Do You Do Genealogy?


AnnieCarvalho
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One of the things the Church encourages us to do is our genealogy.

I've worked for years on mine, and also help other people with their Family Trees.

 

Since I can't attend Church, Sunday is my day not only to read the scriptures and study,

but also to do genealogy.

I do indexing or work on my own Family History.

 

Here is a blog I have started for my Family members about our ancestors,

in case anyone here is interested in that sort of thing.  

I feel so blessed to have had so many grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents that I actually knew and spent time with. I only hope I can be such a blessing to my own grandchildren.

 

http://ourpreciouspast.blogspot.com/

 

Do any of you enjoy working on genealogy?

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Guest MormonGator

Honestly, no. I don't like genealogy, but I can see how someone can like it. That's not an insult at all, and I obviously see why it's important, but no, I have no interest in it. I feel like a solo LDS on that one, it's such a popular hobby. Again, I have nothing wrong with it at all and can see how someone could like it. 

And I don't expect everyone to like my hobbies either. Different strokes, different folks.  

 

When I joined the church I never really understood why everyone else liked it until I knew about baptisms for the dead  :)

Edited by MormonGator
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I love working on family history. It's been years since i've been able to work on it very seriously. Little kids and homeschool keep a girl busy.

 

My parents do a great deal. They work in the local family history center once a week. And our stake has been encouraging and helping the youth to get more into it. So my oldest has worked quite a bit on indexing and has started going with the grandparents to the center every week to learn and work on family history.

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I understand, MormonGator . . . not everyone does.

 

I recently found two distant cousins who had been given up for adoption as newborns.

We found each other via the ancestry.com DNA - 

I knew who the first one was the minute I saw her photo.

The other was a mystery that took some digging, but who we finally identified.

It has really been rewarding.

 

I'm enjoy your blog, by the way.

The title intrigued me.

 

I especially liked the post where you told people not to worry if people called us too passionate about our politics/religion/hobbies, and that the world is lacking passion. 

 

It rang true.

Edited by AnnieCarvalho
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Guest MormonGator

I understand, MormonGator . . . not everyone does.

 

I'm enjoy your blog, by the way.

The title intrigued me.

 

I especially liked the post where you told people not to worry if people called us too passionate about our politics/religion/hobbies, and that the world is lacking passion. 

 

It rang true.

That means a great deal to me (blog). Thank you for reading!

 

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I recently went to a fireside where a bishop from another ward in our stake came and spoke about family history as more than just names and dates.  He found the stories of ancestors and how they played into unknown intrigues.

 

He was a Jewish convert.  But he always loved family history.  He converted since his search for ancestors eventually led him to the Church.  He described an interesting epoch where Jews were being executed.  It was much later than the inquisition.  It is one of those histories that we usually don't hear about.

 

He found out how one of his ancestors became a major political/religious player during that era.  He found out what he did to protect himself as well as some nefarious dealings he had.

 

As he recounted the story of this ancestor, he mentioned that there are these gems of stories with virtually every generation that he looked into.  There was a story to be told.  And the more we learn these stories, the more real they will be to us and the more we can truly feel their spirit and their love.  This is the Spirit of Elijah that motivates us to do temple work for them.

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I love doing family history because I love stories of people, and the wisdom they've gathered through the ages.

 

Family History work is SO MUCH MORE than names and dates- it's a story.  I've the mega-soapbox when I'm teaching people at the family history center that you're not here for "a name" to take to the temple, but a person, and before you go to to the temple with this person, you should get to know them and become friends.

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Yes, Jane Doe, but that's why I'm not into Family History work.

First, my uncle did it all about 35 years ago, and what he has, which goes back to about 1820 is there in Salt Lake, and the Family History center.  I got a copy last month.  Then he hit dead end.  No way to go further back.

I had seen all he had about 10 years ago.

And there were only names.  No stories, no bios, nothing but the names.  Most of my ancestors had lives, but mundane as to not having left a written trail of any kind. 

They lived and died.  They worked, they farmed and did other things, owned houses, and that's about it.

Even questioning my grandparents when I was a child was like pulling teeth.  Impossible to get any more than a word or two out of any of them.

Suffice it to say they got me here, and I'm happy.

