I <3 researching my family tree

sabotai · 09-26-2007, 05:12 PM

It's like a never ending mystery. One mystery solved leads to more mysteries.

I started off researching my ancestor that was in the Civil War (for the North! The New Jersey 4th!) several months ago. Since then, I've found one line that extends all the way back to the mid 1600s in Maryland, one that is descendant from a Jacobite Rebel (1715) that was shipped to Maryland and sold into servitude for 7 years, someone that was born at sea when his parents were coming to America in the early 1800s (which is actually a huge pain in the ass. No birth certificate->no parent names and he has very common last name...).

But what I'm looking into now has been somewhat of a family legend that I'm trying to find the truth about. It was something my great grandmother would not talk about. Her husband was the son of a man involved in a shooting in Philadelphia. All we really know, or at least think we know, was that there was a shooting in Philly over a card game and my grandmother's paternal grandfather had to change his name.

So far, I've found my great grandfather's family on the 1910 and 1920 census in Atlantic City. On both, it lists Pennsylvania as his birthplace and his birth date in 1896 on one and 1897 on the other. He had a sibling who was 8 years old in 1910 with a birthplace of Pennsylvania as well. Not surprisingly, I can't find a trace of them on the 1900 census.

So, it's looking like sometime between 1902 and 1910, my great grandfather's family moved from Philly to Atlantic City and changed their name.

The game is afoot.

Tigercat · 09-26-2007, 05:27 PM

Genealogy mysteries can be great. Although they can also be a little unsettling too depending on what you find...

I found out my great(x whatever) grandfather was in the civil war on both the north and souths side; and he apparently liked killing so much, that right after the war he signed up to go on Native American killing squads(and was involved in a massacre).

JetsIn06 · 09-26-2007, 05:27 PM

I've been looking into doing this myself as well. However, my Grandfather moved here from Sweden as a child, so I'm worried that I won't be able to find too much before then. Am I wrong? Is it easy to find information on pre-American family?

Also, what are you doing to find all this information? I am interested in doing it but really don't even know where to begin. Any help would be much appreciated.

P.S. Your family history is extremely interesing. Please keep us posted of any new stuff you dig up.

molson · 09-26-2007, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JetsIn06

I've been looking into doing this myself as well. However, my Grandfather moved here from Sweden as a child, so I'm worried that I won't be able to find too much before then. Am I wrong? Is it easy to find information on pre-American family?

Funny you bring up Sweden. I have no idea how easy it is, but my Uncle dug up a ton of info on our Swedish ancestors from the 15th-17th centuries. The highlight was that some family members were banished from Sweden for chopping down royal trees of some type.

So if you're interested in doing the research, Sweden apparently has a lot of records that can be accessed. No clue how my uncle did it though.

RendeR · 09-26-2007, 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by molson

Funny you bring up Sweden. I have no idea how easy it is, but my Uncle dug up a ton of info on our Swedish ancestors from the 15th-17th centuries. The highlight was that some family members were banished from Sweden for chopping down royal trees of some type.

So if you're interested in doing the research, Sweden apparently has a lot of records that can be accessed. No clue how my uncle did it though.

Molson Tree-Killer, oh how we pine for tree....

Joe · 09-26-2007, 05:42 PM

yeah it's always fun to do that. I <3 my slave trading ancestors!

sabotai · 09-26-2007, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JetsIn06

I've been looking into doing this myself as well. However, my Grandfather moved here from Sweden as a child, so I'm worried that I won't be able to find too much before then. Am I wrong? Is it easy to find information on pre-American family?

I can't speak to records kept in Europe, but it can be pretty hit or miss in the States. It really depends on how well the records were kept where your ancestors lived, if the records have survived, etc. Some of my lines are really well documented with birth, death, marriage, wills, etc., some lines I'm really drawing dead on so far since I've barely been able to find anything.

Quote:

Also, what are you doing to find all this information? I am interested in doing it but really don't even know where to begin. Any help would be much appreciated.

I started off using ancestry.com (pay site), with the help of free sites like FamilySearch.org, and collecting what I could from family members. My mom did some of the work before I started working on it, so I kinda got a head start. What she did was print off some pedigree charts, and started filling them out the best she could with what family members could tell her, looked for them on census records, etc. and went from there.

The most important thing to remember, though, is that just because it says it on one record does not make it fact. Especially the census. I have some people who have different birth years on every census record they appear on. Their names sometimes are spelled wrong/differently. Treat just about everything you find with a bit of skepticism.

The second most important thing to remember is that just because you found a record that has everything about your ancestor correct, but one fact is a little off, doesn't mean that record belongs to your ancestor (even if every fact is spot on, it could be someone else). I have spent time researching some families that ended up having no relation to me because I put a little too much faith into one source.

One last thing to always remember. You can't just look into and research your direct ancestors. You need to also research brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. It will make life a lot easier.

For example, I had a problem finding a maternal great-grandfather on the census for 1920. He was there in 1910 and 1930, but he disappeared in 1920, until I found him with just his Middle name and Last name. I knew it was him not only because all of the facts checked out for him, but mainly because his father, brothers and sisters all appear on the record using their middle names instead of their first names as well. If I hadn't kept records of all of their full names, I never would have found them. Since finding out that they used their Middle and Last names and not their first names, I've found some other records as well which I never would have found if I just recorded my great-grandfather and his parents.

Quote:

P.S. Your family history is extremely interesing. Please keep us posted of any new stuff you dig up.

Will do.

JetsIn06 · 09-26-2007, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sabotai

I can't speak to records kept in Europe, but it can be pretty hit or miss in the States. It really depends on how well the records were kept where your ancestors lived, if the records have survived, etc. Some of my lines are really well documented with birth, death, marriage, wills, etc., some lines I'm really drawing dead on so far since I've barely been able to find anything.

