Genealogy frustration

[Okla-homey]

So. I've been working on the old family tree. It's amusing.

Here's the thing. I'm way on back to the flippin' 16th century on my Mom's side (the Okie connection.) Kinda intersting in that I can trace from the first d00d who landed in Baltimore from Scotland around 1670, thence to Virginia, about a hunnert years later, they boogied west to Kentucky, then in about another hunnert years, onward to Indiana, and after the Silly War, sneaked down into the I.T. and parked it in Carter Co. in the heart of the Chickasaw Nation and made a living farming cotton.

On Pop's side, I'm stumped and can't get earlier than my great grandfather's immigration from Germany (Prussia, specifically Niederschlesien) in 1881. You would think those Prussian bastages, being Uber-Krauts and all, would have kept better public records.:mad: After landing in NYC, meine uhrgrossvater went straight to Winona, Minnesota where he married some Wisconsin chick, hung out for about ten years, then for some unknown reason, hauled 'em all to a suburb of Philadelphia for good where he worked as a bookkeeper in a chemical plant.

[OUinFLA]

My sister is all into that stuff. She even used a working trip to Germany and France to spend time digging around in the archives over there. Most records were kept by the church in the time periods you are refering to.

Personally, I think you both are nutz.

[Okla-homey]

My sister is all into that stuff. She even used a working trip to Germany and France to spend time digging around in the archives over there. Most records were kept by the church in the time periods you are refering to.

Personally, I think you both are nutz.

I'm not obsessed or anything. It's just fun. BTW, this Ancestry.com thingy makes it waaaay easier these days. You just plug in the names and dates you know, and the search engine bundled with the humongous data base gives you options you can choose to merge with your tree if they match up.

The cool thing is, they have PDF's of a lot of the source documents. That stuff I got on Pop's fam was derived from the 1910, 1920 and 1930 censuses. I was able to download the sheets with all the stuff hand-written in by the census taker.

Sometimes you find stuff that makes you go "hmmm". E.g., I have documented a case of first-cousin marriage around 1810 on Mom's side. Of course, they were in Kentucky then, so I guess that was pretty common. It prolly still is.:rolleyes:

[SoonerInKCMO]

I got a bunch of information from my folks a while back about great- and great-great-grandparents and such thinking that I'd do some big search all the way back to Europe. Then I remembered that I was adopted and didn't care about ancestors all that much. :D

[VeeJay]

That first cousin stuff was common in rural areas. My dad said where he grew up in NE Mississippi that it wasn't uncommon for people to marry first cousins, because there just weren't a lot of available women around to marry. Fortunately for him, he moved to the big city (Jackson - whoa!) and married my mom, a city girl.

Whoever does the ancestry lookups on me in the distant future is going to be amused by the debris, legal and otherwise, I leave behind.

[Scott D]

they'll probably quit after they encounter the chapter of your life involving Lady Asshat.

[Okla-homey]

That first cousin stuff was common in rural areas. My dad said where he grew up in NE Mississippi that it wasn't uncommon for people to marry first cousins, because there just weren't a lot of available women around to marry. Fortunately for him, he moved to the big city (Jackson - whoa!) and married my mom, a city girl.

Whoever does the ancestry lookups on me in the distant future is going to be amused by the debris, legal and otherwise, I leave behind.

My daughter was born in Mississippi Co, AR but her birth certificate says Independence Co., AR -- because some gubmint moe-ron boofed it in Little Rock where it was prepared. Those counties are at opposite ends of the state. I reckon that may be a head-scratcher to some geneology researcher in a hundred years.

[Sooner Born Sooner Bred]

On my trip to SE Oklahoma over the weekend, we visited a few cemeteries. I ended up getting on Ancestry.com and traced my mom's family back to the 1600s. It's neat to look at those census documents. At the same time, it's confusing because they didn't always tell the census taker the given name of the people in the house. My great grandmother's name was Susan Emmaline, but on one census they have her listed as "Emmer."

[Scott D]

My aunt tried tracing my father's side of the family, and lo and behold...didn't get much past the generation before my grandparents....for some reason most slave owners didn't report slaves on the census or allow them to be.

[reevie]

My aunt tried tracing my father's side of the family, and lo and behold...didn't get much past the generation before my grandparents....for some reason most slave owners didn't report slaves on the census or allow them to be.

I think they just reported the number of slaves on the census.

