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Two typical solutions to this situation:

• If both grandfathers had the same first name, the naming tradition would cause the two firstborn sons to have the same name. Check later censuses for verification.
• If a child died, the next born child of the same gender would carry on the name. Check if the 1899 child died later in 1901, but before your grandfather was born.

More info: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Scotland_Names_Personal

OPs description of the privacy changes is not accurate. https://www.ancestry.com/cs/legal/privacystatement

The privacy policy that became effective August 3rd talks about what data they collect from you and with whom they share data. It has nothing to do with the trees being public or private or with living people set to public. Trees by default have always been set to publicly searchable unless you specifically change it to private. Living people are still set to private even in public trees.

Was the family poor? Perhaps they couldn't afford the burial & didn't claim the body? In the 1940 census Raymond & Mary Alice are indeed living in Mound City.

Here are some possible explanations:

• The individual who reported this information for the death certificate was misinformed or misremembered.
• Lutisha was adopted later in life.
• Lutisha was just living with relatives other than her parents at the time of census enumerations. It's not uncommon for children to live with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. I've found this to be especially common in families with lots of children and families with multiple marriages for one or both of the parents.

Edit: This appears to be the death record in question. It was reported by her son, who might reasonably be expected to know his grandparents.

Because Lutisha was born in 1883, I wouldn't find it unusual for her not to be living with her parents in the 1900 census, when she would have been around 17. In fact, she may have already been married in 1900. Their oldest child Elvira Deaton appears to have been born around 1900. (I haven't confidently found Lutisha or Alex in the 1900 census yet. There are two Alex Deatons in the area born about 6 months apart and I don't want to mix them up.)

Edit again: Yup, that was exactly it! Here's Lutisha in the 1900 census with her husband Alex Deaton and their daughter Elvira: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M9WF-Z5F

She's part of what I call the "ghost generation" of children born in the early 1880s who didn't appear on the 1880 census, and married or moved out of their parents' homes before the 1900 census. This is totally normal.

The Sgt Major R. S. Talbot is likely Roland Saunderson Talbot. This link has a link to his military personnel files. His granddaughter has also commented on the page and there is a link to contact her (the link isn't working for me but hovering over it shows her email address). He was in the UK in the 1911 census with the military and he was Srgt Major according to his military records so it seems likely it is him.

You have the problems that you have.

Your risks are the diseases that your forebears have. So if diabetes runs in your family, make decisions based on increased risk for that. Might want to look into ‘The South Asian Health Solution’ by Ronesh Sinha. https://www.amazon.com/South-Asian-Health-Solution-Culturally/dp/1939563054

For your kids, you’re going to want to do genetic testing with your partner before you start to try for a kid (or if there is a specific genetic condition in your ethnicity that you haven’t mentioned, I’d get tested right away so you know whether you’re a carrier or not….) and maybe try to not marry someone who’s your cousin. These tests won’t screen for every risk but it will give you some peace of mind.

Take it with a grain of salt. She can be happily incorrect. You never know where people are on their genealogy journey. Maybe she's just learning the ropes.

I found the Michael Gaffney she's referring to on https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/166179002/person/342161268687/facts and clearly this one has some mistakes. The 1870 census shows 2 daughters, Mary and Margaret. Michael Jr would have been born when his father was 13 and 4-5 years before their marriage.

Yes you can. I’m on my phone using the mobile browser, and this is how I found it:

1) Go to your tree 2) Click “Tree Settings” 3) Go down to “Hint Preferences” and click on “site preferences” 4) You will see “Potential Ancestor Hints” with the option to turn it off

Or:

https://www.ancestry.com/secure/account/sitepreferences

Ernest Lemaire Wilde and Edna Marshall married 15 Aug. 1904 in Brooklyn, New York. They lived in Chicago in 1910.

Well, it's not a photograph, but a drawing. My grandfather had a huge nose. When I started doing genealogy and came across a drawing of my 3X great grandfather, James Axley, I gasped! My grandfather got his nose from his great grandfather (my 3X).

Yes, it's called Ancestry Institution, there's a K-12 program: https://www.ancestry.com/cs/us/institution#k-12

However, I also want to point out that FamilySearch have a lot more records than just what is indexed. If you use their catalog, you'll find a lot more. Additionally, Ancestry's non-European/American records can be limited as well. Honestly, most online genealogy research is geared towards Europeans or people of European descent, especially western Europe because they use the same alphabet as English.

Ancestry releases an annual transparency report:

2016

• Ancestry received 9 valid law enforcement requests concerning users of Ancestry.com and Archives.com in 2016. We provided information in response to 8 of those 9 requests.
• All of the requests were related to investigations involving credit card misuse and identity theft.
• We received numerous inquiries that were refused because the requestor did not provide the appropriate legal process.
• We received no requests for information related to the health or genetic information of any Ancestry member, and we did not disclose any such information to law enforcement in 2016.

https://www.ancestry.com/cs/transparency-2016

emphasis mine.