And have other hobbies or passtimes.

dc

Edited by David13
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I lost my dad last year. Last month, on a whim, I felt a desire to look into his family line. He never talked much about his family, and I want to know about them. Unfortunately, his father's line goes back only 3 generations past him, and then there's a dead end. I was pretty obsessive about it for a few weeks. It was really exciting to me. Some of the information brought me to tears as I felt, in a way, connected to my dad who I miss fiercely. I learned some interesting things, and even got in contact with a couple of distant cousins who have also been searching. There's nothing. My great-great grandfather was brought by his parents from England when he was a year old. There's no record of them here or in England that anyone can trace, and he has a very (very) common name, both first and last. He might as well be John Smith.

 

I can see how one could get addicted to family history. I guess I got discouraged, and busy, and needed to take a break. I'm sure I'll pick it up again.

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Now that I am retured, I ffind alot of time to do family history and temple work for my ancestors.  I've done about all that I can on my direct line, so working on parallel lines (cousins).

 

I go to family search, and bring up one of the older census records.  Working on the 1900 census, since everyone would fall under the 110 year rule.  Since most of my relatives have unusual surnames, and lived pretty much in the same area for over a century, I just take everyone who is in a particular county.

 

Familysearch has a tool where you can directly transfer the complete family record (eg census record) to family search without writing anything down.

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Not a fan of the hobby, personally.

I had an uncle who travelled the U.S. and Europe gathering all info on my paternal line. He went back around 1,200 years before hitting dead end. That sides all been done.

I have a cousin who speaks Norwegian who has done the maternal line.

There's really nothing for me to do.

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My family is very close knit.  So, we can trace our line, skipping a few generations, back to 1520's.  I grew up having these stories told by my grandparents and aunts and uncles in family picnics.  It's one of the things I really enjoyed growing up, especially when I get a special mention... "great great grandma's spunkiness lives on in anatess", etc.  Unfortunately... they're all just names and stories.  There are no dates.  And being in the Philippines, we don't have government records prior to World War II, so unless I happen to find some old relic that has dates on them, I'm pretty much out of luck.  So, I can't put them on familysearch because they need at least a date.

 

We have a family cemetery with a wall of graves of my ancestors.  But... a lot of them are just names too.  They were exhumed and moved to the cemetery from old Catholic graves that barely has any markings left on them.  We have a mausoleum too that holds old relics.  In this museum is a foundation post of an old house where names and birthdates of a generation of my line were carved into.  There's also a Bible with another generation with names and birthdates.  I also spent 2 months flipping through very old Catholic books that is so flimsy I had to wear gloves and sometimes have to use rubber tipped tweezers to flip a page.  Most of the ink is faded to illegibility.

 

My husband's side are descended from Mormon pioneers, so his family history is pretty much all fleshed out by his mom.  She has several books of them with their stories and pictures and memorabilia.  The oldest kid is probably going to inherit them.

 

Anyway, I love doing family history... I also love re-telling the stories to my kids.

Edited by anatess
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Personally, I prefer ancestry.com (which is free for LDS members) to the Family Search program.

There are several reasons.

 

First, ancestry.com has resources like census records, birth and death records, immigration records, so you can validate your entries. 

 

Second, nobody can come along and change your family tree. My experience with family search has been frustrating. I knew my grandparents, great grandparents, and a couple of the great-great-grandparents personally. I have their information and know it to be true. Several times I have gotten on Family Search to find that somebody has come along and changed my information. An example is an aunt who was born a twin. The twin sister died in infancy. But in the same state was another girl with the same name born the same day, and over and over, I've had people overwrite my tree with this other person's information, which is false. She was no relation. So it's just frustrating. 

 

Third, I have sent my DNA to ancestry.com and have found numerous cousins I didn't know existed, some living quite close. It's been fun connecting to people also working on our family - hearing their stories, etc.

 

And last, via the DNA, we have reconnected with several children who were given up for adoption as babies by various cousins and even second cousins. We've solved several mysteries and they have found their biological families. It's been pretty cool

 

The thing is, in order to do Temple Submissions, I'm having to transfer a gedcom of my Ancestry tree to Family Search, and that's a big job. At some point in the future, I"m hoping Ancestry.com will have the Temple Information available for LDS members. I have heard a rumor that it's in the working, and I hope that's true.

 

If you DO enjoy genealogy and are are LDS, you might give ancestry.com a try. It's very user friendly and a good way to be sure your research is supported by documentation. 

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.

 

We have a family cemetery with a wall of graves of my ancestors.  But... a lot of them are just names too.  They were exhumed and moved to the cemetery from old Catholic graves that barely has any markings left on them.  