I started off using ancestry.com (pay site), with the help of free sites like FamilySearch.org, and collecting what I could from family members. My mom did some of the work before I started working on it, so I kinda got a head start. What she did was print off some pedigree charts, and started filling them out the best she could with what family members could tell her, looked for them on census records, etc. and went from there.

The most important thing to remember, though, is that just because it says it on one record does not make it fact. Especially the census. I have some people who have different birth years on every census record they appear on. Their names sometimes are spelled wrong/differently. Treat just about everything you find with a bit of skepticism.

The second most important thing to remember is that just because you found a record that has everything about your ancestor correct, but one fact is a little off, doesn't mean that record belongs to your ancestor (even if every fact is spot on, it could be someone else). I have spent time researching some families that ended up having no relation to me because I put a little too much faith into one source.

One last thing to always remember. You can't just look into and research your direct ancestors. You need to also research brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. It will make life a lot easier.

For example, I had a problem finding a maternal great-grandfather on the census for 1920. He was there in 1910 and 1930, but he disappeared in 1920, until I found him with just his Middle name and Last name. I knew it was him not only because all of the facts checked out for him, but mainly because his father, brothers and sisters all appear on the record using their middle names instead of their first names as well. If I hadn't kept records of all of their full names, I never would have found them. Since finding out that they used their Middle and Last names and not their first names, I've found some other records as well which I never would have found if I just recorded my great-grandfather and his parents.

Will do.

Great stuff. Thanks a bunch for the help. I'll probably do what your Mom did just to get a base of information. I also wouldn't mind using Ancestry.com.

Thanks again!

Buccaneer · 09-26-2007, 06:19 PM

As one who has been working on family history for 25 years and quite a bit recently, be very, very careful about accepting anything you see from the internet (and LDS, but that's another story). With the explosion of armchair genealogy in the past 15 years, first with CD, then with online database and trees, errors and fraudulant lineages are getting propagated at an exponential rate. Only accept persons in your family tree that you have good sources for or have been documented with good sources. However, there are very few good sources (legal docs, town/county records, cemetery and censuses are good). With my subscription to ancestry.com, I went through many of my older lines (as well as dead-ends) and found almost no additional information that was worth putting in (and these were mostly the better documented NE and NY families). There is probably 100x more information more information available now than 15-20 years ago but almost all of it is worthless or more accurately, just merging the same stuff over and over that wasn't any good in the first place. As said before, if you stick with the good sources (or the sources that have good propenderance of evidence) - which I see you have done - then you'll have something that will stand the test of time. Good luck and have fun.

miked · 09-26-2007, 06:30 PM

I wish I could dig more into this, but most of my family was killed in concentration camps in Eastern Europe. It's very difficult because most records were destroyed and many names changed.

sabotai · 09-26-2007, 07:42 PM

Thanks Bucc. Yeah, I just use the stuff I find online as a starting off point for more research. I take it all with a grain of salt, especially if I'm getting it from someone else's family tree, no matter how well my info fits with their's.

M GO BLUE!!! · 09-26-2007, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JetsIn06

Also, what are you doing to find all this information? I am interested in doing it but really don't even know where to begin. Any help would be much appreciated.

I agree.

There are a couple of mysteries I would love to dig up info on in my family involving my maternal grandfather and great-grandfather. We know gramps was in the army in 1919 and stationed in Siberia. He never talked about his service, but admitted to being dishonorably discharged, but no more. If you knew my grandfather, that would seem completely unlike him. Also, the army paid for his headstone, which they do not do for dishonorably discharged service members. I contacted the army for his records and they confirmed his dates entering and leaving, but said that no further info was available, that the records were likely lost in a fire.

His father supposedly was a county sheriff that was a complete bastard, got caught up in a scandal and committed suicide in front of his wife.

Family history is interesting, and I'd love to track it down but am a bit leery of the internet sites that advertise looking it up.

Greyroofoo · 09-26-2007, 08:26 PM

Because of people like sabotai I've learned I'm 9th cousin to George Dubya Bush

sabotai · 09-26-2007, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greyroofoo

Because of people like sabotai I've learned I'm 9th cousin to George Dubya Bush

I got you beat! I'm 8th cousin to good ol' Dubya! And his dad! And Richard Nixon! And Frank Lloyd Wright!

ArlingtonColt · 09-26-2007, 10:19 PM

Davey Crockett is in my family tree... it's pretty cool i guess

Noop · 09-26-2007, 10:28 PM

I know my mama and my daddy and I am sure I am related to a neanderthal.

mrsimperless · 09-27-2007, 01:59 AM

This reminds me of one of my ideas. I'd like to modify the wiki code somewhat so that it supports family tree views. We can then start a massive world-wide genealogy site so that everyone in the entire world can then update their genealogy info with the goal being to eventually trace everyone back to Adam and Eve and once and for all scientifically prove the truth of The Bible.

Buccaneer · 09-27-2007, 08:50 AM

There are at least 4 sites that do exactly that. The problem is that most people only want to make up connections and lineages to royalty, famous persons and biblical people instead of putting in verifiable information. As big as the LDS staff is and considering how they have been at it, even they cannot verify any claims that have been submitted.

DanGarion · 09-27-2007, 10:09 AM

I was just looking back on mine a couple days ago too. And this is what I found out on my dad's side with our last name.

