Anyone ever used it? Thoughts?

 

my brother did it, he got pretty far on my moms side, like back to the 1400/1500's. my dads side, not so far, only like 3 generations.

the wifey did it too, pretty much same thing. got far back for her mom, and never knew her dad so hes out.

its all depending on luck really, if ur family filled out things, and if other goverments have posted things like shipping manifest documents online, etc.

if u have a older family member that has a good memory with maiden names and such and can take u back a few generations just from there head u stand a much better chance of going farther down the line.

youve got to look for subtle things like different spelling in last names where it was recorded wrong.

 

Yeah, I paid to have access a year ago. One of the family members did the family tree on my dads side but it was for my grandfathers tree only. He had come over from Germany. I wanted to know about my fathers mothers family as she always claimed to be of royal blood. We assumed it was just a childhood story- wrong. Her blood line is mixed with the Kings of England although I'm sure I'll never get an invitation to have lunch at Buckingham Palace. Her father was in the Civil War and her grandfather was a surgeon in the Confederate Army. So it got pretty colorful. My mothers side, the information was limited but I got them back to Germany. You'll find in most cases the ships that the family came over from via manifests. Thru my grandmothers family, we have the lineage back to Adam and Eve. I seriously doubt that it is correct. If you get back 5 generations and it is correct- you've done good. They're constantly up dating and adding information. If you decide to do the deed, you'll need a program to organize the info. I'd strongly suggest Brothers Keeper. It's not an expensive program but it does offer a lot of benefits that the freewares don't, like printing, exporting, and editing. If you just want a freeby and don't want to spend the small fee, Simple Family Tree will work but it's not easy to navigate and as far as I know, there is no user manual.

FWIW, you might also want to know that everything you find might not be good. While I was doing my family, I decided to look at the neighbors family as well. They are a very high profile Texas family and some of the materials were not in a good light. While law enforcement was the key to the family fame, the law it seems was governed a lot by the want of the ancestor. But like it was told to me before, the difference between an outlaw and a lawman back in the day was a badge. They were right.

 

My sister uses it and loves it. She got pretty far back on my Dad's side. My Mom's side was a little harder because most of our ancestors are all in Italy on her side.

 

I have a subscription to Ancestry.com. Very informative. Once you go back a coupla generations & reach a brick wall, vary the spelling on the names. In my case: Monroe, Monro, Munroe, Munro, etc. Between the census taking verbal info and whoever transcribed the info into the database, some errors/variations creep in. Talk to the the old folks, ask about brothers/sisters, cousins, etc. do some research on those & there will be some new relatives crop up, then ask the old folks about those, too.

Ancestry.com will allow to access other folks work & trees. Be somewhat careful, some folks do a quicky job filling in the blanks and end up with some real odd stuff.

I found my 5th cousin (IIRC our greatgrandfathers were brothers). It was really weird, he looks just like my dad. Creepy!

 

I've tried it and I got quite far on my maternal grandmother's side but not very far on my maternal grandfather's side and only about 3 generations on my paternal side.

 

I'm a first generation American on my Dad's side and the rest are in Germany, but could possibly get deep into my Mom's side. My Dad's a historian so he's happily enjoying doing all the legwork for us. Pretty nice.

 

I've been using it for a few weeks and have gotten back to the 11th Century (27th great grandfather). I haven't paid the subscrition though... I'm only using it right now for the tree building. I've been using other sites that are free for actual genealogy info. I've found trees, census(es?!), birth/death records, etc. And sometimes I've even gotten pics of said documents! Thru my searches, I've found my family was one of three Damon "clans" that settled in the US. Related in England, the came to this country at different times and settled in different area... The Damon's of Scituate (my family) being one, another set of Damon's settles in the New England area, and the third I believe settled near/around the Ohio area.

I'd heard about a female Cherokee being in my family (fathers' side), but since I never knew him I had no idea or proof. I found out he'd died in '06 and was lucky enough to get a copy of his death certificate from the funeral home which gave me his parents' names... this was enough to find 30+ members of his family and also read about others who've heard this "Cherokee rumor". Haven't found the link/person yet though.

I started this one day a few weeks ago, semi out of boredom and within 2 weeks had close to 300 ancestors. How do I know what I've found is correct you ask? Cause I've found many other trees and ancestral documents which correspond all the info.

FamilySearch.org is the best one so far I've found that's free and provides a lot of information.

The biggest thing you need to do is have at least your great grandparent's info (maiden name, birth date, etc).

I've also found just typing the name and birth year in either Google or Bing will turn up some really interesting results and often lead you to sites of other ppl who've done trees and have information.

One other interesting site, is FindAGrave.com... there, you'll sometimes find pictures of headstones. Creepy, but I've found a few already belonging to my ancestors and even my grandfather who just passed away two years ago.

It's fun and really interesting all at the same time, but can be time consuming and frustrating too.

Good luck!

 

Don't expect everything to be correct because you've found it on others trees. We did the same thing with several trees indicating children of one lady in particular. Her family posted a certified tree meaning they had written proof of her genealogy by diary of hers and the children that others had used for lineage was no longer valid. In fact, instead of the 4 children that was on most of the trees never existed. She only had one child and it was a girl, no boys to carry the name forward. So just because it shows up in several trees doesn't mean that they are not clones and all of them are wrong.

Stealth, if you know the area of Germany that the family is from, the Catholic Churches in the area are a great resource and extremely helpful. They also like a donation too but it's well worth the money. They got my grand fathers side back to the 1200's via the churchs in Papenhagen and Richtenberg.

 

Well LN my old man was born in Berlin during WWII. I'm not exactly sure where Oma and Opa and their families were actually from but they ended up in Berlin. Dad knows, I just need to ask him. Most of the men in the family were in the military since all the men were obligated to serve. I know with my last name, there are maybe 30 of us in the USA currently, it's that rare of a name.

 

My Grandparents and my Mom and one of m Aunts had gotten a lot done by the churches in Europe for a fee a long time ago, but I was interested in other branches. The one that they had done by churches, we're all the way back to two generations before 132 B.C. in Rome, and I am finding some interesting things on ancestry.com. It's neat anyway, but like someone said, don't take everything for gospel truth.
My Father was adopted by his Mother's sister, and he won't tell me his mother's name or his Father's name, only his adoptive parents. He was born in 1940, and I don't know my (adoptive) Grandmother's maiden name. I'd love to find his birth record, but I am having some trouble doing so.

 

I'm having a somewhat similar problem. It appears that my great grandfather was illegitimate so his father is a mystery to me and that part of the family tree ends with him.

 

My Dad's side came to Louisiana from the Canary Island's in the 1770's when Spain had control of Louisiana. He was a Spanish soldier and was given a land grant not too far from where I live now. My family has been traced back to Spain in the year's 900 to 1000 thank's to my Aunt who was fluent in Spanish and French. She even co-authored a book on my family name. I still may try ancestry to see how accurate they are. She claimed we are decended from El Cid !

 

my mom did this last year. Turns out we are related to the owner of ancestry.com and we come from Royalty in Austria. my mom gave him a lot of missing or incorrect info he had.