Stuff you learn about your ancestors

[TomS]

I found veterans of the Civil War, American Revolution, and French and Indian Wars. Ancestry.com makes it a lot easier!

 

[Miss Sis]

I don't think you have to turn up famous relatives or incidents to find your ancestors interesting. I have always been interested in my family since I was a child, and to simply know more about them as people and stories of their exploits makes me feel more *rounded* as a person, knowing where I come from. Might sound a bit trite, but I have always felt that way.

 

[Two Types]

My family has a ludicrous story about how my great-grandmother's first child was fathered by a member of the Royal family (at some point in the 1890s, i believe). Considering the boy was then named 'Uncle Shock', and my great-grandmother went on to have 12 more children by five differrent men, I suspect she either:

a) made up the Royal connection to make her parents less concerned about her falling pregnant out of wedlock
b) the child was fathered by someone who claimed to be a Royal Prince and she was too daft to realise he wasn't
c) no-one will ever know who the father was since she was rather generous with her favours (this is the most likely option)

In theory, the royal connection makes the family history interesting. In reality, the story was nonsense that just diverted attention from the fact that my great-grandmother was 'easy'.

 

[ortega76]

My great-great-grandfather was executed as a terrorist and revolutionary by the Mexican government. He was a Zapatista and general who served directly under Zapatista. Needless to say, that marks about the time we came to America (though I have had family in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona for a few hundred years).

 

[Lenore]

I find this so fascinating. I'm adopted so my birth family history is pretty much non-existant, though I did find some pictures of my birth grandmother and her sister (who could be my long lost twin 60 years ago) and managed to trace back to late 17th century Pennsylvania on her dad's side, but because I'm not "family" I don't have access to the stories of these people. My adoptive (real) family has a lot of family drama on both sides, but it's rather depressing from what I've heard, and anything else interesting went with my grandparents to their graves. Both my parents aren't the most fabulous story tellers.[huh]

 

[David Conwill]

Probably the most interesting fact I've learned is that I still have a fairly close branch of the family back in the old country. My great-great grandfather was one of three brothers who came here as adults in the 1880s. This I knew. What I did not know until fellow lounger and distant cousin Michael Conwill brought it to my attention, was that a fourth brother remained behind.

Still out there, Mike? I haven't heard from you in a long while.

 

[esteban68]

it's all very interesting but beware many of these stories and indeed some of the sites and companies helping you to trace your ancestors aren't all they are cracked up to be...in fact some recent stories over here are now suggesting that many of the DNA tests are questionable to say the least.
I recall watching something a while ago about black/ African-American celebrities in America and how many of them had family stories about being part Native American Indian, I think Tina Turner, Morgan Freeman and Jamie Fox were all of that opinion, not sure which of them it was but either Morgan or Jamie suggested" I suppose it's easier to believe you are related to warriors rather than a black woman who was raped by a rich white land owner" their words not mine( paraphrased as I cannot remember exactly).

In my family there are firm stories of Polish ancestry on my fathers mothers side hence my name spelling Stevan (I think more likely Serbian or Ukranian), and Irish travellers on his fathers side( this is pretty much definate) but people over here automatically think if you mention having traveller ancestry that you are a gypsy which some dislike immensly whilst some think it's romantic, however having blue eyes I'd say there was some north European in there and my short stocky stature possibly Welsh/Celtic.....it does have it's fun side as I once did a 'gypsy' tea leaf reading for a female colleague and she believed everything I said.
Realistically anything over 80 or so years is probably suspect unless supported by documentry evidence.

 

[David Conwill]

The other interesting thing, about which not much is known, is that my grandfather witnessed the murder or accidental killing of his cousin while a teenager:

The "SHS 31" means "Springfield (Illinois) High School, Class of 1931". They were in an alleyway and encountered someone with a .45 pistol. It went off and the cousin was shot. Whether there was ill intent or not has never been clear to me.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's fascinating the family skeletons that will turn up. One of my grandmother's uncles was murdered in 1863 in a dispute between him and some other man over who was going to get a draft-exempt job at the woolen mill. He lost the dispute.

A hundred and thirty years later, I lived in an apartment building built on the exact spot where the murder took place. It's indeed a very small world.

 

[rjb1]

I'm envious... I wish we had some skeletons. One of my cousins traced one side of the family back to the late 1700's and there were no kings, no murderers, just a lot of ordinary people. The closest thing to an interesting item was that I have the same name as one of the earliest ancestors from the 1790's. And that was just by coincidence, since I know my parents were not aware of that.

 

[Canadian]

I found out today that I had a family member who was killed in action at Rourke's Drift during the Zulu wars.

 

[majormajor]

I did the genealogy thing on the net a couple of years ago.

On my Father's side, I can only go back to my Great Grandparents, who came over from Ireland in the late 1800s.

However, on my Mother's side, I can go back to 1490!

