Beaverstate

Interesting that My grandmother, mothers side, who's ancestry book went back to the 1640's New England area was actually born in Canada, she married an Irishman who had emigrated to Canada, they then moved to Olympia Washington.
New World settlers sure moved around a great deal, and still remain quite mobile.

BEVS

Ancestry book Beaverstate?

sir_eccles

I second JewishGen, huge resource. My dad is the family historian particularly now he is retired. Our family is a bit of a mess though, keeps moving we get stuck in eastern europe in the 1890s.

There is a story of my grandfather getting a postcard from an "aunt in america" as a child. Not a trace of her, no idea if she was married or what her real name was. Common problem with transliteration of names.

robin1234

My wife's maternal grandfather came to England from Russia (Poland) in about 1900, then he went over to the U.S. In 1907. We were able to find a lot of information about the uncle with whom he stayed and worked for in London, mostly from standard sources but the cemetery records in JewishGen led us to his grave in a cemetery in Edmonton in London. The Uncle died in 1922 then his widow died in the blitz in WWII.

scrubbedexpat091

I got back to my great great grandparents on my dad's side, then got stuck. No idea how to get past that point, nobody living knows any info of family past that point, and the various free websites haven't led me to many clues.

I also can't find any info on my great grandfathers wife. (I never met her, and he died when I was 3)

Find a grave I think it's called was the most useful website in finding back to great great grand parents which would be back to a birth year of 1875 and 1867 and deaths in 1926 and 1961.

http://image2.findagrave.com/photos/...1409087275.jpg

Death records have been the only records I have found thus far, can't find anything in marriage records, census records, or birth records.

No wonder so many in the family who have tried have given up. The records may exist, but probably will require old fashioned research by calling and writing to government agencies.

sir_eccles

Just remembered USCIS actually has a genealogy service. You can get them to search their indexes and find immigration records and stuff.

scrubbedexpat091

Here is a link

https://www.uscis.gov/history-and-ge...rching-index#3


Seems it's from 1893 onward from what I can tell?

I do know the furthest I have gone back, they were born in the US, wouldn't even know who to try and search for, but seems if it's 1893 onward, the gov't wouldn't have much if any record anyhow?

Beaverstate

They paid to have it researched and a limited printing sometime in the first half of the 20th century. It was very well documented listing occupations, # of children and even the number who lived
I was supposed to get it after my mother dies, however a cousin borrowed it and seems to forget to return it.
I haven't seen it for forty years but I recall it being hardbound and at least 100+ pages.

robin1234

That sounds impressive and useful, especially since it is so early (first half of the C20.)

There's a similar research write up on both sides of my mothers family. My mothers first cousin gave me a copy of his very impressive research just weeks before he died. He documents ancestors in most lines back to the late eighteenth century. My maternal grandfathers younger brother did something similar for his side of the family, but I don't know if I can get a copy of it. He'd moved out to Canada in 1948.

sir_eccles

I think the stories of the people are more interesting than how far can you go back, at a certain point it is just a list of names.

robin1234

I absolutely agree with this. I'm actually not interested in going back much before my great grandparents, late nineteenth century, say. Too remote, and as you say, just names. I'm interested in the stories.

Some of these stories are about infidelitity, illegitimacy, one brother eloping with another brother's wife ... so you can't expect the census records, BMD records etc. to actually reflect the full reality of people's lives, but sometimes you can read between the lines when you have enough records to compare.

Before she died, my aunt told me some scurrilous stories about a couple of her brothers. Things I know that my mother didn't know, for instance.

Shard

Ethiopia (the origin of every European).

BritInParis

and the origin of every human being on the planet so not very interesting.

Shard

Not every. Some are from southern Africa.

I am not sure how reliable that ancestry testing is, although the companies that promote it do like to claim it is.

Interesting share, BTW, I didn't mean to be so snippy. . Chester sounds like quite a great man of his times.

BritInParis

No worries, as I said, I'll be taking the results with a pinch of salt, but it would be interesting if they could give a general indication as to which part of West Africa his ancestors (and thus mine) originated from. Chester was heavily involved in the establishment of Liberia and was their roving ambassador around Europe for many years. He supposedly inspected Russian troops in Saint Petersburg alongside Alexander II of Russia and dined with Alexandre Dumas at Versailles. It would be a nice coincidence if his own forebears also came from that part of Africa.