Tracing family trees

[smokey]

Anyone else do this for a bit of fun?
How far back have you managed to trace?
Found anything interesting?

I have been doing it for a few years now and managed to trace my grandads (on mums side) back to early 1700 which is quite a feat concidering they are all barge people and worked and lived on the canals so where constantly on the move.

My dads family was alot harder to start with (try tracing smith, its not fun) but on his mothers side iv managed to get back to early 1500 and found some realy interesting names like Scarth (name comes from a family of viking that came over and conquered lands and want on to call the area scarbrough)
Another family name whos ancesters where cousins of william the conquerer and was given land by him.
And a few naughties of servants having illigitamate children with the masters of the house
So far Iv managed to find over 3000 names, you should see the tree iv done its huge.
I have multiple accounts for differant family search records if anyone wants any help strating to look into their tree.

 

[tina_h75]

I have been trying to trace my family tree and am stuck! I wanted to do it for my great aunt but have only managed to get as far as her grandparents but can't seem to get any further. Problem I am having is they came over from Ireland and a lot of the records were destroyed. Really wanted to do better as she was 90 this year and not in the greatest of health.

 

[Bon18]

I've a;ways wanted to do this but have no idea of how to go about it...

 

[Jade--x]

I haven't done it myself but a member of our family has traced our family tree back really far. I know a lot of my ancestors are buried in Hathersage (if anyone's heard of it) as they built and owned it centuries ago and it's the place that inspired Jane Eyre. I know one of my great x gosh knows how many grandfathers was one of the knights that fought alongside the king against Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads in the civil war, and quite a few other stuff but when I used to get told I was never interested in it as I was young and the family member who did it now lives in Australia so i haven't been in contact with him for quite a while to ask him now I'm more interested.

 

[smokey]

I've a;ways wanted to do this but have no idea of how to go about it...

Best place to start is current family members, ask them what they know and who they remember then get hold of birth certificates which you can find from registry offices or internet searches and just start building back from there.

 

[smokey]

I have been trying to trace my family tree and am stuck! I wanted to do it for my great aunt but have only managed to get as far as her grandparents but can't seem to get any further. Problem I am having is they came over from Ireland and a lot of the records were destroyed. Really wanted to do better as she was 90 this year and not in the greatest of health.

If you want to pm with any detailes ill gladly have a look see if I can find anything, im pretty good at it by now

 

[smokey]

Main one iv been trying to find but having no luck with is a relative that was on the titanic, apparently they survived and emigrated to canada and was a musician but im getting no where because I dont have a name.

Always listen to your gran when shes telling you about family history before its to late to ask

 

[sapphire1]

I'm not into it, but DH is a local studies librarian who does family tree stuff all the time and runs courses teaching people how to do it. He was recently on 'Who Do You Think You Are' doing Annie Lennox's If you have no idea where to start go to your local library - every authority has a local studies librarian that will point you in the right direction. You can also access Ancestry.com for free at most UK libraries, it's a must for tracing birth, marriages and deaths records. If you're in Scotland then Scotlands People is the better site, but you need to buy credits to access it. It is easy if you know where to look, but it can take a lot of time

 

[tina_h75]

I have been trying to trace my family tree and am stuck! I wanted to do it for my great aunt but have only managed to get as far as her grandparents but can't seem to get any further. Problem I am having is they came over from Ireland and a lot of the records were destroyed. Really wanted to do better as she was 90 this year and not in the greatest of health.

If you want to pm with any detailes ill gladly have a look see if I can find anything, im pretty good at it by now

thank you, I will sort out the little bits of info I have.

 

[alicecooper]

Mine is really difficult because my mam's side is Polish and my dad's side is French.

Luckily I have lots of French relatives I'm in contact with, so that side I've managed to make fairly good headway with.

But the other side is hopeless. My grandparents are dead and I know NOBODY over in Poland relative-wise that I could ask. There's only my mam and my uncle and aunt and that's it on that side, and they don't know very much either.

So, going on my dad's side, the furthest back I've got is that I know I'm related to this guy :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_François_Valentin_About

But I'm not 100% sure how he's connected exactly.


It goes like this :


my dad's dad's mum's dad (so my great great grandfather) was Gustave About

and that guy in the wikipedia is somehow related to him but I don't know how.

I don't know the date that Gustave About was born, but his daughter Denise About (later Denise Tourtois) was born in 1895.

Edmond About (the writer from the wiki) was born in 1828 and died 1885 so it's possible that he could have been Denise's grandfather (Gustave's dad) or something like that, but he could just have easily been an uncle or something, I don't know.


On my dad's mother's side, I'm up to my dad's mum's mum's mum's mum (so my great great great grandmother) who was called Victorine Gromangin but I don't know any details about her.
Her daughter was Isabelle Bize who was born in 1884.