[Okla-homey]

My aunt tried tracing my father's side of the family, and lo and behold...didn't get much past the generation before my grandparents....for some reason most slave owners didn't report slaves on the census or allow them to be.

It's unfortunate. Indeed, the pre-Silly War census dox all say, "List of Free Inhabitants of ____________County, etc."

The only reason censuses were taken was to allocate House seats.

Under the Constitution (Art 1, Sec. 2), Congressional representation was based on the free population. Each enslaved person counted at 3/5's for purposes of allocating House seats. That was a compromise during drafting. The South wanted to count all slaves which would have given them more power in Congress, but the North would'nt let that happen. They settled on the 3/5's dealio. Thus, I've encountered ante-bellum entries where the family is all named, ages given, relationship to the head of household is given, and down at the bottom of that family's entry, it will state 'three slaves' etc.

[reevie]

It's unfortunate. Indeed, the pre-Silly War census dox all say, "List of Free Inhabitants of ____________County, etc."

The only reason censuses were taken was to allocate House seats.

Under the Constitution (Art 1, Sec. 2), Congressional representation was based on the free population. Each enslaved person counted at 3/5's for purposes of allocating House seats. That was a compromise during drafting. The South wanted to count all slaves which would have given them more power in Congress, but the North would'nt let that happen. They settled on the 3/5's dealio. Thus, I've encountered ante-bellum entries where the family is all named, ages given, relationship to the head of household is given, and down at the bottom of that family's entry, it will state 'three slaves' etc.



I was going to say something like that, but forgot the exact fraction and was too lazy to look it up.

[jk the sooner fan]

homey - thats the same problem i'm having.....i only get to my gg-grandfather on the santee side of the family, but i can go wayyyyy back on the watts side

you know what would be really cool, is if the genealogy peeps created some sort of map program that read your tree, and did a little slide show to demonstrate where your families started and where they merged, etc etc

my watts line derives from captain james watts who was a tennessee volunteer that moved to missouri after the war of 1812.....they liked having babies....LOTS of them

missouri has a GREAT data base on death certificates......you can look at a majority of them as pdf files....some of the causes of death are rather interesting

[jk the sooner fan]

what i've also learned, reading those census forms, is that they didnt have a great sense of what their actual age was from one decade to the next.....

[OUinFLA]

My sis did the ancestry.com thing for several years, even went out to SLC and perused their documents in person. She had enough info that she could trace all the way back to immigration from Europe. That was when she used her trips to France and Germany to visit the townships she had uncovered and try to delve a bit further back by checking the church records. She's traced one line back into the 1300's I think.

She has visited quite a few people who are very distantly related, sharing her knowledge of connections with our families. You know, like 13th cousins or somethin.

Me..............I'd rather go fishing. Most interesting thing I feel she found was a long ago relative that was hung in North Carolina for stealing a horse, sometime in the early 1800's.

[SoonerStormchaser]

Your family tree merged on a few branches, didn't it Homey?

[critical_phil]

by some strange coincidence, i am exactly 3/5 as tall as scottD.



my SIL has done some work on my family. i guess i'm almost all irish/scotch irish; but with my deliciously dark skin tone, someone along the line didn't tell the truth to the gubmint.


as for the kissin cousin deal, i can't judge. i'd like some :chicken: play with amanda beard.

[royalfan5]

Does any one on the Prussian side have the main family bible? It was very common for Prussian and German families to keep detailed sets of records in them. That's how we reconstructed most of the family history on my Mom's side.

[Flagstaffsooner]

She's traced one line back into the 1300's I think.



Just look in Olevet's high school yearbook for them.:D

[Shamrock]

On Pop's side, I'm stumped and can't get earlier than my great grandfather's immigration from Germany (Prussia, specifically Niederschlesien) in 1881. You would think those Prussian bastages, being Uber-Krauts and all, would have kept better public records.:mad:

My Mom has done the geneology stuff, and she said there are a lot of problems finding old records in Germany, mostly because of WWII. We bombed the crap out of 'em, and many records were lost. Maybe that's what happened in your case???

[OUinFLA]

Homey got bombed?

Im shocked.

[BajaOklahoma]

you know what would be really cool, is if the genealogy peeps created some sort of map program that read your tree, and did a little slide show to demonstrate where your families started and where they merged, etc etc


FTM has the map that will mark all of the locations you have listed.
I have my FTM files separated under each of the grandparents last name, so the maps will be specific to each branch of the family. If I print them out on overheads, I can over lap them.

