Who here likes genealogy and the NBC show "Who Do You Think You Are"?

[applegrove]

I just watched it for the first time. I was addicted to genealogy a while back. Now I feel the bug again. If you are into genealogy what websites do you frequent?

[triguy46]

1. I think the PBS "Faces of America" in more intellectually rewarding.

[applegrove]

2. Yes someone recommended that to me too.

[madinmaryland]

3. That was an excellent program. And yes I am into genealogy.

[applegrove]

4. Are you on Ancestry.com?

[madinmaryland]

10. For several months I had free access to Ancestry

through our library remotely. Now you have to go into the library to access it. I occasionally post questions or responses in their forums.

They also have heritagequest online available remotely, which is what I use for census issues.

[applegrove]

43. Did they have something called "Family Tree Maker"?

[EvolveOrConvolve]

19. Ancestry.com is run by the mormon church

To gather more names for their post-death proxy conversions.

[Kali]

29. still useful info

[EvolveOrConvolve]

36. Sure, but it taints it a little bit for me

I grew up LDS - not the best thing for me.

[Kali]

41. ahh

yeah my Grampa had a lot of Mormon friends - I'm sure we are fully researched and fake baptized :eyes:

[EvolveOrConvolve]

44. While I no longer consider myself Mormon

They refuse to leave me alone. The harassment has become almost unbearable - I've had to throw at least 2 groups of love-bombers off my porch. I see the whole proxy religious rites as even further intrusion into my life. After I'm dead I won't care, but the thought of it now really pisses me off.

And it's not just necro-baptisms that are performed - they'll also do marriage "sealings" for dead people, too.

[WolverineDG]

32. Actually they put it online so it is available to more people

my mom always wanted to go to SLC to use their genealogy library, but never did.

dg

[EvolveOrConvolve]

37. Actually, it's a for-profit exercise by the LDS church

It not only provides income, but if you enter your own information it will be used for proxy church ordinances. That's where all the information came from in the first place.

[WolverineDG]

38. Yes, Mormons trace their genealogy & to the baptism by proxy

which is why all genealogists hope & pray that one of their ancestors' lines shows up in some Mormon's family tree. And sure, let's deride the LDS church for wanting to make a profit off of doing all the research pre-internet days, (I watched my mom do it & trust me, it was about as much fun & fast as watching grass grow), storing it & making it available in searchable databases online. Damn them for wanting a return on their investment! :eyes:


dg

[EvolveOrConvolve]

39. Are you LDS?

[WolverineDG]

47. No

just listened to my mom & her friends go on & on about how it was their dream to go to SLC & get their hands on some Mormon genealogy records if only one of their family lines intersected with someone who was Mormon. But no, I don't think the LDS should have to foot the entire bill for putting the genealogy records they have online, keeping them updated, AND adding US & international sources seemingly on a weekly basis. I know how much those records & books cost, & they ain't cheap. And still a subscription for me costs less than all the trips my mom took to New England to dig through hard-copy records & chase wild geese. I'm often stunned at just how far back she was able to get in the late 70s-early 80s before the age of the internet. All of her research was through hard copy books which she either had to buy, beg the library or local club to buy, get through inter-library loan, or microfilm or microfiche. And don't get me started on Soundex.... :scared: If she were alive today, I bet she could trace my family back to Adam & Eve.

So if you want to kick me in the ass for appreciating what the LDS have done via Ancestry.com, go right ahead.

dg

[EvolveOrConvolve]

48. My parents met in the "Gennie" (the genealogical library) in SLC

And it is an amazing number of records that the Mormons have collected. I've seen them. I just think that the LDS church hasn't collected the records for purely selfless reasons. They wanna convert everyone, even if it's by force in the afterlife. That doesn't sit well with me.

I don't want to kick you in the ass, I just want other people to understand that the LDS church didn't gather all this genealogical information as a service to mankind. If they had, it would be free.