I was doing some ancestry work today on my family name and I found out that my Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather Niclaes Van Schoonhoven wasn’t even a Schoonhoven to begin with! He was the bastard love child of my Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandmother, Debora Christofeels Davids and a guy that was called by one of these four names; Peg Leg Perrick, Dirck Adrians Van Vliet, Dirrick “Wooten Legg”, or Derrick Von Vliet. But since she was married to Hendrick Claessen Van Schoonhoven and baptized to that name, he became a Schoonhoven! My alleged Schoonhoven Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great (that’s 8 ) Grandfather Hendrick Claessen Van Schoonhoven even mentioned my 7x Great Grandfather in his will as the bastard son!

“So Schall be Give unto the Recerdit [recorded] Basterd Child named Claes whoes modder is called Debora an English Schilling.”

Wow one whole English Schilling, I wonder what that would be worth today?

Coffee Warlord · 09-27-2007, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sabotai

I got you beat! I'm 8th cousin to good ol' Dubya! And his dad! And Richard Nixon! And Frank Lloyd Wright!

God, we're almost not very related. Nixon is my 2nd or 3rd cousin.

sabotai · 09-27-2007, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

There are at least 4 sites that do exactly that. The problem is that most people only want to make up connections and lineages to royalty, famous persons and biblical people instead of putting in verifiable information. As big as the LDS staff is and considering how they have been at it, even they cannot verify any claims that have been submitted.

OneWorldTree is ancestry.com's attempt at this and it's a total mess. Mostly because of submitted trees with little or no sources for data, partially because their code to analyze the trees to find connections isn't very reliable. That was the joke earlier when I listed people I am "related" to. On ancestry, you can check who are your famous relatives based on OneWorldTree and it'll give you a list of famous people who you are most certainly not related to, but come up that way on their tree.

They even have entries for the Greek Gods and Titans on OneWorldTree. I went back to them when I was messing around with it. I was curious to see how far it would go. Atlas is an ancestor of mine, apparently.

Buccaneer · 09-27-2007, 06:03 PM

OneWorldTree grew out of the World Tree project that was started in the early 1990s. My tree (as incomplete and inaccurate it was back then) was on the very first World Tree CD. I think they still do this at genealogy.com but ancestry.com bought them out and is still trying to settle on a standard format but I guess people in the community have a hard time breaking old habits. But as you said, 99.99% of it is crap. The titans and gods, plus Adam and Eve that you see in the trees all come from the stupid LDS crap that have been around for a long, long time.

CamEdwards · 09-27-2007, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by M GO BLUE!!!

I agree.

There are a couple of mysteries I would love to dig up info on in my family involving my maternal grandfather and great-grandfather. We know gramps was in the army in 1919 and stationed in Siberia. He never talked about his service, but admitted to being dishonorably discharged, but no more. If you knew my grandfather, that would seem completely unlike him. Also, the army paid for his headstone, which they do not do for dishonorably discharged service members. I contacted the army for his records and they confirmed his dates entering and leaving, but said that no further info was available, that the records were likely lost in a fire.

His father supposedly was a county sheriff that was a complete bastard, got caught up in a scandal and committed suicide in front of his wife.

Family history is interesting, and I'd love to track it down but am a bit leery of the internet sites that advertise looking it up.

My gramps was in Siberia at roughly the same time. He was in the Canadian calvary in WWI, guarding the Trans-Siberian railroad. I'm pretty sure he had left by 1919 though, which means the chances are slim that your grandfather did something dishonorable to my grandfather.

sabotai · 09-27-2007, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CamEdwards

My gramps was in Siberia at roughly the same time. He was in the Canadian calvary in WWI, guarding the Trans-Siberian railroad. I'm pretty sure he had left by 1919 though, which means the chances are slim that your grandfather did something dishonorable to my grandfather.

Or maybe they did something dishonerable together but your gramps got away with it and his grandfather took the fall.

OR!!!!! Your grandfather did the dishonerable thing and FRAMED his grandfather!!!! Dun-Dun Dunnnnnn!!

sterlingice · 09-27-2007, 11:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

OneWorldTree grew out of the World Tree project that was started in the early 1990s. My tree (as incomplete and inaccurate it was back then) was on the very first World Tree CD.

Well, of course your tree would be on the first World Tree CD. Why publish one without some of the first humans?

SI

sabotai · 05-14-2008, 01:01 AM

A bit of an update for those interested

Awhile back, almost right after I started this thread, I found out the the person I found in Atlantic City ended up not being my Great-Grandfather. A valueable lesson was learned. The name (First, Middle and Last), birthplace, birth date, just about everything matched up perfectly. Except I found him in Atlantic City in 1942, long after he should have been in Pitman.

I did find out a few more details about my Great-Grandfather afterwards, the most importantant one being that he had a sister. I found him on the Pitman census in 1910, all of the info matched up for him, and right below his name I saw the name of his sister, and all of her info matched up as well.

And, fittingly, they just suddenly appear in 1910. I can not find them anywhere in 1900, which is what I would expect.

Anyway, that was awhile back. I've "found out" a lot of other stuff that is not substantiated in any way at all (hence "found out" being in quotes) about some other lines, so I won't say anything about those lines until I have actual hard data (I only tell my family about something I find until after I can actually show them something real).

However, I just recently solved one mystery that has been a road block since I started this hobby.

On a bunch of papers my mom gave me, one family line ended on a person named "Lieut. John Thomas". He was given a death date of Sept. 10, 1829. That was it, I had no other information to go on except that he had a son (named John Leeds Thomas) that was born just 2 weeks prior, on August 23rd, and he was born in Maryland. So I could surmise that Lieut. John Thomas was a resident of the state of Maryland, but I didn't have much else to go on.

