think we have Power Point and Excell as my husband used to use them for work. I know my daughter uses Power Point for her presentations for work. So my learning curve may grow here as I don't have a clue how to use them but then again, didn't used to know how to quilt or to use the computer either so there is hope....................Thanks! Norma |
User: Julia's Nana
Member since: 08-28-2001 Total posts: 361 |
From: SummersEchos
Date: 07-02-2005, 05:05 PM (5 of 10)
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They have online classes to help you with this. My dad took some of them and found them very helpful. He was able to do his side of the family back to the times that they started to keep records. He was starting on my moms side but his health prevented him from going further. I agree if you have members of your family who have information or stories get them now. When you take pictures write who they are, who are their parents, date of birth/death/anything else. I now do all of that plus what city/state/hospital they were born in. A family reunion is a great place to get information. With the computers being so affordable to many, find if you have relatives online and you can talk to them. Most people love it when they find a relative who they haven't seen or heard from that part of the family in ages. Gives you lots more info on the family. Just my ideas. Summer Summer
FREE FALLIN |
User: SummersEchos
Member since: 09-29-2004 Total posts: 884 |
From: mamahoogie
Date: 07-02-2005, 07:34 PM (6 of 10)
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I just started researching my mother's father's family (Gratton Willett) a couple of years ago and it has been a labour of love. I purchased a CD called "Family Tree Maker" which is a wonderful, easy to use program. I can even add pictures of my ancestors to it, and I can scan in marriage, death, divorce, etc records and add them to the file. For free information check out www.rootsweb.com and join the correct mailing list(s). This is how I found scads and scads of info on the Willett family I was searching. I knew they came from North Collins N.Y. so I joined the N.Y. Erie mailing list. Also, if you have a Latter-Day 7th Day Adventist (www.familysearch.org) church in your area, they may have a research centre and you can search their records or Ancestory.com. They will also order in reels from the main church so you can print your info. Good luck Violet I've decided to live forever - so far, so good.
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User: mamahoogie
Member since: 12-25-2002 Total posts: 461 |
From: Julia's Nana
Date: 07-02-2005, 10:27 PM (7 of 10)
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I found the Latter Day Saint (Mormon) site and they had a lot to use to search plus we live in a area with a large Mormon population and I think there are local things that are open to the public. I hadn't thought about using a CD...............I will have to look and see what kind of programs there are. I don't want to do an extensive search, just fill in a few blanks for my kids in case they ever want to know more. I just feel like if I don't do it using what I can recall, it will be lost. |
User: Julia's Nana
Member since: 08-28-2001 Total posts: 361 |
From: HeyJudee
Date: 07-04-2005, 07:36 PM (8 of 10)
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Norma, over 30 years ago I took my grandfather back to the town where he and his brothers and sisters were born. I met lots of relatives - mostly his cousins. At that time, one of his cousins (a retired school teacher) was working on a family tree of his mother's side of the family - my great grandmother. I remember her telling us about the research she was doing but never heard anything further. After my father died in 2002, I found a copy of what she had prepared and sent to my grandfather. It was amazing and so interesting. She had accumulated approx. 57 pages of data. It had names with dates of births and deaths. For many of the people she had even written a paragraph about them. Things like where they lived, what they did for a living, etc. I found out that my great aunt Mary was considered an artist and painted on china. She never married and took care of her mother when she took sick. There were two brothers who went to work in Minnisota. They died within a day of each other - each falling off a roof they were working on. I was even listed in her family tree but two of my brothers born after me (1960 and 1963) were not. To me these pages, though now tattered and torn, are priceless. So whatever you can, definitely write it down. Someone will appreciate it in the future. TTFN from
Judy |
User: HeyJudee
Member since: 01-25-2005 Total posts: 1366 
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From: Julia's Nana
Date: 07-04-2005, 09:27 PM (9 of 10)
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Judy, What you have is what I want for my kids. I don't know a lot about some of these people but I do want to leave behind what I do know for someone who might be interested in the future. My mother died in Sept. and I have a bunch of old black and white photos of family members that she had. My sisters are a lot younger than I am and don't remember a lot of the people in those pictures so it occured to me that I am the only one who knows who they are............so I need to at least lablel them with what I know so when I am gone they aren't useless. Part of the reason I want the birth and death dates is to put with these pictures. Not so much a tracing of my line as just a documentation of who was who and when they lived. Several of the folks in that cemetery were a very big part of my childhood and I hope to write down things about them that I remember. I also have some odds and ends of things that my mother saved like a poem an uncle wrote about me when I was small.................I want to put that with his picture as it makes him so much more real that way. This is going to take time but I think it will be worth the effort to someone someday. Hopefully if someone wants to take this information and go farther back they will have a starting point. And if not, at least future generations will know more about all those who came before them. |
User: Julia's Nana
Member since: 08-28-2001 Total posts: 361 |
From: paroper
Date: 07-06-2005, 11:19 AM (10 of 10)
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Use the Mormon information for a starting point but keep in mind that it is just an accumulation of information from other individuals who are doing research. My grandfather's name is wrong in the Mormon site but it is rather a big deal to get it corrected. I tried to get the lady (a distant relative whom I did not know) to correct the information. I have plenty to prove his name, but she would not. If you can get a marriage certificate, a death certificate or a birth certificate or social security records, even land records and census records, you may be able to open doors you never imagined. I joined Ancestry.com to help me with my research...and there are several web sites to help. I too have Family Tree Maker. It is the most widely used program for geneology which is nice if you share information. Oklahoma is like the WORST state to get information. My grandfather died in 1941 and the funeral home just never got around to registering his death certificate...it is buried somewhere in the basement records...having trouble getting it. My mother born in 1915, my dh's mother in 1922 and my dad in 1911 never had birth certificates (at all) dm and dd had a pseudo certificate made up when he went to WWII. My great grandfather's death certificate is not fully filled out (died in 1939) and shows his buiral 40 miles from where he is buried. His grave where he is buried by his wife is unmarked and the cemetary has no record (believe me, I litterly searched the size 9 shoe box of notes and payment receipts) if his wife's marker were not there, they would know she was buried there either. However, if you don't have to get information here, outside of the state where I have had to look, Ohio, CT, VA all have wonderful records in some cases for centuries. I would love to travel to CT to get full records but the geneological societies have been wonderful to do research. The Wood Co, Ohio gen society was too. If you can reach far enough back in your geneology, you'll eventually be able to "touch" someone else's research. My cousin looked for 4 years for the link to go on but couldn't find it...had names and records verified back 5 generations. She made the comment that if she knew the root name of our family she could probably find it. I went online and started from the ships to America and was just lucky enough to hit a link that took me right to the place that she was working (in just one morning). All the names matched...it was really cool from there we were able to get information into the European side of the family (all verifiable). A few months later we found ourselves in Va at a "family reunion" with others that had found the link. Good luck in your research! pam
Bernina 200e, Artista V5 Designer Plus, Explorations, Magic Box, Bernina 2000DE & 335 Bernette Serger, Bernina 1530 Sewing Machine, Bernina 1300 DC Overlock (with coverstitch) |
User: paroper
Member since: 02-03-2004 Total posts: 3775 |
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