Fifth Avenue Forum

Interesting, I'll look into it. One of the side benefits for wanting to move back to PA is so I can get into the material that the internet hasn't gotten around to. That said, ancestry.com has added a good bit of stuff in the last two years. I ended up staying up until 4am going through some of it last night.

If I go by my undocumented links (I don't consider other peoples trees to be 'good enough' unless it leads to more primary source material) I've found a line that goes back to Scotland in 1708. That would be the farthest reach back on my paternal side.

I have a history degree and really enjoy the methodology. It is kind of frustrating that my sister, an accountant, doesn't put nearly as much diligence into it and has a huge tree compared to mine, but it's utterly useless to me other than the fact that she's collected more oral history than me thanks to proximity. Hard to tell what is what though.

I spoke with my Grandma over the weekend who traced her family line back when she was younger by research and hunting tomb stones all over the northeast. Fascinating stuff, I'm going to meet with her later on and go over her book and information in more detail. Basically found out that on her side, my ancestors came over to New Hampshire 20 years after the Mayflower from England and she is a daughter of american revolution. On her dads side going way back, there was a Napoleon Bonaparte Sempierre who took Sempierre when he came over from France to St. Pierre Quebec and who was believed to be an illegitimate child of the Napoleon. My Grandpa was a 1st generation born with his family coming over from Sweden.

So, funny story from tonight:

My dad sent in a DNA sample to Ancestry.com to see what we were from my paternal grandfather, who was adopted (I think I mentioned it earlier in this thread).

Originally, We knew we received Greek and Finnish blood from my paternal grandmother. From my maternal side, I knew I was receiving all German blood. That adds up to (12.5+12.5+50) 75%. We had originally assumed that my paternal grandfather was 100% German, so the last 25% of my ethnicity was German. Or so we thought.

Apparently, that's not the case. There is some German, but I also have some hidden Irish in me. We never considered this possibility, so we're in a really interesting position. My dad found someone who was rated as an "extremely high possibility" for a 1st or 2nd cousin, and he emailed them through Ancestry. We're waiting on hearing back, but we're also considering sending a sample from me or my younger brother to see what pops up. I'm really interested to see what happens, because this potentially changes my whole outlook on my family history.

We have a general idea of the last name of his mother/maternal family name, but any Googling has been useless, because there's 3 people who share the name of both his possible mother and possible father. But they're all related to similar people, so it's literally near impossible to determine who my grandfather's parent could possibly have been.

One of the coolest things I've done is visit the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Found a ton of cool stuff on there, including my grandfather's (never knew him) WWII draft card.

My maternal line directly goes back to a knight that directly saved William the Conqueror's life at the Battle of Hastings. My great-grandmother's maiden name was Hale, which goes straight back to Nathan Hale. Could not find much on my Dad's side though.

It's an awesome resource, and the whole baptism thing really doesn't bother me one iota.

Im white so i believe that most of my ancestors going back for a while were white as well.

I spent a few hours with my Grandma last night and she showed me my great, great, great, great grandparents (1806) from a book her grandpa gave her from 1875. The book also showed the farmhouse (which she also had a tin picture of). So going back to 1806, I have documentation of all my family, she also had a picture of the tavern from 1780s in NH and that would be of the father of my g,g,g,grandparents she showed me. From there, she just had names going back to 1640 when my ancestors came off the boat at Port Boston from England and then it stops. I have a name of my ancestor from 1640 who ties down to the documentation we have to 1806, but I wanted to try and trace it back across England and even the missing years from 1640-1780. Does anyone have any suggestions on a website or place to look more into something like this?

Source of the post My great-grandmother's maiden name was Hale, which goes straight back to Nathan Hale.

Nathan Hale died at 21 after attending Yale and then going directly into the service. "Straight back" is a bit misleading, no? He had siblings so your lineage could go through an immediate parent of Hale but I'd urge you to be more careful when telling that story at parties or else some random history major will take you to task.

Ahem.

Source of the post My great-grandmother's maiden name was Hale, which goes straight back to Nathan Hale.

Nathan Hale died at 21 after attending Yale and then going directly into the service. "Straight back" is a bit misleading, no? He had siblings so your lineage could go through an immediate parent of Hale but I'd urge you to be more careful when telling that story at parties or else some random history major will take you to task.

Ahem.

So far it's passed without scrutiny

I'm not meaning to pick on you, it's great you have an interest.

When I do genealogy I approach it with a historian mindset (I alluded to it earlier) and I'm really strict about documenting inferences. My tree is a little stubby, barely makes it back to the mid-1800s but it's all verified. My sisters tree goes back to the 1500s or something absurd but I know she's just linking her trees with other peoples trees with no evidence. Kind of a slight pet peeve of mine.

