Ancestry.com is awesome

[steppinthrax]

Just got a 14-day trail. I'm building my tree. Mainly from Census records I'm finding. This shit is crazy.

 

[etrigan420]

Tempting, although I detest the "Auto-renewal, just call to cancel at any time!" offers...

Sidenote; how does that site make any money? If they have the material readily available, why should it take anyone longer than 15 days for a person to do their entire tree?

 

[steppinthrax]

Tempting, although I detest the "Auto-renewal, just call to cancel at any time!" offers...

Sidenote; how does that site make any money? If they have the material readily available, why should it take anyone longer than 15 days for a person to do their entire tree?

Idk. My goal is to collect as much info as possible in the 14 days and cancel.

 

[John Connor]

Myheritage.com is better.

 

[manimal]

your old person skill has gone up +10

 

[Brainonska511]

Tempting, although I detest the "Auto-renewal, just call to cancel at any time!" offers...

Sidenote; how does that site make any money? If they have the material readily available, why should it take anyone longer than 15 days for a person to do their entire tree?

Sometimes, the records aren't as clear-cut as you would think.

 

[steppinthrax]

Sometimes, the records aren't as clear-cut as you would think.

True,

I'm as far back as 1885. I'm fairly certain on the records because I have cross checked with several Census records that are coherent.

There is a "Roy" and "LeRoy" issue. My Great Grandmother had 9 children!!!!!

 

[Brainonska511]

True,

I'm as far back as 1885. I'm fairly certain on the records because I have cross checked with several Census records that are coherent.

There is a "Roy" and "LeRoy" issue. My Great Grandmother had 9 children!!!!!

My dad's been going through it a lot. Some of them, he's had to manually look at the records. Misspellings galore, slightly different names, depending on who was writing the record, etc... It looks like he's built his out to the early 1800s, and lots of lateral stuff too (eg: cousins of parents, their ancestors...)

 

[bradly1101]

2 parents, 4 grand parents, 8 great grandparents, 16, 32, 64, 128...it's dizzying.

 

[RossMAN]

What info should I have ready before signing up for 14 day trial?

 

[Majcric]

My pathetic family don't know much beyond great grandpa so it's not a lot help to me. Or 1 great for that matter in general

 

[EliteRetard]

OH SHNAP, I just found out I'm related to my dad! And my mom!

 

[DCal430]

True,

I'm as far back as 1885. I'm fairly certain on the records because I have cross checked with several Census records that are coherent.

There is a "Roy" and "LeRoy" issue. My Great Grandmother had 9 children!!!!!

I have seen worst. The last name keeps changing too with each generation, just slight changes in spelling.

Also 9 kids is nothing, my Great Great Grandfather had over 20 children.

 

[DCal430]

My dad's been going through it a lot. Some of them, he's had to manually look at the records. Misspellings galore, slightly different names, depending on who was writing the record, etc... It looks like he's built his out to the early 1800s, and lots of lateral stuff too (eg: cousins of parents, their ancestors...)

I have even seen wrong genders. My great grandfather is name Pollard, in the 1900 census is listed as girl named Polla.

 

[DCal430]

I strongly suspect that literacy was grossly over stated in the census.

 

[Aikouka]

Since I have German heritage, I usually see things like Anglicizing of German names. For example, Braun becomes Brown.

 

[brianmanahan]

It is amazing. I was able to trace my manahan ancestors back to robert the bruce, king of Scotland in the 1200s. Was able to see where all of lived, what towns in Scotland and the US, what ship they came to America on, etc. Even what castles they lived in. And pictures and paintings of some ancestors and relatives.

I can easily spend 8 hours on ancestry and not realize it.

Farthest back I was able to go was 700 ad. Though most family lines can't be traced past coming to America.

 

[Markbnj]

Farthest back I was able to go was 700 ad. Though most family lines can't be traced past coming to America.

