I think I'm possessed!

Bill Arnold

1974
Staff member
Messages
8,622
Location
Thomasville, GA
I know for sure I've been very distracted for the past couple of weeks!!! LOML and I have talked for a while now about doing a genealogy tree to see what we can find. She doesn't know much about her paternal family tree and I've lost track of so many uncles, aunts and cousins they're too numerous to count. Some old friends we hadn't seen in 14 years came for a visit two weeks ago and they are very heavy into researching their trees. Their visit is all it took to kick start my endeavor.

So, one trip to Office Depot for a copy of Family Tree Maker, setting up an account on Ancestry.com and now I'm more cross-eyed than ever from being glued to the computer! It's been an interesting journey in just the two weeks I've been working on the research. Find a little something, hit a wall; go a little different direction, find a little more; etc., etc., etc. A person who is working on a different family tree had links into some of the people who tied to ours, as well as information about some relationships that clarified a few points. I won't go into any detail at this point, but there is one discovery we'll be following up on in person in a couple more weeks.

I'm getting to a point where I need to budget certain hours for research and other hours to shop time and make myself stick to the budget. Easier said than done at times. I got on another lead this morning and, after following it for what I thought was a short time, an entire hour had evaporated! :type:
 
Welcome to another slippery slope. I've been doing genealogy for 25+ years now and still finding new stuff. Several good sites:

www.usgenweb.com
www.findagrave.com
www.familysearch.org

These are all free (free is good). You will find yourself getting addicted to the research but it is fun. Family Tree Maker is the program I have used from the beginning. It is very user friendly and easy to import and export information. Happy Hunting!!:thumb::wave:
 
I fell down that slope a few years back on accident researching my father's side, just like you took a lot of my time, but learned a great deal. My sister had said she was going to start on my mom's side when her kids were out of the house. Her youngest leaves next week for college, so will be giving her a call to remind her. :D
 
Welcome to another slippery slope. I've been doing genealogy for 25+ years now and still finding new stuff. Several good sites:

www.usgenweb.com
www.findagrave.com
www.familysearch.org

These are all free (free is good). You will find yourself getting addicted to the research but it is fun. Family Tree Maker is the program I have used from the beginning. It is very user friendly and easy to import and export information. Happy Hunting!!:thumb::wave:

I've used FamilySearch and FindAGrave. I'll take a look at USGenWeb next. Thanks for the lead.
 
I'm sure I have a whole group of people that live in fear that I will start doing just what you are doing. They are perfectly happy with my NOT knowing where they are :rofl:.
 
hi bill, sorry about the hack getting in the way of our conversation, so i figured this would be better. fair warning from someone who has been involved with genealogy for over 25 years, get out while you can! i've found that it goes from hobby to obsession real quick (and almost as bad as the spinny vortex). with this, the more you look, the more you find, the more you find, the more you look, and if you find the pic of the ship your ancestors came over on, you will spend hours with a magnifying glass (or severely enlarging the pic), to see if you can see your ancestor looking out a port hole. as for me, i would have preferred a nice, quiet tree, with ancestors fading into the mists of time in the mid 1400's. as i mentioned between hacks, no such luck. when i regained my sanity about 12 years back (stopped working on the tree), from newest to oldest generation, it was 17 generations long, with an ancestor in france dated at 1550. after my youngest nephew dragged me back into it, it now stands at 90 generations, with an ancestor (holophemes of cappadocia) dated at 350 bc. before i took the tree up again, the most interesting ancestors were fil du roi (daughters of the king, a program for importing more french women to canada. the king of france put up the dowry, and all supplies needed to set up a home), and soldiers of the carrignan regiment (one of the regiments of the private army of the house of savoy, more about the house of savoy later). after i finished a few months of feverish research, i was stunned, to say the least, in finding out who i was related to. one line that ran on me (what i called it when it wouldn't die out), went from canada, over to france, then to england, back to france, to italy, then finishing up in the area of poland known as galicia. that was the first one to jump the big year zero. to make it short, i have a catholic full house, 2 french archbishops, and 3 popes. thanks to being related to the houses of bourbon, savoy, and de medici, i've ancestors in every royal house in europe. i have kings, queens, princes, dukes, duchess, and minor nobles by the bushel. i have different types of emperors, roman, byzantine, german, austrian, russian, holy roman (5 including charlamagne). i've found that i have most of the ancient english, scottish, and irish family lines, including of all people, brian boru, the last true high king of ireland. thanks to the side trip through italy, there are roman senators, and generals as well. i used to joke that all that were left out were the knights templar, the borgias, and a pope, well i'm down to the borgias. there are knights templar, and crusaders by the dozen, including 2 kings of jerusalem. then there are the really interesting ancestors that made me sit back and go hmmmm. the first is a scottish poet, and master druid by the name of taliesin de bourgogne merlin, yup, he was used as the inspiration for the merlin the magician of the arthurian legends. best of all, in tracking back another line, it veered to boudica, the warrior queen of the iceni (a celtic tribe in roman era england), whose mother was anna the prophetess of aramathea. at that point i just sat there and once again and said to myself, oh ( ) no, not again, and hit the leaf (using ancestry.com mind you), and up popped her dad, one joseph of aramathea. yup, *that* joseph of aramathea. so when people would needle me about one day finding we were related to jesus, it would smile and say, no, just his grand-uncle.

so, with that warning, and my experience of looking closer (once you get to the royal family lines, they kept better records for them), you never know what you will find. so good luck and happy digging, you never know what you'll find.:rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
hi bill, sorry about the hack getting in the way of our conversation, so i figured this would be better. ... so good luck and happy digging, you never know what you'll find.:rofl::rofl::rofl:

No problem, Dan. I hope you're better now!

It's amazing what has turned up in the two weeks I've been researching. As I said, LOML was told nothing about her father's side of the family - he died when she was 10 but she was told different circumstances than what really happened. We have already discovered the main things she was looking for, but I'll keep digging. I'll be interested to see where things lead in one area for sure: one of her g-g-g-grandfathers has the surname Arnold. :eek:
 
but I'll keep digging. I'll be interested to see where things lead in one area for sure

that's what i thought too bill, and look what i wound up with! at least not as bad as someone i know, looked up family back in germany, and found out some were members of the ss. like the kid who opened an orange and got a dinosaur, the dino said, if it don't say sunkist on the label, you don't know what you'll get.
 
I want to thank Roger for the links... I've dabbled in the genealogy some, but haven't pursued it seriously for a while... I was smart enough back when I was more serious to print out the info I had since I've had a couple of computer crashes since I started... I didn't do the research, but one of my cousins ran my mother's family back to when they arrived in U.S. in 1628.. and back to England. Seems the family owned the manor house where Grant made his headquarters when he took Lee's surrender at Appomattox... I've traced my father only back as far as his grandfather in Tennessee, but haven't gone any further back... I really need to get back into it and play with it some more... Roger's links will help... I had a couple of them a few years back, but lost and forgot about them.
 
If you have a Morman Church near you check out their library, they have extensive census records and other genealogy records. There is no charge and you don't have to be a Mormon to use the facilities.
 
Interesting stuff! My uncle claims to have traced my mom's family back to the 400's, but he is kinda crazy so no one is sure its true.:rolleyes::eek:

I almost clicked on one of those sites listed, but I think I might wait until I have a little more time on my hands.
 
I've been wanting to do this for quite some time. I just haven't wanted to spend the money on Ancestors.com. My Dad died when I was young and my Mom didn't talk about her family too much. She passed away about 12 years ago before I could ask her questions. I was their only child and I don't have any relatives that I know of.
I'll check out the free sites. Thanks :thumb:
 
Top