As you can imagine, finding information on a person with the last name "Thomas" is not all that easy. I thought maybe he was a Lieutenant during the War of 1812. Being as I had no birth date, and he was a military man, chances are he might have been active in that war. I looked through the lists of military for that war and not only did I find an endless list of people named "John Thomas" from Maryland, I also found several who were of the rank "Lieutenant" (but none higher than that). No luck there, and that was about all I could think of.

I made few attempts to find out more as I more or less put this one on the back burner.

Until tonight. While I was searching through a book called "MD Eastern Shore Vital Records" (Book 4), there was a listing for a John Leeds Thomas, which was the name of the son that was born in 1829. However, in this list of births, he was born in 1795. Could he be Lieut. John Thomas? I thought to myself "Just how many John Leeds Thomas's could there be in Eastern Shore Maryland in the late 1700s, early 1800s?"

Then I noticed something. After his listing for his birth, I see "lost in the Hornet". That sounded odd, and pretty specific about an event. So I put "lost in the Hornet" into Google (with the quotes) and found this webpage: http://www.history.navy.mil/books/ca.../reg-usn-t.htm

The important part being:

Thomas, John L.
Midshipman, 1 January, 1818. Lieutenant, 3 March, 1827. Lost in the Hornet, 10 September, 1829.

The rank of Lieutenant and the correct date of death. Following the link, I found this at the bottom:

"She cruised throughout the Caribbean for the next 9 years, departing Pensacola the last time 4 March 1829. She set course for the coast of Mexico and was never seen again. On 27 October 1829 the commander of the West Indies Squadron received information that Hornet had been dismasted in a gale off Tampico 29 September 1829 and had foundered with the loss of all hands."

In scrolling down the list on the first link, I see a few others listed as "Lost in the Hornet" and the date is 10 September 1829, so I guess they use that date as the official date for those who died.

So, it would seem that I have found not only the cause of death for Lieut. John Thomas, I also have the date of his birth, and the names of both of his parents (including the maiden name of his mother - which is extremely important) along with several siblings.

The road block comes down and before me are two open paths. The never-ending quest continues.

Coder · 05-14-2008, 01:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JetsIn06

I've been looking into doing this myself as well. However, my Grandfather moved here from Sweden as a child, so I'm worried that I won't be able to find too much before then. Am I wrong? Is it easy to find information on pre-American family?

Also, what are you doing to find all this information? I am interested in doing it but really don't even know where to begin. Any help would be much appreciated.

P.S. Your family history is extremely interesing. Please keep us posted of any new stuff you dig up.

Strange I didn't see this before, but here's a link for you:

http://www.genealogi.se/roots/

Lots of old Swedish records are available online, however, they are so at a cost, and that cost is pretty steep.

Groundhog · 05-14-2008, 01:14 AM

On my father's side John Haynes came to Australia on the first convict fleet for stealing 2 bushels of tea... What a hardened criminal! That is the late 18th Century, but I traced it a little further back thanks to the great online records that the UK has, and the family I'm descended from appeared to have a bit of standing in their region in the earlier centuries, as I came across a few references from the 16th and 17th centuries of official-types and churchies with our surname and its rare-ish spelling.

On my mother's side my uncle did a lot of research. Most interesting tale he uncovered from our family was to do with two French twin brothers in WWI. One of the brothers killed a man over a lover, and initially his twin brother was blamed and almost jailed because of it. Going further back on that side he traced us to Denmark. Given the violent and criminal tendencies of some of my ancestors, it's probably safe to assume we were vikings.

korme · 05-14-2008, 01:17 AM

Pretty cool story sabs

Huckleberry · 05-14-2008, 08:55 AM

I, too, am very interested in genealogy, but it's always interesting to note how much more effort is put into tracing your roots straight through the line of fathers (because of the last name). That's why having a son was a big deal, in all honesty.

Fortunately for me in that regard I have a great-aunt who is really into it as well. She has stopped recently with advancing age but she gave me her GEDCOM file and I plugged it into RootsMagic.

Thanks to her I know that my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was on this boat. 8/27/1739 is the day my last name came over from Germany, at least my line of it. From there she even found the guy's father, so I even know his father's name and place of birth in Germany.

Which was probably some tough work because after we came over we were illiterate in English for a while. So apparently they gave up reading and writing altogether and couldn't even spell their names for a bit. The spelling of the name changed a few times and even the same individual is listed with different spellings in different documents.

Desnudo · 05-14-2008, 10:25 AM

My dad was able to trace our family roots back to a 13th century Viking named Leif the Unlucky.

chesapeake · 05-14-2008, 11:06 AM

Huckleberry mentions RootsMagic in his post. Is it any good? Are there other geneology programs folks have tried and liked?

Lorena · 05-14-2008, 11:09 AM

This is fascinating

MacroGuru · 05-14-2008, 12:01 PM

I have always been interested in this, but haven't taken the leap, I have family members that have, and they have found out a lot.

I need to dig deeper to find out more.

MikeVic · 05-14-2008, 12:02 PM

How does this work? Would it work if all my family is in Europe?

Lorena · 05-14-2008, 12:04 PM

Yeah, I'm wondering the same, Mike. It seems difficult to find stuff in Mexico or Spain.

King of New York · 05-14-2008, 12:12 PM

I had no idea that there were so many fellow genealogists out there!

I want to give a shout out to www.geni.com. It's a free website for making family trees. You cannot do any reserach there--for census records and such, ancestry.com is still the best bet for getting started, and then you need to dig into local collections. But for displaying the family tree, I really like www.geni.com. You can invite other relatives to join, and there are various security settings that govern how much information is available via public searches.

I've got all of my family branches traced back to the point of immigration, but I have had no luck tracing them into Europe itself. The Irish records are bad (most of the early censuses do not exist any more), and the Polish records are, well, in Polish and not online.

