Ancestry.com is really cool, ever looked at it...

OliverGuy

Well-known Member
I have found lots of interesting info, how do you guys like it? My kids and I are still learning the site. Learned my great grandpa stopped school at 7th grade, became one whale of farmer. But his son and my grandpa took 5 years of college in the hills of Indiana which looked to be very abnormal on the census page. I liked my great grandpa's WW1 draft card. Listed him as "Tall" and "Stout". There were places where you checked off the stature of the draftees. I wouldn't have wanted to mess with him, I guess he was around 6'8" and 350# or more. Later he farmed a bunch of bottoms and hollers with.. you guessed it..two hart parr's and then right before he died, two Oliver 70's.
 
Been using it for almost over 15 years. lots of good and interesting information. Wife does get upset for using it so much.
 
I did when I was searching my dads side of the family. I found out that I still had relatives living in Germany. The funny part of it was I lived in a little town for 2 1/2 years while in the Army and they lived there also. This town is where my family came over here from. Even found out they have a family crest which I saw while in Germany but did not know anything about at the time
 
Just a word of caution. They have a lot of errors in their system. Make sure you confirm all dates if you are serious about you'r family tree.
Other than that, it's a good reference site.
I have been doing genealogy for many years helping others trace their heritage.
 
I joined and checked out my family tree. Ancestry.com sent me a bag of seeds and told me to start over.
 
I've looked it over but never went so far as paying for more information. I did find a couple of errors. One thing that was nice to know was that I had a GGGG grandfather that was a participant in the Boston tea party, he and another GGGG grandfather were both in the revolutionary war. On the other side I also found a relative that was run out of Kentucky for stealing horses. I was curious if the information was true and both stories checked out. I guess all families have a black sheep.
 
I used Ancestry.com for a year. I don't think there is a better place. You can also find a lot with just google searches. Sometimes you can find some pictures at a site called Dead Fred. Then another good site is findagrave.com.
 
one thing you have to remember when searching for records is that the spelling was not very good especially in the census records.A lot of people did not now how to spell and the names were spelled liked they sounded.
A good free sight is familysearch.org.
 
Yes, but a word to the wise. After I had looked around a bit...being a numbers guy....I realized that all the men in my family die within a few years of the same age. Then I starts doing a little counting backward. AND THEN...

I decided I did not like ancestry dot com so much anymore.
 
I went looking thru old newspapers on the Library of Congress' "Chronicling America" website. I found a news article that mentioned my great-great grandfather's death in the explosion of the Sultana after the Civil War. His name was Truman Jackson, but the Urbana (Ohio) Union newspaper reported it as Freeman Jackson.
Chronicling America Historical Newspaper site
 
I used it for a while. Then I got paranoid about identity theft with birth dates, places of birth, maiden names, etc.. Deleted everything and left.
 
My father in law has it. Traced my dad's side back to a castle in England. I have a distant relative who survived the Salem witch trials.... kinda makes sense after meeting some of dad's sisters and other relatives....

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
Hey Fred, was he a prisoner during the war. I thought a lot of the people killed had just been released and were going home just after the war. Maybe I have my history wrong.
 
Ancestry is where I spend a couple hours a day in the winter since retirement. I've been there about 10 years now. I did the autosomal DNA test a couple years ago and have connected with several cousins and answered several question. All of my ancestors predate the Revolutionary War. It's cheaper than tractors.
Bill
 
I was on there long enough to follow someone's work on my name to a dead end around 1805. No birth records for one person. Which fits one of the stories I've heard, that someone moved along to avoid prosecution. Before photography you could move 300-350 miles and change your first name, the likelihood of anyone knowing you chancing upon you was pretty slim.
 
My wife is on there a lot. As Bill said about DNA, it will prove what is really correct. Some people just want quanity and do not care about quality. This is why my wife shares very little info with others because they just take it and run. But she has come across some very high quality researchers. They have combined efforts to ferret out information that is much overlooked from old newspapers, tax records, POA, etc. She is having trouble with trying to find much on the Calvert lines because of the yankees burning all the records. But DNA is proving and disproving several things.

Keep digging. My aunt always said when you go back 7 generations that we are all related. I just hope not. I have some that I know of that I wish were related to some one else. But in some places, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
 
See if there's something like a newspaper search site in your area. We have one here and I've been able to fill in a lot of blanks from the Civil War forward era. Always knew an uncle won the Silver Star. Didn't know he also won the Navy Cross, how he got it, where and that he transferred from the Navy to USMC. I've also been able to fill in a lot of blanks on other family members. Unfortunately, the other side of the families area doesn't have a search available.
 

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