I got back into gen.

[Marthe48]

I found out something about a living in-law that they denied years ago. I won't rock the boat for a number of reasons, but I wanted to share it with someone. I wasn't researching the person, but I got nosy about a rumor I heard, the rumor that was denied. I kind of wish I would have stuck with the ancestors.

[Frustratedlady]

1. I had the same situation. I found an uncle had a divorce many years (and, 10 children ago)

which I'm sure his family never knew about. I am assuming it was after he got home from WWI.

The judge wrote that my uncle had been married less than 6 months and found that his "wife" was entertaining men unknown to him while he was at work. I figured he probably hooked up, literally, to a prostitute and didn't know she was a working woman, so to speak. You just never know what you'll run into.

On the other hand, I also found that if I follow back to Ireland/Scotland, my relatives were all royalty. Wish a few jewels had trickled down. I did know that my g-g-grandfather was the son of a Duke and the family castle is still standing and open for tours.

I also found that my grandmother's family in Sweden were so poor, they lived off the state.

Fascinating stuff.

[Marthe48]

2. In junior high

our geography assignment was to ask about our family tree, back in the 1960's. One of the kids in the class was distantly related to Winston Churchhill, which I always thought was cool.

I haven't come across any royalty. I probably still have relatives in Sweden, as 2 younger chidlren stayed with the parents when my great-grandmother and 3 of her brothers came to the U.S.

It is interesting to learn things. I am trying to create a report for my kids, nieces and nephews so they know names and places of a few generations. Albert Payson Terhune said dog owners could trace their pet's lineage back further than humans can trace theirs. I think the next generation, at least some of them, are getting to the age where they'd like to know about past family members.

[Frustratedlady]

3. I started out with Ancestry but then got turned on by Family Search, which is free.

That is the one which connected us to royalty and took us way further than any other site. I still haven't gone the full route, but my grandson has. I had other data that hooked us up into the 1400s which just supported the new data. I need to find out why one relative was beheaded and one was chased out of Ireland for fighting with and being a captain for Robert Emmett. Fortunately, my g-g-grandfather kept a diary of the trip to the US, so we know a lot of the background.

Once you get into it, you can hardly turn your back as there are still a lot of facts out there. I spent years going to the library. Wish I'd had the Internet at the beginning of the search.

Sweden is tough. I was fortunate to have a cousin who continued to communicate with the original family in Sweden, so she added some key data. Otherwise, I would have been lost as the church where the records were kept had burned years ago.

Good luck!

[Marthe48]

4. yes, very apt

I thought I could find clues in my mom's diary she kept from age 10-18. I got a page full of names just from the first few pages. I really like Family Search and I'm finding information on there to help make it more complete. It is easy to use and this porjects really helps pass the time!

An exchange student we hosted returned for a visit last year, and brought her boyfriend. He told me that the Swedes kept records of all the people who emigrated, so I have hopes of tracing that side of the family back a generation or 2 further. My Dad's mother was born here. I never met my English-Welsh grandfather, and he is the toughest to track. With names like Davis and Smith, really a challenge. I think his family might have been here the longest.

I'm very surprised to learn so much about my Mom's side of the family. They were from Germany, Czech. Bohemia and possibly Russia.

Good luck on your searches. Nice to talk about this with you

[The Genealogist]

5. Genealogy certain brings the skeletons out of the closet.

Newspaper research can be especially rich for skeletons. My great grandpa was a Methodist minister, but that wassn't his only source of income. I found articles relating to his business of trash hauling. This tidbit got left out someplace between the stories of his children being playmates of the governor's kids and champion tennis players. Then there is my maternal grandfather and his family. Numerous articles about various jurisdictions suing them for failure to pay taxes. These are rather humorous in comparison to some of the dark stories, like the great great grandfather who was so emotionally cruel to his wife that she ended up in the state mental hospital and died there young.

[Marthe48]

6. It makes the myths human

although some of the suffering is sad to know about.

I logged into the library and the better newspaper bank is offline. When I used it before, I found items that were exciting to come across. I'm disappointed it isn't available.

I'm hoping to find the story about my grandfather's death. I just wanted to note where he died. He was on the way home to Cleveland and wrecked. He was a CPA and had a thriving business in Cleveland. I found it and read it once, although I might be remembering a clipping among the family papers.