I still need to take relantels advice and contact DAR, but my research interest comes in waves and I haven't gotten back around to it. In fact, my annoyance with ancestry.com is high right now because they keep billing me for oddball stuff even though I cancelled and haven't logged into the system for a long while.

So are you in the DAR, shad?

He always struck me more as the Sons of Confederate Veterans type.

As an aside, I never knew SUVCW was a thing. I'll have to look into it.

So are you in the DAR, shad?

I am not, but I did win the DAR Award in 5th and 6th grade. IIRC, it was given for the high score in an American history exam.

I'm not meaning to pick on you, it's great you have an interest.

When I do genealogy I approach it with a historian mindset (I alluded to it earlier) and I'm really strict about documenting inferences. My tree is a little stubby, barely makes it back to the mid-1800s but it's all verified. My sisters tree goes back to the 1500s or something absurd but I know she's just linking her trees with other peoples trees with no evidence. Kind of a slight pet peeve of mine.

I still need to take relantels advice and contact DAR, but my research interest comes in waves and I haven't gotten back around to it. In fact, my annoyance with ancestry.com is high right now because they keep billing me for oddball stuff even though I cancelled and haven't logged into the system for a long while.

You would love the Mormon library out in SLC.

They allowed you to lie on the tests too?

Source of the post You would love the Mormon library out in SLC.

Very likely the thing I would enjoy most about SLC.

So are you in the DAR, shad?

I am not, but I did win the DAR Award in 5th and 6th grade. IIRC, it was given for the high score in an American history exam.

If you read this quickly, it looks like Shaf won the Darwin Award.

I'm not meaning to pick on you, it's great you have an interest.

When I do genealogy I approach it with a historian mindset (I alluded to it earlier) and I'm really strict about documenting inferences. My tree is a little stubby, barely makes it back to the mid-1800s but it's all verified. My sisters tree goes back to the 1500s or something absurd but I know she's just linking her trees with other peoples trees with no evidence. Kind of a slight pet peeve of mine.

I still need to take relantels advice and contact DAR, but my research interest comes in waves and I haven't gotten back around to it. In fact, my annoyance with ancestry.com is high right now because they keep billing me for oddball stuff even though I cancelled and haven't logged into the system for a long while.

You would love the Mormon library out in SLC.

I let Ancestry lapse years ago. They stopped renewing when I cancelled the credit card it was autobilling to....

I haven't checked up on genealogy things in a while (that pesky thing called hockey season got in the way) but I hope to take my daughter back to the DAR Library again this summer - I think it's been 3 years since our last visit. I'm too local not to take advantage of such things, though need to watch out for the Metro shutdowns they are doing for long overdue maintenance on their system...

Pretty cool finding out that I can sign my daughter up for DAR when she's 18. Also pretty wild finding out that there's a good chance one of my great grandfathers was married to Mary Walcott (Salem witch trials).

Pretty cool finding out that I can sign my daughter up for DAR when she's 18. Also pretty wild finding out that there's a good chance one of my great grandfathers was married to Mary Walcott (Salem witch trials).

There's always the C.A.R. if you want to get an early start. Though not sure how much transfer is automatic, but all three organizations have similar standards these days.

Pretty cool finding out that I can sign my daughter up for DAR when she's 18. Also pretty wild finding out that there's a good chance one of my great grandfathers was married to Mary Walcott (Salem witch trials).

There's always the C.A.R. if you want to get an early start. Though not sure how much transfer is automatic, but all three organizations have similar standards these days.

Thanks, I didn't know that was a thing! I'll check it out. After doing a lot of work with my Aunt (she's been doing it for years, I found the missing piece in the last week), we have birth, marriage, and death records going back to ancestors coming to America around 1650 and birth dating 1611 in England. I'm talking with someone who has the England ancestory line dating back to 1495 where my great however many grandfathers was part of the pilgrimage of grace dealing with Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. Very cool stuff.

The internet is insane.

Around 7:30pm my dad found this in my recently deceased Grandma's belongings.
By 8:00pm I found this
Then by 8:15pm I found this grave in the Los Angeles National Cemetary
So not only did I discover a relative that fought in the Union Army, 85th Illinois Infantry, Co. H, but that I have a relative buried in Los Angeles.

Insane

I always suspected that you're a Yankee.

I've taken ~10 showers

SCV is Sons of Confederate Veterans? But 17 time commandar of the G.A.R., a union vet organization?