family tree

edited October 2012 in Chit chat
not sure if there has been a thread about this before.

started doing mine, but doing it from my mothers side. managed to get back to 1808 in the records

interestingly my great great great great grandad could sign his name on his marriage certificate, when everyone else seemed to have just made an x as their mark. (even looks more professional than my sig)

doesn't seem any way to get past that date in terms of records though

gonna try to expand on the females in the list, but its a bugger figuring out their maiden names
Post edited by mile on

Comments

  • zx1zx1
    edited September 2012
    Someone did my mother's side of the family tree and managed to get back to 1860, the only problem is that he needed to find out our great great grandmother's maiden name to go back further but the only person who knew this (an elderly Aunt) has since died. He's now stuck and gave up.
    The trouble with tribbles is.......
  • edited September 2012
    zx1 wrote: »
    Someone did my mother's side of the family tree and managed to get back to 1860, the only problem is that he needed to find out our great great grandmother's maiden name to go back further but the only person who knew this (an elderly Aunt) has since died. He's now stuck and gave up.

    yeah its certainly a tricky thing to work out. some of the birth records do give the mothers maiden name.

    im finding some of the records on ancenstory.com to be false, in fact some of the census information is also false

    its spellings of names mostly. one record i was searching for was for a louisa, but the website had it written out at lonsia (that classic name) and a quick look into the actual document told me i was correct.
  • edited September 2012
    mile wrote: »
    yeah its certainly a tricky thing to work out. some of the birth records do give the mothers maiden name.

    im finding some of the records on ancenstory.com to be false, in fact some of the census information is also false

    its spellings of names mostly. one record i was searching for was for a louisa, but the website had it written out at lonsia (that classic name) and a quick look into the actual document told me i was correct.

    That's because the records are ocr'd
    My test signature
  • edited September 2012
    fogartylee wrote: »
    That's because the records are ocr'd

    that would make sense then
  • edited October 2012
    I can trace mine back to 1953 on my mum's side, and 1949 on my dad's.
  • edited October 2012
    you just looked at your birth certificate haven't you. :D
  • edited October 2012
    Someone in my family got back to 1650.

    Btw nice story here.

    I had booked a weekend in a hotel in Deleden with my newborn daughter and wife in spring 2004.

    At the hotel we met a couple and talked to eachother. Soon the question "Where are you from?" came.

    So I said "Boxmeer", they said "Spaarndam". I replied "I know Spaarndam, I even have relatives there."

    "Who are they?"
    "Well I know they live there, but they are nephew and uncle/aunt of my dad so I don't know them personally, but they are called 'Koelman'"

    He answered : "May I introduce myself ; 'Henk Koelman'"

    So I gave him new feed for our familytree!
  • edited October 2012
    My mum's been doing ours for about 10 years now and has got it back to the 1700's on both sides of the family. She's managed to get some REALLY old photos too. There's one that dates back to 1860 or something and is of my great great great grandad. It's a very rural picture of a tiny old, knackered looking man. He fathered 16 kids(!) by that point so he was probably only about 38 and worn out! :-)
  • I think one of my ancestors was Alexander The Great's chief eunuch.
  • edited October 2012
    I think one of my ancestors was Alexander The Great's chief eunuch.

    :lol:

    do you happen to have any of General Patton's nasal fluids too?

    I think my Grandfather got back his side of the family a few hundred years, but the trail went cold when he found they'd come over from somewhere in Germany, not so sure on my Dad's side though
  • edited October 2012
    I managed to get to 1795 on the male line but I'm struggling to get any further back.

    I've got a lot of info going back to the 16th century but unfortunately I can't establish a link to my family as yet. It would be great if I could.