They also state in their privacy policy that they will do their best to warn users who are the subject of requests from law enforcement unless the law prohibits them from doing so. (Keep in mind if law enforcement can get a subpoena for Ancestry.com info, they can probably just get one to swab your cheek themselves.)

Something else to understand, Ancestry, 23andMe, etc all store single nucleotide polymorphism markers whereas databases like CODIS use short tandem repeat markers. The data is not compatible.

Have you checked these Shelby County probate records? If William E Nichols owned substantial land or personal property, it may have required probate proceedings when he died. Perhaps William B Nichols will be listed as an heir:

• https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/109973

I agree with the commenters who suggest filing a complaint. Regardless of whether it achieves the result you want, it provides a record of what happened. I would draft a letter and attach a copy of your American Express statement showing the charge and summarize your contacts with Ancestry support. Then I would cc: everyone I could think of - more for the optics than anything else: BBB, the consumer protection agency in your state if there is one, and so on. And I would send it registered mail (or certified, I always forget which) so that someone has to sign for it showing it was received.

All of this may be futile, but the alternative is to remain silent when you have a legitimate reason to raise hell. There might also be some things you could do to put your complaint in the spotlight like posting it to Ancestry's community support forums; finding a genealogy blogger who might be willing to spotlight the problem; tweeting about it with a link to the blog or to an imgur image of your letter (redacted to protect your privacy) or having a friend do it for you if you don't have a Twitter account. As someone pointed out below, they may not give a rip about you, the customer, but they do care about damage control and it might get their attention if they know you will not be going silently into that good night.

https://www.ancestry.com/corporate/contact-us

My first suggestion: scan them. All of them. Yes, this is tedious as you’re not related. But it can mean a ton to the people who are.

Second: Post the scans somewhere. Ancestry.com, maybe, or Wikitree.com, or the most time-efficient option (with little research on your part) is to just upload them to imgur and send them off here in a reddit post. We can all transcribe them and do that work for you.

Third: family trees. If someone has these people in their family trees they likely are related and would probably love to see that stuff! I can do a more detailed search in the morning if you need.

Fourth: Contact the local historical society of those places. If the family is nowhere to be found, (perhaps they’ve died out or we can’t find Them for some reason) they would probably love the donation and would know how to preserve these precious documents.

However: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SCAN THEM. Even though you’re not related this is preserving it for everyone who is, just in case someone comes across this thread in 10 years and is begging for a hint or a copy of these letters. They could just search your post history for them.

ETA: Definitely scan them. There are still descendants floating around here, at least in 1999 and 2000: https://www.ancestry.com/boards/thread.aspx?mv=tree&m=25&p=surnames.leach https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/mccann/1083/

In case anyone's curious, here's the 1900 census record, and it really does say "Datective":

• https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MMDJ-8KN

I'd recommend looking for mentions of her in newspaper articles.

I'm confused about why you went to an FHC/FSAL if you didn't already know of records that you can only open/access there, that would help you in your research. You can find them from home, you just can't look at them unless you're there.

For example, take the Italian city of Foggia. Here is a link to Civil Registry records from Foggia, from the years 1809 to 1899. As you scroll through them, look on the right. Notice how, in most cases, the symbol is a little camera with a key above it? Well, that means that the images are available for viewing, but only at an FHC or FSAL. A few just have the camera, without the key, and those can be viewed from home.

So, if I'm doing research on an ancestor from the city of Foggia, I'd come across that page, right? Just to make it easy, let's say she was born in 1809. "Nati" means "birth" in Italian, so "Nati 1809" refers to birth acts from the year 1809. "Nati 1809" is the topmost image collection in that link, and on the right, the symbol is a camera with a key above it. So, now I know that to see her birth act that's presumably in this collection, I'll have to go to an FHC/FSAL.

When enough of that stuff that I can only view at an FHC/FSAL piles up, that's when I make the trek down there and look at everything at once.

It doesn't make sense to bother going down there if you don't already have things you've found in the Catalog that are restricted to FHCs/FSALs that you'd like to view.

It depends what you want the site to do, but yes, the best free site for finding records is familysearch. ancestry.com let's you build a tree totally for free (you only have to pay if you want to see records or other people's trees). And this site is a pretty good free site for getting advice.

Ancestry.com's 1880 census index shows 2,023 individuals living in Mississippi (where James and Vina married) whose marital status was "Divorced." That doesn't include those people who had remarried or misled the census taker. A table here purports to show the "ratio of estimated existing married couples to one divorce in 1880." Mississippi is near the middle of the pack: one divorce for every 498 married couples.

> Sarah McKee--I have no idea.

Mrs. Sarah Franklin married James R. McGee in Franklin County in 1867 (image here).

I can across this Swedish household examination for a family that it might be worth looking into. The parents are Olof Nilsson and Hanna Sjöström, and they have four children living with them: Johan Georg, Ivar August, Erik Wilhelm, and Maria Katrina. This Erik Wilhelm was also born in 1878.

