Ancestry Tracing

L

Leper

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There is a thread on the forum on DNA tracing which is worth reading. Like many I thought about tracing our ancestors, but never could get around to it until one day I wrote down the names of my grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren. Suddenly, I had a Family Tree of four generations. Hey! - It was a start. It was too late to speak with my parents but my sisters had plentiful information and contacts. I went at tracing our Family Tree in a stop/start manner and pickup up information occasionally especially when attending funerals of distant relatives. The 1901 and 1911 census details were excellent and good to know they are being updated as new information is found. There were a few skeletons-in-the-cupboard found along the way, but such is life. I obtained photos which I copied (and returned) of many, printed off census details, birth certs, death certs, marriage certs where I could. I took pictures of grave stones (of former relatives) in various graveyards and left messages in polly-pocket sleeves for relatives of the deceased to contact me. The information flowed in and I met nearly everybody involved to share details.

I compiled several charts listing all relatives giving year of birth and death and whatever information I found out about them and presented each of our grandchildren and my sisters/brothers grandchildren each with a detailed chart. The thing is the chart is not complete and whenever I can gather more information I update the chart. You can get this done professionally, but doing it yourself is so much more fun. There may be objections, obstacles, work etc, but the satisfaction it brings is non-calculable.

I've reached great-great grandparents details presently, but this might not be the start of the lines as I'm open to more information.
 
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Agree with you on this. One of the things that really worked well for me was the Ancestry DNA tests. That linked me to some cousins in Australia and the US that I never even knew existed and they provided some fascinating records at their end. Also it's worth subscribing to some of the newspaper record sites for a month and just doing a blitz and searching on names and areas.

What really surprised me was the children who died in their infancy and never got mentioned again. I never realised my father had a brother and sister who died as babies as an example. Also fascinating to see how many shotgun weddings they were on all sides. There was plenty of sex in Ireland before the Late Late show and it's amazing to think why some couples got married and in other cases, the Mother and Baby homes scenario unfolded
 
There were a few skeletons-in-the-cupboard found along the way, but such is life . . .

Same experience here.

Although retirees on both my father's and mother's side had done much of the spade work, a more thoughtful consideration of things like legacy obligations and baptismal records helped my sister deduce that our beloved grandfather was actually illegitimate and reared as a "son" of his newly-married cousin. The cousin's family received the price of a small farm upon the death of the natural father despite the latter not being too well-off and having a big family of his own.

This skeleton explained a lot of how our talented grandfather was very quiet compared to his half-brother, despite both of them being orphaned as small children and fostered out to their mother's people. This lack of personal confidence extended to our own father and to some degree to the males in my family. A psychologist could observe such failings and perhaps recommend therapy but I think that knowing about one's family's past can bring about an additional layer of understanding, something beyond the mere mantra of therapy.
 
thedaddyman said:
Agree with you on this. One of the things that really worked well for me was the Ancestry DNA tests. That linked me to some cousins in Australia and the US that I never even knew existed and they provided some fascinating records at their end. Also it's worth subscribing to some of the newspaper record sites for a month and just doing a blitz and searching on names and areas.

What really surprised me was the children who died in their infancy and never got mentioned again. I never realised my father had a brother and sister who died as babies as an example. Also fascinating to see how many shotgun weddings they were on all sides. There was plenty of sex in Ireland before the Late Late show and it's amazing to think why some couples got married and in other cases, the Mother and Baby homes scenario unfolded
Click to expand...

I remember reading about police forces using DNA in these databases to track down perpetrators. So they have an unmatched sample. And in the database they find a cousin and then boom - a conviction.

Im not au fait with the exact rules in every jurisdiction or how much things have tightened up...

Something to consider :)
 
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