Ancestry (dot) com

[yogi]

Since I know you have an interest in this site ...

[Kellemora]

Good One, and looks fairly accurate too!
50% Dollars Wasted.

[pilvikki]

I sent a sample to myheritage and got some strange results, one being 11% south European, like italian or greek. Sure, sure. I would have bought swedish or slavic, us being neighbours - and a drop of Swede, one 1having been in the family tree from the 1500s.

But Italian.

[Kellemora]

I have my father's ancestry going all the way back to the Holy Roman Empire now, but none of them are Romans, hi hi.
It appears they were all Germanic speaking, except during the time a few had to learn French, but they really normally still spoke German unless it was necessary to speak French.
I was very fortunate to get hold of some passed down genealogy work from a few of those ancient ancestors. A lot of it got divided up to the various kids along the way. And one of those had worked with all the rest to get copies of what was passed down so they could reassemble it all to what their grandparents had maintained.

I even learned the how and why the official records of our name went from a D to T and back to a D again.
Turned out was always a D, but written in such a fluid script, when a new records person took over, they could not tell the difference between a D and a T on the records so filed the D's under the letter T, and that error got perpetuated for a whole generation, before it was restored to the proper spelling.

In the process of obtaining or viewing records, the number of mistakes one finds, especially on census records is astounding.
Also the way they took the census could sometimes be confusing as well. Like on the 1910 census, you may find a 1 or 2 year old, who did not appear on the 1920 census, and you know they were not away at school at that age. But here they appear on the 1930 census again. OK, where were they during the 1920 census at age 11 or 12? In some rare cases, you do find them on the census their grandparents appear in, so in 1920 it shows their name as grandchild to head.
When they are older, often in their early 20s, you may find them as a boarder on another census, because they took a job near a mill or something and lived on-site or in a boarding house for employee's of that company.

But what kills me the most is when Official Records, like actual birth, marriage, and death certificates, all give different date data for the same person. A few times, the burial date was given as the death date, especially back when traveling doctors and the like only got into town to record their records sometimes months after the fact.

[Flawless]

I found my mothers Paternal Grandparents birthdates and death dates and built on that from ancestry. The fun stuff started when searching my father's paternal side...basically, he had 15 children by 6 different women at current count. 4 of them (2 sets of 2) are separated by about 4 or 5 months, so that's a whole bunch of family that I'm getting acquainted with. None of them knew about my father and my father didn't know about them. As far as DNA results goes, I'm 100% European. I don't put much stock into what the nation findings are but they seem to be fairly accurate on my end honestly. Going by my family tree and what I've found, I am Dutch, German, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and even have a line that came out of Portugal, but that was in the 1600's. My Dutch line is suspected to be French Huguenots who moved to the Netherlands during France's persecution of Calvinists, however I have not been able to trace that line back to France.

[Kellemora]

Until I was able to get some older recorded records, almost all of the reports about my ancestors were from Dieffenbach, Germany.
This was a little tricky to figure out since there are three Dieffenbach's and all fairly close to each other too. One book published about our family spelled it with one letter F which threw a few things off from the available official records.
Other people with ties to our family would always show we were French, but DNA showed not a stitch of French in us.
Most of my closer ancestors lived in the Alsace-Loraine area, which was part time under German rule, and part time under French rule. So I had to do some deep research to find what the country really was at the time of their birth.
It was from this research that I found a few ancestral relatives who happen to have tons of written personal family documents going all the way back to the Holy Roman Empire. And from those I learned regardless of the different languages spoke in the regions they inhabited, they were all considered Germanic speaking and moved from place to place to avoid wars and cling with other Germanic peoples.
Two of my ancestors moved to Missouri nearly 30 to 40 years apart from each other. The family who moved here first, after staying in Missouri for about 15 years, decided to move across the Mississippi River to Illinois. They sent mail back home while they were living in Missouri telling where they were located and inviting others from their family to come join them.
Well, when the second family finally moved to Missouri, their relatives were no where to be found, so they dropped anchor in rural Saint Louis County, Missouri, and stayed in that same area for their whole lifetime and many generations.
When we did discover the earlier relatives, they claimed they were no relation to us, and that's how it was for many years.
With travel much easier for my parents generation, and later in my generation, travel to Illinois was just a simple drive.
Through my parents, I met a few of our other relatives, and then in my generation, and not too long ago, after making friends with a few of them, we got DNA samples from a few, and also from our side, and these led back to the same ancestors.
Of course we figured they would, because the stories their families passed down, were the same stories our family had passed down. But until DNA evidence proved we had the same ancestors, they never once said we might be related, hi hi.
Once it was certain, and both sides finally agreed, my grandmother held a huge family reunion all the way down on the riverfront, where many things were exchanged between the families. Stories, old photo's, bible writings, and family records.
During the Alsace-Loraine years, each time a country would take over, they would destroy most of the official records from the former country. But since most of our ancestors were Catholic, the churches all maintained decent records and many of them became available and has since been converted to digital format, which made many of them discover-able.
Doing genealogy is a rewarding, and often frustrating hobby. But is much easier now than when I first started many decades ago.