[Arkansas Granny]

12. I've been enjoying that one, too. Of the two programs, "Faces of America" is my favorite.

[lizziegrace]

14. That is my favorite too

It got my all bugged up again about genealogy.

:-)

[TheMightyFavog]

13. That's what I think, too.

NBC's just ripping off PBS.

Henry Loius Gates, Jr should open up a serious can of whoopass on NBC.

[Lavender Brown]

16. I don't know when the PBS program began, but

Who Do You Think You Are is an adaptation of a BBC show that I think has been on the air a while. :shrug:

[CBR]

18. I just watched the first episode online. It was great. nt

[XemaSab]

5. I've been watching that show and I really like it

:)

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. I've only caught Lisa Kudrow's episode, and I thought it was amazing.

Of course, like so much of common media garbage it tends toward the sensationalistic and emotionally manipulative, but it's still a very cool look at the connections between people and history.

I saw a clip of the Spike Lee and some others on Oprah, but haven't seen the full episodes.

It's just pretty damn cool.

And Kudrow's, of course, will probably trump all of them simply because of the amazing holocaust stories that came out of it.

[Zomby Woof]

8. The Spike Lee one looks promising

I do not think it has aired yet.

[WolverineDG]

23. Emitt Smith's was amazing nt

[Zomby Woof]

7. Love it

I also have an ancestor who fought at Gettysburg, so I could relate to how Matthew Broderick felt when he learned the same thing.

The story about his grandfather being a field medic at Meuse-Argonne in the First World War was amazing. Earned a Distinguishsed Service Cross and a Purple Heart.

[Skittles]

9. what I think is hilarious

is they are under the assumption that all the fathers in their family tree are the real fathers

[bikebloke]

45. That's where DNA geneology comes in.

I've been curious about deep ancestry. Only I'm too frugal to spend the money to trace the long trip from Africa.

Unfortunately for me, much of our family records and photos are in the possession and probably destroyed by the family sociopath.

[Auggie]

11. Haven't seen it. Why are there just celebrities?

Do they ever include ordinary people? I think the fascination rests in knowing your next door neighbor was once royalty (or whatever).

[Lavender Brown]

15. I've seen some episodes on Hulu

Sarah Jessica Parker's family history was interesting. She has an ancestor who was accused of witchcraft in Salem.

[frogmarch]

20. Do you recall

the name of her "witch"? Would it be hanged "witch" Mary Ayer Parker, by any chance? She was my 7th great-grand aunt, sister of my 7th great-grandfather Peter Ayer. Mary Ayer Parker is an ancestor of Dubya's. (In my family we refer to him as Cousin George.)

My 7th great-grandmother was an accused "witch" too, but she escaped the hangman's noose, because by the time she was tried, the Salem Court of Oyer & Terminer had been dismissed, and the new court didn't allow spectral evidence.

[CBR]

21. I do not remember the name but the ancestor of Sarah's

was also spared because the court had been dismissed and the only "evidence" was accuser claiming she had seen the images of three women (one being Sarah's relative) kill another.

[WolverineDG]

24. Agnes Elwell

or Elwill. She also is descended from the Hodges. Both names show up in my family tree, too, but earlier than the 1690s. I'm descended from Rebecca Nurse.

dg

[frogmarch]

25. Rebecca Nurse's story

always brings tears to my eyes. All the witches' stories are emotional ones, but hers really gets to me.

[WolverineDG]

30. they were after her land

it's bad enough that she was hung, but Giles Corey was pressed to death with stones. :scared:

dg

[frogmarch]

33. It is scary to think

of what was done to them! I read that Giles Corey's last words were "More weight." They were trying to get him to enter a plea so they could try him, and when he refused to enter a plea, they attempted to torture a plea out of him. When he took his last breath and died under the weight of the wooden slab piled with rocks, his tongue protruded from his mouth. One of his torturers shoved it back into his mouth with the tip of his cane. Evil bastard.