 

I went to the Azores a few years back to visit relatives there, and found a similar thing happening. Except on one island, the space for burial was so needed, I was told that if nobody kept up a gravesite (the families are supposed to keep them up there), they would exhume the bodies and (literally) toss them over the wall into the sea. I'm not sure if that was true, and if so, I'm sure they're no longer doing it, but I laughed at the same time being horrified.  lol!

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Unfortunately, ancestry.com doesn't have much on the Philippines prior to World War II as well.

 

I've been doing indexing for Philippine records for familysearch.  None of them go earlier than late 1930's either.

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I went to the Azores a few years back to visit relatives there, and found a similar thing happening. Except on one island, the space for burial was so needed, I was told that if nobody kept up a gravesite (the families are supposed to keep them up there), they would exhume the bodies and (literally) toss them over the wall into the sea. I'm not sure if that was true, and if so, I'm sure they're no longer doing it, but I laughed at the same time being horrified.  lol!

 

It's probably true.  In my town, they don't bother exhuming.  They just pile new bodies on top of old graves.  That's why my family decided to build our own cemetery.

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I dabble in it. My biggest problem is my dad's side. He was born and raised in Bulgaria. I have some names and a few dates (found on headstones), but records are non-existent. And I don't know if I need to keep putting the names using the Cyrillic alphabet or translate them into the English alphabet (which is not an easy thing to do). 

 

I wish I were wealthy enough to hire someone to research my paternal great grandfather. The family legend is he was adopted/raised after becoming a teen by a Turkish ruler and adopted the Turkish ruler's name which is my maiden name. I don't know how much of that is true and if so, why? what was his name before? what happened to him? I'm just fascinated with that story.

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How does genealogy work if a relative has covered all previous generations? What does that leave others to research? For example, I know my parents have done extensive genealogy, and have discovered some pretty neat things along the way. Just curious what that leaves me siblings to look up?

 

Anyway, to answer the question, I've never done genealogy but I do find it fascinating. I wish I knew more about my biological side but that's likely never going to be known, however, still interesting to see where my adoptive side comes from.

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How does genealogy work if a relative has covered all previous generations? What does that leave others to research? For example, I know my parents have done extensive genealogy, and have discovered some pretty neat things along the way. Just curious what that leaves me siblings to look up?

 

Anyway, to answer the question, I've never done genealogy but I do find it fascinating. I wish I knew more about my biological side but that's likely never going to be known, however, still interesting to see where my adoptive side comes from.

 

Well, up until recently, people made mistakes in their genealogy because records were so difficult to obtain.

Now, at ancestry.com the records are at your fingertips.

I had done a lot of my own research before computers came along.

I started with myself, making a tree on ancestry.com, and worked backwords, collecting the records to verify the information.

I found some mistakes and was able to go back even further.

I think it would be fun to try to recreate your relative's work, verifying and collecting the records.

But that's me... I like things like this.  :P

 

Another thing is when you are working on ancestry.com you can often collect photographs and stories from distant relatives who may have those things you did not have. They will post them on their tree, and you can collect them to your tree. I have put faces to several lines of ancestors whose photos I did not have.

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Well, up until recently, people made mistakes in their genealogy because records were so difficult to obtain.

Now, at ancestry.com the records are at your fingertips.

I had done a lot of my own research before computers came along.

I started with myself, making a tree on ancestry.com, and worked backwords, collecting the records to verify the information.

I found some mistakes and was able to go back even further.

I think it would be fun to try to recreate your relative's work, verifying and collecting the records.

But that's me... I like things like this.  :P

 

Another thing is when you are working on ancestry.com you can often collect photographs and stories from distant relatives who may have those things you did not have. They will post them on their tree, and you can collect them to your tree. I have put faces to several lines of ancestors whose photos I did not have.

 

Yeh I know my father uses the ancestry.com resource but before that was super old school. He's a genealogy addict.

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My mother works her line and appears to be finding names, so I try to avoid so we don't overlap.  I am trying to work my father's line and we are stuck at my great great great grandfather.

 

We have a record of him and grandma married, but to be the correct person they would have been married at 11 years old, so that isn't correct.

 

The problem, they migrated to the states and three weeks after arriving he passed away.  So he was never on any census record here in the States and finding him in Europe -- London hasn't been easy.  I have spent 20 hours or so alone and still haven't found him -- that is frustrating, and not enjoyable.  

