Geneology Discoveries....

[RP]

Originally Posted by Jim Owen

...I’m reckoning that a few of our fellow AGF folks are puzzled by the term Melungeon, I ain’t, being from a part of NC where some are.

There are many theories out there. One is that the settlers from the Lost Colony joined up with the Croatans and somehow morphed into the Lumbees. Of those, some pushed west through North Carolina before making it to Hawkins County, TN where there was/is a relatively large gathering of Melungeons. I first heard about them from a fellow in far Southwest Virginia where there's also been relative large numbers...

[Dotneck]

I also have an Ancestry story. I was adopted at birth. About fifteen years ago I got my original birth certificate with my mother's name. I contacted her but she wouldn't talk to me at all. It took many years to learn her story which was a story of alcoholism, murders, suicides and foster homes. A tragic story that would make a great book.

Then a couple years ago I did an Ancestry DNA test. The first hit turned up a half sister and her two kinds (my neice & nephew). I touched base with her and learned she had five siblings (so I had six half siblings). "Dad" had a kind of fling when he got out of the Navy and that's where I came from. He moved on got married and had his own family. Sixty-five years later I went knocking on the door.

Now I have a big crazy Italian Family. I've met all the siblings, cousins, nieces & nephews...I'm going back to visit in a couple months for a big wedding celebration...

[Gdjjr]

Originally Posted by Dotneck

I also have an Ancestry story. I was adopted at birth. About fifteen years ago I got my original birth certificate with my mother's name. I contacted her but she wouldn't talk to me at all. It took many years to learn her story which was a story of alcoholism, murders, suicides and foster homes. A tragic story that would make a great book.

Then a couple years ago I did an Ancestry DNA test. The first hit turned up a half sister and her two kinds (my neice & nephew). I touched base with her and learned she had five siblings (so I had six half siblings). "Dad" had a kind of fling when he got out of the Navy and that's where I came from. He moved on got married and had his own family. Sixty-five years later I went knocking on the door.

Now I have a big crazy Italian Family. I've met all the siblings, cousins, nieces & nephews...I'm going back to visit in a couple months for a big wedding celebration...

Gotta love a happy ending-

[Photojeep]

In an effort to join the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) my wife continued her parent's genealogical work, discovered her ancestor that helped to qualify her for admission and has been active for several years. One day she started mine in the hopes of finding an ancestor to help me qualify to join the SAR (Sons of the American Revolution.) It turned out my father's family emigrated to the US from Germany via Canada in the early 1900's so no dice.

She did find census records that were really interesting in that they showed where my father lived when he was around 5-6 years old, listing him, his parents, 3 older siblings and a housekeeper. Apparently they only lived there for around 2 years before moving back to the town where my father was born.

When I told him what she'd found, he asked, "Does that census show anything about old man XXX (I can't remember the name)?" Sure enough, we looked further down the list and found his neighbor that lived 4 houses down on the other side of the street!

I was always amazed at my father's memory but for him to remember someone from 75 years ago, who he met when he was only 6 years old, was astonishing!

But back to the search, my wife came up empty in finding a Patriot for me on my father's side as they immigrated to the US in the early 1900's from Germany after a 2 generation stay in Canada.

Long story longer, she did find folks on my mother's side who fought for the British during the revolution so that ended that. But what was remarkable was that one of MY ancestors apparently robbed a treasury office and took their ill-gotten gains to Canada. It was a treasury office that some of HER ancestors were charged with defending!!

(I'm never going to live that one down!)

Best,
PJ

[Riverwolf]

Originally Posted by Photojeep

But back to the search, my wife came up empty in finding a Patriot for me on my father's side as they immigrated to the US in the early 1900's from Germany after a 2 generation stay in Canada.

I found a great great...(?) direct descendant that lived in Canada, crossed into the states and fought for the British! Upon returning he found his farm ransacked and his livestock gone. He sued in court and got some money awarded.

[Cypress Knee]

I've always been a little skeptical of these ancestry sites. When one of them first came out I took a free trial membership and tried to do some tracing. I clicked on some "hints" and inadvertently added people to the tree that I did not know anything about. At that time I could not figure out how to delete the addition and to my knowledge those links are still there.

I have a distant cousin who wants to have a distinguished geneology. She researched until she finally found a distant link to someone who fought in the Revolutionary War so she could join the DAR. She provided me with that documentation. However, she also claimed that we are descended from royalty via the Plantagentet line. All she has is a letter from another distant cousin of hers claiming that a certain last name of another distant ancestor came from the House of Plantagentet. Lastly, she has an Adams family coat of arms that she claims came from an Adam(s) of Scotland who moved to Ulster, whose son Allen moved to County Cavan. His son John moved moved to Wilkes County, NC in the mid-1700's. I asked her, "What is the link between John Adams of Wilkes County NC and my great-great-great grandfather James Adams of Catahoula Parish, LA, in the early 1800's. She doesn't have one. I suspect that she jumped to conclusions to reach the answer that she wanted. I remember my father used to scoff at some of her claims and remark that it was far more likely that we came over with Oglethorpe - below the decks.

