Genealogy
What is genealogy? Defined by Wikipedia, genealogy is “the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages.” Why should I get into genealogy? There are many reasons! Genealogy is a great hobby for those interested in their family,history,and many other topics. It can teach you more about yourself. Where do I start? It may seem overwhelming at first, but don’t worry; it’s not as hard as it seems. The best place to start is to see if anyone in your family has done any research themselves. Many families have at least one member who has a small family tree or a stash of helpful records. Once you have determined if you have any resources to give you a head start or not, you must make another choice. Where do you go from here? Will you focus on a certain branch of the family tree? Or will you go for a more general approach and try to tackle multiple branches? This way is more complicated, and I would recommend not taking this route unless you are experienced. What should I look for? Official documents are your best bet, as they are the most accurate, and courthouses and local libraries are likely to keep copies. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, draft cards, etc. are very useful as they contain birth dates, death dates, places of residence, and other useful information. Don’t be afraid to ask family members as well. If you have relatives who were alive during the lives of your great-grandparents or other family members, they may have information you did not know about. By this point, it’s very likely you’ve been gathering a lot of information or maybe even started your own family tree. It’s very important to keep this information organized. Depending on how you’d like to conduct your research, there are many different methods. If you’d prefer to stick to pen and paper documents, I would suggest a good binder and multiple folders that are clearly marked and neatly kept. For those of you who wish to take your work digital, there are several free and paid resources that can help. **Free** Familysearch [Family search ](https://www.familysearch.org) A great tool for both creating and maintaining a family tree, it provides free digitized records of your family and may show you a family tree created by others, saving you a lot of work. Pros Free Gives access to various records across many sites. Collaborative Cons There is no way to lock a tree, which allows for vandalism. Some people may have false relatives on the tree Gramps (FOSS) Gramps [](https://gramps-project.org/blog/) A Linux native program useful for offline family tree management, according to the website, is “a free software project and community. We strive to produce a genealogy program that is both intuitive for hobbyists and feature-complete for professional genealogists. It is a community project, created, developed, and governed by genealogists.” Pros FOSS Can be used offline. Support for multiple trees Cons Outdated interface Can be confusing for first-time users. Find a grave https://www.findagrave.com/ A index of thousands of cemeteries and millions of graves Pros Free Easy to use Community transcribing system Cons Graves may have incorrect information which requires the profile managers to accept edits Wikitree https://www.wikitree.com/ A place for genealogists to collaborate Pros Free forever Easy to use and work with others Claims to be extremely private Cons Site design may make navigate difficult for some ———————————————————————————- **PAID** Ancestry.com [](https://www.ancestry.com/) One of the largest paid genealogy services Ancestry has thousands of paid records. Pros Lots of records Cons pricey Newspapers.com https://www.newspapers.com/ A archive of thousands of newspapers Pros Lots of papers from many places Has free days Cons Pricey Index system may not provide exact match for searches This is nowhere near a complete list, and suggestions and more will be added soon.
Hey all! Thank you for joining this community. We haven’t had large growth yet, but we do have quite a few subscribers! I’d like to bring on two or three new moderators preemptively. If anyone is interested in becoming a moderator, just reply to this post. Let me know if you have ever been a moderator before and for how long. Thanks!
So I recently moved my stuff to gramps web - and it features the [gramps query language](https://www.grampsweb.org/user-guide/gql/) but I can't figure out how to find places with no parent place... Anyone know how to do that?
A lot of records have been digitized but I still enjoy looking thought the original documents. I talked to the clerk and it appears my county has received a grant to digitize even more records. I’ll be checking out my surrounding counties libraries and courthouses in the coming weeks.