[Flawless]

That's an awesome story. Nobody from my maternal side seems to have kept anything, at least no one I'm familiar with. I'm sure if I visited my family from Southern Indiana and checked out records from White County, IL I'd find more information, also Pocahontas County, WV as well.

You wouldn't happen to have any Morris' from the mid 1800's in IL in your tree do you? This would be George Morris who was married to Sarah Margaret Means in about 1866. They had 2 children, a daughter and a son. The son was born in 1875 but by 1880, he was gone and she was remarried according to the 1880 IL census with the two Morris children listed as step-children to the head of household. No other records have been found regarding George. And while I do see on the 1770 census that he would have been born in about 1841 there is no records for him outside of his marriage and the 1870 census. As my last name is actually Morris, this has been a thorn in my side, especially since those who knew his son, my grandfather and great-aunt, have no recollection of their grandfather talking about his father at all.

Just figured I'd ask since you have over 120,000 folks in your tree and this has been a dead end for me for a few years haha.

[Kellemora]

I doubt it, but I will check, simply because we have so many families brought in from spousal genealogies I've added.
I'm pretty sure I'm over 160,000 linked individuals now. And have been busy working on the first few tiers again adding new data I've come across, and new children I learned about.

[Flawless]

Thanks for checking at least! :-) The ancestry.com message boards are pretty much dead, so figured I'd ask haha.

[Kellemora]

I'm not done checking yet. I did find a William George Morris married to a Sarah Josephine (nln) around 1873 give or take a couple of years.
Not in my family tree though.

[Flawless]

Close but not my family. Illinois marriage records show the marriage occurring March of 1866. Wife's name was Sarah Margaret Means and Husband's name was only George Morris.

[Kellemora]

I will keep searching to see if I find a hit anywhere!

[Flawless]

[Kellemora]

OK, got to do a deep search this evening. Dug up quite a bit for you also.
Plus a link to someones tree that has them in it, albeit not a very good tree.
The first two hits are from two different sources with the same info.
The third hit was from another source.
And at the end is a link to the person who had them in their tree.
Happy Hunting!
TTUL
Gary

Name
George W Morris
Spouse
Sarah Margaret Means
Marriage
9 Mar 1866 White, Illinois

Name
George W Morris
Spouse
Sarah Margaret Means
Marriage
9 Mar 1866 White

Name
George W Morris
Birth
Sep 1844 Pennsylvania, USA
Marriage
1866
Residence
1900 Minonk, Woodford, Illinois, USA

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/pe ... 5006/story

[Flawless]

Plus a link to someones tree that has them in it, albeit not a very good tree.

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/pe ... 5006/story

Yup, those amateur genealogists. I'm sure that tree is not very Flawless.

[Flawless]

Thanks for checking! That third hint I may check out just because who knows but on the 1870 census it was pretty clear that the birthdate was somewhere around 1841 and the birthplace was IL but it's worth checking out.

[Kellemora]

Sorry I couldn't capture the sources using cut n paste.
But if I recall, one of them was a marriage record from a courthouse.
The other I think was a newspaper article.
I know from doing my genealogy work that most of the individually owned family trees are riddled with errors.
They find a name and a source, and use it, even if the person named in the source is not the person they thought it was.
There were a LOT of George Morris's in my search, and a few married to Sarah's or Margaret's, with different last names.
But in some cases, they were married before so their last name changed on public records.
I have tons of those in my family as well, but unless I know for certain a person was married to another person, I just stick them in my Maybe file until I find positive records at least three different ones and different times.

No matter how bad someones tree is, in some cases it gives you some clues as to where to look to see if they are a match to your family or not. Most of the time, once you start researching who they have, you find a can of worms, but other times you finally land on the right people that belong in your tree.
And today, with much available on-line, it is a whole lot easier than when I started, and had to use snail mail and usually pay to get the documents I was after.
I had a cousin who had the opportunity to travel overseas to our original family areas, and he brought back tons of stuff from the area churches about our family. But it wasn't until a few years later that I ran across others who had family bibles and records, and one thing led to another, and I was lucky to get copies of some things before the owners of them passed on.

Happy Hunting!