I do have some oral history, and some written by researchers with documentation. I knew that I had a bit of French blood from my father's side and always assumed it was Cajun (from the Acadians, Evangeline and all that.) It turns out that line was actually Quebecois. They were rivermen, and there are records in St. Louis and Quebec. The speculation is that they took a Great Lakes route and portaged either to the Wabash River in Indiana or the Des Plaines River via the Chicago portage.

The Adams men were timber cruisers, lumberjacks, and mill wrights from the 1800's until my father joined the Air Force in the early 1950's. It was said that an Adams timber cruiser could look at a pine tree and tell exactly how many board feet of lumber that the mill could get out of the tree.

My paternal grandmother's father (Smith) was a store-keeper, timber farmer, and farmed some small acreage outside of Winnfield, LA. My grandmother claimed that the Long (Huey, Earl K., etc) family were distant cousins and were all scoundrels to be avoided. I think this was a stretch; they were probably neighbors. She told me that when they got their first Model A Ford that they would drive by the Long place in the summer with the windows rolled up so that the Longs would think the Smiths had air conditioning in the car. There is a small cemetery near the old home place where most of the markers are either Smith or Long.

My mother's paternal family moved from Leitchfield, KY, to Williamsville, Ill, and finally homesteaded five miles south of Clayton, NM. My great-grandfather lost the farm/ranch in a poker game and they moved to Denver.

Her maternal family were railroad men. Her great-grandfather moved from Ohio to Leadville, CO, and was crushed between two box cars in Kansas City. Her grandfather worked as a smith on the railroad his entire life.

Her father left National Guard duty on Saturday, December 6, 1941. He drove from El Paso and reached Denver late Sunday afternoon. My mother ran outside to tell him that Pearl Harbor had just been bombed. He asked for a dinner plate, then told his family he had to go and drove out to Lowry Field to re-enlist.

Just some tales from the past.

[RedJoker]

I'll share a story of my Grandma, who did a lot of geneology work after she retired and Grampa died. She found a blood line that went back to a specific castle in Scotland and decided to go visit to gather more info. She absolutely LOVED the trip. When she got back, her church was doing a fundraiser for a mission trip so she asked if she could self-fund herself to go. Then she did another. And another. And another. etc. She travelled well into her 80's eventually did mission trips on every continent, except Antarctica, and had some CRAZY stories. All because of tracing a family tree to Scotland.

My parents have followed in her footsteps and have now to every continent, including Antarctica, and have some amazing stories of their own.

[RP]

Originally Posted by Cypress Knee

I've always been a little skeptical of these ancestry sites. When one of them first came out I took a free trial membership and tried to do some tracing. I clicked on some "hints" and inadvertently added people to the tree that I did not know anything about. At that time I could not figure out how to delete the addition and to my knowledge those links are still there...

There's a "Quick Edit" that one can click on which provides a "Delete this person" choice on Ancestry.com. One has to be very judicious with "Hints." I'm trying to trace a Col. Tobias Smythe who lived in the 1600s in Virginia. I couldn't hardly contain myself when "Father:Captain John Smythe" and "Mother:Pocahontas Powhatan" popped up. Unfortunately not true...

[Jim Owen]

Randy,
When I was looking into my family history a decade or so ago, I found that the original founder of my maternal line in the US first lived in Green County, Va for a number of years in the mid 1700s before moving south to settle in Wilkes County, NC where the Jenningses have lived since.

I found this a bit ironic since I knew nothing about this when I lived in Green County, oddly retracing my 5th Greatgrandfather’s tracks. I also found that while his son is named Luke on the tombstone out in the cow pasture, his name was Ludewick. How does a Scot get that name?

[RP]

Originally Posted by Jim Owen

...I also found that while his son is named Luke on the tombstone out in the cow pasture, his name was Ludewick. How does a Scot get that name?

Americanized spelling of German Ludwig , Czech Ludvík, Polish Ludwik, or cognates in other European languages. 2 English: habitational name from Ludwick Hall in Bishops Hatfield, Hertfordshire, probably named from the Old English personal name Luda + Old English wīc ‘outlying (dairy) farm’.

I found a branch that landed at Jamestown with the name Moon (or Moone), and after a couple of generations renamed themselves Mooney and used Moon as a middle name of sorts and ultimately dropped Moone and became just Mooney...