So this is a really good question! Academic genealogists have been asking this question for more than a decade. One reference book that talks about sources and how to analyze them is Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills. She lays out several different factors that should be considered when we look at documents:

One important point that she makes is that we have to consider separately, in some senses, the document and the information. For example, a death certificate is definitely an original document. However when we consider which person gave the information in the document, some of it that person likely knew first-hand (the date and place of death, the deceased's occupation, etc) but some of it they may have only known second-hand (the date and place of birth, the deceased's parents). Here is a lot more info about source evaluation.

Both of these factors are important when considering a document. An original document like a marriage license is generally considered to have fewer sources of errors than a derivative document like a county register. And primary information given by someone who witnessed the event(a child's date of birth reported by the parents) is generally subject to fewer types of errors than second-hand information given by someone who didn't witness it (a parent's date of birth reported by the children).

However, it's also recognized that every sources could have an error in it, so the general course is to examine all sources and evaluate their quality, look for agreements and conflicts in the information, and evaluate the evidence as a whole.

Every professional genealogist I've spoken to has sworn by Tom Jones' <em>Mastering Genealogical Proof</em>. I have a copy myself, and it's absolutely excellent.

I am guessing this isn't her - https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N7G7-YZ7

I am also wondering if she was buried in Potters Field? Maybe she died a little while after coming to the US. Do you know the names of her parents?

Here is a chart for the cousin thingy.

https://lifehacker.com/second-cousins-once-removed-and-more-explained-in-1661572056

Basically, following the relations as you describe in your OP, the woman you messaged (the 1st cousin's daughter) is not your second cousin, but first cousin, once removed.

The children of your first cousin are your first cousins, once removed.

A 2nd cousin is a cousin that you share great-grandparents with. A 1st cousin is a cousin you share grandparents with.

If the woman you refer to in the OP has children, these are still your first cousins - but they would be first cousins, twice removed.

Cousins are the same generation as you (ie parents siblings kids, same grandparents) - the removed part is how many extra generations there are between.

Thanks for sharing!

One of my personal faves is my 6th and 7th g-grandfathers' longtime business partner, Enoch Freeman; a land surveyor and attorney in what is now Portland, Maine. Freeman outlived his wife and some of his children. By the time he died, the burial ground lacked space for Freeman to be interred with his own family. His solution, which clearly had posterity in mind, as did the stone you shared, was to therefore list a directional azimuth to his family's gravesite, from his own. His stone reads:

This Stone is erected to the memory of the late Honorable Enoch Freeman, Esq'r, who died Sept. 2d, 1788, aged 82 years. His wife lies near and four children, S. I7" W. 4 or 5 Rods from this Grave

If I remember right, only one stone among his wife and children had survived the years -- therefore making Freeman's directional message, carved by Bartlett Adams, a terrific source of information!

Here's George Bratton living in Richland Township in 1840 with what appears to be a wife, three sons and a daughter:

• https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHRX-LFN

There's a John Bratton of the right age to be his brother a few lines up.

Frankfurt civil registers are online up to a certain point on Ancestry. City directories are online, too (although you’ll have to go through them page by page - select Deutschland and then Frankfurt a. M. or Frankfurt am Main to see the available years).

If you are certain that he lived in Frankfurt at a certain point, I would suggest finding him in the city directories and then using the address(es) given there to get his residence registration info from the Einwohnermeldeamt in Frankfurt. This should include his place and date of birth.

You can find lots of records for free at https://www.familysearch.org/

However, the family tree there is shared and conclusions about deceased individuals can be edited by anyone. (Conversely, living individuals can only be seen by the user who entered them.) On one hand, that could be helpful to you as a novice. On the other hand, you might be concerned about sharing your research with other users. (A lot of people have a very strong concept of my family tree and might object to anyone else viewing or editing it.)

If you'd prefer to keep your tree private (at least until you're more confident), you can do that for free at ancestry.com. You won't be able to view most records or hints there without a subscription, but building a tree is free and can be completely private.

Depending on where and when your ancestors lived, there are probably dozens of other free resources on the internet to help you learn more about them.

Here's another little tidbit of information that can help you be more confident in this conclusion. In her mother Martha's 1900 census record, she's noted as being the mother of 9 children, with 7 still living. But only 6 children are enumerated in her household. That seventh child is almost certainly Lutisha, married and with a child of her own in 1900.

A small caveat:

Those columns on the census are some of the most likely to contain errors. The woman of the household is the only one who can answer it authoritatively, and sometimes the men don't know about children from previous marriages. If young children provide this information, they may not even know about siblings who were born and died before them. (And no one likes to talk about deceased children, so sometimes they may not answer accurately even if they know.)

However, almost all errors in these columns are due to undercounting and not overcounting. If a woman is listed as having a certain number of children, you can be very confident that she had at least that many, and possibly more.

There is a marriage cert for Irene and Frank. She lists the death of her former husband as May 30, 1907. https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/61381/TH-1951-21140-8710-96?pid=904041162&amp;treeid=&amp;personid=&amp;rc=&amp;usePUB=true&amp;_phsrc=rTM9&amp;_phstart=successSource

GEDCOM is still used. I would upload it to Ancestry and FamilySearch, the two biggest genealogy websites. You can have a free account to post family trees/work on both, though on Ancestry, you won't be able to view the trees of others on a free account. This will maximize the amount of people who can access it, and should be a good way to continue Mom's tradition. There are other websites, too, like MyHeritage, Geni, and doubtless a few others I'm missing, so depending on how much work you want to do, you might consider them, as well. But I'd say Ancestry and FamilySearch would cover most bases.