    I'm now researching the journey of one family group who emigrated to NZ in 1859 and it's absolutely fascinating stuff. With a bit of luck I might unearth something more about my 3xGGF from this perspective.
  • zx1zx1
    edited October 2012
    Someone at my work (since left) said that their great grandfather was one of Al Capone's henchmen. She had a photo to prove it. I wished i questioned her further but was too busy for chit chat.
    The trouble with tribbles is.......
  • edited October 2012
    My great great great granddad was king of the lags charles peace, notorious sheffield burglar, womaniser, master of disguise, murderer and cop killer

    Lol
    His grandson was my great grandad, who died the year i was born, thats why i dont remember a great grandad on that side
    His names a reyt gobfull lol
    Percy archibald bolsover
    Got some photies i wanna scan and get online of him
    Professional Mel-the-Bell Simulator................"So realistic, I found myself reaching for the Kleenex King-Size!" - Richard Darling
  • edited October 2012
    the acenstory.com is turning out to be a great site, as you can cross refernce your family tree with other users.

    found a pic of my great, great aunt, and a letter from my great great grandad he wrote to her.

    the person has been seraching their family tree which is connected to mine, i think we are some sort of distant cousins.

    not found any notorious figures yet like mel has. all the men seemed to be corset makers.
  • edited October 2012
    mile wrote: »
    yeah its certainly a tricky thing to work out. some of the birth records do give the mothers maiden name.

    im finding some of the records on ancenstory.com to be false, in fact some of the census information is also false

    its spellings of names mostly. one record i was searching for was for a louisa, but the website had it written out at lonsia (that classic name) and a quick look into the actual document told me i was correct.

    I've not done ours much, but I have gone back to 1850's, just using the village records [we haven't moved much] and online censuses. Even using them I encountered problems, such as changes in names. Rose-Anna became Rosanna, purely [probably] because the chap writing the names just asked who was in the house. The other problem is because of the high infant mortaliy rate, and the fact that people named subsequent children by the same name, thus you can have a child John xxxx aged 1 in one census, and then a child John xxxx aged 9 ten years later.

    Very interesting and definitly on the list of retirement projects.
  • edited October 2012
    murtceps wrote: »
    I've not done ours much, but I have gone back to 1850's, just using the village records [we haven't moved much] and online censuses. Even using them I encountered problems, such as changes in names. Rose-Anna became Rosanna, purely [probably] because the chap writing the names just asked who was in the house. The other problem is because of the high infant mortaliy rate, and the fact that people named subsequent children by the same name, thus you can have a child John xxxx aged 1 in one census, and then a child John xxxx aged 9 ten years later.

    Very interesting and definitly on the list of retirement projects.

    yeah one of my relatives had about 12 kids in all, 3 died early on and got renamed as new kids, then his own kids started having kids and then naming them after their brothers and sister. all living in the same house, which was a bit of a mess.

    :p
  • edited October 2012
    mile wrote: »
    yeah one of my relatives had about 12 kids in all, 3 died early on and got renamed as new kids, then his own kids started having kids and then naming them after their brothers and sister. all living in the same house, which was a bit of a mess.

    :p

    I was lucky. I looked at ancestry.com a while ago and found that someone in my family had done a lot of work on my mothers side. He has got back to the 1600s. Apparently a lot of my ancestors are brick layers from Birmingham. How very boring! I was impressed with the amount of detail though. Of course the further back you go the less information there is. But there were details of where they worked and even what they were wearing when they were married (from newspapers I assume).
  • edited October 2012
    Some bloke researched all people with his (and mine) family name. He sent me the tree going back to at least my GGGGG Grandfather. We orginate from the Bilston area of the West Midlands and the church there, St Leonards, is where he and his 11 kids were all baptised, married and buried. Some died yound, like really young, which was the way in those days. I have stood next to the Font, had a massive hangover!

    Speaking to other people who have done this, bear in mind that records weren't always kept and a lot of people were illiterate. Also, people being people, you can only assume that is where you came from as your Father may not be your real Father.....
  • edited October 2012
    Spex wrote: »
    ...your Father may not be your real Father.....