I've really enjoyed reading posts here today. I told my daughter getting into family history is interesting because not much is going on in the present (in daily living, not the news!)

[The Genealogist]

7. My early experience was the opposite: it made humans more mythical!

I got my first taste of genealogy from my paternal grandmother. I have her work. She had her great grandfather as a captain in the Confederate States of America's army. Nope. He was a private. His BROTHER was the captain. She had herself linked to all sorts of southern aristocracy, including Jefferson Davis and Robert E Lee. I have no idea where she got this, as in all my years of research, there isn't a shred of evidence. Fact is, she was the descendant of generally successful but simple, plain old farmers. I don't think she ever felt at ease with her lineage. She needed her family history to be a pageant. The truth is, it is a family history more at home in a Thomas Hart Benton painting than a Broadway musical.

[flyingfysh]

8. Genealogy can also show that some family stories are false

I had always been told that some of my ancestry was Cherokee. Research in the Dawes Roll records showed the true story: some of my ancestors were scoundrels. At first, they claimed Chickasaw membership, and we're turned down by the Dawes Commission. They then claimed, Choctaw, and at the same time claimed Mississippi Choctaw. If any of these had been approved, they would have been given land in Oklahoma. They did not fool the Dawes Commission, which stamped their application with a giant REJECTED stamp.
Later DNA confirmed that I have no Indian ancestry.

[Marthe48]

9. My husband's paternal grandmother

might have been related to Princess Aliquippa.

When I first married my husband, several people in the family told me they had Native Americans in their ancestry. Years later, I said something about those stories, and the same people who told me the stories said there wasn't any Native American ancestry in the family! Not sure what that is about.

My husband's oldest brother does geneaolgy research for both sides of his family, and sent the information about Princess Aliquippa. I will leave myhusband's family reasearch in their hands. A lot of the family members are working on it.

Not many people left in my family, so I thought I would do what I could before time runs out

[wnylib]

10. One thing you might be able to contribute

to your husband's family information is that Alliquippa was not a princess. Some British records from her time period call her Queen Alliquippa, but that was the British reference to her, based on their perspective of leadership and women.

Alliquippa was Seneca. Her name is Seneca. The Seneca people did not have kings, queens, princesses, or princes. They had people who ruled towns, usually men, but sometimes women. They had elite families within their social structure, but did not have the titles or hereditary positions of European society.

But if you prefer to leave that research to your husband's family, they will eventually learn for themselves what I just said if they ever get to the point of contacting the Seneca people in their research.

[Marthe48]

13. I just saw your post

I'll try to remember to let them know when I send out Christmas cards. Thank you.

[wnylib]

14. It's very common for people to claim

"an Indian Princess" as an ancestor. It annoys Native people for two reasons.

One is that most Native tribal nations in North America (north of the Rio Grande) did not have hereditary rulers. In the ones that formed confederacies by consent or conquest, like the Algonquian tribes of New England or the Algonquians in the Virginia region, the son of a leader often took his father's place when the father died. The son had to be old enough and experienced enough to lead, but he could be challenged. Inherited leadership was not guaranteed.

So when someone says they have an Indian princess ancestor, it reveals that they know nothing about the people they claim to descend from and that probably there was no Native ancestor.

The second reason that it annoys Native people is that it sounds racist to them, as if an ordinary person isn't good enough, but a "princess" makes Native ancestry acceptable and exotic or glamorous.

[wnylib]

11. I discovered things about my family that I had not

known before, too. Some old family stories turned out to be remarkably true, as did some suspicions that I had about embarassing details that were only hinted at in whispers that they thought I did not hear or understand as a child.

I met some 2nd and 3rd cousins online in genealogy research and got photos of some ancestors from them. I learned that not all the family stories were accurate. Some were exaggerated claims.

But most of all, I learned a lot about American and European history that was more accurate and detailed about people's experiences in those time periods than was ever taught in my high school or college history courses. I learned more about the enslavement of Africans and the displacement of the Native people of America through the lives and records of some ancestors. I learned about the history of Germany from the story of how my great-grandparents escaped political persecution under Kaiser Wilhelm II who set off the first World War. (Thankfully, great-grandpa and great-grandma were settled in as American citizens by then.)

I learned about the events that shaped national and world developments and the personal lives of people who lived through those events. After all, all of us have ancestors who lived during those times, or we would not be here today.