BS: Genealogy...anyone researching

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Brakn
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 04:54 AM

I've been doing it, on and off, for the last 35 years though now I seldom look at my family. I usually just volunteer to do friends if they're curious.

I did win an award from wikipedia for being the first person to ever sort out John Lennon's family tree. Every book about him had the wrong information about his family. A lot of famous authors were not happy.

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Rumncoke
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 06:50 AM

After some research I found that my mother's father was a bigamist, was wounded at Mons, not Ypres, changed his middle name twice, had lied about his age to make himself two years older to join the army, and my uncle, who wanted to discover his father's origins upset his sister so much by what he found out she never spoke to him again.

Uncle Cyril wanted to find living male descendants, who shared his surname. Just before his death I discovered that there were two great grandsons of his uncle living in the US, and although by then he was not using his phone so I could not tell him directly, the information was passed on to him through the family, and after a long and fruitless search he knew that his name would not become extinct.

On my dad's side there were linen weavers, union men agitating for a living wage way back. Just looking at the number of people crammed into one house as listed in each census, each family with a couple of lodgers, shows the way that the 'have nots' spent their lives creating wealth for the 'haves' for generations.

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 07:37 PM

I have been doing it for the last few years..amateur of course. But the news is that I am very very royal on my mother's side..she was descended from the planters of virginia and they all apparently had royal ancestry. Lots of Scots ancestry which I had no idea of. Always knew of a strain of Dutch..they are hard to follow as their names transmograte quite a bit. I am very very royal Stewart to the extent that whenever I see on come up in my tree I just stop right there because it will make an even bigger mess..a stewart will marry a stewart or if he doesn't his mother in law was a stewart. I can not sort them out.

Anyway, I can trace my mother's side back to year 200 or so to the God Woden...just join ancestry.com and you can too. Father's side..5 names..none go back further than late 1700s.

My greatest surprises, other than how Scottish I am, which I have to not use that word anymore, are that I have so many cousins from Camaroon due to the vileness of slavery and perhaps a bride selling operation. The other big surprise is how many of my ancestors, both English and Scottish, died in the Battle of Flodden..like very many..some days I would find three or four on one day. I think it is inthe dozens perhaps.

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 07:38 PM

oh yes..Mary Magdalene via the Sinclairs and others.

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Airymouse
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 08:50 PM

Monique"It's" vs. "Its" is confusing, because usually the apostrophe s usually denotes the possessive singular. If we would simply go back to using "his" instead of "its" as in "Love alone his watch is keeping," the confusion would disappear. I think it unlikely that I will win the world over to this idea, so in the meantime I will champion the pronunciation of mineralogy and genealogy as they are spelled and not as if they were minerology and geneology.

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 09:14 PM

Note.. Monique posted 5 years ago.

I had almost forgotten this thread.... but I have made a couple of breakthroughs due to checking alternate spellings of names and the fact that people are adding new research to various families every day.

I am relatively (so's to speak) lucky because my father's family was in Western Pennsylvania and moved there from Delaware, New Jersey and Connecticut in the 1700s. The early settlers in the 1600s & 1700s in those states kept many records, and are researched extensively, so that I now have records of ancestors who arrived in the very early colonial days- with the added interest that their roots to England, Scotland & Wales are known as well as a couple links to France.

Of course, a few supposed links need more research because many old records were ambiguous... taken from probated wills and other English documents ....and way too many folks were named 'John' and 'Mary' back then. Still, I find that I have tenuous (read- VERY tenuous) links to Winston Churchill and Prince Charles. Why, I may be 137,972nd in line to the throne!

   I'll post a few links later to 'interesting' families in England that seem to be fairly clear & certain.

(My mother's family from the Virginia area seems not to have been nearly so well documented. Only 5-6 generations there, while 15-20 generations on my father's side.)

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 10:21 PM

One of the key links to going back for me:
http://www.geni.com/people/Elizabeth-Day/6000000012534205217



A few more recent finds. Geni.com has become a welcome alternative to Ancestry.com to get much info without paying until you really need to.

http://www.geni.com/people/Edward-immigrant-Riggs-Sr/6000000001386759431

http://www.genealogy.com/ftm/j/o/n/Wayland-Dean-Jones/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0807.html

http://www.geni.com/people/John-Brett/6000000017227258297

http://www.axtell-surname.org.uk/fam3861.html

http://www.geni.com/people/Agnes-Pratt/6000000000652563582

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Elizabeth_Kingham_(1)

http://www.geni.com/people/Adrian-Whetehill/318783948760006712

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Stu
Date: 09 Sep 15 - 08:58 AM

Big thanks to Megan for alerting me to the resurrection of this thread.

Jan - All the Camroux in England are related to the Daniel Camroux I mentioned in my original post, so we will be related somewhere along the line.

In the meantime, I've been doing less family history but what I have discovered has been interesting, especially from the London side. The Huguenots married into a long line of Londoners, mainly from the east end but in earlier times getting closer to the city. I have ancestors baptised/married/deaths recorded in several of Hawksmoor churches including St George's, Bloomsbury which has the original font still in it.

It seems the family emerged from the St Giles rookery, at the time a labyrinthine slum occupied mainly by Irish immigrants and beyond the law (this explains why my nan kept saying we were Irish somewhere back, she was right about everything else). Some of my relatives were married in Rules of The Fleet, a spot by the ancient prison popular for clandestine marriages. It seems they were rum 'uns and coves by all account, and the family certainly has a rather, er, colourful history I won't going here (and is ongoing).

This is pretty much as far as I've got back, but I'm sure with effort I could get further.

Everyone should do this!

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: rich-joy
Date: 15 Feb 18 - 07:25 PM

I know this is an old thread - but Family History research is NEVER ending, LOL - and one must explore all avenues!

