Do I know enough for geneaology research
January 3, 2016 9:24 AM Subscribe
Is it possible to do geneaology research knowing only a few names and cities of residence around a certain year?
I'm really interested in doing geneaology research on my family, nothing too crazy, I really just want to know when they came to the US and where from. However, all I really have is the names of two grandparents, the fact that they were spouses, and their residence in their city during a certain period of time (approx. 1940's - 1960's). That's all I know, but I feel like if I had a list of people in that city at that time with those names, I'd be able to narrow them down and figure out which ones were mine.
Is this something that's possible? I'm really confused by ancestry sites, especially since I doubt that anyone in my family actually put themselves in one of their databases. However, I'm also planning to drop some $$$ on a DNA test from 23andme which might help somewhat but probably not with specific countries they came from.
I'm really interested in doing geneaology research on my family, nothing too crazy, I really just want to know when they came to the US and where from. However, all I really have is the names of two grandparents, the fact that they were spouses, and their residence in their city during a certain period of time (approx. 1940's - 1960's). That's all I know, but I feel like if I had a list of people in that city at that time with those names, I'd be able to narrow them down and figure out which ones were mine.
Is this something that's possible? I'm really confused by ancestry sites, especially since I doubt that anyone in my family actually put themselves in one of their databases. However, I'm also planning to drop some $$$ on a DNA test from 23andme which might help somewhat but probably not with specific countries they came from.
that is plenty to get started. pretty much all genealogy sites get their information from the lds church. your family wouldn't have to put themselves in the database - the mormons collect and catalog census, birth, death, marriage, etc records and then draw all the connections they can find. i honestly find the sites confusing, even with a good history of doing my own genealogy research, especially since a lot of them try to hook you in with a little bit of info and then tell you that you have to pay to get more. you can actually go into the genealogy recourse centers that the mormons run (usually a room in big meetinghouses called stake centers) and the nice older ladies would love to help you out (for free). you can find one close to you here.
posted by nadawi at 9:32 AM on January 3, 2016
posted by nadawi at 9:32 AM on January 3, 2016
You have plenty info to start. Familysearch.com is free. Ancestry is a pay site but has the largest amount of records (and most complete).
1940 is kind of the magic year since that is the most recent census that is publicly available.
Old newspapers (obituaries) are a great resource since they often list parents, relatives and married and/or maiden names of parents and relatives.
If you post on Reddit's genealogy subreddit there will be several genealogists that have done their genealogy for years and are a bit stuck now and are glad to help someone else. They often have access to pay sites like newspapers.com and ancestry that could help.
posted by ReluctantViking at 9:43 AM on January 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
1940 is kind of the magic year since that is the most recent census that is publicly available.
Old newspapers (obituaries) are a great resource since they often list parents, relatives and married and/or maiden names of parents and relatives.
If you post on Reddit's genealogy subreddit there will be several genealogists that have done their genealogy for years and are a bit stuck now and are glad to help someone else. They often have access to pay sites like newspapers.com and ancestry that could help.
posted by ReluctantViking at 9:43 AM on January 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Actually, if you know where your grandparents lived during the 1940s, assuming they were the type to fill out government paperwork, that could indeed be a useful starting point. The 1940 U.S. Census is available for free online due to a partnership between the U.S. government and Ancestry.com. It's one of the few things Ancestry offers 100% for free. You can use that to find information on who was living with your grandparents at that time, where they were born, what their professions were, etc.
You can also access some earlier census records, and occasionally military, birth, or marriage records (depending on the date and location), for free at FamilySearch.org. (Note that Family Search also links out to paid services for some items that it does not offer for free, so do pay attention to what you're clicking on.)
Find A Grave gives you free access to cemetery records collected by volunteers. This can get you information on birth dates, maiden names, middle names, re-married names, and spouses. It can be quite useful to see who was buried next to whom in a cemetery-- I've occasionally found siblings of my ancestors that way.
Once you have a person's birth and death date as well as their full name, you can try searching for the name plus those dates on Google, which will often pull up publicly available Social Security death records, obituaries (if they have been published online), and/or publicly available family trees made by your cousins.
Just make sure as you do this that you work as much as possible to get copies of official documents on people-- census records, marriage certificates, published newspaper articles, etc.-- and try to acquire multiple sources for each individual if you can. Sometimes you'll find information online collected by amateur genealogists that is less than 100% accurate.
Also keep in mind that, for various reasons, some of your ancestors may have flat out lied on official documentation about their age or their race/religion/ethnicity. And that even just 50 years ago the government was a lot more flexible about people going by their middle names or a nickname on official government documentation, and it wasn't until about 80 years ago that anyone really cared at all about even sticking to one official spelling of a surname.
