I’ve been working on family history for a while now with my dad and have recently hit some brick walls. But more than pleading for assistance, I’m starting this thread just because I’m curious about what experiences other Dopers have had with this sort of thing.
Are there any Scottish Dopers out there … (Dopers who live in Scotland?), who know anything about doing family history there and what kinds of records were kept by whom? Yes? Would you please e-mail me? Or post your tips here? I’m aware of the Scottish Archives website and related ilk, just wondering if anyone knows of resources in Scotland that may not be on the internet.
How 'bout other Dopers doing their geneology? Have you found anything interesting? Are you related to any famous people, from way back in the day?
How did you discover these dead ancestors? What kinds of interesting stories have you acquired in your research?
What’s the furthest back a Doper has traced their family history? I’ve got mine documented back to 1741 in Scotland. Who can beat it?
My uncle traced back my family history on my Mom’s side all the way to the 6th century to a guy named Pepin the Elder, the founder of the Merovingian dynasty. But I’m rather skeptical of any of the genealogical information before the 1400’s. All of my traceable ancestors from before that point are noblemen, who were apt to forge famous ancestries to justify their place in society.
Recent famous ancestors include James Watt and Philip Sharples, the inventor of the Sharples Cream Separator (Okay, he’s not that famous, but he does have a dining hall at Swarthmore named after him [Well, technically it’s named after his son, my great-uncle]).
More distant famous ancestors are, of course, all the descendants of Pepin the Elder, including Pepin the Short, Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, and several members of the Plantagenet family. I estimated that around 30 million people can trace their ancestry to William the Conqueror, so even if he is a legitimate ancestor, big deal.
Don’t know about any famous relatives, but my grandfather was sued by American Steel (I think that was their name) for $1 million dollars way back in the 50’s or 60’s for trying to form a union. I always that was kind of cool in a way…
FTR, no, the suit never went through, and had it, they would’ve had better luck getting blood from a stone.
The oldest ancestor I have is a farmer who farmed in Cosgrove, Northamptonshite, England named Thomas Beauchamp. He was born abt. 1500. His great grandson John Beauchamp was a London merchant and was the last investor the Plymouth Colony owed any money too. He got rich enough to buy a crest and made it into a 1633 Visitation of London. His son Edmund was the clerk for Somerset Co., MD for 25 years. Other then that it’s mostly pretty common stuff. Although my 4th great grandfather, Zacheus S. McElroy, was murdered in Mississippi.
All total I know of 220 direct ancestors. And am interested in finding out how I can get my grubby little hands census schedules from Italy.
Oh and this was fascinating and cost me several hundred dollars to find out (3’ X 4’ color copies of 17th century legal documents) Anyway when my 10th great grandfather John Beauchamp (mentioned above) died many of his kids were still young. Particularly his youngest child George was only 13 or so. Anyway he ended up getting cheated out of his inheritance. He got tossed into debtors prison leaving a wife (Sarah) and several children who were very very poor. They were living in Nottingham by the way. Anyway he finally gets out and father’s his last child and then dies. And Sarah just flipped out. She went nuts. For the next 12 years the children were raised by this crazy woman who tried to stab and choke them on several occasions. Stumbling around the town nearly naked (occasionally naked) and threatening to kill herself and she would rip the hair from her head. When her neighbors came over to try and help her she would often hide under the bed. She did a lot of wandering up and down the fields gathering “hipps an dhawds.” And once “in one of her rambles met with the common swineheard and had like to strangled him with the string about his neck belonging to his horse but that he throwing her downe gott away from her” Nobody had her committed to Bethleam(sp?) since they felt sorry for her and knew what kind of horrible places insane asylums were. A real tragic story. Reading the depositions was really heart breaking. I still can’t tell if Sarah (who had finally come to her senses and sued her in-laws) won or not. Although the Judge was so taken with her that he did do what he could to help them. Even promising to pay for her lawsuit
Just in case anyone’s interested here’s the origin towns I knows of for me
England: Cosgrove, Settrington, Roade
Italy: Valloe della Luciana
Slovakia: Sastin
Anybody have roots in those towns?