I’m going to be trying this next week I’ll be updating with results
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/18/nx-s1-5002241/this-database-could-help-descendants-of-enslaved-people-learn-about-their-ancestry
cross-posted from: https://toast.ooo/post/3740832 > Canvas in 30 days 👀 > > *turns out I did my math wrong, so it’s a little less than 30 days* > > # July 12th, 2024 @ midnight EDT > > https://canvas.fediverse.events > > ✨ this year’s event also supports **the entire fediverse** *not just Lemmy!* > > (you have to be able to make/receive text posts, like mastodon, lemmy, pixelfed, etc) > (peertube accounts will not work) > > you can get update announcements on other fedi platforms with `@canvas@fediverse.events` [link](https://social.fediverse.events/@canvas) > > chat about Canvas on [Matrix](https://matrix.to/#/#canvas:aftermath.gg) or [Discord](https://discord.gg/mEUqXZw8kR) (they’re bridged)
Hi Lemmy, I wanted to share a story about trying to find a very distant ancestor with DNA. In the early 1800s, my 3x great grandfather came to Canada from Portugal. I have no record of his birth, his immigration or anything from before 1850, and he definitely changed his name after leaving Portugal. For a long time, I thought that I would never be able to break this brick wall. But about a year ago, I noticed something interesting in my Ancestry DNA matches. I found several distant relatives with Portuguese ethnicity who consistently share DNA with descendants of my 3x great grandfather. I realized that since I have no other Portuguese ancestors, they must be related through my 3x great grandfather. In fact, almost all of these matches had ancestors from a small island called Porto Santo in the Madeira archipelago. I decided to give triangulation a shot since some of the DNA matches had public family trees. Using the Madeira archives website, I built off of their research and extended 3 trees back to the late 1700s. When I did this, I found a few duplicate ancestors, but none that show up in all 3 trees. Which brings us to now. I've not been successful so far at triangulating my 3x ggf, but I feel so close. Out of curiosity, I made a rough calculation of the likelihood that 3 random people with ancestors from Porto Santo share the same 4x ggf, and it came out to 0.4%. So if I get a triple match in my DNA matches family trees, I can be almost certain that I found a close relative to my 3x ggf. Any thoughts or advice? This is probably the nerdiest thing I've done to solve a mystery. I'm not sure if it'll work to be honest, but I find it crazy that DNA can make it even remotely possible.
I'm sure not many of us here are from Slovakia but just wanted to share. So this is kind of embarasing but after 4 years of making family tree I found out that 1930 and 1940 census from Slovakia is apparently online. I don't know how I missed it. Nevertheless to say the least, my excitement has been through the roof for like 2 weeks. Note that 1940s census is "blacked" since it hasn't passed 90 years from its creation. It'll be "un-blacked" in 2030. However you can still see the names which might be also helpful (it was for me). Note 2: there is an (quite successful) attempt at indexation of the results here: https://scitacieharky.sk/ Note 3: you cannot download the forms because of license. Printing sucks so screenshots are probably the only option
I’d like to but the privacy problems are holding me back
I’ve been meaning to do this for a while something less complex than your normal chart. Something fun to look at like this 
For me it’s my 5th great grandmother anyone further back in the tree is my ancestor because I think 6 greats is a bit much.
This is something I’ve always wanted to do since I’ve started genealogy research for my family. When I was way younger I had 2 great grandmothers I didn’t know what a great grandmother was until I was older to me they were just my grannies. I lost one of them years ago and there isn’t a lot about her out there. Someone I knew in my lifetime and I’ve had to dig deep to find records about her. I’ve still got family left who know a lot about my family history and I’d like to interview them before I don’t have a chance anymore has anyone done this themselves?
When doing genealogy there’s many different documents to look through my favorites to find are census records and death certificates because they provide a lot of info in very few documents. However there are a lot of other types including social security index records and tax records. Today I am asking what type of record or document has a lot of good information that you don’t see used enough in genealogy?
The one who seemingly has no records or takes so much work to dig up one record I finally found some Info on mine. I went back to the basics and asked some family who was alive when I believe this mystery person was and it helped a lot. let’s hear yours!
I know folks here on Lemmy love FOSS so I’d suggest Gramps if you’re looking for suggestions!
Please fill out forum to apply https://forms.gle/E2baEBSF6LZBgtkr9
For me anything before about 1750 is pretty murky and the records are harder to find and confirm
Did they live amazing live? Did they pass away in a odd way? Let’s hear Whatever stories you’d like to share!
I’ve done this a few times including members of my family who passed in the 1800s. It always felted strange knowing this is my family from over 200 years ago and I can visit their final resting place even today. Has anyone else done this and what’s the oldest headstone you’ve visited?
I’ve seen this a lot in my research every family seems to have one even my family tree has a women some claim was a Native American(or about 3 other races the story isn’t clear) but what’s up with this?
Hello everyone! As the previous mod of this community is no longer active I requested to be made mod and am very thankful to the admins to granting my request. Over the next week I will be attempting to revive this community so stay tuned!