Be very careful about accepting info from other people. Make a copy of it, but don't merge it until you can document it yourself. There are people who will list a date or place incorrectly, on purpose.

I am very excited because the OHS has updated their online files and search engine. I have a partial copy of some work done by a cousin of my great-grandmother. They couldn't find it for several years before the move - and it's listed!

[Okla-homey]

My Mom has done the geneology stuff, and she said there are a lot of problems finding old records in Germany, mostly because of WWII. We bombed the crap out of 'em, and many records were lost. Maybe that's what happened in your case???

I am going to look at WTF was going on in Central Europe in the early 1880's to prompt so many Germans to head over here. The records repositories are full of passenger lists of krauts embarking from Hamburg during that period for the USA. My 18 y/o great-grandpappy among them.

[Okla-homey]

FTM has the map that will mark all of the locations you have listed.
I have my FTM files separated under each of the grandparents last name, so the maps will be specific to each branch of the family. If I print them out on overheads, I can over lap them.

Be very careful about accepting info from other people. Make a copy of it, but don't merge it until you can document it yourself. There are people who will list a date or place incorrectly, on purpose.



Prudent advice. I don't merge unless I'm reasonably certain. If not, it goes in that "virtual shoebox" utility for later perusal.

As an aside, why would some goober put intentionally innacurate info out there?

[jk the sooner fan]

yeah i dont merge unless i'm able to verify the data with something else

[Okla-homey]

Does any one on the Prussian side have the main family bible? It was very common for Prussian and German families to keep detailed sets of records in them. That's how we reconstructed most of the family history on my Mom's side.

My great grandfather lit out of there alone at 18 in 1881. I suspect the family Bible was left in the possession of his Mom and Dad. It prolly got used for toilet paper by a Russian in 1945.

[royalfan5]

My great grandfather lit out of there alone at 18 in 1881. I suspect the family Bible was left in the possession of his Mom and Dad. It prolly got used for toilet paper by a Russian in 1945.
He didn't start a new one when he started a new family here?

[BajaOklahoma]

As an aside, why would some goober put intentionally innacurate info out there?

There are people, usually older, who have spent a lot of time and money doing research. They don't feel it is fair to just give it away. If they put in an incorrect date or location, they will always be able to say that "you stole my info" and be correct. Very sad in so many ways.
Some people are afraid of identity theft also.

[Scott D]

It's unfortunate. Indeed, the pre-Silly War census dox all say, "List of Free Inhabitants of ____________County, etc."

The only reason censuses were taken was to allocate House seats.

Under the Constitution (Art 1, Sec. 2), Congressional representation was based on the free population. Each enslaved person counted at 3/5's for purposes of allocating House seats. That was a compromise during drafting. The South wanted to count all slaves which would have given them more power in Congress, but the North would'nt let that happen. They settled on the 3/5's dealio. Thus, I've encountered ante-bellum entries where the family is all named, ages given, relationship to the head of household is given, and down at the bottom of that family's entry, it will state 'three slaves' etc.

tell me about it...when my aunt researched it she got stopped cold going any further back than the 1870 census (keep in mind we are talking about a part of north carolina so far south, it's about 15-20 miles north of the border with south carolina.


Here is the last record of our family that I was able to find. Maybe some of you would be interested in signing up for a 30 day free trial at Ancestry.com or Myfamily.com and see if you can find anything more. Well here in the 1870 census (lines 4-9), the first census after the Civil War and emancipation. We see Camilla Smith, her 70 year old mother and her four mulatto children. Since Camilla and her mother are classified as Black I guess this is where white blood first came into our family. Again Wilton's age data is a little off but Frances' age is right on (Camilla's age is a little funky too). But there is enough information to reasonably assume that this is indeed the beginnings of our family after emancipation. I found these records during my trial period with Ancestry.com. I'll probably retain my membership for a month or so to see what I can find out about the Smiths and the Georges from other records than the census (wills, probabe, deed records, etc.) Help me out.


the reference to the blood portion is the fact that there were folks in future censuses (1880/1890/1900) whom were listed as mulatto on the census.

[Okla-homey]

There are people, usually older, who have spent a lot of time and money doing research. They don't feel it is fair to just give it away. If they put in an incorrect date or location, they will always be able to say that "you stole my info" and be correct. Very sad in so many ways.
Some people are afraid of identity theft also.