I have a relative (my maternal grandmother’s uncle) who killed his mother.
No?
Did I mention he fancied himself an Evangelical minister?
Nothing?
Did I mention that he strangled her with a chain after a 4 day prayer meeting?
Still nothing?
How about that he kept the police at bay for a day and a half while he tried to pray her back to life. (He was convinced he could; that’s why he killed her in the first place.)
tough crowd.
Oh yeah, he did all this to settle an argument with one of his parishoners who challenged his “abilities”.
and, yes, this happened in the deep recesses of Kentucky, where my kinfolk are from.
I’ve been working on a genealogy of my dad’s family for about 5 years. His father essentially had two families (his first wife died in 1917 and he then married my grandmother in 1921), but never talked about his ancestors at all. The whole process has been fascinating, and has broght my father and I much closer (and added bonus).
The earliest ancestor on my father’s side that I have definitive proof of is my g-g-g-grandfather (Joseph Tyson), who was in Stafford County, VA in the early 1750s. My mother’s family has been documented back to Argyllshire, Scotland in the mid 1600s.
Anyone famous? Nope. Just plain, old hardworking folks. My g-g-grandfather fought in the War of 1812, and my g-grandfather fought in the Civil War, but none were generals or men of high rank. My g-aunt spent 30 years in a mental institution after stabbing her husband (she found him in bed with another woman, so some say he got what he deserved). I’ve obtained a copy of her medical records and it seems to me that she was fine when she went in and then gradually went insane from simply being in the place. A sad story, indeed.
My Grandma (Mom’s mom) was the only survivor in her family of the biggest mass murder in Hamilton (Ohio) history. (At least at the time. It was about 80 years ago, and I can only hope that record still stands.)
Her uncle came in drunk and crazy with a shotgun. Proceded to shoot the whole family, then himself. There was a sad and sick picture of her in the local paper at the time. A little girl surrounded by the coffins of her family. (Six of them, I think.) She still doesn’t like to get her picture taken.
Grandpa (Dad’s dad) was in the seminary for a while. He quit. Later he “had” to marry Grandma. (Not Mom’s mom. That would be sick.) This was back in the '30’s. (Mild irony: his brother ran a pharmacy.)
The Little Woman (only 4" tall!) was researching her family tree. She ran it back a ways and found an ancestor that fought (and collected some money somehow, pension?) on both sides of the Civil War. (Or American Civil War, or The War Between the States.)
-Rue.
We know nothing about my mom’s ancestory, because she was adopted. But on my dad’s side, we know that we’re descendents of Erik the Red (and therefore, Leif Erikson). Most of our family, on my grandma’s side, comes from England and on my grandfather’s side comes from Norway. I also know that, on my grandma’s side, there was someone named Steelman who was a Confederate Soldier in the Civil War.
Hey! Coincidence!! I just put up this page a couple of days ago. This covers the individual I’ve had most trouble tracking, and her children. Anyone who can solve the Smith/Stapleton mystery for me earns my eternal gratitude.
I am of Scottish descent. My middle name is Annan, and there is a town of Annan in southern Scotland, on or near the river Annan, which I believe forms part of the current border with England. Alas, the last time I was there (1981 or so), there was no-one in the town still named Annan, and they thought it was cute when I showed them my drivers license. I haven’t had a chance to follow up on it. That’s on my mom’s side, and the middle name Annan belongs to me, my cousin, my mom, her mom, her grandfather, and on back.
On dad’s side there is more information. A book was published about my great-great grandfather (or was it great-great-great?), the guy who founded Friendswood, Texas, as a Quaker settlement back in the 1800’s. He was a really politically incorrect guy- a buffalo hunter and Indian fighter who was involved in at least one of those nasty buffalo slaughters for pelts that left rotting carcasses for the Indians.