Here's a link for how to upload GEDCOMs to Ancestry. FamilySearch doesn't seem to have on-site instructions, but they do specifically state on the Sign In page that you can do it, so I wouldn't think it'd be that hard. Whatever you choose to do, thanks for your contributions! I guarantee you'll have distant cousins and descendants who'll appreciate it immensely.

Did she have a Social Security number? If so, she would have needed to provide a birth certificate, probably a delayed birth certificate in this case with affidavits from people able to verify her birth information - parent, older sibling, other relative, etc.

Wikipedia shows Cosby in Cocke and Sevier counties, is this right? The FamilySearch catalog for Sevier is no help but they have birth records for Cocke county - unfortunately, they're not digitized, but it shows the state archives as the author so you may want to contact them to see if they can do a search or direct you somewhere that you can do it yourself:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/963514?availability=Family%20History%20Library

At least that way you would have a better idea whether a birth record might exist.

Also related to the SSN, if she does have one you can order the SS-5 which will show date and place of birth and parents' names.

His arrival card at El Paso in 1922 with his wife and daughter says he was born in San Julián, Jalisco (which is also where his wife was born), and that was also his last residence:

• Record: https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1082/images/IMUSA1903_082391-1592
• Image: https://i.imgur.com/GZsquVq.jpg

It also indicates he previously lived in Los Angeles from about 1912 to 1921.

Here is his petition for naturalization - his real name was Paul Kurek born in Tarnow.

&#x200B;

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSML-J9Y3-S?i=1585&amp;cat=1048881

There are Shelby County marriage records here from 1792 to 1966. A marriage record from that era would typically not name the parents, unless the consent of a parent was required, or unless a parent's home is named as the place of marriage. But it would be worth ruling out:

• https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/192528

His baptism record from Parchacz Greek Catholic Church records is here. It says that he was born 26 May 1897, baptized the next day. His father was Joannes Lemecha, farmer of Parchacz, son of Alexii and Mariae (maiden name Petech). His mother was Shaphia, daughter of Stephani Lytwyn and Mariae (maiden name also Petech). The obstetrix (midwife) was Euphimia Lytwyn. Godparents were Michael Szewczuk and Parascovia, wife of Joannis Lucyk(?).

His brother Andrew's baptism record is here.

I don't see any evidence that his family, his wife, or her family might be Jewish. His wife, her parents, and grandparents are buried in Baptist cemeteries with crosses and churches on their grave markers.

The headstone applications collection on FamilySearch only covers 1925-1949, and on Ancestry only covers 1925-1963.

A quick search didn't find any synagogues in Monticello or Lawrence County, either.

It may simply have been a mistake that was never corrected. You might see if Goven had a published obituary.

His daughter Mary Nell (Hammond) Bracey/Badeaux seems to have a number of living descendants that might have more insight.

In genealogy, proof generally means finding documentation (birth and death certificates, wills, census records, deeds, land patents, obituaries, abd so on) connecting a child to a parent, as well as showing that the child is connected to the right parent and not a stranger with a similar name, etc. https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Genealogical_Proof_Standard

It is certainly possible to trace ancestry to nobility or royalty in Europe, and if you can prove a connection to someone in a noble family, you'll often find excellent documentation of many connections, since nobles tend to intermarry.

I would be very, very skeptical of a family tree that traced ancestry to the Caesars. Julius Caesar's known relatives died out in the 5th century; all of his known children died childless except his daughter Julia, who died in childbirth along with her only child. Augustus' last descendants died in the first century, apparently childless.

Royal families have claimed to be descendants, but offered no proof. Royal family trees sometimes descend from mythical figures like Odin, too. It's extremely unlikely, to put it politely.

I think I may have just figured out why:

>The 1940 Census has a feature that other censuses don’t have. It states who gave the information to the census taker. From the instructions of previous censuses, it stated that when a family wasn’t at home, a neighbor could give information about them. Source: https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/census-taker-wrong/

You could volunteer through an organization, like a genealogy or historical society. You could be a volunteer indexer of records at FamilySearch. You could be a freelance volunteer and offer to make runs to your local libraries and archives for others. Something as simple as offering to do a lookup at a FHC near you is an amazing gift to a researcher who can't easily access one.

Helping people break down their brick walls on r/genealogy, FB groups, etc. is a form of volunteering. I'm not very good at it, but I enjoy it and every once in a while I actually help (lol).

Here is Rev. Elbridge Knight's death record. Herman and Delbert were his sons. Edith was Herman's daughter. Charles and Ernest appear to be children of another of Elbridge's sons. Most of the people listed seem to have lived in Fort Fairfield or Easton, Maine.

Here's his death certificate. He died when a train overturned, crushing his head. His widow died in 2009. San Diego city directory shows her living there as his widow for many years.