Huckleberry · 05-14-2008, 12:39 PM

I like RootsMagic alright but I have no experience with any other genealogy software so I have no basis for comparison.

The web pages it generates are very bland. But it does a nice job of keeping track of all the information.

sabotai · 05-14-2008, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chesapeake

Huckleberry mentions RootsMagic in his post. Is it any good? Are there other geneology programs folks have tried and liked?

I use Family Tree Maker, but I haven't really been blown away by anything. I still mainly use forms I print and folders to keep them in (along with photocopies, etc). Really the only thing I use the software for is 1) Quickly going through the tree to list missing data or data that is inconsistant, 2) Reports do look nice and 3) Viewing (IMO, overpriced) CDs that have records on them. That's about it. I don't think anything could really beat having hand-written forms and a filing system right now, though, for keeping everything organized.

EDIT: If you go to any site that sells software, you'll see a list of products that all do, basically, one specific thing. If they would combine all of them into one product, then they'd be good. It's almost like The Sims with all of the software out there. Worth it if it was all one product, not so much when you get a basic piece of software and a dozen "expansions".

3ric · 05-14-2008, 02:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coder

Strange I didn't see this before, but here's a link for you:

http://www.genealogi.se/roots/

Lots of old Swedish records are available online, however, they are so at a cost, and that cost is pretty steep.

Also check http://www.slaktdata.org/index.php/regsearch, which is a project with the goal of making all Swedish church records searchable in their database. Church records only goes back as far as the 17th century, though (unless your ancestor was of noble heritage)

Passacaglia · 05-14-2008, 03:04 PM

Does something cool happen once you've researched it 3 or more times?

sterlingice · 05-15-2008, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

Does something cool happen once you've researched it 3 or more times?

That just made my head hurt

SI

JetsIn06 · 06-16-2008, 06:29 PM

Just found out something pretty cool yesterday.

I went to visit my dad yesterday and he said he had a story to tell me. Turns out he went golfing about a week ago and the starter (guy at the first tee to take your ticket/receipt) was an older man (>75). He looked at the last time on my dad's ticket and saw his last name. He asked my dad if his father was in the navy. My dad said no, his father was in the army.

My last name (Omark) is extremely uncommon and as far as I know, the only people in the United States who have it are related to me somehow. So my dad told him that, and the older guy eventually said "All I remember is 'Omark survived, Brown died'.

Having no idea what he was talking about, my dad went on to golf, but went online when he got home searching for what he was talking about.

It turns out that my grandfathers cousin is Warren Omark, who was awarded the Navy Cross (The second highest award in the navy, right below the Congressional Medal of Honor) for his participation in "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot", more commonly known as the First Battle of the Phillappine Sea.

Quote:

It was the greatest aircraft carrier battle of all time, involving 24 flattops launching 1,350 U.S. and Japanese planes. Those numbers don't take into account U.S. escort carriers or Japanese land-based aircraft.

Quote:

For his part in the sinking, then-Navy Lt. Warren R. Omark of Erie received the Navy Cross, the second highest award for heroism the Navy could bestow, ranking right beneath the Congressional Medal of Honor.Omark consented to have his outfit's story retold from previously published accounts, much of which was taken from Navy intelligence after-action reports.Omark, a Hammermill Paper Co. retiree, is nothing like the stereotype that's been painted of the cocky combat pilot. He's a quiet man, reluctant to talk about his experiences because he knows others have been through worse.He also remembers the friends who didn't come back at all.""Write it short!'' he told a reporter.

Quote:

Knowing an immediate air attack from his carriers would mean that returning U.S. aircraft would have to try to land at night, Vice-Admiral Marc Mistscher gave the order and 216 planes took off from 10 carriers.Air Group 24 launched 12 planes, including a division of four Avengers piloted by Lt.(jg) George P. Brown in the lead, Omark, Benjamin C. Tate and W.D. Luton. All four Avengers were armed with torpedoes.Omark said Brown predicted just before take-off that his division would sink an enemy aircraft carrier. As it turned out it was Brown who, looking down through a separation in the cloud cover, spotted the biggest carrier, the Hiyo."

http://www.erieveterans.com/WW_II_St...warren_r_.html

JetsIn06 · 06-16-2008, 06:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by molson

Funny you bring up Sweden. I have no idea how easy it is, but my Uncle dug up a ton of info on our Swedish ancestors from the 15th-17th centuries. The highlight was that some family members were banished from Sweden for chopping down royal trees of some type.

So if you're interested in doing the research, Sweden apparently has a lot of records that can be accessed. No clue how my uncle did it though.

Molson...also found out yesterday that my Great Grandfather was also banished from Sweden!

DaddyTorgo · 02-20-2009, 11:33 AM

*bump*

I have started to get into this with my father, who is WAY into it and has done a ton of work. He uses ancestry.com

Last night he came downstairs yelling about being a 9th cousin to Queen Elizabeth through his maternal grandfather's line. I came upstairs with him to dig deeper, and we traced that line back through the Plantaganets and across via Geoffrey V Plantaganet's wife Mathilda (daughter of Henry I) to a certain gentleman who came over to England in 1066 via boat and conquered the place. Yeah, that gentleman. Went back further than that through the Normans and found the first generation of Vikings who settled in France (Rollo made count of Rouen by Charles the Simple in 913, son of Rognvald Eyesteinsson who founded the Earldom of Orkney according to ancient Norse sagas/histories). Potentially it seems that may go all the way back to some mytho-historical Swedish kings written about in sagas (name escapes me right now and i don't have the ancestry.com login data).

