r/Ancestry

This year, I sort of lost something that was once very important to me. I am wondering what the experience and thoughts of others are on this topic.

My Finnish heritage is from my mother’s side, with both of my grandparents coming to the U.S., separately in 1920. Married in 1924, they raised 4 children in Minnesota, in the Northern Minnesota Finnish immigrant community. This community was so isolated that my
Mother’s first language was Finnish, same as all her siblings. My eldest uncle made a point of teaching her English before she started school.

My mother identified so strongly with that heritage, and raised me to value it as well. She had the love of nature, the outspoken ways, the emotional reserve (at least in public) that so many say are characteristic of Finns. I learned only a small amount of Finnish myself, fully identified as American, of course yet always valued that heritage. I still do, yet a few things changed my slant on the matter.

I called myself “Finnish American” on a Reddit once. I was immediately jumped on by several Nordics (not Finns) who announced I did not “deserve”to call myself Finnish, misunderstanding the way that Americans use that terminology. Okay. Guess I go stuff my fat American face with some apple pie and forget the whole thing lol! Maybe I’ll laugh in a big gas guzzling SUV while I’m at it 😁.

Next, maybe a week later I was contacted out of the blue by distant Finnish relatives on Ancestry.com, a great Uncle’s nephew to be exact. A pleasant email chat somehow degenerated into his diatribe against the U.S., complete with assumptions on who I voted for (he was wrong on that, by the way).

Ugh! Finnish heritage is a part of me, absolutely. The immigrant culture my
Mother was raised in, also by extension a part of me. The struggles of my grandparents just to be in the U.S., in the depression, political activists accused of being communists at one point and nearly deported, a part of my family history. I will always respect Finland, but no longer feel the same connection, exactly. At 61, I have lived and will die as an American-American. It occurs to me that no one cares what happened or who was on one of Ellis Island’s last boats. Americans are we are today, and from the vest of the world, little love is lost.

Hello there. My dad and I have done extensive genealogy research on our family. So has a few of our relatives. We have hit a very strange brick wall. During the Revolutionary war in America supposedly my great x4 grandfather was “kidnapped” from his family and raised by the Jones family. His name was changed to Abraham Jones. He was born around 1790 around Chesterfield South Carolina and passed 1845 in Marshall County Alabama. There is ZERO leads anywhere but down the tree. There was one story that he was Native American and another that just claimed the British took him from his family. My father does have 1% unexplained Native American DNA. Where do you go from here to find any additional info?

Hello everyone.

I'm looking for a half brother who I may have living or born in florida. (From what I was told)

He would be around my age 36, around 1990, and either know his father's name that abandoned him or have no father on his birth certificate.

His mother went to my mom to ask for help and was turned away.

My father has lived in Kansas, New York, and PA. Is a vet, used to be a truck driver.

It's kind of a last effort but I thought why not.

We sent a kit about 2 weeks ago and haven’t gotten an email saying kit received yet.

America turns 250 this weekend. I have read plenty about 1776 over the years, but this is the first year it feels personal, because of something I found in my own tree.

In the winter of 1780 the Continental Army camped on my ancestor's family farm outside Morristown, New Jersey. Washington spent that same winter headquartered in the same town, a few miles up the road. The soldiers who froze through the hardest winter of the war did it partly on land my family farmed. Those names and dates sat in my tree for years and never registered. What finally made it land was seeing the two dots next to each other on a map drawn in 1807.

For background: I posted here a few weeks ago about the free migration map tool I built. Since then I added something I honestly made just for myself. It checks the places and dates in your GEDCOM against documented locations of well known historical figures and flags when someone in your tree was in the same place at the same time as one of them. That is how I found this.

If you have Revolutionary War era ancestors, this weekend is a pretty good time to find out whether you are sitting on a story like this. Link is in the comments. As before, I would rather hear what is broken or confusing than compliments.

https://reddit.com/link/1ung2zf/video/g12kcmpu99bh1/player

I just found out that Thomas Nelson, one of the signers of The Declaration of Independence is my 7th cousin, 7 times removed. How many years would that be between generations? I'm really intrigued by this genealogy thing and it is now my new hobby!! It does something to you when you look into your life and see all the people who came before you, who had a hand in getting you here.

So Josef was born in 1888 in Pyzdry, Congress Poland
He went to Bremen, Germany in 1908 to immigrate to the United States
Under his immigration record from Germany, it said he was a “Butcher, Journeyman”
Obviously, I know what a butcher is, I wasn’t born yesterday, but the journeyman part? Is that a fancy way for the Germans to classify immigrants? Or is that a different job? I’m confused.

I've just gotten two hints about my uncle where they're listing his place of birth in NY. They moved to NY, but weren't born there. Same with my mother. The 1930 census correctly listed as IL. (I have my mother's birth certificate to prove it.) What do I do about this as so many people use the census as their proof of research?

hola buenaa, la verda q estuve pensando si hacerme un adn o no por q la gran mayoría de mis antepasados tengo ya nombre y no hay ninguno q no sepa,

la mayoría son de italia, españa, y alguno en armenia

pero hace poco un familiar me dijo algo q me hizo en pensar en hacerme uno, no sé por q tardo tanto en decírmelo pero bueno, cuestión q mi bisabuela fue criada por su abuela y su mamá se hizo cargo unos 3 año y se fue y del padre nunca se supo nada,

por en ese el puso tenes más hijos q nadie sabe quienes son, y aparte de eso supuestamente mi bisabuelo estuvo casado antes de mi bisabuela y TUVO HIJOS pero solo es un rumor q sabe mi tío y yo y tengo tantas ganas de investigarlo,

por q a ninguno de mi familia les parece interesante la genealogía y dice. q no les importa, así q sería un muy buen caso para porfin demostrarles lo importante q es saber de tus antepasados, lo mejor encontrándoles un tío perdido.

por eso les pregunto con q web me conviene hacerme un adn y cuál es la mejor y te da mejores resultados, muchísimas gracias de entemano y perdón si no me expresé muy bien 😅

Somewhat new to ancestry and discovering all the things on my own. Both sides of my family have had at least a recent relative or two dig pretty deep and have written about people dating back to 17th century. I am finding considerably more information being able to research online and actually find out who these people were. The connections across multiple generations within the same family of career choice and general contributions to society. Even though each of us are technically 50% from each parent, does it not get less and less each generation? There are crazy instances where someone from say the 1700s or 1800s have lived through something that someone from my generation has a special interest in or draw to. Are these not actually coincidental, but more because they are just “part of us” but it’s unconscious unless we actually slow down enough to follow our curiosities? I have some family who have no interest in ancestry because it has nothing to do with them today. But doesn’t it kind of have everything to do with them? Anyone else have crazy similarities to someone in their tree from hundreds of years ago??

In the 1910 census for E St Louis in St Clair County, I have a couple of siblings living together.

Jacob lists his occupation as a brakeman for a steam railroad

John lists his occupation as a car dealer for a steam railroad. He is a laborer on the railroad in 1900, and died in 1917 so no further clues from any other censuses.

A search of "car dealer for a steam railroad in 1910" turned up nothing meaningful.

Hi guys! I do genealogical work and if you don’t already know, the 1890 US Census is essentially gone. The official story just doesn’t make sense and it seems that particular census is the key-lynchpin for so many ancestral lines.

Also, I’m a little uncomfortable with how many Korean War veteran documents were lost in a “fire”. The family I recently helped had a bronze star, Purple Heart, newspaper articles, and not a single military record (I held the medals and newspaper clippings in my own hands).

Anyways, just thought I’d ask this community and maybe get some insight. Thanks for your time!