ancestry.com migraine....

[Riverkilt]

WARNING! Genealogy can be even more addicting than kilts - but fun.

Don't over look the free sites - if there still there - Genealogy.com and Roots...be VERY careful on the free LDS website.

Most fun is finding relatives you haven't met. Scary sometimes how similar we are, despite a few generations of distance.

A suggestion to preserve your work. Make up copies and send them to every relative you know. Gets the solid work distributed through the family, and sometimes triggers an interest and they help with the search too.

Library of Congress has a huge genealogy collection. The addiction was strong in the 1800s. Found a book with my grandfather's name in it as an infant there in a Gordon genealogy book. Nice when the background work is done by folks a couple hundred years ago who knew for sure who was related to whom.

Don't overlook area histories if you know where ancestors lived. Found my Macdonald great grandfathers in a Cape Breton Island history. My little sister caught the bug and would spend vacations back in the old home towns going through old old old newspapers and find new relatives from news articles about who visited for an ice cream social.

And, the ghosts of your ancestors will speak to you and guide you if you do the work kilted in your clan tartan(s).

[glenlivet]

Genealogy.com and Roots...be VERY careful on the free LDS website.

Er, why in particular?

Most fun is finding relatives you haven't met.

Agreed, this has turned into another form of social networking for me. It's a blast finding 2nd, 3rd, 4th cousins in various degrees of removal!

[EagleJCS]

Genealogy.com and Roots...be VERY careful on the free LDS website.

Er, why in particular?

Because they accept anything people submit, without verifying the records. Some of the records submitted have since been found to be unsubstantiated.

[Joshua]

My biggest headache w/Ancestry.com is that when you discover a lead is "bad" (i.e. someone else/you goofed up and added a non-relative) it doesn't delete the link if that link was to several persons...


I've deleted/recreated a dozen trees because of this.

I'm pretty much stuck. My dad was adopted by his maternal-side uncle, so I never knew my paternal grandparents (nor did I adopt their surname, Trott). Fortunately, my father's biological father had 12 other children, and two of them have cross-linked family trees that are well substantiated by the census, marriage, birth, and death records. I've actually tracked down further on that side, than I have the people I actually grew up with and knew my whole life. By that avenue, I've got a German GG-Grandmother, and a Scottish GGG-Grandmother (Urquhart). Unfortunately the patrilineal line stops in Baltimore for the "Trott" surname... problem is that "Trott" can be German, French, Irish, or British. My dad always told me it was German - but he could be referring to the GG-Grandmother with the surname "Spaht".

Sorry for the rant/hijack, but as you can tell - I've got my own Ancestry.com headaches.

[MacBean]

My biggest headache w/Ancestry.com is that when you discover a lead is "bad" (i.e. someone else/you goofed up and added a non-relative) it doesn't delete the link if that link was to several persons...

100% agreement. Whoever invents a web application that allows correcting and additing information with verifiable sources will corner the market in the ancestry business. Ancestry.com does approach that as far as it allows others to see any tree you create along with any evidence you post.

[bdkilted]

I gave up on Ancestry.com years ago. They always seem to have something close, but no direct link to any of my line. I have had the most progress by finding people in the geographical area that I needed to look, who mentioned on social networking sites that they were into geneology, and asking them for help. Most are willing to do a quick search in the records they have available to them for free. One nice lady in Aberdeenshire, Scotland was able to find where my g-g-grandfather lived for me. Now, I just have to get back to the UK to continue the search myself.
Good luck with the quest, I know it can be frustrating.
BD

[MacBean]

Many Americans here have Scots ancestry, and most of those pre-date the revolution. I'd estimate that I probably have 100-500 direct ancestors from circa 1730. I may be able to find some of those, but the majority will never be known. I cannot really ever know my roots, no matter where I was born. For this, and many other, reasons, ancestry is still an uncertain platform for identity.

Those who know they are true Scots (and Highlanders to boot), wouldn't have to delve back very far before they found holes in that ancestral heritage. So perhaps their identity is based on where they were born, or where they live, or the cultural tradition in which they were raised. These are all pretty fluid as well. That's a liberating thought, as we are then free to assume identity at will; it's something we can actively create.

The key to being American, is that we are intentionally creating identity rather than assuming one passed down by tradition and heritage. It is difficult for those not born here to realize this about Americans (and not all Americans would have thought about it enough to agree with me).

That said, I've enjoyed a bit of genealogy myself!

[Gael Ridire]

Yes you have a headache! You can trace back your ancestry with nearly 100% fact, but...you must go one generation at a time using primary source documents: birth, marriage, death certificates, wills, land records, baptismal records, military records, etc. The message boards, pedigrees, LDS website, are excellent guides to help one to often cut through the haze, but DO NOT accept the data listed as fact! Which has been mentioned. And sometimes these primary source records can contain false data too, especially death certificates. One of the biggest helps is the Federal census records for tracing a family's movements, but often the data it contains is not 100% fact. Also spelling of surnames are not important till late 1800s. I have an ancestor where his surname is spelled four different ways in his will that he signed. Good luck!