Assuming that the family /u/craftyrunner found is the correct one, John's wife Maria and son Maximilian arrived under the name "Szvetlosak" at Ellis Island 11 May 1909 aboard the Kronprinzessin Cecilie (see lines 17 and 18 here). The manifest says that they were going to join husband and father Janos on Van Winkle Avenue in Passaic, New Jersey. Their last residence was L. Szt. Miklos, Hungary (I believe that would now be Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia). It also says that Maria had lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania between 1902 and 1907.

Edit: The manifest also gives Maria's father's name as Janos Turzo.

John C. Wilson's probate file begins here. It mentions his widow (who remarried in April 1881), but I didn't spot any references to children.

Take a look here, specifically the online records section. Some records are online, but of course not everything. I hope you can read Japanese!

Do you know exactly where in Japan your family came from? You'll need to find that out before you'll be able to do any research in records on that side of the Pacific.

There is an application for enrollment here for Viola B. Gillespey, who was born in 1902, and died later the same year. The "AD" on her card meant "Adopted Delaware."

Admixture is not an exact science -- it's more of a fun cocktail party conversation topic. i.e. "St. Patrick's day -- Kiss me I'm 11.34% Irish." Admixture varies from company to company. A. lot. They use their own formulas to determine where you get your genes from. An example: I go from 1% European Jewish in Ancestry, 0% in 23andme, and 7% in FTDNA. The value of autosomal testing lies in matching with others to find common ancestors.

"Great-Grandfather" -- 12.5% of your DNA in theory comes from each great-grandparent, but because of the random way that genes work it could be that a lower or higher percentage was inherited. Maybe it's not enough for it to report to ancestry as "Italian / Greek".

Here's mine: http://grabilla.com/0731b-6bf7e6e5-357d-495b-b2eb-19d87651c123.png

Ancestry combines Italy and Greece into the same group and has no Central European group. Was it Eastern European?

Is your father willing to be tested? What about any living grandparents? Best rule of thumb is to have the oldest members of your family take the test if they're willing.

I'd recommend going through the New York state birth index for 1924. It's sorted by surname, so look for your great-grandparents' surname.

• https://archive.org/details/New_York_State_Birth_Index_1924/page/n1

You can also search this collection on Ancestry:

• https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/nystatebirthindex/

This is really interesting (and sad). Mysteries like this keep me going with my hobby! I found info on Harrison Benjamin Worrell b1895 in Virginia and married to Myrtle quite easily on Ancestry. It seems like she's looking more for information on the disappearance...perhaps someone with a Newspapers.com account wants to take up the task!

Edit: Here is the public tree created by Terry Barbera: https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/83719728/person/46494138573/facts

This appears to the baptism of Harry Isak in Valga. Harri Isak and his twin sister Isabella Isak, the children of Johannes Isak and Luise Melanie Prikko were born on January 14, 1930 in Valga and baptized in the Evangelical Church, Petrovskaya.

According to the transcription of his death certificate, his parents were Adom Grombling and Elizabeth Hauck. I suggest ordering the original to double check the info (Adom is probably Adam).

Do you know if they came in the last 100 years or so? Or before that?

If your family were in the States in 1940 and before, a good place to start is by searching the 1940 USA census.

I'd recommend you use FamilySearch. You may need to make a free account to use it now.

Search for your grandfather (or great grandfather) in the above link, and you'll probably be able to find them on that census. You can then check the previous censuses, and work backwards with what you know.

You should hire an expert that specialises in your geographic area of interest as they will be most familiar with local sources rather than just higher level census or other documents.

See also: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Hiring_a_Professional_Researcher

Have you searched for his name in the Social Security Death Index? Non-US citizens can obtain SSNs so it's possible his SSN was legitimate.

https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1202535

If it is, you could order his SS-5 application if you can prove he has died. You can prove he's deceased if he's in the SSDI or if you have his death certificate. Because you probably can't prove his parents are deceased, they'll mostly likely be redacted on the copy you receive. But you could get a birth place and birth date on the application, which would enable you - I hope - to find him in more records, including possibly his Canadian birth certificate.

http://www.legalgenealogist.com/2013/05/31/ordering-the-ss-5/

Absolutely yes to DNA, especially if you can get your mother to test, too. The reason is: if someone matches you, but doesn't match your mother, that match is presumably through your father (unless it's a false match, which is more common among distant matches).

Hopefully your mom wouldn't object to DNA testing even though she's less than forthcoming on your dad.

Here is a record about Clarence Dunker when he crossed the border from Canada to the United States through Blaine, Washington. It is from the U.S., Border Crossings from Canada to U.S., 1825-1960 collection on Ancestry.com. The manifest gives Clarence's date and place of birth, which led me to the second image in the link above, his delayed birth certificate (from Iowa, Delayed Birth Records, 1856-1940 on Ancestry). His birth certificate gives the names, ages, and places of birth for both his parents.

Here is Clarence and his family living in Alberta, Canada in 1916. The 1916 Census is online for free through Familysearch. Familysearch is a free site that has a decent amount of records online for you to use. Not all of its collections are indexed, though.

