Anonymous wrote:My kids are studying the Pilgrims now in school. Direct descendants. Not something we talk about much.

There are a lot of old families in the DC area. But when I say descendants, I mean our 5x great grandfather was a Pilgrim. Not that we are all human. Old families tend to know each other. We know some descendants of the Massachusetts Bay colony (the witch trial people) Did it ever occur to anyone that "the Addams Family" is a take off on the Adams family from the constitution?

Descendants of the Chilton family, on my grandmother's side. My mother is fully involved in her chapter of the DAR. One of the children died on the ship, at port.

http://mayflowerhistory.com/chilton-james/

I find it interesting that she and my grandmother were committed enough to do the research (way beyond Ancestry - they visited cemeteries, clerks of courts, multiple trips to New England) and prove the lineage but that's where my interest ends.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, this thread went far afield, but can anyone recommend a legitimate geneologacy service? Is Ancestry.com any good? We are looking to identify some lineage for descendant rights, so hoping to be a good starting point to see if we should do a formal documented search.

Ancestry can be great for accessing Census, immigration, and other records.

A lot of the information that comes up on their searches, though, will be from family trees other users have entered. That information is only as good as the research those users did, so proceed with caution.

There are an awful lot of people out there whose idea of research is to find two people with the same last name living in the same area and assume they must be related, with no documentation. Late 19th and early 20th century family genealogies are also frequently riddled with errors.

This. It is unbelievable how many people make an assumption without documentation, and then other people use the bad information, and then it is really hard to convince anyone that there is a mistake because "the found it on Ancestry." Only consider the information valid as far back as it can be documented--and its really hard to document people before 1800 or between 1800 and 1900 if they lived in territories before they became states. Not impossible, but much harder to do without going into source documents in state capitols and in churches (if you can get access).

My kids are studying the Pilgrims now in school. Direct descendants. Not something we talk about much.

I love all the "not sure which Mayflower passenger" (OP) and being distant relatives to "a couple of presidents" with no names. That's what genealogy is all about -- details!

Anonymous wrote:Speaking of genetics - my four most immediate "Mayflower" ancestors were all heavy. Photos of great-great grandfather - the only chubby one in the bunch. All of that extra Thanksgiving weight passed on through the generations, starting with the very first Thanksgiving.

Did I post this years ago? Or maybe we have the same chubby ancestor.

Anonymous wrote:I'm descended through my mother's family to John Alden, the guy who had Miles Standish propose to Priscilla Mullins for him because he was too shy.

Fun fact, but that and three dollars will get me a cup of coffee at Starbucks!

Hee hee, through our family tree, we're descended from John, Miles, and Priscilla. Awk-ward

The villain in that Thanksgiving turkey movie that came out a few years ago was Miles Standish. I didn't point out to DS that that was his ancestor.

My maternal aunt is a genealogy nut and traced several branches of our family tree. Apparently, some lines date back quite far and we are distantly related to a couple of presidents (Adams maybe?) as well as the earliest settlers. Aunt is a committed member of the DAR and has tried to get me to apply (no). I find her obsessions with pure ancestry odd, because it doesn't come with any oral history passed down through the generations, which would have been far more interesting to me. Also, we are not wealthy or powerful whatsoever, so it's almost like she wants to find pride in our ancestors' successes rather than our own. Regardless, to the PP who asked how to research this: our family tree was pretty well documented by my southern relatives, but my aunt used Ancestry.com and worked with a professional genealogist (not sure of the term, but it was a professional who provided these services) to fill in the gaps.

Anonymous wrote:Okay, this thread went far afield, but can anyone recommend a legitimate geneologacy service? Is Ancestry.com any good? We are looking to identify some lineage for descendant rights, so hoping to be a good starting point to see if we should do a formal documented search.

Ancestry can be great for accessing Census, immigration, and other records.

A lot of the information that comes up on their searches, though, will be from family trees other users have entered. That information is only as good as the research those users did, so proceed with caution.

There are an awful lot of people out there whose idea of research is to find two people with the same last name living in the same area and assume they must be related, with no documentation. Late 19th and early 20th century family genealogies are also frequently riddled with errors.

I'm descended through my mother's family to John Alden, the guy who had Miles Standish propose to Priscilla Mullins for him because he was too shy.

Fun fact, but that and three dollars will get me a cup of coffee at Starbucks!

Lots of inbreeding among the earlier settlers.

My grandfather did an amazing family tree years ago. I've extended it a bit on ancestry. We can also trace my Dad's side to coming to America on a boat that picked up passengers from the Titanic.

Anonymous wrote:Okay, this thread went far afield, but can anyone recommend a legitimate geneologacy service? Is Ancestry.com any good? We are looking to identify some lineage for descendant rights, so hoping to be a good starting point to see if we should do a formal documented search.

Ancestry.com is a great starting point and reasonably priced for fairly wide-reaching access to documents. You could also try Roots Web as a starting point.

Okay, this thread went far afield, but can anyone recommend a legitimate geneologacy service? Is Ancestry.com any good? We are looking to identify some lineage for descendant rights, so hoping to be a good starting point to see if we should do a formal documented search.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With DNA testing now, black Americans no longer need trot out the "I'll never know where I come from!!" sob story.

Knowing the geographical areas your ancestors came from isn't the same thing as knowing where and when they were born, their names, etc. In some cases this information can be found - slaveowners did keep fairly close tabs - but not always, and not without a lot more digging. And AA families have the additional burden of having to know which family owned their ancestors. It's just one more thing to track in a field that's already kind of tricky.

*yawn* Adopted children of all backgrounds are in the same boat.

You take great pride in missing the point. And only children in closed adoptions are in that boat, and even then sometimes info can be made available. For many AA families, it's gone.