"We might be millionaires." That's the sentence that started off my newest hobby. Without going into a huge amount of detail that sentence was from a conversation with my Dad about a week and a half ago. Turns out that a great uncle of his owned some land that may or may not belong to my Dad and his brother. However, we aren't sure if this is a hoax or honest request. So my Dad asks for my help since I'm better at searching the Internet than either of my parents.
Mind you neither my Uncle or Father could tell me anything identifiable about this property. Just that it belonged to his Uncle "Mick" who was the brother of my great-grandfather and that it was in a small town by a river (I am being deliberately vague here). But that was it. No address. So initially, I call the Assessors of both possible counties to no luck.
So finally, I went back to a hobby that I work on from time to time - my family tree. Using the tools available through a Genealogy website, I found his name, his wife's name and their children. Some of it is sketchy because it was collected by hand, but no property addresses. But it got me going again on the family tree. For kicks, I decided to add Keds' family tree as well. I figured as long as I'm working on this, I should at least create something for our kids.
So now this is in full-blown obsession mode. I made contact with distant cousins and was able to fill in a tremendous amount of information. My first cousin did a lot of work on our mutual grandparents so I have that info. Plus, I got a TON of old pictures from my folks. It's really interesting. Mind you, I may go blind in the process trying to figure out what ship my ancestors were on coming through Ellis Island, but what the heck. It'll give my kids a great story!
Have any of you done work on your family trees?
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5 comments:
I did actually do a little genealogy a long time ago, and then I found out another family member had been doing it for some time and took some offense to my project. So I dropped it. But I've learned quite a bit about my heritage! Very cool stuff.
How cool! I am have always wanted to do this but never found the time. PErhaps one day I will find the time and dedication to do it right. Good for you. It is nice to know where we come from.
Lora - So did that family member ever provide you with the information they've done? As long as they share, that's the important thing.
VP - It's actually not that hard. Ancestry.com has a free two week trial and you just plug in the information you know or can get easily. It actually does a bunch of searching for you!
I set up a GENi account a few years back. I was handed a lot of material from my grandfather when I was younger and most interested in our heritage. What I found amazing was how many of my family members took the steering wheel and charted their extended branches. It got me in better touch with my cousins also. No money, though. hahaha B)
We've done quite a bit of geneology tracing... I guess that's kindof a given with my church and all, but We found out that Paris really is a descendant of several royal lines through my Father's direct line and my mothers patriarchal line.
We've got all my family lines traced back to the 12th century, and several even earlier than that.
I think jen and I are related too. Ooo gross.
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