Ancestry is the best for genealogy, IMHO, but as others have pointed out, it's largely useless without a subscription. You'll be given a list of names of cousins, but unless you pony up the cash, you cannot contact them.

The best advice if you are looking to casually test is to choose the cheapest auDNA test and upload the results to gedmatch.com and wikitree. The results won't be as satisfying, but it's free.

Here is an example of about 30 people living at a hospital in the 1910 census. It seems that it was not unheard of for employees of the hospital to live there.

You should be able to request a copy of her social security record if she is deceased. This information might be helpful: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/U.S._Social_Security_Records_for_Genealogists

Birt Hensley and Nancy Cloud's 1923 marriage bond is here. It says that his parents were Jennings and Matilda Hensley.

Charles George Corbin's obituary may be read on this page. It says that his wife Cecelia was still living in 1965. The website for Greenlawn Memorial Cemetery indicates that she died in 1977.

There is a card catalog there. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/catalog/ Looks like the catalog is viewable even if you don't have an account.

I agree about reaching out to the VA.

(Using my cheapo free library version of Ancestry, I found a death certificate that appears to be for the same individual. The birth date isn't the same, but the death date is, and the "informant" on the death certificate is definitely the same individual who applied for the gravestone.)

On the 1880 Census Don (8) says his father was born in NY, while James Sr says he was born in PA. So either James Sr isn't Don's father, or the Census taker got the details for Don (8) and James Jr (16) confused. That complicates things.

I may have found James and Emma in the 1900 Census in Lost Creek, Vigo, IN: https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7602/images/4118673\_00854?usePUB=true&amp;\_phsrc=UAF942&amp;\_phstart=successSource&amp;usePUBJs=true&amp;pId=13918156

I tried searching St Clair County newspapers but unfortunately the Belleville News-Democrat archives are only available in News Bank, which I don't have access to.

I found him in Helena, Montana in 1942, working for a mining company, listed under the name John George Drew https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/17372593:1002

No, thank you! I know how big of a difference a tiny spelling change can make and I didn't have much confidence in the spelling of this record anyway as it lists 'Hawburg' and 'Micaragua'... Unfortunately Ancestry doesn't seem to turn up any record of a ship named Kansler either. FamilySearch thinks it's 'Kambsea' so there is a lot of room for interpretation.

As far as the route goes I could be totally wrong. On the page that Richard is listed on it has two other men, one with a last residence as Mexico and one as Guatemala. In my mind it made perfect sense for the ship to pass by all three of these Central American countries up on the way to SF, but maybe not. FamilySearch has a scan of the passenger list available so maybe you'll be able to make more sense of it and the ship name than I can!

Is this your Thomas in the 1885 Iowa Census? If so, it says he is widowed. Which means she would have died a year or less after they were married.

Unless I'm skimming right past it, I don't see Isaac Stearns on the lists of known fraudulent genealogies: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Fraudulent_Genealogies

That said, everyone else is right. Use it as a guide, but be sure to lay eyes on the sources yourself, to be sure they exist and they say what the book claims they do.

Some good and bad news (and please verify my information yourself, I may be mistaken so keep digging!):

Hungarian Civil Records are available 90 years after birth, after 60 years for marriages, and after 30 years for deaths. So you'd only need to wait a couple more weeks to access your grandmother's birth record.

Check here for more information on familysearch's Hungarian Civil Record collection:

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Hungary_Civil_Registration_(FamilySearch_Historical_Records)

Now the bad news (maybe): go to the link below and translate the page to English. For the region you specified it seems to say there aren't any FHL microfilms for the town you're looking for. However, that doesn't necessarily mean the records don't exist, just that you would have to order them through the district/county's civil registrar or archive records (here I don't know the specifics on who you're meant to order them from in this region, you'll need to do some searching)

http://mikrofilm.uw.hu/civil/index.html

But like I said, your grandmother's birth record will be available for access in a couple weeks (good timing!).

Have you see this civil registration on family search:

Name: Giustino Pardi Event Type: Birth Event Date: 10 Oct 1889 Event Place: Ripacorbaria, Pescara, Italy Event Place (Original):  Father's Name: Domenico Pardi Mother's Name: Fioralba Di Piase

Digital Folder Number: 005707656 Image Number: 00031

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV9N-ZQ46

Giustino and Eleanora's marriage record confirms parents - https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLFK-17XS

It is probably him. He has the same first name, middle initial, and surname as your ggg-grandfather. He also died in the four year window you know him to have died in with the same number of living children. It seems too coincidental to be not the same man.

There is an extensive tree on FamilySearch about the Bixler family. It has Daniel H. Bixler as the son of John H. Bixler and Malinda Yoder. Take this information with a grain of salt until you confirm it, though.

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/9X95-DPM

Cynthia Herrin.

This person created references on ancestry.com to books and databases that don’t exist.