I read a story pertaining to Rebecca Nurse in which her son - after dark on the day she was hanged - took a small boat and rowed from their farm to retrieve her body, which had been dumped into a ravine at the base of the hill where she and the others were hanged. Her story breaks my heart. She was found innocent, but the judge wasn't satisfied, so he sent the jury back out, and this time the verdict was guilty. Of course!

[Lavender Brown]

26. Wow, that's interesting

:) What they found with SJP's ancestor is similar, she was accused, but not executed.

[frogmarch]

17. I've never seen it, but

I plan to watch it the next time it's on. I've heard it's interesting.

The DU Genealogy Group is good place to go. One of the posters there located for me documents pertaining to some of my paternal ancestors.

For European ancestors, Roots Chat (free) is a great forum on which to post inquiries. I found my English great-grandfather's birth record through Roots Chat, and also lots of information about his birth family. I was able to trace the family quite far back.

By just using Google, I've discovered that many of my father's paternal grandmother's family were early American colonists, and that their lineages are well documented - and also easy to find by merely typing in their names and a date or two. I have traced the lines (including my great, etc. grandmothers' by way of their maiden names) way, way back.

[WolverineDG]

22. I like it

my mom was the family's genealogist, so I got to hear all the stories & eventually inherited all her research (boxes & boxes of it). Knowing my family's history made me want to study history more, especially when we found a "famous" ancestor because then I could learn more about them than when they were born, married, & died.

And I use Ancestry.com

dg

[frogmarch]

27. If you're interested in learning everything

there is to know about the Salem Witch Trials, here's where to go to find it:

Salem Witchcraft Vol. I and II by Charles Upham (Project Gutenberg)

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17845/17845-h/salemcontents.html

Excerpt about my distant great-grandmother Mary Clement Osgood: (She, along with some other accused witches, "confessed" but after a few months in the filthy rat-infested Salem prison, retracted their confessions to Increase Mather - Cotton Mather's father - on one his visits to the prison. By retracting their confessions, they risked their lives, because all those who refused to confess were hanged.)

11407: Some explanation of the details which those, prevailed upon to confess, put into their testimony, and which seemed, at the time, to establish and demonstrate the truth of their statements, is afforded by what Mary Osgood is reported, by Increase Mather, to have said to him on this occasion:—

"Being asked why she prefixed a time, and spake of her being baptized, &c., (and so forth, by the Devil) about twelve years since, she replied and said, that, when she had owned the thing, they asked the time, to which she answered that she knew not the time. But, being told that she did know the time, and must tell the time, and the like, she considered that about twelve years before (when she had her last child) she had a fit of sickness, and was melancholy; and so thought that that time might be as proper a time to mention as any, and accordingly did prefix the said time. Being asked about the cat, in the shape of which she had confessed that the Devil had appeared to her, &c. (and so forth), she replied, that, being told that the Devil had appeared to her, and must needs appear to her, &c. (she being a witch), she at length did own that the Devil had appeared to her; and, being pressed to say in what creature's shape he appeared, she at length did say that it was in the shape of a cat. Remembering that, some time before her being apprehended, as she went out at her door, she saw a cat, &c.; not as though she any whit suspected the said cat to be the Devil, in the day of it, but because some creature she must mention, and this came into her mind at that time."

This poor woman, as well as several others, besides Goodwife Tyler, who denied and renounced their confessions, manifested, as Dr. Mather affirms, the utmost horror and anguish at the thought that they could have been so wicked as to have belied themselves, and brought injury upon others by so doing. They "bewailed and lamented their accusing of others, about whom they never knew any evil" in their lives. They proved the sincerity of their repentance by abandoning and denouncing their confessions, and thus offering their lives as a sacrifice to atone for their falsehood. They were then awaiting their trial; and there seemed no escape from the awful fate which had befallen all persons brought to trial before, and who had not confessed or had withdrawn their confession. Fortunately for them, the Court did not meet again in 1692; and they were acquitted at the regular session, in the January following.

