Geneology
12-07-2011, 01:38 PM
#71
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Arma, Kansas
Posts: 3,079
Thank you for offering your help too. I looked information before you could look on the internet. Libraries and geneology societies in the town or county where you are looking for information are good resources, US.genweb in another source of information.
Originally Posted by Daisy144
I am so glad to see other people interested in genealogy finally coming out of the woodwork! It is one of my other all consuming passions besides quilting, cross stitch, reading, etc. Well, you get the picture - I need days to last twice as long as they do in order to get things accomplished. I have always loved history and was bitten by the genealogy bug back in the 6th or 7th grade when we had to do a family tree for a class assignment. 50+ years of accumulating stuff and I have only begun to scratch the surface. Basically, my people are the British Isles with the few exceptions that ended up in Holland to avoid the religious mess Henry VIII created. Have found fasinating stories that makes me appreciate the strength of character my forebearers had.
For those of you who are just getting started, I noticed that “ssnare” has offered to help anyone looking for help and I would like to offer my services also. I am not a great genealogist but can get you started right or at least in the right direction. There are numerous websites that offer all resources necessary for getting started for free.
http://familysearch.org has great information and in their products section (see bottom of the page - you can download Paf 5.2 for free. This will enable you to get started immediately and if you wish to move on to one of the other family tree programs you can transfer what you have entered in Paf with no problems.
http://genealogy.about.com/ , http://rootsweb.com, and many others are free and available to use - If you do not choose to use Paf and want to do things by hand then I recommend you use the pedegree chart available on about.com - it is interactive, allowing you to enter info (sorry, you can’t save it but it does allow you to type and print forms, which is always a plus. As for other forms necessary I recommend that you enter “Free genealogy forms” into http://dogpile.com (My favorite search engine) and there will be page after page of different sites offering forms - just be sure to look for the interactive ones - they help keep things looking good once you get started.
REMEMBER: No tree is considered valid without documentation! So get forms, fill them out, (Pedegree charts, family group sheets, etc) as best you can, but then start accumulating the documentation to go with the facts - if your Nana tells you something, note that the info came from Nana, No matter how small, all notes of this sort are important. Good Luck!
For those of you who are just getting started, I noticed that “ssnare” has offered to help anyone looking for help and I would like to offer my services also. I am not a great genealogist but can get you started right or at least in the right direction. There are numerous websites that offer all resources necessary for getting started for free.
http://familysearch.org has great information and in their products section (see bottom of the page - you can download Paf 5.2 for free. This will enable you to get started immediately and if you wish to move on to one of the other family tree programs you can transfer what you have entered in Paf with no problems.
http://genealogy.about.com/ , http://rootsweb.com, and many others are free and available to use - If you do not choose to use Paf and want to do things by hand then I recommend you use the pedegree chart available on about.com - it is interactive, allowing you to enter info (sorry, you can’t save it but it does allow you to type and print forms, which is always a plus. As for other forms necessary I recommend that you enter “Free genealogy forms” into http://dogpile.com (My favorite search engine) and there will be page after page of different sites offering forms - just be sure to look for the interactive ones - they help keep things looking good once you get started.
REMEMBER: No tree is considered valid without documentation! So get forms, fill them out, (Pedegree charts, family group sheets, etc) as best you can, but then start accumulating the documentation to go with the facts - if your Nana tells you something, note that the info came from Nana, No matter how small, all notes of this sort are important. Good Luck!
12-07-2011, 01:45 PM
#72
Super Member
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: California Girl exiled in DC
Posts: 1,337
okay, it's obvious: quilters are cat lovers and family historians!
I've been doing family history research since about 1998 and went "professional" about 2 years ago (i.e., I accept clients who pay me to research their families). I maintain a couple of genealogy web sites at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jillaine (my own research) and ancestors2life.wordpress.com (for information about my professional work). I love helping people get started, then usually the bug bites them and off they go on their own. VERY fun. I've got my own line back to the 1500s in southern Germany and my husband's line back to colonial New England. I recently was published in the New England Historical and Genealogical Society's quarterly journal, the Register. But I have to admit: genealogy has taken somewhat of a backseat since I started quilting...
-- jillaine
I've been doing family history research since about 1998 and went "professional" about 2 years ago (i.e., I accept clients who pay me to research their families). I maintain a couple of genealogy web sites at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jillaine (my own research) and ancestors2life.wordpress.com (for information about my professional work). I love helping people get started, then usually the bug bites them and off they go on their own. VERY fun. I've got my own line back to the 1500s in southern Germany and my husband's line back to colonial New England. I recently was published in the New England Historical and Genealogical Society's quarterly journal, the Register. But I have to admit: genealogy has taken somewhat of a backseat since I started quilting...
-- jillaine
12-07-2011, 02:52 PM
#73
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Posts: 946
I'm working on my family tree right now. Able to trace my maternal side but have hit a snag on the paternal side. It's exciting and so interesting. I have a membership in Ancestry.com and use it a lot. It does cost quite a bit for my income ($34.95) per month and you have to sign up for 1 year, but I hope to be able to get it all down for my children and grandchildren. I wish I had paid more attention when my Mom and Grandma were still alive as I know the information they had could have made this so much easier. Take a bit of advice all you younsters, while your elders are still around, get all the family information you can....
12-07-2011, 03:28 PM
#74
Super Member
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 4,688
I have been doing geneology on and off for years -- DD has occasionally given me subscriptions to Ancestry. I can go back on my father's maternal line quite a ways, but on his father's side I hit a name change and a dead end. The court house is no help because it burned down and so his birth certificate was re-issued years later and is missing some facts. Ancestry had a free search for military history and the stuff on my Dad was incomplete and basically wrong -- I have had better luck at other sites (I have his service records but was hoping the one of his original enlistments may have more information.) Getting into geneology cuts big time into my quilting time.
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