I quite agree. People lamenting the fact that the innerweb makes this relatively easy now are analgous to people getting mad because you can now tap into the city water supply when before, you had to get all hot and sweaty digging a well.;)

[Scott D]

I should add that my mother's family was traced back to Scotland via Kansas, Missouri, Virginia...I'm sure a little more research would show that they were of the Scandanavian hordes whom came down in their blood frenzy.

[SoonerStormchaser]

I dunno how my mom did it, but she traced one line all the way back to Charlamagne...something like 130 generations.

And get this, the family tree only merged ONCE!

[Shamrock]

I am going to look at WTF was going on in Central Europe in the early 1880's to prompt so many Germans to head over here.


The Migration to North America (http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/migration/chapter52.html)

2. CAUSES OF MIGRATION

2.1 Circumstances that favoured migration

Eastern Europe
The surplus of labour force in Eastern Europe between 1870 and 1914 coincided with a demand for it on the other side of the Atlantic, related to the restructuring of the rapidly expanding American economy that had shifted to heavy industry, construction and mass garment production. Each of these enterprises required large quantities of manual workers. With the decrease in the arrival of immigrants from western and central parts of Europe due to industrial development there, American employers were eager to draw labour from the underdeveloped and overpopulated eastern regions of the continent.


2.3 Direct causes of migration

Germany
From 1871 until the end of the American Civil War no fewer than 30,000 Germans arrived each year, unsettled by Germany's own wars with Denmark and Austria, its low wages and high food prices, and the continuing pressure on smallholding peasants.

The secular transatlantic mass exodus from Germany, of which 90 percent went to the USA, was instigated mainly by socio-economic problems deriving specifically from the lack of correspondence between population growth and employment opportunities during the crisis of the transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy.

Other economic reasons for Germans to migrate were stiffer competition to home and cottage industry from factory production, and the subdivision of family lands to the level of 'dwarf holdings', indicating to young Germans that home held a dismal future for them.

[Okla-homey]

The Migration to North America (http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/migration/chapter52.html)

sweet. Thanks!

...altho the statement from "from 1871 until the end of the American Civil War" is jacked. The Civil War ended in 1865.

[Shamrock]

sweet. Thanks!

...altho the statement from "from 1871 until the end of the American Civil War" is jacked. The Civil War ended in 1865.

Yeah ... I saw that. Some pointed headed professor got dates/significant events mixed up.

[Scott D]

I'm thinking that should be 1771.

[olevetonahill]

On my trip to SE Oklahoma over the weekend, we visited a few cemeteries. I ended up getting on Ancestry.com and traced my mom's family back to the 1600s. It's neat to look at those census documents. At the same time, it's confusing because they didn't always tell the census taker the given name of the people in the house. My great grandmother's name was Susan Emmaline, but on one census they have her listed as "Emmer."
You came to My part of the world and didnt say Hi ?:mad: :( :eek:

[royalfan5]

From my family, I know one great-great grandfather took off from Prussia, after helping dismantle the French in 1870. Another Great-Grandfather left after he was accused of an illict affair with the neighbor's wife. He was so excited about becoming an American that he had an eagle tattoed on the ship ride over in 1910. I always found that story to be amusing.

[OUinFLA]

The Migration to North America (http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/migration/chapter52.html)



Eastern Europe
The surplus of labour force in Eastern Europe between 1870 and 1914 coincided with a demand for it on the other side of the Atlantic, related to the restructuring of the rapidly expanding American economy that had shifted to heavy industry, construction and mass garment production. Each of these enterprises required large quantities of manual workers.

Does this mean that Guatamala is the next America?

[Scott D]

From my family, I know one great-great grandfather took off from Prussia, after helping dismantle the French in 1870. Another Great-Grandfather left after he was accused of an illict affair with the neighbor's wife. He was so excited about becoming an American that he had an eagle tattoed on the ship ride over in 1910. I always found that story to be amusing.

The alleged story on my mother's side is that my great great great great great grandfather bought passage in the middle of the night on a ship bound for Virginia the day before he was supposed to be getting married to some woman of minor English nobility.

[BajaOklahoma]

Pffft! My grandmother's cousin married Machine Gun Kelly. And she was the meaner of the pair, according to legend.
We also have the Roosevelts on the other side of the family.

I just not sure which was worse - the politicans or the crooks?

[Sooner Born Sooner Bred]

You came to My part of the world and didnt say Hi ?:mad: :( :eek:I only got as far as Big Cedar. Sorry.

[olevetonahill]

I only got as far as Big Cedar. Sorry.
thats South of me .:mad: :P