[WolverineDG]

31. if your family history goes that far back

chances are we are related. :) BTW, one of my ancestress' was married to Cotton Mathers' brother, Increase (1st or 2nd marriage, can't recall), & another ancestor was Solomon Stoddard, the first Librarian of Harvard & grandfather to Jonathan Edwards, who wrote "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." (Edwards is a first cousin, billion times removed). IIRC, Osgood shows up in my mom's research; I will go see if it does, but the name sounds familiar.

dg

[frogmarch]

34. We might be. I am related to

Jonathan Edwards through the Tuttle line. I'm not a descendant of Edwards's, though. One of my distant great-grandmothers in the Ayer line was a Tuttle, a member of the ax-murders Tuttle family. I've barely researched the Tuttle branch of my family, but I remember reading at a few sources about Jonathan Edwards.

Okay, here's one source:

http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=2237 "What Is It with Those Tuttles?"

Elizabeth Tuttle is the ancestor of a family that was to have an amazing impact on American history. Her son Timothy married a Stoddard, and he became the father of Jonathan Edwards, the brilliant, neurotic minister who has been called the last of the great Puritans. Jonathan Edwards married a Pierrepont. His descendants went on to be influential ministers, college presidents, financiers, surgeons, and judges. Perhaps the most famous descendant was Aaron Burr.

In Hale, House and Related Families Mainly of the Connecticut River Valley (Anthoensen Press, 1952), Donald Lines Jacobus writes:

the Edwards family having been selected by eugenists as an example of good heredity and the inheritance of unusual ability, the presence of Elizabeth Tuttle in the ancestry leaves much to be explained.

He further speculates that the neurotic strain was 'bred out,' though a few of the nearer descendants were somewhat eccentric.

My interpretation is different. I believe it is possible that some members of the Tuttle family suffered from a server form of manic depressive disorder and that Jonathan Edwards himself suffered from this mood disorder. He may, in his epic struggle against the mania and depression which occasionally seized him, have come up with the insights that were explicated in his various treatises. The Great Awakening (a highly emotional religious revival which started in Edward's Northampton congregation and spread throughout New England) may, in some way, have been the result of his projection of his own psychological torment onto his congregation.

It's a very intersting article with a lot of detail about the two murders.

[WolverineDG]

35. No Tuttles in my family tree

so at least there is a connection through marriage. :)

dg

[blue_onyx]

28. I liked the Lisa Kudrow episode a lot

I found the Matthew Broderick episode boring.

[CBHagman]

40. I love genealogy but only saw "Faces of America" on PBS.

Or rather I saw part of it; I had other things to do on the most recent nights it aired.

I've used a number of websites, including FamilySearch and Origins. But free message boards have proven most useful; I actually located a second cousin through one of them.

FamilySearch was fantastic for conducting that all-important 1880 Census search. And through my local library I can get access to other census records through HeritageQuest.

[Yeahyeah]

42. It was anticlimatic to find out Lisa Kudrow's ancestors were also irritating morons.

[csziggy]

46. I've found US Gen Web Archives really useful

But since it is volunteer driven, it is hit or miss. If someone has taken on the locations where your ancestors lived, they may have transcribed all the resources you need. But some of the locations just refer you to outside sources that send you to Ancestry. Lots of their information is just indexes, which are useful, but may not give you what you need, just confirmation of stuff you already have.

On my father's side, my grandmother did tons of research, starting in the early 1900's; Mom did research on her side of the family and Mr.csziggy's Mom did his entire family including a book on everyone in the US with her maiden name. The last few months, I have been entering the information and sources for all that research into the LDS free genealogy program, Personal Ancestry File. It is a little crude, but it is free and once the info is entered, I can export it into other programs. I am also playing with a free version of Legacy but find it slower to enter data in mass quantities.

To get copies of the actual documents, I have heard that Footnote is great - they have a free trial with access to the Census right now. http://www.footnote.com/ I am planning on getting a membership once I am ready to actually get the documents I need. I am going to do as much free indexing as possible ahead of time so I can get a temporary membership, then let it drop.