anyone else ever traced their family?

**Mike70** · 29-May-2007

i warn you now that it is highly addictive but rewarding. i have spent a good deal of my free time over the past weeks doing just this very thing. it was easy for me because my father's family has lived in and around campbell county, kentucky for just about 200 years. the census records from 1790 to 1930 are available in their entirety on the web now. so are civil war, wwi, wwi service records. my great-great-great grandfather (born in 1836) was an officer in the 4th kentucky cavalry regiment during the civil war. much to my relief, he fought for the union. kentucky was neutral during the civil war and people from there fought on both sides. i also discovered that my family was one of the first in kentucky and one of the first white people born in kentucky was my great x6 grandfather in 1760.

i also strongly believe, having studied the frequency of my last name in the uk that my family most likely came from the north of england - specifically yorkshire, lancashire or cumberland counties. (there's panic on the streets of carlisle).

if anyone is interested in doing this i would suggest that you start with your grandparents. knowing what state, county, and what year they were born in will help immensely in weeding out false leads. but like i said beware - this is addictive as all hell.

**Danny** · 29-May-2007

i tired one of them once, did the family tree thing and after a while got a message from a guy he asked if my grandad was such and such, adn he was , and if i was born on such a date and so on adn i ask how he knows all this stuff and he says "becuase im your father".
bit of a shock considering this was the guy who dumped my mom with two toddlers and left behind a jacket and a crate of tins of baked beans.
i never replied again, because A: i never had a father figure and never needed one nor wanted one, not resentment or anything as cliche' as that, but B: this guy knew me for the first 3 years of my life then split, this guys a complete stranger to me and yet he knows all about me, pretty freaky stuff.

just a moral, be careful with looking up your family tree, you never know what youll find, or who will find you.

**~~Khardis~~** · 29-May-2007

My search would never end.

I identify as Italian, but in reality I am:

Irish, Italian, French, German, Jewish, Polish and Native American.

**MissJacksonCA** · 29-May-2007

Can you reccomend any web sites to use? Any please dont say google i'm entirely ungoogleable and so are most of my family.

**~~Khardis~~** · 29-May-2007

I would love to read up on any ancestors I had who were Romans though. That would be awesome.

**MissJacksonCA** · 29-May-2007

I'd really like to know more about those related to native americans ... but in general most peoples personal family history is interesting too.

**Cody** · 29-May-2007

wow hellsing freaky man. my family is nothing but secrets. my grandmas mom worked cleaning walt disneys house before he got big. she was taken to a catholic orphanage by her father when she was young. if this didnt happen back way when i would inheiret today 300 miles worth of land in california an entire mountain range. wealthy spainiards.

so looking up your ancestors could lead to a lost fortune!

**MissJacksonCA** · 29-May-2007

lookup and see if you have something coming to ya from someone ya didnt know exists

**Graebel** · 29-May-2007

Originally Posted by MissJacksonCA

Can you reccomend any web sites to use? Any please dont say google i'm entirely ungoogleable and so are most of my family.

My mom is big into this, but she has found that most web sites want you to pay a subscription fee before they let you know if they have any data.

**Mike70** · 30-May-2007

missjackson - ancestry.com has a 3 day free trial. no strings attached. they have all the census records, war records, immigration records, etc. right there on line. you can even research the frequency of your family's name in a given country.

**MissJacksonCA** · 30-May-2007

I'm wonderig is anyone here Catholic? My mums friend said she used the Catholic church (though she's Episcopalian) to trace her family history which she's been able to do to the extent that she spends the long cold Canadien winters traveling to Europe staying for free with distant relatives over there in exchange of course for them visiting her in the summer and such...

My dad changed his middle name from Willard to William and now i'm confused and have no idea when he was born and my mom doesn't know and i'd rather eat my toe than ask him

**Mike70** · 30-May-2007

my father and mother's family were/are catholic. my mother's family is irish as all hell so there is no avoiding the catholic thing. i strongly believe that my father's family came to this country to escape persecution for being catholic. since they appear to be from the north of england (a catholic stronghold) that makes perfect sense. add to that the fact that they started out in maryland before moving to kentucky (campbell, boone, and kenton counties are full of catholics - for that matter so is cincinnati that is why there are two archdioceses right across the river from each other- cincinnati and covington) it makes perfect sense.

now my wife is from canada and doesn't have a drop of non-english blood in her. she is an anglican and that is the religion that my son was baptized into. her family was even easier to trace than mine. she has an extraordinarily rare last name that she shares with a nobel prize winner in literature that is descended from the part of her family that stayed in england.