Pretty frikkin cool!

MJ4H · 02-20-2009, 11:40 AM

Just the other side of the issue here. I don't even care enough to know all of my aunts/uncles or cousins. Seriously. If someone started talking to me about my family history I would doze right off.

Mustang · 02-20-2009, 11:47 AM

One of my ancestors was born in 1518 in the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel.

DaddyTorgo · 02-20-2009, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mustang

One of my ancestors was born in 1518 in the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel.

Luv it!

We've also got the Scottish side covered apparently - although I didn't look at that last night.

And I always loved the episodes where he went back to Scotland the most. The music in those episodes was just hauntingly beautiful.

Flasch186 · 02-20-2009, 11:53 AM

adam.

thesloppy · 02-20-2009, 11:53 AM

I've got a buddy who is 300th in line to the british throne. He hit the genealogy jack-pot: a mention in a crappy UK tabloid article, wherein they photoshopped a crooked crown on top of his picture.

http://tinyurl.com/5ccaz9

He is still reaping the benefits (ridicule), to this day.

09-26-2007, 06:30 PM	#10
miked College Starter Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: The Dirty	I wish I could dig more into this, but most of my family was killed in concentration camps in Eastern Europe. It's very difficult because most records were destroyed and many names changed. __________________ Commish of the United Baseball League (OOTP 6.5)

09-26-2007, 10:28 PM	#16
Noop Bonafide Seminole Fan Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Florida	I know my mama and my daddy and I am sure I am related to a neanderthal. __________________ Living in an Oligarchy.

09-27-2007, 01:59 AM	#17
mrsimperless College Prospect Join Date: Apr 2003	This reminds me of one of my ideas. I'd like to modify the wiki code somewhat so that it supports family tree views. We can then start a massive world-wide genealogy site so that everyone in the entire world can then update their genealogy info with the goal being to eventually trace everyone back to Adam and Eve and once and for all scientifically prove the truth of The Bible. __________________ "All I know is that smart women are hot. Susan Polgar beat me in 24 moves in a simultaneous exhbition. I slept with the scoresheet under my pillow." Off some dude's web site.

09-27-2007, 10:09 AM	#19
DanGarion Coordinator Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: PNW	I was just looking back on mine a couple days ago too. And this is what I found out on my dad's side with our last name. I was doing some ancestry work today on my family name and I found out that my Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather Niclaes Van Schoonhoven wasn’t even a Schoonhoven to begin with! He was the bastard love child of my Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandmother, Debora Christofeels Davids and a guy that was called by one of these four names; Peg Leg Perrick, Dirck Adrians Van Vliet, Dirrick “Wooten Legg”, or Derrick Von Vliet. But since she was married to Hendrick Claessen Van Schoonhoven and baptized to that name, he became a Schoonhoven! My alleged Schoonhoven Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great (that’s 8 ) Grandfather Hendrick Claessen Van Schoonhoven even mentioned my 7x Great Grandfather in his will as the bastard son! “So Schall be Give unto the Recerdit [recorded] Basterd Child named Claes whoes modder is called Debora an English Schilling.” Wow one whole English Schilling, I wonder what that would be worth today? __________________ Los Angeles Dodgers Check out the FOFC Groups on Facebook! and Reddit! DON'T REPORT ME BRO!

05-14-2008, 01:01 AM	#26
sabotai General Manager Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: The Satellite of Love	A bit of an update for those interested Awhile back, almost right after I started this thread, I found out the the person I found in Atlantic City ended up not being my Great-Grandfather. A valueable lesson was learned. The name (First, Middle and Last), birthplace, birth date, just about everything matched up perfectly. Except I found him in Atlantic City in 1942, long after he should have been in Pitman. I did find out a few more details about my Great-Grandfather afterwards, the most importantant one being that he had a sister. I found him on the Pitman census in 1910, all of the info matched up for him, and right below his name I saw the name of his sister, and all of her info matched up as well. And, fittingly, they just suddenly appear in 1910. I can not find them anywhere in 1900, which is what I would expect. Anyway, that was awhile back. I've "found out" a lot of other stuff that is not substantiated in any way at all (hence "found out" being in quotes) about some other lines, so I won't say anything about those lines until I have actual hard data (I only tell my family about something I find until after I can actually show them something real). However, I just recently solved one mystery that has been a road block since I started this hobby. On a bunch of papers my mom gave me, one family line ended on a person named "Lieut. John Thomas". He was given a death date of Sept. 10, 1829. That was it, I had no other information to go on except that he had a son (named John Leeds Thomas) that was born just 2 weeks prior, on August 23rd, and he was born in Maryland. So I could surmise that Lieut. John Thomas was a resident of the state of Maryland, but I didn't have much else to go on. As you can imagine, finding information on a person with the last name "Thomas" is not all that easy. I thought maybe he was a Lieutenant during the War of 1812. Being as I had no birth date, and he was a military man, chances are he might have been active in that war. I looked through the lists of military for that war and not only did I find an endless list of people named "John Thomas" from Maryland, I also found several who were of the rank "Lieutenant" (but none higher than that). No luck there, and that was about all I could think of. I made few attempts to find out more as I more or less put this one on the back burner. Until tonight. While I was searching through a book called "MD Eastern Shore Vital Records" (Book 4), there was a listing for a John Leeds Thomas, which was the name of the son that was born in 1829. However, in this list of births, he was born in 1795. Could he be Lieut. John Thomas? I thought to myself "Just how many John Leeds Thomas's could there be in Eastern Shore Maryland in the late 1700s, early 1800s?" Then I noticed something. After his listing for his birth, I see "lost in the Hornet". That sounded odd, and pretty specific about an event. So I put "lost in the Hornet" into Google (with the quotes) and found this webpage: http://www.history.navy.mil/books/ca.../reg-usn-t.htm The important part being: Thomas, John L. Midshipman, 1 January, 1818. Lieutenant, 3 March, 1827. Lost in the Hornet, 10 September, 1829. The rank of Lieutenant and the correct date of death. Following the link, I found this at the bottom: "She cruised throughout the Caribbean for the next 9 years, departing Pensacola the last time 4 March 1829. She set course for the coast of Mexico and was never seen again. On 27 October 1829 the commander of the West Indies Squadron received information that Hornet had been dismasted in a gale off Tampico 29 September 1829 and had foundered with the loss of all hands." In scrolling down the list on the first link, I see a few others listed as "Lost in the Hornet" and the date is 10 September 1829, so I guess they use that date as the official date for those who died. So, it would seem that I have found not only the cause of death for Lieut. John Thomas, I also have the date of his birth, and the names of both of his parents (including the maiden name of his mother - which is extremely important) along with several siblings. The road block comes down and before me are two open paths. The never-ending quest continues. Last edited by sabotai : 05-14-2008 at 01:39 AM.

