Finished one branch - for now - with some surprising success!

[csziggy]

I just finished going through my Dad's side of the family. I've always thought of it as being the "shortest branch" of our tree since Dad's grandfather came over from Wales in 1872 and we have not been able to find out anything about his father's parents.

But the Canadian branch of the woman who the Welsh ancestor married - that I have managed to get back to the 1600s in Scotland and in Yorkshire! :woohoo: I verified the woman's mother's name - no one researching the family had done that but on the baptismal record of one of her brothers it lists her name with maiden name AND married surname - and her brother and his wife were witnesses! Using her brother's name, I found where he was born and married in Scotland, his parents names, then their brothers and sisters! MOTHERLODE! Following those people took me back another two or three generations.

On the baptismal record of a sister, one of the witnesses was the husband of my great-great-grandmother - the only solid link other than family notes that he was connected to her family. AND it showed a variant spelling that verifies other links.

And Mom and my mother in law never bothered to research siblings - they consider it a waste of time. HAH!

[The Genealogist]

1. Glad you are making such progress!

I've seen those brick walls come down in pretty dramatic ways. You just never know.

My family's interest, since you mentioned your mother and mother-in-law, in genealogy was mixed. On my dad's side, more or less everyone was very interested in family history. They were real big on finding some kind of grand family roots, and there were embellishments in some cases (privates being remembered as captains, for instance) and ignoring that which made the family story less than stellar. My mother's mother, however, thought genealogy was a waste of time and couldn't really fathom why anyone would care. Only a couple of people on that side are really interested in genealogy. I think THAT side of the family is afraid some deep secret will emerge and ruin us all.

[csziggy]

2. The last time anybody in my family looked at that side

Was probably eighty years ago right after grandmother married the son of the Welshman. Grandmother was already well into genealogy - she joined DAR in 1913!

I don't care about DAR but I grew up with genealogy and enjoy it. Mom got into it after marrying into the family and found lots about her branches. She collected her research and grandmother's research and put together two small books on the two sides of the family. I re-edited those in time for Mom & Dad's 65th wedding anniversary last year and printed copies for them.

Now I am working my way through the families, adding documentation for everybody - Mom and grandmother relied on census indexes, I can download scans of the actual pages! I'm mostly trying to just add verification of what they already knew, but sometimes when I get hot leads the temptation is too great.

When I finish this "first pass" I plan to go back to the dead ends and see if I can take the lines back farther. I'd like to at least find out when they came to this country if not where they came from before that.

When I married hubby, I didn't realize that HIS Mom was into genealogy. She collected info about everybody in the US with her maiden name and published a frigging book about them! Now she is pressuring me to start on hubby's family since she sees how much I am getting done with mine.

The good thing is that I never run out of stuff to work on!