Finding your roots? show and family genealogy

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Any watched these shows such as Finding your Roots, Who do you think you are?, etc. that show celebs learning about their ancestry? Have you ever traced your family background? How was the experience? Found anything interesting?
 
Such an interesting thread, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I've also watched those tv shows before.

I don't know my roots from mom's side well, mom's mother (grandma) was adopted and that's all we know about grandma really.

Someday I will do some genealogy, because it would be interesting to know.
 
flower said:
Such an interesting thread, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I've also watched those tv shows before.

I don't know my roots from mom's side well, mom's mother (grandma) was adopted and that's all we know about grandma really.

Someday I will do some genealogy, because it would be interesting to know.
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I know the roots on my mom's side but not as well on my dad's side.
 
Gist said:
I know the roots on my mom's side but not as well on my dad's side.
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So for you, it's the other way around. :) I hope you will find out someday. It's like some parts missing of own identity when not knowing well enough...
 
On my pop's side, a hat maker in Belaruse who ditched the family to come to NYC, his outraged wife who sold the family goat to track his ass down and join him, distant connections to Jesse James on the mother's side.
 
Was a passion of mine for about 12 years and then burnt out when I got too far back (to the point of needing to visit the locales to search property records, wills, etc.) It is not as easy as it seems, and what I dislike about ancestry.com is that they convince noobs that the information they hold is correct, without the noob taking the effort to validate the information themselves (b/c they don't know any better anyway.) So what we have now is a whole lot of inaccurate information floating about and people replicating it. I pulled all my info off that site (except what others have saved.) Someday I will probably pick it all back up, but I'd be more inclined to add my tree to the Mormon site.

My ancestry is plain. Some suicides, some murders, a whole lot of farming, many in servitude, some adoptions, plenty of military (I can register into the DAR if I wish), etc. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Mr.S's genealogy is fascinating b/c there is more literature available on them (Civil War, Women Christian Temperance Union, etc.)



I think for the first several years, the "high" of finding info wore off. It was always like a treasure hunt, and so fun to find after a lot of work looking. Then I came to a place where numbers seemed like numbers and I was more interested in their personality, what their life was like, what was happening in their world, etc. That is much more difficult to find. :)
 
Besides African, I have German and Irish (or Scottish?) ancestry. Got a few freckles to prove it. :D
 
invisible said:
I'm a white, with ancestors from the English Isles. I have a Spanish ancestress who was in trouble with the law and had a tattoo.
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Check your privilege, white male.
 
Most of my ancestors came over (to North America) in the late 17th/early 18th century. My ancestry is largely English and French. I plan to get a DNA test in the near future. I look forward to it.
 
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Spooky, I caught the end of "Who do you think you are?" (repeat) only yesterday. I stopped in my tracks when I recognised one of the locations....made me smile. :)

I have Portuguese ancestry going back to the 15th century. My mum has shared some fascinating info which got me quite intrigued BUT I'm not interested enough or have the time to pursue it. It would be nice to have someone else do the research for me - any volunteers?

For the moment, I'll just catch up on the compacted version via Tivo (*whispers*....I only really like watching episodes on people I like....so far, I've seen one episode).

[MENTION=4423]Sriracha[/MENTION] - 12 years - wow, that's impressive!!!
 
My mom is from Russia and I was told that my dad is from Peru. I don't know my father, so don't know that side at all. I think my grandma was partly polish but I'm not sure. I would like to know more, maybe someday I will look into it.
 
I decided to pick it back up b/c my FIL has become disabled and it gives him something to do in order to keep his mind active. I cleaned up my ancestral file by whittling 10k people to 2700 ... only focusing on direct ancestors and their children (not any further descendants.)

In doing so I have found that Mr.S and I have a common ancestor (who was born in 1620.) So yes ... Mr.S, his mother, my mother and I share one common bloodline. My great great grandfather and his grandmother are 8th cousins. lol

New information is that I have 2 Mayflower connections.

If anyone is interested in getting started in research I would recommend the Legacy Software program over any other (Deluxe version is only $30.) You can sync it to the LDS site or not. I don't trust the family tree information that has been put on ancestry.com due to over-commercialization and noob genealogists not fact checking their data (so they are duplicating incorrect information.) However, I do recommend subscribing to ancestry.com for their documents.

These few sites will help get you started:

ancestry.com
familysearch.org (LDS site is free)
usgenweb.org (volunteer run free site)
-straight google searches (make sure you understand how to search in google in order to narrow down your hits, such as using quotations)
 
One site: WIKITREE

Holy cow, I love it. One tree, many collaborators. This is where I have been dumping all my research. It's a bit tedious going through my imported file and correcting the style on the page, but it is very well worth it.
 
So here's what I thought I knew about my heritage and ancestry. My paternal grandfather was mostly Scottish and grandmother was from Germany, my maternal great-grandparents hailed from different parts of Europe before settling in South America.

Now, after drooling into a tube and shipping my saliva off to some laboratory, here's what I definitively know:



IMG_81641.webpIMG_66511.webp

Turns out, my paternal grandmother, although blonde haired and blue eyed with a distinctly German surname, was definitely not German. :p

I was surprised by the rather large chunk of Native (south)American, no doubt stemming from my Chilean mother. 41% Native. Pretty sweet.

What we think we know about where we came from could be quite different from the truth. I'm not in any way dismayed about my results. They're rather liberating.
 
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I've always been curious where/what my roots are. Although, i know that my father's roots came from Portugal (we even have that family seal) -- that's from my grandfather-- my grandmother's roots are Chinese. Meanwhile, on my mother's side, her parents were part Spanish..

That makes me-- portuguese,spanish,chinese and filipino.
My bloodline is all messed up LOL.
 
Free said:
So here's what I thought I knew about my heritage and ancestry. My paternal grandfather was mostly Scottish and grandmother was from Germany, my maternal great-grandparents hailed from different parts of Europe before settling in South America.

Now, after drooling into a tube and shipping my saliva off to some laboratory, here's what I definitively know:



View attachment 28559View attachment 28560

Turns out, my paternal grandmother, although blonde haired and blue eyed, was definitely not from Germany. :p

I was surprised by the rather large chunk of Native American, no doubt stemming from my Chilean mother. 41% Native. Pretty sweet.

What we think about where we came from could be quite different from the truth. I'm not in any way dismayed about my results. They're rather liberating.
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so cool! I've been thinking about this. I spend so much time thinking about history, and to know more about my own history would be interesting.
 
my maternal grandfather was from New York and has a decidedly Scottish name.
my maternal grandmother had a decidedly German maiden name.
my paternal grandfather was from England and he came to the US in 1905.
my paternal grandmother was from Massachusetts and her father and mother were from Wales.
 
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