They can be, of course, but it just stops being easy when you hit the water. Especially so if your line goes back to a non-english speaking country. Ours goes back to Bavaria in 1855, and so you run into issues with accessing records, and issues of transcribing and translating hand-written records from non-roman alphabets.

It's also worth noting that as complete as Ancestry seems to be, there are huge holes and online research will still take you only so far. The main challenges are records that haven't been scanned or aren't yet online for some other reason, and misspellings and other quality issues. The census is notoriously inaccurate, so if you don't see your ancestor's name when searching make sure to search close alternative spellings or anglicized variations. Some of mine I have been able to find only by hand searching schedules at archive.org.

Which is another valuable site, by the way. Also: familysearch.org is a good free alternative to ancestry, if you don't mind giving the LDS your email address. For some census images they still link back over to ancestry though. I've found that the Mormons have better European coverage.

 

[Brainonska511]

They can be, of course, but it just stops being easy when you hit the water. Especially so if your line goes back to a non-english speaking country. Ours goes back to Bavaria in 1855, and so you run into issues with accessing records, and issues of transcribing and translating hand-written records from non-roman alphabets.

It's also worth nothing that as complete as Ancestry seems to be, there are huge holes and online research will still take you only so far. The main challenges are records that haven't been scanned or aren't yet online for some other reason, and misspellings and other quality issues. The census is notoriously inaccurate, so if you don't see your ancestor's name when searching make sure to search close alternative spellings or anglicized variations. Some of mine I have been able to find only by hand searching schedules at archive.org.

Which is another valuable site, by the way. Also: familysearch.org is a good free alternative to ancestry, if you don't mind giving the LDS your email address. For some census images they still link back over to ancestry though. I've found that the Mormons have better European coverage.

There are also public records available from cemeteries and cities that may not be on Ancestry.com. My dad and his sister have found several records from NYC that weren't available online, but helped fill gaps between what was available online and what was already known. Of course, you'd need to have a rough idea of where to look.

 

[Markbnj]

There are also public records available from cemeteries and cities that may not be on Ancestry.com.

Findagrave.com is a decent social resource for finding burials. But you're right, you have to physically visit the places and access the available public records to get a really complete picture. My Dad and I have been working on ours off and on for over five years, and in that time much more has become available online, but there is still a lot missing.

 

[Papagayo]

OMG!!

I'm related to Adam and Eve?

 

[steppinthrax]

My father is from the middle east, I'm not even going to bother to look his information up because they keep shit records. My mother's side is pretty much uneducated black tenant farmers. My Mom's parents had 9 children.

Last night I had a very hard time trying to find out why my great grandfather's name changed from Jack to Everett. I clicked the "connect" button and found another member who've already completed a portion of the tree. Apparently his full name was Everett Jack "Last Name".

So that clears up the mis-understanding.

There was also a bunch of name "re-use" in the family.

 

[steppinthrax]

Findagrave.com is a decent social resource for finding burials. But you're right, you have to physically visit the places and access the available public records to get a really complete picture. My Dad and I have been working on ours off and on for over five years, and in that time much more has become available online, but there is still a lot missing.

I get a sense that there are some basic records that are centralized (I.e. nat archives). However if you need to get birth registers and/or death certs and your relatives live in the backwoods/backcountry (North Carolina) you're going to have a hard time trying to get that person to email those docs to you.

 

[Markbnj]

Apparently his full name was Everett Jack "Last Name".

This was surprisingly common in the 19th century and even into the early 20th, and local officials were pretty compliant about putting whatever an individual told them on forms. So one of my great-grandmothers went from being Mary Magdalena to being Lena M., apparently just because she preferred it.

 

[steppinthrax]

This was surprisingly common in the 19th century and even into the early 20th, and local officials were pretty compliant about putting whatever an individual told them on forms. So one of my great-grandmothers went from being Mary Magdalena to being Lena M., apparently just because she preferred it.

I also believe I have some cousins who married!!!!!! Just not sure where. I see my surname appears on both sides???