I am at a brick wall


TheyCallMeMom
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and I am not very far into our trees

I cant find any info on anyone in our families

and all the sites want me to pay.. I cant afford that.. our genealogy center is a ways away and I have asked for help but havent gotten any

so now what.. I would like to get some of DH's history done. my grandfather did 1/2 of my side and the other 1/2 is a dead end.. so no work there..

very discouraged

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When I first started some 10 years ago I found a distant cousin in the northwest. I asked him about paying for some of these sites. He said not to because there are, and he was right, sites with the same info and you do not have to pay. It takes some searching but can be done. Do you have a computer? If you do the offical church web site has a lot of info available and in some cases can fill in vacant realtives. I would help if you want. I am sure there are others here that have done this as much as I and can help also. Start with the Church Web Site. Duh Of course you have a computer.

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Try googling the surname, then seeing what pops up. I did that with two of the surnames on my mothers side.

McKay and Sackett. I read through a LOT of sites, till I finally came to a surname bulletin board. I posted a message giving who I was related to, only giving their full names and the year they were born. Then I asked if anyone was related to me. Took a month to get a response.

Here is the link to the McKay-Elkenny web site MCKAY-ELKENNY-L Family Discussion List's Home Page

Take a look around, there is even a link provided where you can learn how to find names at Ancestory.com

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here's an example

I went here

FamilySearch.org - Family History and Genealogy Records

typed in my name and birth year

no matches

shouldnt I at least be in there?

No, because you are still alive. Type in the name of someone in your family who has been deceased for some time. Use this part of the search

FamilySearch.org - Search and click on All Resources.

Also you might ask your Bishop if he can get you this book- Introduction to Family History Teacher Manual (Religion 261). This is available only to Units (Wards, Branch's and Stake Centers).

I was called as the Branch Family History Consultant. I was encouraged to go to the members homes to help them with their searches. To teach them how to use the web sites and to answer any of their questions.

Find out who is your Ward FHC, and set up an appointment to have him/her over to your house. Talk with him/her, perhaps there are more in your ward who need help too.

We had a volunteer teach a class at our Branch. She was a professional Genealogist who had been volunteering at the FHC for nearly 20 years. She was not LDS either. She was baptized two years before I moved.She gave us some valuable pointers.

You may not be able to get to your FHC (mine was 20 miles north of my home) very often, but you can always call and talk to the LDS member in charge of it.

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I agree with the surname lists - just post on there leave and keep your email address listed I have gone back over 11 generations on 3 lines this way but sometimes have needed to be on the list for several years. I had been on one list 6 years, last year someone contacted me and gave me information I had been looking for to allow me to trace my family in Ireland.

-Charley

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I was also contacted by distant cousins who read my post on the list, and have kept up correspondence with them. One cousin came to visit me in Oregon. She is the only member of her family that is LDS, yet her entire family are Genealogists! She gave me reams of family history!

We share a common male ancestor. He remarried had more children and one of his sons is her grandfather. The common male ancestor is our Great Great Grandfather. His daughter by his first wife is my Great Grandmother.

She wanted to know if I and/or my family was/were the one(s) who had been doing all the temple work on this line? We weren't. I had found two names who had done a lot of the work. I left it for her to hunt them down.

I also turned her onto the McKay list site. She was able to provide reams of work for a lot of 'cousins' who had hit brick walls. Turned those walls into stepping stones.

Now these two sites I belong to, on the McKay list there are only three of us who are LDS. My cousin-in-law is also a member- her husband and I are from the same family tree- they belong to the Salvation Army.

When you leave messages it is best to use a yahoo or gmail or hotmail email address. One that you access from any computer via on line. That way your email address will always be available no matter how often you move.

That is the only reason I have a yahoo email address.

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Most states have family history links on their home page. For instance, while looking for some of my familyI came to find they had settled in Missouri. Going to that states home page then the family history link I left a message. Within twenty four hours I had credible infor back to the revolunatary war.

I also was able to track down a cousin living in the small town I live in. I believe 29,000 to be small. Follow the spirit where it leads you would be surprised what will turn up.

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I am really stressed about it I guess.. I am trying to do what I am supposed to and it doesn't work out.. it seems to be like this with everything I do.. no matter what task I pick there has to be some kind of trouble. roadblocks.. nothing goes smoothly, I am just tired of being challenged..