Hello, I just wanted to share with you the info that I successfully found my great great grandfather which I mentioned in previous post here https://lemmy.world/post/186728 Just few days ago I received the death certificate from Wisconsin Department of Health Services and I can confirm that it's my great great grandfather and the grave I mentioned in previous post is indeed his grave. I want to thank everyone who helped me, it was a wild ride and it took few years but at last, I reached successful finish. Thank you all
www.nih.gov
>Researchers have found that previous studies analyzing the genomes of people with European ancestry may have reported inaccurate results by not fully accounting for population structure. By considering mixed genetic lineages, researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health, demonstrated that previously inferred links between a genomic variant that helps digest lactose and traits such as a person’s height and cholesterol level may not be valid. Although this article refers to medical issues, it could have an impact on implied associations for DNA genealogy.
Hello everyone I made a post earlier but I decided to delete it. I worded it very poorly and would like to rephrase it. From what I can tell the first ever photo was taken in 1816 or 1826. If anyone can find other wise please let me know. There is a famous picture of my of my 5th great grandmother that has been passed off as her for many years but I was able to prove that It was a different women entirely. Some people claim to have photos dating back to the 1700s which I believe are not authentic but I could be wrong. I am sorry for my earlier post as I wrote it quite quickly. I hope to see this community more active too thanks for reading.
If you know me on r/genealogy, you've seen this post from me before. It usually succeeds in generating conversation, so I'm hoping we'd all like to talk about it here. So for me: 1. Morgan *Cremin* b.1821 m. Ellen *Egar* b.1826 They married in 1848 in Co. Kerry and promptly boarded a ship for the U.S. in order to escape the famine. They settled in SE Illinois. It appears Ellen's father's name was Jacobus, which I think is James? Cremin, I have learned, is an agnomen for McCarty, and indeed, my uncle has a lot of McCarty matches at FTDNA. In the U.S., the name morphed into Crimmins. 2. George *Hazlett* b. 1795 m Agnes *McKee* b. 1799 Family lore says George's family were originally from Scotland, but I haven't confirmed that. His children were born in Co. Monaghan. I found an Agnes McKee born 1799 in Co. Down, which might be my Agnes (she went by Nancy). George and Nancy and their adult children also fled the famine in 1850. George died on the ship, and Nancy and her children settled in Monona, Iowa. 3. George Hazlett Jr. b. 1824 m Jane *Whittaker* b. 1830 In Monona, Iowa the younger George married Jane Whittaker, who had emigrated from Co. Sligo with her aunt and uncles. Her parents and sister had all died in the famine. Her aunt who cared for her was named Ellen *Irwin*. 4. Robert *Stunkard* b. 1759 He settled in Pennsylvania, and may have been born in Co. Down. It's been suggested to me that the name might have originally been *Stankard*. 5. Samuel *Clark* b. 1790 m Jane *Millar* b. 1785 Samuel and Jane were from County Down and they settled in Quebec.
Hi everyone, I have this address from a Milwaukee cemetery, the person is maybe my gggfather. If I read it right it's "3511, 37th street"(No. means North? Or number?) I wanted to verify this by finding this address in a 1930 census (he died in 1934). I'm not from US and I'm really struggling to understand the US street system and how the collection of that census was performed. I found this website to help me narrow the results https://stevemorse.org/census/unified.html?year=1930 so I put there the address and as suggested, I took a look on the Google Map to see which street crosses it. The closest is Keefe Ave so I set it as such. It gave me 2 results. https://i.imgur.com/mEtT0dE.png I went through both of them and nothing. Actually the house numbers on 37th street weren't even close to 3511 in those reports, they were around 1000 - 1500. What am I doing wrong? How the street numbering works in the US? Also just out of curiosity - why weren't addresses indexed in Family Search?
How do you manage your trees? Myself, I use webtrees. The interface may be a bit "old" and the handling of media in particular could have been better, but it's an online solution (so I have my tree available all the time), it's open source, it's 100% standards compliant, and the community is wonderful, so ... What is your favourite programme?
Genealogy
!genealogy@lemmy.world(archived description) (Lemmy's community for those interested in learning more about their genealogy.-)
Welcome to c/Genealogy@Lemmy.world officially under new management since March 27th 2024
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