Result!!:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

My mother died recently and I found a cache of photos and documents in her apartment. This picture includes my father's grandfather. He emigrated from Hesse Darmstadt in the fall of 1859. I found a ship's passenger manifest through Ancestry.com listing "Pet Knell" on a three-masted bark sailing from Le Havre as an 18 year-old farmer. He later became a shoemaker in my hometown and I have found some evidence that he operated his own business there, employing several men. He was married twice, my grandfather was the second youngest child from the second marriage.

I figure that the older man, with the beard, was Mr. Stouppe, who owned the store in the photo. There is a pencil note on the paper frame, "Dad in Homestead" which was most likely written by my grandfather, whose name I share. I also found a report card for my grandfather from the Homestead Public School dated 1892. They were living in Homestead at the time of the famous Homestead Steel Strike, which Henry Clay Frick precipitated while he was running Andrew Carnegie's steel business. The census records for 1890 were mostly destroyed by fire, but I have found a record of my great-grandfather and his first family living in Pittsburgh's Sixth Ward in 1870. The 1880 and 1900 census shows him living in my hometown. Another document, a book on Pennsylvania history published in 1915 has an entry on Pete's oldest son who owned and operated a hardware business in Bellvue, PA, a Pittsburgh suburb on the Ohio river.

Pete died in 1911 of tuberculosis (I have a photostat of the death certificate).

The picture doesn't appear for some reason in this post, though there is a link to the Photobucket file. I get a message "Invalid URL", though the format is perfectly legal. Can anyone offer advice?

 

[Big Man]

I attended church this past Sunday at Nebo Baptist Church on occasion of their 100 year anniversary. My grandparents, Will and Nora Brown, and my great grandmother, Mary Caroline Jimerson, were three of the 14 founding members when the church was organized in 1913. What I didn't know was that two of my great aunts and uncles were also founding members, along with one of my grandmother's first cousins, and my great uncle E.S. Brown. So, out of the 14 founders, nine were my ancestors. When my grandmother passed away in 1983 at the age of 101, she was the last surviving founding member of the church.

The photo of the church (below) was taken about 1928, and was the way I remembered the church when I was growing up. About 1960, they moved to a new building and the old building was taken down. Growing up, we attended Nebo Methodist Church. The old Baptist Church and the Methodist Church sat right across from each other, separated only by a one-lane dirt road. I can still remember one Sunday when Grace Steppe (you had to know her to really appreciate the story) told everyone, "Sing louder, I can hear the Baptist across the road."

 

[GHT]

If anybody thinks that their family came from the UK, or Ireland, this website might be of interest.
UK National Archives
It also tells you the how, why & where in your search.
There are links to the record offices of mainly,
English speaking countries around the world.

Someone in Nashville that I know, originated from Ireland,
he was 3rd, or maybe 4th generation. When visiting the UK
he went to the National Records building at Kew.
From the archive he found family in Australia. It was amazing.

 

[Renault]

Wife recently learned her GG grandfather was captured at Spotsylvania (122nd NY Volunteer Inf.) and survived Andersonville. And just this week I finally determined my maternal GG grandfather served in the first Regiment Texas mounted rifles. Served on the Texas frontier from the Red river to Fort Mason.

 

[Zombie_61]

...The picture doesn't appear for some reason in this post, though there is a link to the Photobucket file. I get a message "Invalid URL", though the format is perfectly legal. Can anyone offer advice?

This issue came up on another forum I frequent when they recently upgraded their software. One of the members observed that the new software didn't recognize file names that included capitalized letters. Obviously I can't say with any certainty whether or not this is responsible for the problem you had, but it might be something for you to look into.

Back to the main topic, I was adopted so my family tree is a stump.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Wife recently learned her GG grandfather was captured at Spotsylvania (122nd NY Volunteer Inf.) and survived Andersonville. And just this week I finally determined my maternal GG grandfather served in the first Regiment Texas mounted rifles. Served on the Texas frontier from the Red river to Fort Mason.

I posted this in another thread, but my GG grandfather fought at Antietam, Fredricksburg and Chancellorsville, before being wounded and captured at Gettysburg (on the Confederate side, FL 8th Inf). He spent the rest of the war as a POW at Fort Delaware and after his release walked back to Florida.

On another geneological note; since I'm about as English as they come, I've traced one line of my ancestors back to William the Conqueror. Which isn't particularly unusual, most people of European descent are descendants of his as well, but it's still pretty cool to be able to see the direct link.

 

[Matt Crunk]

All the while growing up I'd heard we were of German decent, and figured our family name was originally Krunk, or Krank. In recent years I've come to learn that the German heritage came in from my great grandmother's side of the family, and that our family name is actually English, original spelling Crank., and have traced it back to a British soldier, John Crank, who came over with the original colonies. It seems he was from the House of Crank in Lancashire, where the town of Crank exists today.