Also also, if you're not already good at reading cursive handwriting, you're about to get a lot of practice. You may want to do a little extracurricular investigation into how to read old-timey cursive. And do keep in mind that not every volunteer or underpaid worker transcribing old records is very good at reading old-fashioned handwriting, so in online transcriptions, some of your ancestors' names may be misspelled, sometimes egregiously. It's always best to look at a scanned image of the original document if you possibly can.
posted by BlueJae at 9:56 AM on January 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
You can also access some earlier census records, and occasionally military, birth, or marriage records (depending on the date and location), for free at FamilySearch.org. (Note that Family Search also links out to paid services for some items that it does not offer for free, so do pay attention to what you're clicking on.)
Find A Grave gives you free access to cemetery records collected by volunteers. This can get you information on birth dates, maiden names, middle names, re-married names, and spouses. It can be quite useful to see who was buried next to whom in a cemetery-- I've occasionally found siblings of my ancestors that way.
Once you have a person's birth and death date as well as their full name, you can try searching for the name plus those dates on Google, which will often pull up publicly available Social Security death records, obituaries (if they have been published online), and/or publicly available family trees made by your cousins.
Just make sure as you do this that you work as much as possible to get copies of official documents on people-- census records, marriage certificates, published newspaper articles, etc.-- and try to acquire multiple sources for each individual if you can. Sometimes you'll find information online collected by amateur genealogists that is less than 100% accurate.
Also keep in mind that, for various reasons, some of your ancestors may have flat out lied on official documentation about their age or their race/religion/ethnicity. And that even just 50 years ago the government was a lot more flexible about people going by their middle names or a nickname on official government documentation, and it wasn't until about 80 years ago that anyone really cared at all about even sticking to one official spelling of a surname.
Also also, if you're not already good at reading cursive handwriting, you're about to get a lot of practice. You may want to do a little extracurricular investigation into how to read old-timey cursive. And do keep in mind that not every volunteer or underpaid worker transcribing old records is very good at reading old-fashioned handwriting, so in online transcriptions, some of your ancestors' names may be misspelled, sometimes egregiously. It's always best to look at a scanned image of the original document if you possibly can.
posted by BlueJae at 9:56 AM on January 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Do you know when they died? If not (or if you know when but not where) check findagrave.com and see if you can find them there. Once you've got a place and date of death, you can order a death certificate from the county where they died, which can give you their birthplace and parents' names. Obituaries are also good; a surprising number are indexed online, either through the newspaper of that locality or one of the online genealogy sites. They are also good for giving you more detail about their lives.
posted by katemonster at 10:29 AM on January 3, 2016
posted by katemonster at 10:29 AM on January 3, 2016
Backing up BlueJae on misspellings; names vary because of those misspellings, because people told the Census takers nicknames instead of full legal names, and because Census takers might have misheard what they were told --- nowadays we fill out our own Census forms, but it used to be that the Census takers did all the actual writing on the forms based on what whoever answered the door told them.
Ages will sometimes vary on there too, for various reasons of their own: people might have lied about their age, they might have been unsure of their boarder's exact age, or again the Census taker might have misheard.
Also: watch out for duplicate people with the same name! Especially be careful if the name is somewhat common, but even if it's uncommon check and re-check that you have the right person and not their doppleganger. (For example: my own surname is extremely uncommon in the US, but the last time I checked, there are at least six of us here with the same first/middle/last name combo. When doing my own family tree, I found an exact duplicate of one of my uncles, first/middle/last/and even his 'junior' designation, born just four days earlier.... to top it off, both Uncle and his name-twin have each been married at least six times, with both of them sometimes marrying/divorcing in the same city.... sorting that out has been both weird and a pain in the butt.)
posted by easily confused at 10:35 AM on January 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ages will sometimes vary on there too, for various reasons of their own: people might have lied about their age, they might have been unsure of their boarder's exact age, or again the Census taker might have misheard.
Also: watch out for duplicate people with the same name! Especially be careful if the name is somewhat common, but even if it's uncommon check and re-check that you have the right person and not their doppleganger. (For example: my own surname is extremely uncommon in the US, but the last time I checked, there are at least six of us here with the same first/middle/last name combo. When doing my own family tree, I found an exact duplicate of one of my uncles, first/middle/last/and even his 'junior' designation, born just four days earlier.... to top it off, both Uncle and his name-twin have each been married at least six times, with both of them sometimes marrying/divorcing in the same city.... sorting that out has been both weird and a pain in the butt.)
posted by easily confused at 10:35 AM on January 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
If you go into a local library and use one of their computers, you can access a bit more on Ancestry and some other sites than if you sign in to the same site from home.
posted by soelo at 3:36 PM on January 3, 2016
posted by soelo at 3:36 PM on January 3, 2016
The US Census is free and available if you visit the National Archives in person. They have locations all over the country.
They also have many other types of records useful to genealogists, as well as helpful staff...
posted by grateful at 9:48 AM on January 4, 2016
They also have many other types of records useful to genealogists, as well as helpful staff...
posted by grateful at 9:48 AM on January 4, 2016
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I've used ancestry.com and have had pretty good luck with it. Just remember to cancel your subscription before it re-bills, unless you intend this to be a long-term ongoing hobby.
Good luck!
posted by bunderful at 9:29 AM on January 3, 2016 [1 favorite]