My two bob's worth is that I am mainly researching in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
Not interested in royalty and high society (unless no-strings money flows to me, haha!) and I am one of the seemingly rare Aussies without Irish forebears, so, mostly English and Scots.
Oh yeah, and 2 direct line Convicts (both Burglars!!)......

West Aussie :
SIDNEY - SYDNEY / THACKER / BRIDGE / YOUD / and the odd COOK //

Victoria :
BRIDGE / YOUD / and some HIPWELL and SIMS //

New Zealand :   
BRIDGE //

England :
SIDNEY - SYDNEY / THACKER / BRIDGE / YOUD / GOGEY-GOGAY / BOLAIS / and some HIPWELL and the odd COOK //

Cheers!

Rich-Joy
Down Under

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Feb 18 - 08:29 PM

I spend a lot of time researching Gynecology.

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Feb 18 - 06:46 AM

My sister did ours a while ago, back to the early seventeenth century (just my father's side, as our mother was Irish, and records are not available for many people born in Ireland)
It seems most of our ancestors were connected with the sea - fishermen, sea-captains, Customs and Excisemen at the ports, and later Air-Sea Rescue. The others were coal miners.
My father always said he was descended form the Vikings (he did look like a Viking!) as his ancestors lived in the very north of Scotland (the town there bears our name)
It makes me laugh as I hate the sea and get seasick if I look at a boat, never mind step aboard one. I can swim, but I never go out of my depth.
One day I'd like to do one of those DNA tests to see if my father was right.
I found a long-lost cousin not long ago on Facebook (my husband is on it, not me) He's a terrible racist by all accounts, and a member of the BNP. He lives quite far away fortunately. I might just contact him one day and show him a photo of my (very) black husband, just to make him squirm!

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 18 Feb 18 - 03:51 PM

Senoufou, are you familiar with this song by Micca? "ADD: Chanteyman Who's Never Gone to Sea (Micca)" (Read the whole thread to find the missing half-verse, the tune, and another song on the same subject.) In addition to hearing Marc Bernier sing it at Mystic, a few years ago, I heard Faye Ringel sing it, but she changed "chanteyman" to "chantey lass." When she'd finished, I resisted the temptation to tell her, "Hey, I'm ChanteyLass!"

Uh-oh, I tried to make a blue clicky link to the URL for the Mudcat thread with this title, but when I tested it I got a 404 File Not Found message! I found it by googling: Lyrics chanteyman who's never gone to sea, so you can try that.

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Senoufou
Date: 18 Feb 18 - 04:05 PM

Chanteylass, I've just found the song on Youtube (Marc Bernier version) and it really made me laugh! I'd never heard it before.
"I'll stick to terra firma, that's the safest place to be!"
That's exactly how I feel about the blooming sea!

Taking my pupils on the ferry over to Normandy was a nightmare. I was constantly being sick. The obliging children kept me well-supplied with sick bags, bless them.

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Helen
Date: 22 Feb 18 - 01:55 PM

Senoufou, thanks for making me spray a mouthful of tea all over my keyboard, laughing at you wanting to make your ex husband squirm.

I've been doing my family history, off and on for a few years. I did the DNA test and it has matched me with cousins here and there.

At one point another person on Ancestry with connections to my Mother's side had erroneously added a black slave from the Caribbean into their tree so I was madly hoping that I would have some African blood, but I was fairly sure - and this was confirmed - that the other researcher had just found a matching name and plonked it into their tree without doing the proper verifications. So sadly, I am not part African.

No surprise that I have Great Britain (which I think means the early Britons, Welsh etc) Irish, and traces from Scandinavia, Finland/Northwest Russia, and Iberian Peninsula which was a multicultural melting pot including Celtic. What was a bit of a surprise, and I still don't know where this comes from, was 26% Europe East. I would have thought that there would be about that percentage of Anglo-Saxon but I don't know how I have Eastern European instead. Who knows? It's interesting. I am glad I did it.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 Feb 18 - 02:34 PM

It was my long-lost, apparently racist cousin I wanted to make squirm Helen. So far, my lovely husband isn't my 'ex' hee hee. (We've been married for donkey's years) I'm so tempted to contact this man, he's the last male member of the family to have the same name (My sister and I took our husband's names) From his photos it looks as if he's covered in racist tattoos and football slogans (Newcastle United) I reckon he's an absolute thug! I'd like to send him some photos of my husband in his African traditional costume, he'd probably be sick!

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Helen
Date: 22 Feb 18 - 02:45 PM

Sorry Senoufou, I misread who you were talking about. But it was still funny.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 Feb 18 - 03:08 PM

I wish I had some African blood in me Helen. Even as a small child I was fascinated by Africa. My Irish mother had black curly hair and quite olive-y skin. It'd be super if she'd had some African in her!

I'm determined to do that DNA thing sometime soon. My husband cheekily says I'd find I was mostly Neanderthal.

As for him, he'd have no need to do it, as he's Senoufo through and through. His tribe have lived in remote northern Cote d'Ivoire for millenia, hunting and gathering in early times and not interbreeding with any other peoples. His sister recently married a Wolof from Senegal, but that's rare. Their two little boys have inherited the taller, stockier shape of the Wolofs, instead of the more willowy, delicate form of their Senoufo mum.

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Helen
Date: 22 Feb 18 - 03:36 PM

Senoufou,

I waited until Ancestry had a discount on the DNA and then I bought it for myself as a present for Christmas or a birthday.

Your mother's black curly hair might have been introduced from when the Spanish Armada was prowling around the Irish coastlines.

Subject: RE: BS: Genealogy...anyone researching
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 Feb 18 - 03:44 PM

That could well be the case, as she was from Cork.

I might ask for a DNA test for Christmas.