My last name has only three letters (today). Just poking around on FamilySearch this afternoon I found three different spellings for it since my great, great grandfather arrived here some time before 1840 (I’m told he stowed away on a ship from Germany, so finding immigration records might not be easy). To top it off, I found 5 different spellings for his first name on various documents over a 90 year period.
And from what I understand, most of Europe doesn’t think any thing about 1st cousins getting together.
You can get a topical cream for that now.
My sympathies. I know the original spelling of my German immigrant ancestor and what year he came to America, but can find no record of his journey or his naturalization. The Ship Transcribers Guild has a good free searchable database of immigrant ship manifests that is expanding all the time, if you haven’t checked there.
Thanks for the link. I think I’m going to go ahead and sign up for ancestry.com in hopes I can nail down the timing of his arrival, and maybe this will help me go back from there.
I just typed that into a search engine…
No political refugees from the U.S.?
No…she’s a Lanaster.
My dad’s gotten pretty into this whole thing, down to actually contributing original research to the field. (He has some fascinating theories about how the eruption of Krakatoa in 535 affected crops in Ireland and England.)
He’s found my Revolutionary War ancestor died twice. Once in the Battle of New York, and once at Bunker Hill. He couldn’t figure this out. It’s not just database entries, there was documentation.
Then I pointed out to him that the Battle of New York one was in a hospital, and they had the clergy come by about once a week and write final letters for people who they thought were about to die. So he clearly had the final letter and last rites performed, and got better anyhow.
My dad had a crazy idea about breeding pine trees.
Hmmmmmm…
No joke, when doing my family tree I found out that my grandfather’s father was my great-great-grandfather. :eek: and ewww.
Then if you want to see the actual records, it looks like familysearch.org takes you to ancestry.com.