Ancestry.com

[Cam]

Anybody tried lookin' for your family history? I decided to give it a go for a month ($35 fee). So far, it's been pretty cool. But it's really important to get your oldest relatives involved since they know more about past family members. Anyways, so far, I've gotten as far back as my great grandpa who was born in 1856. I also got to see a draft registration form that was filled out by my grandpa. Man, he had a pretty signature! Grandpa died when I was 6 and I only have two memories of him. One was being at his funeral. Which was a horrible experience cause all I remember was taking my shoes off and getting those nasty black grass burrs all over my feet. I was a ballin' fool! Poor dad..as if he didn't already have enough grief for the day. My only other memory of grandpa was also bad. I opened the door to our bathroom not knowing he was there. And I mean there! There was grandpa, standin' stark naked in the bathtub with a schlong that appeared to me (being only six of course) to hang down to his kneecap!... He was so mad at me he chased me with a belt around the house for what seemed like an eternity. He was a mean ol' fart! Never did catch me though!
Ancestry.com also showed me that my great grandpa and grandma had a bit of a shaky relationship. It turns out my great grandma had a little fling with a fella named Shaquitious Neal. After further investigating, I found out Shaquitious was Shaquille O'Neil's great grandpa!!! Right around 1877 my great grandpa (who's name was Valentin) caught wind of Shaquitious and snuck up on him and great grandma out past the cornfields where the woods got heavy, out in the back seat of my '60 Chevy, workin' on mysteries without any clues, workin' on our night moves!...So my great grandpa cut one of his nuts out with his Bowie-like knife! Holy crap it all makes sense now. Now I know why I've got an uncle who stands about 6'7"!! Never did understand how Uncle Henry became a helicopter gunner in Nam being as tall as he was..... Anyways, give this site a try. You might just find out something you really didn't want to know!......:eek:

[Macarthur]

I've done it, but not the paid part of the subscription. You can find quite a bit on the free part of the site. It is very interesting stuff.

[CenTexSports]

My wife has averaged at least an hour a day on this site for the past 18 months. She has followed my family (both sides) back to the 1680's in England. She has also found that one of my great (x?) grandfathers signed the Texas Declaration of Ind. and one of her great (x?) grandfathers was one of the original 300. I seriously could not care less about it but my wife has found many many interesting facts that my mother, dad, her dad and several close and distant relatives have been in contact with her to explore. She loves it. After my wife found out that my mother's great grandfather signed the Texas Dec of Ind, my mom bought everybody in the family a framed copy of the document for Christmas.

[Rabid Cougar]

My wife has averaged at least an hour a day on this site for the past 18 months. She has followed my family (both sides) back to the 1680's in England. She has also found that one of my great (x?) grandfathers signed the Texas Declaration of Ind. and one of her great (x?) grandfathers was one of the original 300. I seriously could not care less about it but my wife has found many many interesting facts that my mother, dad, her dad and several close and distant relatives have been in contact with her to explore. She loves it. After my wife found out that my mother's great grandfather signed the Texas Dec of Ind, my mom bought everybody in the family a framed copy of the document for Christmas.

Very Cool. My dad has done the geneological stuff without a computer, also back into England and France (yea, we are Normans). All of it by mail and microfisch. I keep trying to get him to get "connected" but to no avail. Volumns and volumns of hand written,typed and photo copied documents. It is pretty cool stuff. The boys were set when the did the family tree thing in elementary school.

[speedbump]

My wife has averaged at least an hour a day on this site for the past 18 months. She has followed my family (both sides) back to the 1680's in England. She has also found that one of my great (x?) grandfathers signed the Texas Declaration of Ind. and one of her great (x?) grandfathers was one of the original 300. I seriously could not care less about it but my wife has found many many interesting facts that my mother, dad, her dad and several close and distant relatives have been in contact with her to explore. She loves it. After my wife found out that my mother's great grandfather signed the Texas Dec of Ind, my mom bought everybody in the family a framed copy of the document for Christmas.

Almost the same time mine was traced back to. My sister traced our family back to 1667 and a small town (can't remember the name ) in Baden Germany. I did the street view and couldn't imagine why anyone would want to leave such a beautiful place. This was shortly after the brutal 30 years war. Maybe they were religious refugees of a sort.

[ronwx5x]

I have a subscription and so far have about 4,000 relatives! After awhile you can get so far removed from your original tree that it becomes an addiction rather than useful information. I have my great great grandparents and all my great grandfather's brothers and sisters on my father's side, have relatives in Texas prior to the Texas Revolution on my mother's side. One of my great grandmother's brothers was in Huntsville for murder and I even have the records for that short stay. Two of my great uncles from Arkansas joined the Union army during the Civil War.

[SHSBulldog00]

I have a family tree on the site. My mom has worked on our families genealogy for almost 50 years so we have a ton of info. Used to have a subscription but couldn't afford it. My dad was raised by his mother's family and he doesn't talk about his dad's side much so ancestry has really helped me connect with family. We also did a DNA swab to help connect with some on my dad's side.

[Weebe]

I hate football off-season.

I click on the site and get to hear about someone's grandfather's monster schlong.

[Emerson1]

For some reason I just couldn't trust that the information is correct going back to the 1600s in a foreign country.

[ronwx5x]

For some reason I just couldn't trust that the information is correct going back to the 1600s in a foreign country.

Much of the information is reasonably accurate only if it comes from actual records, i.e. census, birth and death certificates. If you take information from other peoples' family tree research it is maybe 50% accurate and that is only a guess. It does often have factual information, you just can't tell what is research and what is family lore. Remember though, this information is not an accepted fact, just an idea. In other words, you can't trust it to be exact and there is no reason to.

[Old Tiger]

my great great grandfather was neighbors with the Wright brothers.

[Cam]

What is this?....You mean nobody else has made an ancestry connection with Shaquitious?.......

[ronwx5x]

What is this?....You mean nobody else has made an ancestry connection with Shaquitious?.......

Personally I want nothing to do with him!

:ack!:

[Rabid Cougar]

For some reason I just couldn't trust that the information is correct going back to the 1600s in a foreign country.

Church records, land transactions, military records, court records are pretty accurate back in the day. They can usually be crossed checked against each other. Of course you have to "put the individual there" to start. Since most of our ancestors came from somewhere esle by boat, ships manifest are pretty handy too. It is very much a puzzle and very addictive if you are so inclined.

[BwdLion73]

What is this?....You mean nobody else has made an ancestry connection with Shaquitious?.......


I was workin on my night moves...

[CenTexSports]

My wife also took the DNA test. They send you a jar and you spit in it and then send it back to them. They trace your DNA back thousands of years like on one of the PBS shows. She loved it and is getting her dad to do it this summer.

[FB-fanatic]

Playing devil's advocate - did anyone else see a cable show about an African American guy who traced his ancestry 8 or 9 generations deep, back to Africa. Then analyzed the data and found that meant the something like 400,000 other living persons could trace that same person back as their great-great-great grandfather? It kinda took the luster and excitement and personal connection out of the find.

[Emerson1]

That seems way to early for them that person to be responsible for 400,000 people. If you took that number as an average then that would mean every living person now can be traced back to a group of only 15,000 people. Considering you need two to mate then that would be just 7,500 married couples.

I think...