 

[Mummy2B21]

I have tried but not sure how to get far back the futhest I am is about my great great grandparents lol.

We do know that on my dads side his grandmother had a child by a man of importance before she married my dads grandfather and all records of beyond that for the grandmother are no where to be found and we think that is due to the man she had the baby by being of importance (my dads father can remember people turning up and bringing things for his mum all the time to what he remembers the baby was secret for some reason sparking ideas that it was an affair of sorts as she was his servant, this quite interests me id love to find out more who the man was etc I know the babys name (my grandfathers half brother) but nothing on the man can be found :/

 

[GypsyDancer]

Id love to do this!! Ive always been interested in my dads side as my dad,brother and sisters all have olivey skin and dark eyes and was once mentioned we had alittle bit of portugese in us but no idea if its true!! Can you find out these things without using family members?
Using books/internet instead?
What about those ancrstry websites..are they any good? X

 

[Rainbow82]

I would love to do this, my mum started but didn't get very far because she couldn't afford to keep paying for birth, death and marriage certificates etc.

 

[smokey]

I would love to do this, my mum started but didn't get very far because she couldn't afford to keep paying for birth, death and marriage certificates etc.

It can get pretty expensive

 

[tasha41]

We've traced my dad's mother's side to when they left France for Canada- arrived in the 1600s (guess that's about as Canadian as you get!)... has proven to be tougher to do my dad's father's (TURNER ugh). But have gone back quite a bit too.

My OH and his mum don't know anything beyond his great grandparents! But I know he is 2nd generation Canadian on both sides.

 

[kimbobaloo]

ohhh i love doing this, i used to pay on genes and ancestory but due to cut backs ive had to put it on the back burner. My dads side ive struggled with (managed to get to the mid 1800s though)as the are scots (different census to us) most of who emigrated to austrilia and canada, but i did find a few cousins (dads uncles kids) who moved to stoke before i did from scotland (strange coincidence) but we chat occasionally now... (my dad passed at a young age and i dont know any of his family)
my mums dads side have been great and go back to late 1600's /early 1700's ( they are a bunch of naughty buggers!!! the men seemed to enjoy having 2 wifes and the women had children out of wed lock and extra children turned up out of no where) but my mums mum side... argh!!!! to start with my nan told me her mums name was winnie maycock...lovely name to search i thought not common..., i find out shes actually minnie maycock.... mother sarah smith and to top it of minnie maycock married a john jones and it ends there on that side love doing this though my grandma before she passed gave me a massive photo album with lots of details and photos from the scots turns out my dads side are a clever bunch, there are authors politicians and a man united player from the buzby days (i must get my brains from my mums side)

 

[Dragonfly]

I traced with my other halfs family his tree back over 500 years. I done it for the kids , seems like I have history to teach them from it! Archbishop Thomas Cranmer is my other halfs great x 8 grandfather alone with , he was also god father to Elizabeth the first and Prince Edward , Bloody Mary burned him at the stake, lords, Ladies, ladies in waiting, Sirs, honourables. Its a big tree we traced right up to today. Theres a lot of places in England that where in the family and family portraits but the trust owns them now. The Duchess of Norfolk is my other halfs cousin. Theres the Molyneuxs of croxsteth hall also and Widdringtons. To many to list. I know they tried claiming back some off the trust but wouldnt hand it over if debt wasnt paid that originally came with. Some castle in Scotland. I wish I had some people to help me with it especially people in England where they all originate from.

 

[Pearls18]

I work in archives, my current job doesn't pertain to family history but my last one did and it was really interesting, for those of you that have reached the 1500s could I ask what sources you looked at out of interest?

If you don't want to pay for subscriptions your local libraries and record offices will most likely give you free access if they are subscribed (this is definitely the case in Wales) and the more they're used the better

I have spent more time on other people's than my own, it is incredibly intricate, easy to go wrong and very, very difficult to prove things for certain but a lot of fun if that's your thing!

 

[Dragonfly]

I actually have a lot of the paintings of the people on the tree to I found on google. I used other peoples trees to work off also. And there is some dedications in churches to Thomas to, also his character was in the series the Tudors which strangely looked like my other half.

 

[summer rain]

I've done it; currently I have over 10,000 names in my tree and most branches of my family I have traced back at least 8-10 generations. I've also traced a lot of extended family. My mum's family is confusing because three of her grandparents were related to each other via blood and the other one was related through marriage; until I did this research she knew one of her granddads was somehow related to her grandma but didn't realise how interrelated everyone else was, her ancestry goes back really far though and there were a lot of books written about one family she is directly descended from several times over, consequently its possible to go back to pre-norman conquest with them. My dad's family are also interesting but furthest back any of them go is the 1400s. I've also done a lot of trees for friends, and also done some celebrity trees just as a hobby (as my sister says that takes stalking to a whole new level ). xx