The book referred to on that message board, "Our Pioneers: Families of Early Oakland County, Michigan" by Martha Baldwin, was never written, doesn’t exist, has never existed. I’m a volunteer researcher at the oldest local historical society in Michigan, which as it happens, is in Oakland County. If this book existed, we’d have it, or record of it, and we don’t and never have.

We used to get regular calls about this fictional book until ancestry at some point pulled the references from their search index.

Apparently this person did this across several states, all referencing sources that weren’t real. I can’t understand why they would do this, but they did.

Was his widow a woman named Ruth? If so, there is a pension card w/ the same info on ancestry.com. It was def Company B West Virginia Light Artillery.

Ancestry has had some very serious issues with their services for the last year or so. Calling what Ancestry refers to as tech support will get you someone who reads from a script and has no actual knowledge or ability to fix or even report an issue. Whomever is in charge of their technical operations is either so overwhelmed or incompetent as to be totally clueless on how to deal with these issues.

I have resorted to calling the Corporate Office to voice my complaints and I would suggest others do so to. While it hasn't fixed the issues, I have ended up with about 5 years of free service (I guess they got tired of my complaints.) The number can be found here: https://www.ancestry.com/corporate/contact-us

Another option is to report the issues directly to their Facebook page, particularly if you have evidence of the issue that you can send them. The people behind that page seem to have a bit more direct communication with people who can at least attempt a fix.

In the 1915 NY Census, which isn't indexed on ancestry, there is a family that consists of

McKay (female name starting with M that I can't quite read), age 40 (so birth~ 1875)

MckAy, James, age 17 (so birth ~ 1898)

McKay, Josephm age 9 (so birth ~ 1905?)

Anna Moore married Harry F. Sweeney in 1914. He appears to have died in 1918.

This is going to seem strange, but I'm pretty sure he actually died before 1920 and the 1920 census record is just a ghost records, or error. Especially if he has orphaned children living separately.

Look closely at the 1920 census image for Molly Johnson. She says she is widowed. And yet her husband is mysteriously there. I think the census taker took down his name but he was actually already deceased. This may explain the move in with the parents and why a death record cannot be found post 1920.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MDBP-NXZ

Another interesting fact, Mollie applied for a marriage license to Adam Ballreich a full year before they actually got married, and in the license she said she was widowed. If accurate this further reduces the death range to before Sep 5 1921. See image on familysearch.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X8GW-HZZ

To locate the nearest place to borrow a copy of: Supplement to the Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, enter your zip code in this World Catalog site. Same with the Descendants of George Frazier, et al.

Did Noah receive an inheritance from his father? Phebe may have been the "natural guardian" of her son's person, but not of his property. A letter of guardianship was probably required for her to have the legal right to control his estate until he reached majority. You can read up on 19th-century Indiana guardianship statutes here.

The record refers to "GS Film number 0022366 IT 3," which is here: "Microfilm of manuscript (38 p., handwritten) in the Rhode Island Historical Society."

According to this FamilySearch page none were published for 1868/1869. They show 1867 but it's not digitized. Ancestry does have the 1867 direcotry.

FamilySearch has lots of free records for the United States:

• https://www.familysearch.org/

However, searching there can be extremely painful since they changed it a couple weeks ago. You might find a site like Ancestry easier to use, although a subscription is required to view records:

• https://www.ancestry.com/

Ancestry (and all websites) use cookies - nothing in the privacy policy regarding cookies has changed. In fact, they have a specific Cookie Policy page, and there's been no changes to it: https://www.ancestry.com/cs/legal/AboutCookies

I don't think you can block individual trees (or all of a member's trees) from appearing in hints. You can turn off all member tree and ancestor hints here:

• https://www.ancestry.com/account/preferences

Then if you get stuck on an ancestor, you can manually search for similar people in other family trees. If you click the 🔍Search link at the top of any person's profile, you should find matching people from member trees at the top of the search results.

The most infamous of these trees (at least on Ancestry) is El Genesis de las familias.

Family View - Ancestry.com

Found out my cousins supposedly descend from Adam and Eve because of a connection at their ggg grandfather.

According to the Civil Registration of Liege, Marie Darat (b. 1848) passed away in 1897, Vital Augustin Joseph Wasterlain (his date of birth not mentioned) was her husband at that time. His profession: "ouvrier tourneur en fer" (iron turner), https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9Q97-Y93B-XZ?i=64&amp;cc=2138505

For anyone else reading, here's the 1940 census record in question:

• https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KHMV-RHG

> I'm hoping someone might be able to point me to a birth index that could have some clues,

Michigan birth records (or indexes) that recent aren't available online anywhere I know of.

> or maybe some 1950 census records that could shed some light.

The 1950 census won't become public until 2022.

Perhaps she was a child from an earlier marriage of Beulah or Howell, and died young.

I assume that you are from the U.K., so I can't offer as much help.

I would suggest using FamilySearch and look at the catalog section.

https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/search/

There are TONS of records that are not indexed, and you will miss out on so much information if you simply rely on the search function (only includes indexed items).

Simply type in the location. Probate, land, and tax records can be goldmines. They existed before vital records were a requirement.

It requires going page by page sometimes, but there is usually some sort of index.