There are some great resources coming down the pipes (new Family Search, digitization of the FHL collections), but it'll take a few years. (Not to mention the fact that hopefully in a little while you may be more financially stable and able to afford subscription services or searches at public records offices).

My wife's grandmother was once hassled by someone in her ward for not doing enough family history work. Her response was, "You take care of the dead, and I'll take care of the living." I'm not saying this is the case for everyone, but maybe you should ask the Lord whether He'd rather you focus on the living for the time being, and turn your attention to the dead when you have the resources to do so?

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I have an old motto. "When you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, look up!"

You'd be surprised how Father in Heaven can open a door or a window when you feel like there's no way out. There's no reason that He won't help you in your quest to do yours and His work.

Thank you Skal. I needed this one today.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi!

I just wanted to tell you that Ancestry.com is very different than the other sites because there are true first hand resources scanned and available. It is much, much more than the free sites. They have wills and probate records, census records (originals), scanned in old newspapers (so fun to read, even the ads!), and many more resources. Primary resources of course are preferable to the free sites, where someone gathered some information with possible documentation that is accurate.

Also, they have people available to help you when you are stuck.

Also, they even have online classes.

About the FH libraries being far away, well, you can order what you need online and they will mail it to the center. I used to have to travel about an hour away, so I'd spend my time ordering what was needed, then go one morning and see if any of my orders had anything of worth.

Another thing is local libraries. Some of the small towns have incredible libraries with genealogy sections of old books. I never knew this until I moved to a small town in Texas. Their entire basement was filled with genealogy books from around the country. They also had all of the basic needs and lots of help to teach me. There were local classes on it too. And there were hardly any LDS members in the entire area!

Even if you don't sign up for Ancestry.com (which I DO recommend - premium package) or see what you can order and go monthly to your FHE library....even if you don't see if there are some other local resources of help for you....

There IS something else you can do, and that is write up the history of what you do have. I've done this, and it has helped me see things I never realized and sent me in new directions.

Family history is different than genealogy. It's the actual history or profile of each individual. What I do is take what notes I have and put them in chronological order. Then I take the documents and photos I have and scan them in the computer. Then I make a timeline and place the photos, documents, and notes on the timeline. Then I write up a story of their life. I love doing this because I travel the world with GoogleEarth and Flickr world and piece photos together of their life. I also Google Image events in their life (ie, Hemp Bale battle of the Civil War), and find paintings and documents and copy/paste these into their biography.

I always find out new things and then move forward on that. Hope this helps. If anything, sign up for Ancestry. I think they have a free trial for 30 days.

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  • 3 months later...

Try googling the surname, then seeing what pops up. I did that with two of the surnames on my mothers side.

McKay and Sackett. I read through a LOT of sites, till I finally came to a surname bulletin board. I posted a message giving who I was related to, only giving their full names and the year they were born. Then I asked if anyone was related to me. Took a month to get a response.

Here is the link to the McKay-Elkenny web site MCKAY-ELKENNY-L Family Discussion List's Home Page

Take a look around, there is even a link provided where you can learn how to find names at Ancestory.com

Yes, you never know what may pop up when you google, and sometimes you will be surprised when you google the same name again latter.

I've found genealogy done by distant relatives just by googleing my fathers full name, although it does help that my fathers name is not very common.:)

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  • 1 month later...

You can try going to your local library. Our library has subscribed to many of the more pricey gen. databases. They also have it set up so that you can access the sites with your libaray card from home. The family search database is gen. info that has been contributed by members so if you are not from a large LDS family that has done a lot of research using familysearch can be frustrating, but it is getting better. Good luck!!

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  • 1 year later...

I'm another fan of the surname forums. I was badly stuck on my paternal GGrandfather, unable to find his parents, for over 5 years. I got the break I needed on a surname forum. Somebody else was researching his brother's line, and gave me the name and locale of their parents. I was able to verify that info once I had it. I have learned that there is very little genealogy as easy as Catholic French-Canadian genealogy. All the parish marriage registers list the parents of the couple. The women retain their maiden name after marriage, too. I went from a brick wall to 1633 in almost no time.

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  • 1 month later...

You might also try variations of the names. There have been some name changes in my family tree especially around the time of immigration to America. I've picked up a lot of good information just googling. One google leads to another then another etc you might be surprised at what you find. I did find that a father and son both died in the Revolutionary War along with many other tidbits.

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