09-26-2007, 05:27 PM	#2
Tigercat College Starter Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Federal Way, WA	Genealogy mysteries can be great. Although they can also be a little unsettling too depending on what you find... I found out my great(x whatever) grandfather was in the civil war on both the north and souths side; and he apparently liked killing so much, that right after the war he signed up to go on Native American killing squads(and was involved in a massacre).

09-26-2007, 05:27 PM	#3
JetsIn06 Pro Rookie Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Rahway, NJ	I've been looking into doing this myself as well. However, my Grandfather moved here from Sweden as a child, so I'm worried that I won't be able to find too much before then. Am I wrong? Is it easy to find information on pre-American family? Also, what are you doing to find all this information? I am interested in doing it but really don't even know where to begin. Any help would be much appreciated. P.S. Your family history is extremely interesing. Please keep us posted of any new stuff you dig up.

09-26-2007, 05:42 PM	#6
Joe Pro Starter Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Minneapolis	yeah it's always fun to do that. I <3 my slave trading ancestors!

09-26-2007, 06:19 PM	#9
Buccaneer Head Coach Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Colorado	As one who has been working on family history for 25 years and quite a bit recently, be very, very careful about accepting anything you see from the internet (and LDS, but that's another story). With the explosion of armchair genealogy in the past 15 years, first with CD, then with online database and trees, errors and fraudulant lineages are getting propagated at an exponential rate. Only accept persons in your family tree that you have good sources for or have been documented with good sources. However, there are very few good sources (legal docs, town/county records, cemetery and censuses are good). With my subscription to ancestry.com, I went through many of my older lines (as well as dead-ends) and found almost no additional information that was worth putting in (and these were mostly the better documented NE and NY families). There is probably 100x more information more information available now than 15-20 years ago but almost all of it is worthless or more accurately, just merging the same stuff over and over that wasn't any good in the first place. As said before, if you stick with the good sources (or the sources that have good propenderance of evidence) - which I see you have done - then you'll have something that will stand the test of time. Good luck and have fun.

09-26-2007, 07:42 PM	#11
sabotai General Manager Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: The Satellite of Love	Thanks Bucc. Yeah, I just use the stuff I find online as a starting off point for more research. I take it all with a grain of salt, especially if I'm getting it from someone else's family tree, no matter how well my info fits with their's.

09-26-2007, 08:26 PM	#13
Greyroofoo Pro Starter Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Alabama	Because of people like sabotai I've learned I'm 9th cousin to George Dubya Bush

09-26-2007, 10:19 PM	#15
ArlingtonColt H.S. Freshman Team Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: arlington, tx	Davey Crockett is in my family tree... it's pretty cool i guess

09-27-2007, 08:50 AM	#18
Buccaneer Head Coach Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Colorado	There are at least 4 sites that do exactly that. The problem is that most people only want to make up connections and lineages to royalty, famous persons and biblical people instead of putting in verifiable information. As big as the LDS staff is and considering how they have been at it, even they cannot verify any claims that have been submitted.

09-27-2007, 06:03 PM	#22
Buccaneer Head Coach Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Colorado	OneWorldTree grew out of the World Tree project that was started in the early 1990s. My tree (as incomplete and inaccurate it was back then) was on the very first World Tree CD. I think they still do this at genealogy.com but ancestry.com bought them out and is still trying to settle on a standard format but I guess people in the community have a hard time breaking old habits. But as you said, 99.99% of it is crap. The titans and gods, plus Adam and Eve that you see in the trees all come from the stupid LDS crap that have been around for a long, long time.

05-14-2008, 01:14 AM	#28
Groundhog Coordinator Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Sydney, Australia	On my father's side John Haynes came to Australia on the first convict fleet for stealing 2 bushels of tea... What a hardened criminal! That is the late 18th Century, but I traced it a little further back thanks to the great online records that the UK has, and the family I'm descended from appeared to have a bit of standing in their region in the earlier centuries, as I came across a few references from the 16th and 17th centuries of official-types and churchies with our surname and its rare-ish spelling. On my mother's side my uncle did a lot of research. Most interesting tale he uncovered from our family was to do with two French twin brothers in WWI. One of the brothers killed a man over a lover, and initially his twin brother was blamed and almost jailed because of it. Going further back on that side he traced us to Denmark. Given the violent and criminal tendencies of some of my ancestors, it's probably safe to assume we were vikings. __________________ Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. --Ambrose Bierce

05-14-2008, 01:17 AM	#29
korme Go Reds Join Date: May 2001 Location: Bloodbuzz Ohio	Pretty cool story sabs