I use it every day for my American roots, but I have also had some success with searches in Canada, German, and the U.K.

It looks like except for a company J that was formed near the end of the war and has a roster of 24 men, most accounts of this regiment only survive in contemporaneous newspaper reports of their movements and battles, and retrospective accounts of surviving officers and soldiers.

Your ancestor appears to mentioned (as Wakefield, J.W.) on a roster on page 180 of this book:

• https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Tennessee-Infantry-Regiment-Regimental/dp/1522974172

I wonder if he's the same John J. W. Wakefield mentioned as a part of Company E of the 41st Tennessee Infantry:

• https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F9KV-JN5

Here's an index to that death registration, in case anyone else is curious:

• https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2JWJ-6J9

That Ophelia died when she was 19. Would the items in the scrapbook have been available to someone who was born around 1896?

I had no luck finding any newspaper accounts, city directory entries, or census records for him between his 1932 divorce and his 1945 death.

There's this very hard to decipher 1940 census record for an "E James" something-or-other (the transcriber on FamilySearch thought it was "Germflo") living in Kalamazoo County in 1940. His wife Mabel was the informant (marked with an ⊗) and thought he was born in Pennsylvania.

• https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K4L5-F58

> What is puzzling is that there is no indication of how this was compiled, or who is behind it. Is there someone out there that I might want to get in touch with?

If you visit the web version of the Family Tree at https://www.familysearch.org/ and log in there, you can see who entered each conclusion and who made each change, and sometimes (if they'd conscientious users) why they made those changes. Just click on the link that says "Latest Changes > Show All" in the side bar. You can contact them right from that list of changes, and will automatically include a link to the person you're asking them about.

I think this level of detail might not be visible in the FamilySearch mobile app.

I should have clarified. FS only has records from the first half of the 20th century. Maybe that was the issue. See here: https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/628228?availability=Family%20History%20Library

You can make your Ancestry tree private. Just go to:

• https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree

Then click on Tree Settings to the right of the tree you want to change.

Then click on Privacy Settings near the top. You can choose between Public and Private. This change will take effect immediately, meaning no one you haven't invited can view your tree.

You can also choose to prevent your tree from being found in searches. However, it can take a month or two for the people in your tree to be removed from the search index, so you might still have other members find your tree in search results and contact you about it.

Please consider posting to https://www.familysearch.org/photos/ and then tag the people in the photos—and make notations that you are looking to confirm them. If others have family trees there with these people, they will get a notification and you may just get someone who can verify it. It's a great, and underused, tool. Best of luck!

That would explain why I couldn't find Rosanna (Farrell) Denning's death record, but did find that of Rosanna (Farrell) Wright. John Denning was boarding with a Cox family in 1910.

I really need this thread to vent right now. My family has been trying to solve the biological father of my grandma since 1980. I've literally inherited this brick wall.

Good news: The DNA test my dad did last year matched with an unknown new 1st cousin.

Bad news: The new cousin also doesn't know who their biological grandpa is.

Good news: It's between two men.

Bad news: I can't find any record of EITHER of these two men's parents to corroborate with other DNA match trees. The two men: Charles Brewer and Louis Hansen

Good news: The cousin agreed to request their mother's birth certificate to find the biological grandpa.

Bad news: Colorado won't release the birth certificate because the mother changed her surname between her own birth certificate and the new cousin's birth certificate so I can't prove relation

Get your aunt to DNA test on Ancestry, get your mom/dad to test too.

If grandma is still alive, get her to test.

Also, if the baby was born in California, it's worth checking Familysearch's California Birth Index - https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2001879

You don't have to enter a name, you should set the birth year as the year(s) she was there, and enter her maiden name there.

It doesn't mean she did or didn't have the baby there, but it could help.

I can't access the family tree you linked since I don't have an Ancestry account, so I can't see if you know about him already. But I found out that a brother of Marianna, called Giuseppe Tomassi, was born in England in 15th June 1899. He was a farmer and could read and write.

Found it here (in the 1899 pdf, page 150), where you can see indexes of Fogli Matricolari (military personal records; read more about them here.

This is just the index, the real record will have more information (but likely not a lot of genealogical info). You can request it by contacting the Frosinone State Archive, whose email you can find in the site above. Italian is preferable, and they will likely take their time to respond and ask for a small payment.

Despite being born in England, he was still registered for service in Cassino (Circondario of Sora). So his family was probably from Cassino. Searching for "Franchitto" and "Tomassi" in other years, you can also see that most are from Cassino, despite a few being from places like Atina or Villa Latina.

Will update after I do a bit more research.

The death index entry for Beatrice G. Staycoff shows that Leon Cwik and Beatrice May Quinn were her parents. Her obituary is misleading, because Patricia was her stepmother, and her biological mother is not mentioned.

It appears that, by the time of her daughter Beatrice's death, Beatrice had remarried Frank W. Kawecki and had other children (Barbara Ann and Cecelia). Leon and Patricia's obituaries mention only Leon's biological children. Frank's obituary first mentions his biological children and then his stepchildren.