Family History

Is anyone here interested in family history? Do you have any helpful sites to use to figure out family history?

Hi, Biblebee! I love learning about family history!

A good sight our family found is ancestry.com. You might have heard of it before. It is surprisingly full of information. By plugging in what you know, you can access hundreds of pages of information gathered through census records and other such information. It is really fascinating. My sister even established a connection that links us to an English nobleman from the 1600s! :)

Cool!

When I saw this, I knew what I had to post here. :D We found out a while ago (don't ask me how!) that our great-grandmother is a direct descendant of Laura Ingalls Wilder's aunt! :D If you know who that is, it's pretty cool. :)

EDIT–Argh! Rosie already beat me to this information on another forum! :P

SOMEONE that was on the mayflower is one of our descendant.

Cool! :)

@jimmy: Thank you for sharing. I have heard of it but I have never used it.

@SBG: That is SO neat!!!!!!!

@Bethany: Neat!! :D

I don't really know much about our ancestry, but one thing I do know is that the Minica name comes from Alsace, currently a French province (I think) but one that has caused a lot of conflict between France and Germany almost since those two countries began. When our ancestors emigrated to America, their last name was pronounced MY-ni-key. Apparently the officials wrote it down Minica, and now it is pronounced MI-ni-kuh. That's about all I know… I'll have to take a look at that ancestry site sometime. :)

They messed up my mothers madian name. Lol her grandpa and his brother came over and they got his brothers name right and messed up his name. So half the family is one name and half is the other. :)

Wow! NEAT!

@Danielle: that is really interesting :D
@Leah: That is to neat!!!

Wow! That's awesome! :)

@Matthew - I think I like your last name better the way it is :)

We have an interesting little thing in our family history - my grandmother was the daughter of a triplet. That triplet (Lois) had a very unique and rare family set up. Her mother had a single child, then two years later had twins and then four years later had triplets :)

Wow!!

Wow!!

@All – Have you all done much research on family history. We've gotten as far back as 4 generation (not very far). It's a good thing I have Carissa to help me because I get so confused with how many George's, Lois' and John's we have in our family history!

Another interesting note - Our Great-Grandfather almost went on the Titanic on coming to America. For some reason or another (we don't know) he didn't though.

Probably a good thing he didn't!

Very good thing he didn't! We wouldn't be here today if he had, because he would have gone 3rd class…or the lowest he could have gone.

Have you done much Family Research? It's fun!

Wow Bethany! Where do you do your researching?

Ancestry.com We found a lot of stuff without paying. When Daniel has more time, we're going to use our 14 day free trial (since you can't find everything for free) and cram and try to finish it then :) Several of our relatives (grandparents, great uncle, and aunts) have done a lot of research as well, so we ask them whenever we have questions! My grandmother has LOTS of pictures, newspaper clippings, etc of facts about our family history so we always enjoy looking through those. I've heard she has the diary of our great grandmother's, but I haven't seen it yet…maybe one day soon… :)

We can use Ancestry.com for free at the library! It is SO helpful.

@Bethany: My sister Bet has done the most in our family… We're related to all kinds of Scottish and Irish people!

So, here's a couple of facts from our family line:

We are pretty sure we're a relative of William Wallace!

Our real name is Murphy. There was a break in the family but no legal name change or adoption.

Our fourth great uncle was shot by a member of Jesse James' outlaw gang.

And, our seventh (Or sixth, can't remember!) great grandfather was Thomas Hooker, founder of the state of Connecticut.

Are you sure that seventh great grandfather wasn't Thomas Gates? J/k ;) neat history. I'll have to add this to my Strang Family collected information folder:)

Our last name used to be Johnson but then they changed it to Miller.

Then they changed it to P—–? :)

(It was probably her mom's side somewhere)

No, it was on my mom's side that they changed their last name.

No I ment somewhere down the line your name changed because of a marriage right? Cause she was saying your name isn't miller.

No. My great-great grandfather's last name on my mom's side was Johnson and then he came over to the US and changed it to Miller. And then it changed again because of marriages it changed.

That's what I was trying to say. :)

Okay. Well, I was just clarifying for Rachel :D

Oh, yesterday our cousin 2x removed emailed us four documents about our family history!!!!!!!! He got us back to 1700!

Wow, that's cool! Someday I'm going to have to check up some more on our family history… Oh yeah, and I forgot to say earlier that we are also related to another historical figure: Benedict Arnold. Yeah, so, if you know who the guy is, you might figure that we aren't thrilled to be related to him… :D The guy was a traitor to the Union Army in the Civil War… But hey, he repented of it or something before he died… I think… :P lol

Wait a second, Nicolas. Benedict Arnold was in the Revolutionary War, not Civil War, unless there were two Benedict Arnold's :D

Remember? ;P

Oops…. Yeah, you're probably right. :P I guess I don't know my national history (or family history!) as well as I should! ;)

Yeah it was the revolutionary war. :) lol

That's is so neat, Nicolas :D

But here's an even weirder thought–Laura Ingalls Wilder was quite closely related to Benedict Arnold! :D I wonder if she ever knew… :)

That is weird… A few days ago we emailed one of our relatives who is interested in family history and he sent us four documents about our family history!!! I am super excited! I am working on putting it all into a family tree.

Carissa - are you able to pull up documents on Ancestry? How do you find all your info?

Some of the things you have to pay for on Ancestry…though some of it is free. Well some ways that we get info is we call/email our relatives and ask them questions about their family (grandparents, etc..) and we also use the search box on ancestry and search for a person and look at old census records etc… We can use Ancestry for free at our library so we have done that and it was very helpful.

Okay - because I started a family tree there but I can't open documents and such. :(

You have to pay for most of the documents on there. It's really sad. Do you have a library close to you that you go to?

You know what I found out!!!!!!

What?!

What is it? :)

What what what?!?!?

What did you find out?

It isn't very big but I think that it is really interesting!!!! I found out that we have a town named after our family!!! We are related to the Kirkpatrick family and they were pioneers in founding the town of Kirkville, IA and so they named the town after the Kirkpatrick family.

Neat! But I thought you were going to say that we were related or something :p J/K!! (But that would be fun :D )

That would be SO neat if we were related. But I don't think that is likely. What are some of your ancestors last names? Some of ours are: Henthorn, Kirkpatrick, Cimino, Kukula, Auld, and McCullough.