[Cecil6243]

Originally Posted by RP

That's to be expected; but we can neither choose the behaviors of our ancestors, both good and bad, nor are we defined by them...

That reminds of people that claim to be reincarnated royalty, famous people etc. For some reason they are never reincarnated paupers or criminals.

[RP]

Originally Posted by Cecil6243

That reminds of people that claim to be reincarnated royalty, famous people etc. For some reason they are never reincarnated paupers or criminals.

Well maybe I'm doing something terribly wrong like accepting too many clues from ancestry.com or it's just beginning genealogist's luck, but I've linked to John Rolfe & Pocahontas, Meriwether Lewis, members of the Sapony Native American tribe, a number of Freed Persons of Color named Epps, and yes, Thomas Jefferson to name just a few. I've linked to other early Colonial Virginia families like the Randolphs, the Walkers, the Cameron's and the Warwicks. The FPC and Native American links didn't come as a surprise since I was told before starting that there were extant pictures of male and female family members with dark complexions and long, straight black hair on the women.

I've started writing a book with the working title of "The Many Branches of a Family Tree." I wonder if those with those with FFV (First Family of Virginia), SAR/DAR and Sons/Daughters of the Confederacy lineage tend to expunge the other branches to create a more linear narrative or simply because that's what has been passed down. The interesting thing about this book, I believe, is that trees have many, many branches; and the variety of this tree's branches is what's compelling to me...

[Pura Vida]

I researched my family tree extensively, as I discovered new genealogical links on my paternal side (that's a story by itself). I was researching back through generations and traced what I thought was a great-great x8 grandfather, who either worked for or was a land partner with George Washington in VA. However, I learned that this person actually came through a cousin's lineage, not my direct lineage, so while a cool story, it's not mine.

The most interesting story in my direct path involved my great-grandfather, who came to the U.S. from Austria with his wife and baby daughter in 1907. A year later, my paternal grandmother was born, followed by two more children. However, in 1920, she died in her mid-30s, leaving him with four young children (ages 1-14yo).

He was struggling as a single parent, and a year later, my great-grandmother's younger sister came from Austria to help. They lived together, fell in love, and eventually married. They had five more children (the last one died as an infant) for a total of eight kids between the two sister wives. He died in 1945, and his second wife died in 1959.

Until recently, I was not connected with my paternal side of my family, and validating my ancestry was becoming confusing b/c of the two wives with the same maiden names, but eventually I figured it out. A couple of years ago, I got connected with a family member who's an unofficial historian for this part of the family, and she confirmed that they only discovered the story of the two wives one year earlier.

I find the ancestry research fascinating and wish I had more time to spend on discovering my family history. My wife is obsessed and has linked thousands of ancestors into her family tree. My tree stopped at about 1000 people (enough to track my direct heritage on both sides back to their arrivals into the U.S. at varying points in time).

[RP]

Originally Posted by Pura Vida

I researched my family tree extensively, as I discovered new genealogical links on my paternal side (that's a story by itself). I was researching back through generations and traced what I thought was a great-great x8 grandfather, who either worked for or was a land partner with George Washington in VA. However, I learned that this person actually came through a cousin's lineage, not my direct lineage, so while a cool story, it's not mine.

The most interesting story in my direct path involved my great-grandfather, who came to the U.S. from Austria with his wife and baby daughter in 1907. A year later, my paternal grandmother was born, followed by two more children. However, in 1920, she died in her mid-30s, leaving him with four young children (ages 1-14yo).

He was struggling as a single parent, and a year later, my great-grandmother's younger sister came from Austria to help. They lived together, fell in love, and eventually married. They had five more children (the last one died as an infant) for a total of eight kids between the two sister wives. He died in 1945, and his second wife died in 1959.

Until recently, I was not connected with my paternal side of my family, and validating my ancestry was becoming confusing b/c of the two wives with the same maiden names, but eventually I figured it out. A couple of years ago, I got connected with a family member who's an unofficial historian for this part of the family, and she confirmed that they only discovered the story of the two wives one year earlier.

I find the ancestry research fascinating and wish I had more time to spend on discovering my family history. My wife is obsessed and has linked thousands of ancestors into her family tree. My tree stopped at about 1000 people (enough to track my direct heritage on both sides back to their arrivals into the U.S. at varying points in time).

Very cool story. I just tracked an ancestor past the Plantaganet Kings of England to the Emperor Charlemagne in 752. I don't even know what the Platagenet Kings were, but it sure sounds impressive...

[Nama Ensou]

Originally Posted by RP

Very cool story. I just tracked an ancestor past the Plantaganet Kings of England to the Emperor Charlemagne in 752. I don't even know what the Platagenet Kings were, but it sure sounds impressive...

That's pretty interesting, but you may not like a lot of what a few of the Plantagenets became famous for.