We need family TREE-tment!

In My Humble Opinion
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I got interested in Family History in 1976. I’d done a pretty fair amount of research on my Daddy’s side of the family… a few surnames: PRATT, MOORE, DYE, RONEY, SHEARER, FERGUSON, FOLSOM, DAWKINS. My mother’s side of the family have been LDS for eons so tons of research had already been done. The fact that some of the lines were polygamist helped and I always said if I caught up with them, I’d do research on both sides of my family. I NEVER came close…lol

I was in a roll over car accident 3 years ago and lost all my genealogy. I’ve been working on recovering it. I’ve got quite a bit of the basics back, but none of the paper goodies. Some of which can’t be reproduced of course, but that’s a sad subject I think I’ll leave alone right now. :frowning:

Anyway, Rico has become interested in his Genealogy and Family History. We’d begun working on it a few months ago and told his Mom we were doing it. This weekend, she coughed up a bunch of info. :smiley: Some of it, we’d already found on the internet, but it was still great to have it “confirmed”.

My mil’s side have been LDS for eons too and have done a fair amount of research, but Rico’s grandmother had a very interesting habit. If she didn’t like the events the way they happened, she rewrote history. :eek: So we’ll be checking that info very carefully.

His paternal side has had a little research done, but lots and lots more we can do. Some surnames: WAYMAN, LAING, STRATTON, CAMPBELL, SPOONER, CROCKETT, GREIG, STRANG.

Why am I coming to ya’ll???

There sure have been a ton of changes since I last was doing research, plus Ric’s Dad’s side of the family are pretty new to USA. His Dad was born in Scotland, but that was due to a trip back home by his parents after they had already moved here.

I’ve never done research in any other country then USA. My lines that “cross the water” have been extended that far by others.

We’d sure like some suggestions, thoughts, ideas, etc.

Alot of the places I used to go to on the net are GONE

:eek:

We were both excited to see there are so many more sites now :smiley: but lots of them want $$$ to use their sites.

What sites do you like, recommend, should be avoided at all costs (taken off the web), is Ancestry.com really worth $200/yr?

Since we’re both computer geeks and history buffs (and this is a return to a former addiction for me), we’re jazzed to be moving into the 21st century family history wise. :smiley:

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Well they charge bit by bit. I can’t really say their basic subscription is worth it. Sure somethings are neat but a lot of it’s just fluff. Their census subscription can be useful but since you live in L.A. you’d be better off just heading down to the National Archives to see the census for free then pay for what are very high quality images. They really don’t do repairs on broken images though so if the page you want is broken you might wait years for them to fix it. Their newspaper index is real nice in that you can search newspapers but the selectionis still really limited. So I can’t see why you’d want to give them any of your money.

Overseas is very tough. I’ve only managed to do some in Sastin, Slovakia (where a quarter of my ancestors come from) by finding a local researcher to do the work for me. Some foreign countries are really touchy about stuff like that go. I’ve heard that Italy is particularly difficult. Most places in the UK though have a long history of family histories so they should be helpful.

PRO is really great if you have English ancestors. I was able to find an extremely fascinating legal case about inheritance from 1697 which gave many details covering most of the 17th century. Searches are free but you have to pay to get a copy sent to you.

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Good luck with the research. I’ve been looking off and on for 25 years and only recently got serious about it.
And I can sympathize with the loss of data. While still new to this computer thing I was not properly saving my data and then, well, the computer crashed, 6000 names down the drain. In the last year and a half I’ve lost my computer data 3 times, if it happens again, it could be years before I try again.

I use ancestry.com for a good part of my research.I also use Gencircles.com. I don’t bother with the newspaper offer as I have yet to see a newspaper that would be of use to me. The census records…When I feel like actually doing my own research I use them (or I could get off my but and go down to the National Archives).
Since I have no intention of publishing my genealogy I don’t worry too much about documentation. However I do pay attention to where the people who have done their research get theirs. Occasionally I run across conflicting information and then I check to see what one of several ‘trusted’ fellow researchers have and if it is still unresolved I try to hunt the correct info down myself.
Fortunately for me, quite a bit of my family history has allready been published, unfortunately the female lines are often neglected.

Since you mentioned your family names I’ll throw out a few of mine. My family is predominately German with a little Swiss, French, and Irish and a few I can’t think of right now. The Swiss and the French probably spoke German as the region they lived in or near was the much disputed Alsace region. The families came over 300 some years ago to Maine, Pennsylvania and Massachuesetts eventually making their way to North Carolina before spreading to the mid-west.
Spach/Spaugh, Reid, Knauss/Krause, Burke, James, Miller, Hauser.

Sorry (if) for the hijack. I am here in D.C. if you want me to try to find anything at the National Archives or the Library of Congress, it’ll give me a reason to get out of the house.

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That just makes me want to cry!

Have you set up a webpage with your gedcom on it? I wish I’d done that. I now have 2 sites just in case…plus 3 floppys. I don’t ever want to go through this again and I know there is no way to ever recover all the information my Aunt had uncovered during her entire life! She attended family reunions, etc. to get a lot of her info.

Thank you very much both of you! I have bookmarked the links and will be looking at this as soon as I finish this.

Oh, almost forgot…a number of my lines are in Massachusetts and North Carolina. I don’t recognize the names you have listed, catnoe, but if you’ll send me the counties, etc, I’d be happy to keep a look out.

Osiris, your point about having resources readily available is exactly right and if my only reason for considering to pay for an internet searchable site was because of laziness, I’d give myself an attitude adjustment and then get off my duff and out there.

My health is bad so I can’t get out very much or for very long. Just explaining why…not sure why… like it’s even matter to you.

Sorry.

I hadn’t thought of perhaps hiring someone to reach the areas I won’t be able to, but when you said that, it jogged my memory. I’m not totally sure I’m remembering correctly, but it seems to me like a long time ago, I heard there were some countries that wouldn’t let just any one search through their records. Don’t remember what countries or anything, but thanks to you, I’ll be keeping that idea in the back of my mind and will hire if need be.

I’m off to look at the links.

Thanks tons,

Kathy

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cadolphin, I checked your webpage and nothing struck a chord.
My family is found in the peidmont area, Forsyth,Stokes, Davie, Davidson, Iredell, Rowan counties, and what ever is around then that I missed.
When they went to the midwest, it was to Indiana, and Illinois. Places with names like Salem and Hope are places they settled, not all those place names but those are the names the took with them.

I haven’t gotten around to making a webpage or up-loading my data, computers are still a little intimidating to me, I’ll learn the rest eventually.

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Have you looked at cyndi’s list ? Also Genforum ? I hope these links work (haven’t checked them out) but I have found Genforum to be especially helpful.

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Oops, try this one–Cyndi’s List