oscarsear Posted July 24, 2008 Share Posted July 24, 2008 Yesterday I was bored and again searched the family surname for grins. This time I hit pay dirt. It seems that a very distant family member just completed a 25 year long research project into the family tree, and published it. Until yesterday all I knew about the family ended with my grandfather whom I had personally known. Now I can go back to 1663 when the 1st of our clan came from England (they think) on the ship "Adventure of Hull" landing in Dorcestor County, Maryland on the 20th of January. What a kick. I can trace back through 12 generations. We fought on both sides during the Civil war but were for the most part just simple farmers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigStewMan Posted July 24, 2008 Share Posted July 24, 2008 very cool. i've been considering hiring someone to trace my roots. my grandfather was born on the island of Faial and my Grandmother on the island of Flores (both part of the Azore Islands). I'm the first generation that didn't speak Portuguese around the house, so I'm guessing I'd have a hard time tracing my roots myself. Most of the relatives have passed already--I do have an aunt that just turned 100 and another that is 86; but, they aren't much help with detailed info. I did manage to find out the name of the ship that they came to America on. Have no idea how much someone would charge to research birth records, etc...from a foriegn country. It is a very interesting topic though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldtimer Posted July 24, 2008 Share Posted July 24, 2008 Yesterday I was bored and again searched the family surname for grins. This time I hit pay dirt. It seems that a very distant family member just completed a 25 year long research project into the family tree, and published it. Until yesterday all I knew about the family ended with my grandfather whom I had personally known. Now I can go back to 1663 when the 1st of our clan came from England (they think) on the ship "Adventure of Hull" landing in Dorcestor County, Maryland on the 20th of January. What a kick. I can trace back through 12 generations. We fought on both sides during the Civil war but were for the most part just simple farmers. That's pretty cool to know. Sorry about that english ancestry though. Should be americanized by now anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jheis Posted July 24, 2008 Share Posted July 24, 2008 It is cool to know. I've been able to trace the paternal (Swiss) side of the family back to October 2, 1727 when Johannes (Hans) Heise arrived in Philadelphia from Canton Basel on the ship "Adventurer" via Rotterdam. His six sons spelled the family surname three different ways (Heise, Heisey, and Hisey). Some of them stayed in PA (Heisey - my branch), some moved to the Shenandoah VA area (Hisey), and some emigrated to Markham Township, Ontario, Canada (Heise). No luck going further back in Switzerland so far.... Haven't had much luck with the maternal (Norwegian) side. So far I can only go back 3 generations. I did recently discover, however, that I have two 1st cousins who I've never met (and didn't know about) that are half native american (Ojibwe). James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauln Posted July 25, 2008 Share Posted July 25, 2008 That's one of the real neat things about geneology, you find past relatives (like the past relatives found even more past relatives) from the past that have already done some of the work, and if you are lucky they keep popping up way back over and over. Sometimes a modern day searcher will strike the right vein and find documented trails going back many hundreds of years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oscarsear Posted July 25, 2008 Author Share Posted July 25, 2008 An interesting part of my lineage is that it hit a serious bottleneck in the early 1800's. In a time when families had 10 or 12 offspring this one had just 1, a son. He managed to perpetuate the line but without him a whole lot of people, including myself, would not have spawned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted July 25, 2008 Share Posted July 25, 2008 I agree, it's way more fun than video games. With genealogy, you're looking for yourself... I had a similar experience, poking around the net. I have a fairly rare surname (Fautley), and found relatives on a site put together by a couple in Britain. I contacted them, and confirmed we are related, so now I'm on their website, too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sputnik Posted July 25, 2008 Share Posted July 25, 2008 I looked up my family tree and only saw a bunch of hairy primates swinging on the branches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldbuckster Posted July 25, 2008 Share Posted July 25, 2008 That's an awful thing to say about Dad, Brother !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oscarsear Posted July 25, 2008 Author Share Posted July 25, 2008 The spouse and I were discoursing on the topic and lamented that future such studies will need to use terms like "clone, test tube and surrogate". Look great, great, great grandpa was X-man from a test tube! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarryO Posted July 25, 2008 Share Posted July 25, 2008 My family was a lucky one. Our family Bibles had every known family member from the time my ancestors landed in Va. To take it a bit farther my cousin in Ca. (retired FBI) has run down most of the family through all sorts of documents. Now we're in the process of identifying family members in the old photographs and paintings handed down through the family for generations. Our family has it's own websight and about 30-40 of us are always contributing what we find to our site. Cool way to keep the family close also. Harry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigStewMan Posted July 25, 2008 Share Posted July 25, 2008 have any one you discovered anyone famous, criminal, or an unusual profession? Better yet, anyone a distant relative of PWK and entitled to a family discount on heritage stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oscarsear Posted July 28, 2008 Author Share Posted July 28, 2008 I learned that my great-great grandfather joined the union army in Illinois with his younger brother on April 14 of 1861. The younger of the 2 got killed on May 8, 1863 near Milliken Bend, Mississippi. The older one was mustered out of the service in southwest Missouri on April 24th 1864. And that is where the family stayed anchored and where I was born many years later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted July 28, 2008 Share Posted July 28, 2008 have any one you discovered anyone famous, criminal, or an unusual profession? Better yet, anyone a distant relative of PWK and entitled to a family discount on heritage stuff. President McKinley is in my tree. Not on the same branch, though. Actually, it's more like his tree polinated my tree. Or vice versa. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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