 

We, as a family, index.  The moment our children are on record they begin indexing. We create an LDS account and then get them started. As my older son said, when our bishop 10 minutes before Church invited him to speak in sacrament about indexing, "Do I enjoy indexing -- no." :)

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Personally, I prefer ancestry.com (which is free for LDS members) to the Family Search program.

There are several reasons.

 

First, ancestry.com has resources like census records, birth and death records, immigration records, so you can validate your entries. 

 

Second, nobody can come along and change your family tree. 

My youngest sister kept doing that to my FamilySearch. I finally contacted FamilySearch and complained to them about it. She also was submitting names of our Uncles and their spouses & children to have the temple work done. She did not have permission from the living relatives. These relatives are extremely anti-LDS. They gave me their information after I signed contracts with them saying I would never submit their names to out temples. I entered their information into my FamilySearch, and bingo, she submitted their names. 

 

I sent copies of my contracts along with the names, etc. that she had submitted to the church. Took me weeks to collect all the necessary information. Months later they contacted her and told her that she was banned from submitting any more names UNTIL she could provide the names, address's, valid phone numbers of all the living relatives. When they were contacted and gave the permission to the church, then their names would be submitted. She would not be allowed to do their work. They also undid the work she had done. When I go now to FamilySearch to check the temple ordinances, there are no temples and dates. What it shows: Request Needed, or something of that sort. 

 

I don't like having my information on my ancestor's, family, cousins out there in cyber land. At least at Ancestry dot com, no one can up and edit my information. 

 

What totally upset me is I sent copies of these contracts to all of my siblings, active in the church or not. My two older sisters, honored my contracts. My youngest brother and his wife also honored them. My oldest brother hasn't been active, since he was 20, he doesn't even hold the Aaronic Priesthood. But this youngest sister - what a royal pain. Has been her entire life. Probably will be until she leaves this mortal life. 

 

When my nieces and nephew started doing genealogy, I sent them copies also - they all have honored them. 

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Many, many years ago - before Google even. I searched the internet looking for any *cousins* that could help me with my genealogy search. 

 

By typing in surnames and then L, I found two sites that were in the lines I was looking. So you would type in the name of the last ancestor: Joseph-Smythe-L, then go see what pops up. When I do mine, there is Family Discussion List Home Page. From there I can go to the discussion site. For some reason, I haven't received any emails with notifications of discussions. 

 

Through these two sites I learned of more names of my direct line ancestors, got the stories about them and connected with live cousins. Most are not LDS, a few are. I always double and triple check the data I get from any of them. And they are quick to correct any errors.

 

So give that a try. I do it for the stories mostly. what good is Genealogy without the stories too. Even if all is it is: Family Lore. 

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My youngest sister kept doing that to my FamilySearch. I finally contacted FamilySearch and complained to them about it. She also was submitting names of our Uncles and their spouses & children to have the temple work done. She did not have permission from the living relatives. These relatives are extremely anti-LDS. They gave me their information after I signed contracts with them saying I would never submit their names to out temples. I entered their information into my FamilySearch, and bingo, she submitted their names. 

 

I sent copies of my contracts along with the names, etc. that she had submitted to the church. Took me weeks to collect all the necessary information. Months later they contacted her and told her that she was banned from submitting any more names UNTIL she could provide the names, address's, valid phone numbers of all the living relatives. When they were contacted and gave the permission to the church, then their names would be submitted. She would not be allowed to do their work. They also undid the work she had done. When I go now to FamilySearch to check the temple ordinances, there are no temples and dates. What it shows: Request Needed, or something of that sort. 

 

I don't like having my information on my ancestor's, family, cousins out there in cyber land. At least at Ancestry dot com, no one can up and edit my information. 

 

What totally upset me is I sent copies of these contracts to all of my siblings, active in the church or not. My two older sisters, honored my contracts. My youngest brother and his wife also honored them. My oldest brother hasn't been active, since he was 20, he doesn't even hold the Aaronic Priesthood. But this youngest sister - what a royal pain. Has been her entire life. Probably will be until she leaves this mortal life. 

 

When my nieces and nephew started doing genealogy, I sent them copies also - they all have honored them. 

 

For what it's worth, here's how you keep other people from improperly doing your family's temple work: you can reserve those names to do them yourselves... and just take your jolly good time with no intention of doing it until everyone has passed on.

 

Just my experience, having been through the same hoops with my husband's anti-LDS family.

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