Nice…
I haven’t been able to visit Friendswood yet, but I really want to. The family home is now a museum, and the local historical society is very strong. I assume that there are still descendants of the Brown family living there.
Mormon’s do a lot of geneology studies for some reason. My dad’s family is Mormon and my uncle’s hobby is geneaology. One of my old relative’s is Shadrach R. who was apparently Joseph Smith’s bodygaurd. When Joseph Smith was murdered. Oops.
Also related to Lady Godiva and the traitor guy in Braveheart.
My wife’s grandfather and his brother both served in the same British Army unit in the first world war. They were both wounded by the same bullet when in the front line,but both survived.Hows that for being close to your brother?
I’ve never done any genealogy, but I’ve always thought my Grandmother’s family history was interesting.
Her mother was a homesteader, and she had two fathers: an honest-to-goodness cowboy (impressive to me, since I’m a city boy) and an itinerant tree doctor.
One of her brothers was killed in a movie projector accident. He worked in a picture house, and (as she tells it) he got pulled into the thing somehow and was horribly mangled. (I guess the machines were big back then!).
One of my g’g’g’g’g’uncles, Larkin Skaggs, was a member of Quantrell’s Raiders.
During the infamous raid on Lawrence, Kansas, he got separated from the raiding party. During the raid, he murdered at least two young men - practically boys. Apparently drunk out of his mind, he also tried to set fire to the house of a woman who had “insulted” him by going to Quantrell and demanding that a ring Larkin had taken from her be returned. However, he never really got the fire started, as she continued blowing out the matches as he lit them.
At some point, he realized that the rest of the raiding party had left, leaving him behind. He got on his horse and made a dash for it, but was caught beside a cornfield just outside of town.
He was shot to death, tied to a horse and dragged through town, hung, set on fire, and eventually thrown into a ditch to rot. He was the only casualty of the raiding party that night.
I also ‘knew’ I was related to these two for most of my life, until an extensive geneology was done. Our family has been traced to 20 B.C. (that’s just so damned cool). Icelanders tend to keep very good records, so we have documentation back over 1000 years; I have not seen some of the records but I’ve got copies of the family trees done that go back to 200 A.D. or so.
Odds are, neptune, that we are related. E-mail me!
As for interesting things in my geneology, I’m of Royal stock. [self-aggrandizing air] But then, that was just apparent. [/self-aggrandizing air]
Well, on one side, my (however many greats) grandfather was some sort of minor noblility in Poland with some type of manor or small castle or some such thing. However, at some point around WWI things went sour with the Tzarist officals and he was forced to flee in the dead of night with literally what the family could stuff in their pockets and carry. He left the land in the care of his head servant who then sold it about 20 minutes later (well, maybe a little longer) and moved to the U.S. and opened a gas station. I have some old copies of baptizmal certificates from a relative who went to Poland to learn more but never had a chance to speak to him in any detail about what he learned.
On my mother’s side there’s a semi-interesting story. I guess when her grandparents were coming over from Poland on the boat, my g-grandfather and g-grandmother didn’t know each other. However, upon reaching the U.S., he was cleared for immigration and happened to notice a woman who he recognized from the boat and she was being denied entry because of some minor sores on her body. So he took her back on the boat, got married and then went back to immigration where they had to allow her to enter the country as his wife since he was already accepted. Lest you think this is too romantic, let it be known that the two wound up hating one another with a passion and only stayed married and had children because of the Church. According to my mother, they rarely spoke to one another and slept in seperate rooms. Well, it’s a nice story anyway until you get to that part
Finally, my grandmother’s brother (on my father’s side) killed five people in cold blood but that wasn’t the sort of story she was willing to talk about so that’s all I know about that.
Yay, we’re related (or your uncle and my grandfather bought their genealogical data at the same trinket shop ). The information gets a little more believable around the 18th century. One of my relatives signed the Declaration of Independence.
Mormons are interested in family history and ancestors because they believe that souls can be saved even after death, IIRC. A trip to your local LDS-Family History Center may be worth the trip.