05-14-2008, 08:55 AM	#30
Huckleberry College Starter Join Date: Dec 2001	I, too, am very interested in genealogy, but it's always interesting to note how much more effort is put into tracing your roots straight through the line of fathers (because of the last name). That's why having a son was a big deal, in all honesty. Fortunately for me in that regard I have a great-aunt who is really into it as well. She has stopped recently with advancing age but she gave me her GEDCOM file and I plugged it into RootsMagic. Thanks to her I know that my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was on this boat. 8/27/1739 is the day my last name came over from Germany, at least my line of it. From there she even found the guy's father, so I even know his father's name and place of birth in Germany. Which was probably some tough work because after we came over we were illiterate in English for a while. So apparently they gave up reading and writing altogether and couldn't even spell their names for a bit. The spelling of the name changed a few times and even the same individual is listed with different spellings in different documents. __________________ The one thing all your failed relationships have in common is you. The Barking Carnival (Longhorn-centered sports blog) College Football Adjusted Stats and Ratings

05-14-2008, 10:25 AM	#31
Desnudo Coordinator Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Here and There	My dad was able to trace our family roots back to a 13th century Viking named Leif the Unlucky.

05-14-2008, 11:06 AM	#32
chesapeake College Starter Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Arlington, VA	Huckleberry mentions RootsMagic in his post. Is it any good? Are there other geneology programs folks have tried and liked?

05-14-2008, 11:09 AM	#33
Lorena Unregistered Join Date: May 2004	This is fascinating

05-14-2008, 12:01 PM	#34
MacroGuru Coordinator Join Date: May 2003 Location: Utah	I have always been interested in this, but haven't taken the leap, I have family members that have, and they have found out a lot. I need to dig deeper to find out more. __________________ "forgetting what is in the past, I strive for the future"

05-14-2008, 12:02 PM	#35
MikeVic Head Coach Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Hometown of Canada	How does this work? Would it work if all my family is in Europe?

05-14-2008, 12:04 PM	#36
Lorena Unregistered Join Date: May 2004	Yeah, I'm wondering the same, Mike. It seems difficult to find stuff in Mexico or Spain.

05-14-2008, 12:12 PM	#37
King of New York High School Varsity Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Edge of the Great Dismal Swamp	I had no idea that there were so many fellow genealogists out there! I want to give a shout out to www.geni.com. It's a free website for making family trees. You cannot do any reserach there--for census records and such, ancestry.com is still the best bet for getting started, and then you need to dig into local collections. But for displaying the family tree, I really like www.geni.com. You can invite other relatives to join, and there are various security settings that govern how much information is available via public searches. I've got all of my family branches traced back to the point of immigration, but I have had no luck tracing them into Europe itself. The Irish records are bad (most of the early censuses do not exist any more), and the Polish records are, well, in Polish and not online. __________________ Input A No Input

05-14-2008, 12:39 PM	#38
Huckleberry College Starter Join Date: Dec 2001	I like RootsMagic alright but I have no experience with any other genealogy software so I have no basis for comparison. The web pages it generates are very bland. But it does a nice job of keeping track of all the information. __________________ The one thing all your failed relationships have in common is you. The Barking Carnival (Longhorn-centered sports blog) College Football Adjusted Stats and Ratings

05-14-2008, 03:04 PM	#41
Passacaglia Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Big Ten Country	Does something cool happen once you've researched it 3 or more times?

02-20-2009, 11:33 AM	#45
DaddyTorgo Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Massachusetts	bump I have started to get into this with my father, who is WAY into it and has done a ton of work. He uses ancestry.com Last night he came downstairs yelling about being a 9th cousin to Queen Elizabeth through his maternal grandfather's line. I came upstairs with him to dig deeper, and we traced that line back through the Plantaganets and across via Geoffrey V Plantaganet's wife Mathilda (daughter of Henry I) to a certain gentleman who came over to England in 1066 via boat and conquered the place. Yeah, that gentleman. Went back further than that through the Normans and found the first generation of Vikings who settled in France (Rollo made count of Rouen by Charles the Simple in 913, son of Rognvald Eyesteinsson who founded the Earldom of Orkney according to ancient Norse sagas/histories). Potentially it seems that may go all the way back to some mytho-historical Swedish kings written about in sagas (name escapes me right now and i don't have the ancestry.com login data). Pretty frikkin cool!

02-20-2009, 11:40 AM	#46
MJ4H Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Hog Country	Just the other side of the issue here. I don't even care enough to know all of my aunts/uncles or cousins. Seriously. If someone started talking to me about my family history I would doze right off.

02-20-2009, 11:47 AM	#47
Mustang Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Wisconsin	One of my ancestors was born in 1518 in the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel. __________________ You, you will regret what you have done this day. I will make you regret ever being born. Your going to wish you never left your mothers womb, where it was warm and safe... and wet. i am going to show you pain you never knew existed, you are going to see a whole new spectrum of pain, like a Rainboooow. But! This rainbow is not just like any other rainbow, its...

02-20-2009, 11:53 AM	#49
Flasch186 Coordinator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Jacksonville, FL	adam. __________________ Jacksonville-florida-homes-for-sale Putting a New Spin on Real Estate! ----------------------------------------------------------- Commissioner of the USFL USFL

02-20-2009, 11:53 AM	#50
thesloppy Pro Starter Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: PDX	I've got a buddy who is 300th in line to the british throne. He hit the genealogy jack-pot: a mention in a crappy UK tabloid article, wherein they photoshopped a crooked crown on top of his picture. http://tinyurl.com/5ccaz9 He is still reaping the benefits (ridicule), to this day.

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