Hints on tracing your ancestry!

[sirdaniel1975]

As promised and as predicted by Ron.. here's my post on photos.

This is something that I tend to still accumulate, and have recently acquired many more photos. What's great about the digital age, is that they don't have to give you the photos just yet. You can scan them.. and I strongly suggest scanning photos anyway. If there is a fire or something and you have scanned your photos and had the digitized version kept in a fire safe place.. you've preserved a photo record of your family history.

Here I'm going to show off some of my pictures from Glasgow, Scotland UK. They are circa 1890's -1908.


This is one of the photos I acquired that had the persons named on the back.
1st person GG Grandmother Henrietta Hunt Williamson (maiden name Hunt)
2nd person G Grandmother Nellie (nick name for Helen) McLuskie (not yet married to my G Grandfather)
3rd person GG Grandfather John Williamson (b.1826-1894)
His death date means the photo is from 1894 the latest.


Not named, but most likely Nellie..


Another one of Nellie.. when my grandfather lent me this photo.. He said "that's my mom!"


My Great Grandfather Jervis Coats Williamson


That's one of my grandfather's older sisters "Etta" (short for Henrietta) when she was little.. probably 1908... a story as to which I will explain in another post. Again my GG Grandma Henrietta Hunt Williamson.

[jhockin]

"Talk to your family and find out everything and then some."

and, if at all possible, tape record the conversations!! This is less likely to change than your memory

[sirdaniel1975]

Collecting family documents can shed a whole new light on your investigative case. Because, genealogical research is an investigation into the past. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, blah blah blah... Yes, they are very important, but they actually only reveal maiden names, dates, and places...

When you're looking for the real interesting information, you have to dig up something a wee bit harder to find. Here I will share some documents that an aunt had in her possession and new I would be interested in seeing them. She wouldn't let me have them, but she aloud me to photo copy them. So the images you see will be compressed versions of the scans of the photo copies. One of the documents, I disguised the #'s with a swirl effect because the document is legal in nature.

The first set of images are of a "Second Passenger List" form a trip from NY to Glasgow, in 1908 on the S.S. Caledonia. I have no proof for a certain theory, but I suspect it is from the very trip my family used to go back to Scotland to bring my Great Great Grandmother Henrietta to America.

[sirdaniel1975]

Continued...

[sirdaniel1975]

Continued...


This is the zoom in on my family.


Navigation route.

[sirdaniel1975]

The below document is of a US patent, my grandfather's sister Catherine, invented a "Knitting needle." She is the child listed in the manifest above. I have swirled the # to protect the document. It is a photo copy and it took two copies and scans to get the image of the document. That explains the poor alignment of the document.

[sirdaniel1975]

Well, www.ancestry.co.uk has been very helpful for me. Especially since I already had a good wealth of info from the family. A really wonderful thing that has happened is meeting a distant relative through the site.

As any good detective one is always a wee bit cautious when something like this happens. When the other person starts sending you photos from over 100 years ago with family members that you have photos of... well confirmation of the relation is pretty solid. Unless the person has somehow come up with the most unbelievable con that is imaginable. 100 year old photos with you direct relations is quite impressive.

So I'll first show what I think is the best proof of our relation. He acquired the photo from his Aunt in NJ, over Thanksgiving. The picture clearly has my GG Grandmother Henrietta in it from 1904. In his email that he sent me, he said most of the people are named on the back. There is a child in a kilt and he appears to be wearing the very sporran and possibly a Glengary I've inherited.



The next photos he sent are from previous emails and probably of no direct ancestry, but I'd thought it great to share them being as they are awesome kilt photos. The are both military men...


Unknown person, but he has several of this gentleman in two different uniforms.


This one is of a James Lawrence of Glasgow from WWI.

I hope you all enjoy these and can use this as inspiration to get "Crackin" ! Even the most amateurish investigator can turn up startling results.

[Derek Conley]

Those pics are great!

I've been almost living on ancestry.com lately, and have traced one specific line back to 1777 New Jersey, also finding an unknown blood relative (indeed, an entire line) living here in Florida! Also along the way I did find branches in the 1860's to England (name: Dodson) and Ireland (name: Corwin). I've yet to pursue those lines yet, though, as I'm not sure how easy it is to do the genealogical research for English/Irish/Scottish ancestors.

[Matthew Siegmann]

Very interesting thread. I have to say I'm lucky in my family. My grandmother on my mom's side has done extensive research on her family and has done as much as she can on my Grandfather. My dad's side is a little bit more difficult but I have lucked onto many gems at my my grandparents house (my grandparents are both gone now). Many many labled photgraphs from my grandmother's side and she does have a fairly decent record of geneology. This is the line that the Keiths come in. I have a photo of my great great grand mother and her sister, Ada and Ida Keith. Luckly my dad saved many photo albums and phots from my great grandmother's house on the Siegmann side as well. While two albums aren't labled very well, or in one case at all, I have found many connections with relatives of my grandfather. My great great grandfather was an imagrant. I've had a dickens of a time trying to find all of his decendents. He only had seven children but it's been difficult trying to find them. However my grandmother saved EVERYTHING, and so at her house crammed in two close hampers a chest of drawers and a cedar trunk are mostly letters and cards she's recieved from people. I have not been able to go through them but I have a feeling I'll find many many family connections in those cards and letters.

A word of advice to anyone who has grandparents, parents or other relatives who pass away... go through everything. If they saved cards and letters, save them, because they will help you in your research... they will help very much! Another tip, when you're done with your research and you have no idea what to do with all of the cards, letters etc., see if any historical societies in the places they were sent or came from would like them. Often times because the cards and letters refer to events and every day life in those places the historical societies are very interested in them. Never throw them away. You can always find a home. If your children or other family (or if you don't have any family) don't want the photos, make arrangements to have them donated to the respective historical societies where the people came from. They are always glad to recieve those items as well.