    9c1ceddbcb1271144546.jpg
  • edited October 2012
    well finally found my obligatory relative that coped it in ww1

    joined 10th november 14, died on november 11th 1915 at Ypres

    found his grave too on the cwgc website, no pic, so mght have to pop across and visit the fella seen as he seems to be the only one that escaped out of yorkshire.
  • edited October 2012
    A friend of mine from college stopped going to classes for a month or so, I then went to New York and found him on the 5th avenue, and 2 more times in the same day in totally different places in the city (some museum and later at night in a bar). apparently he decided to quit college and went on a month trip to NY.

    the funny thing is that he used to live near my street in Lisbon, and after that (in over ten years) i've only seen him once....
  • edited October 2012
    mile wrote: »
    well finally found my obligatory relative that coped it in ww1

    joined 10th november 14, died on november 11th 1915 at Ypres

    found his grave too on the cwgc website, no pic, so mght have to pop across and visit the fella seen as he seems to be the only one that escaped out of yorkshire.
    after mi dad died i got his chest with family stuff in
    theres some military stuff in there, cap badges, photos etc from mi grandad in the 2nd world war, and his dad in the first world war, including mi grandads driving license from back then and discharge papers
    along with other stuff mi dad kept like those robertson jam golliwog badges lol, and some blue john
    Professional Mel-the-Bell Simulator................"So realistic, I found myself reaching for the Kleenex King-Size!" - Richard Darling
  • edited October 2012
    well finally found my obligatory relative that coped it in ww1

    joined 10th november 14, died on november 11th 1915 at Ypres

    found his grave too on the cwgc website, no pic, so mght have to pop across and visit the fella seen as he seems to be the only one that escaped out of yorkshire

    Ditto! A schoolfriend visited there and spotted the name, she laid a flower for him.
    What hasn't become clear is why a bloke from Smethwick ended up serving in the Norfolks.
    Done some research into what happened to these guys and it really isn't nice, to make it worse, this was the "war to end all wars", has totally changed the way I think about "conflicts".
  • edited October 2012
    My mum has managed to research her side to the 1680s....she's been doing it for a few years now!

    One thing that I will say about doing your family tree, is to be careful! My mum got the help of one researcher who gave us information about an ancestor....but my mum had a hunch that although they lived right where they should have, they just weren't the right person...There was no-one else staying with them, so it was hard to be sure with the census records...

    The researcher said that was the only person she could find, so it had to be her.....my mum's gut instincts were still saying no...

    My mother decided to do her own research and found someone with the same name living in the next town....information gathered at a later date proved that this was in fact the right person, and so the researcher had totally the wrong one and could have led us to bark up the wrong family tree!!

    So basically, do your own research...go with your gut instincts, and you should be okay! :D
  • edited October 2012
    def chris wrote: »
    I can trace mine back to 1953 on my mum's side, and 1949 on my dad's.

    Weird...those are the same years my mum and dad were born :-o

    ...don't get any ideas though, I ain't got money or anything!
  • edited October 2012
    zx1 wrote: »
    Someone did my mother's side of the family tree and managed to get back to 1860, the only problem is that he needed to find out our great great grandmother's maiden name to go back further but the only person who knew this (an elderly Aunt) has since died. He's now stuck and gave up.

    Was your GGGmother Scottish? If so, have you checked http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/?

    The records after 1855 usually list maiden names. You might pick it up on her or her husbands death certificate, marriage certificate, or one of the children's birth certificates.
  • edited October 2012
    deadpan666 wrote: »
    One thing that I will say about doing your family tree, is to be careful! ... So basically, do your own research...go with your gut instincts, and you should be okay! :D

    This times 1000. I started with ancestry.com in April and got carried away with the hints at first. I merged more than a few totally separate families. The best was a family a couple of towns away from the right one. The parents and kids had the same names and very similar ages. You'd swear from the census data alone they'd just moved 10 miles down the road!

    Since then I've been backing things up with birth marriage and death certificates. As a result I've noticed other people making the same mistakes I did. I find myself wanting to 'trust' the more popular hints through weight of numbers. But then I wonder if someone made a mistake years ago and everyone copied them!
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