Need tips for tracing family ancestory
MoveCloseDeleteAdmin

TV ClubHouse: GD Archives: Need tips for tracing family ancestory

Curious1

Monday, July 14, 2003 - 05:28 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I am looking into trying to trace my family's ancestors. I have very little to go on for my fathers side of the family. I have seen alot of websites out there that claim to do the work for you and find hundreds of results. Has anyone used any of these sites and what was your opinion of them? Any other helpful tips for me? Basically I am just trying to figure out if my family was Irish, Dutch, German or whatever. My maiden name isn't really that distinctive it's "Loy".

Cathie

Monday, July 14, 2003 - 06:18 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
There are a lot of good resources on the web. Here's a link to the Loy family page at geanology.com. It is a good place to start, especially if you have a little data about the ancestors you are looking for,

http://genforum.genealogy.com/loy/

Ann

Monday, July 14, 2003 - 06:31 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Check out the Church of Latter Day Saints website. They have a very extensive archive of genealogy information. There might be a church near where you live where you can do a search on their computers. They can also arrange to have microfilch (sp?) sent to the church in your area for a more detailed search.

I've never used any of the websites that say that they will do the search for you. Try government sites, etc. that may have birth, marriage and death information. Some have lists of passengers who arrived in North America by ship. Gov't sites may also have links to armed forces lists of veterans, etc. If you know where ancestors are buried, there may be information at the cemetary or church nearby.

Reiki

Monday, July 14, 2003 - 06:46 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Curious - if possible try talking to ask many older members of your father's family as possible. If this is not possible you need to start your search with the information you do have.

I have found a good source of information is the social security death index. LINKED HERE

Anyone who has died since the implementation of the social secuity system and has had death benefit claim is on this list. You type in the name you are searching and it will give you all the matches for that name. When you find your family member you can send for a copy of the claim which often contains information such as place of birth, parents names, etc.

If you know where an ancestor was born you can try contacting the hall of records and obtaining a copy of their birth and/or death certificates.

If they immigrated through Ellis Island you can search their database. LINKED HERE

Good luck!!

Julie

Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 01:22 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Well, I was about to make a few suggestions, but they are already listed! A few years ago I started looking into my family history. It takes alot of time and patience but is worth it!


I first posted a question on my surname message board at Ancestry.com, which I believe is part of genealogy.com that someone already mentioned. A first cousin who I never knew about saw the message and contacted me.


The amount of information out there in cyberspace (as well as your library) is truly incredible.

Best of luck to you,

Julie

Rissa

Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 07:53 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Curious,

Not a lot of time to go into details, but... those sites that cost you to look at data? It's all information that is freely available or next to free somewhere else. The attraction is having it in one spot. Before subscribing... make sure they have databases you are interested in. They are generally big on USA but poor on international (although lately a little bit on UK stuff is creeping in). They do not do your research for you however, it's just a search engine of databases.

You can find researchers to do your work for you, but I would definately discourage this. They will cost you unbelievable amounts of money and cheat you of a new addiction. LOL IMO they should be used for a single brick-wall request... someone you have been unable to locate after much effort.

The sites mentioned above are all great, esp www.familysearch.org (the latter day saints), but if you give us a little more information... I bet you will find a bunch of us here who will jump in with more specific sites and data for you. No need to give identifying information if you don't want.... just states/countries,years etc...

The way I work the process is to start with a birth certificate and marriage certificate for my grandparents (assuming you can go back THAT far, otherwise start with your own parents). If they are old enough (1930 is most recent census available for the USA)... locate them on a census..... then move back and do the same for their parents. Somewhere down the line you will need to locate their naturalization/immigration papers. All recent (last 150 yrs about) census' list country of origin not only for the individual but also his/her parents... so tracking down that info. is fairly easy. That's all you NEED to do to trace a straight line, there are other sources if you want to "flesh" out your ancestors lives a little more or other avenues to try if the above prove hard to locate.

PS I went to the genealogy forum at www.familytreemaker.com and looked through the LOY forum (pretty uncommon name to be searching BTW)... from a quick look, all the Loy's that weren't in the USA were from Ireland. But keep in mind that the name could have been Loychuk etal and just shortened when they hit these shores. There are a whole lot of Norwegian Larsons in N.A. because they didn't understand the question and gave their patryonic instead of their 'farm' name when immigrating.

Reader234

Saturday, July 26, 2003 - 03:09 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Curious, have you checked your library? Many libraries are connected to local geneology, for instance the library in the next town over houses the records for the DAR. And their is a DAR representative at certain hours that helps you get started...

also, my dad when he retired thought about doing this, and found someone selling a book for about $50, after he did research found out it was legit, he found she had done years of tracing, published the boook and tried to sell it at cost (she had wanted one copy for each of her children but found it cheaper if she ordered a lot of I believe 100 books, my dad inquired at book #101!!)

So from his point of view, be careful, but dont close any weird doors!! (he was cautious as you should be about being cheated, lots of surnames are similiar so you can find "general" geneology, its become a huge rage!!)

Twiggyish

Saturday, July 26, 2003 - 05:27 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
The Mormon site is excellent. They keep records of everyone. It doesn't matter if you are Mormon or not.

Here is their link:
http://www.familysearch.org/

1. Click on Search for Ancestors
2. Type in a name.
***Hint*** Do not put a lot of information. The more you write the fewer results you will find***
3. Have patience.

Good luck!

I love genealogy. Sometimes just for curiousity I type in a name in www.google.com .. You'll be surprised at the websites which come from that search!

Jed245

Saturday, July 26, 2003 - 11:08 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I don't know if this has been covered or not, but, you can look up the social security death index for your state. That will allow you to find out more indepth info about the people in your family that have passed on.

With that information you can further look up more of your family. Most cities keep a few records where you can find marriage certificates, death certificates, adoption records and so on. Geneology.com has alot of useful information mostly the message board was of use to me. There are several friendly people there that will be willing to help you in your search some pay for sites and some pay groups to search for them. Most of those people are happy enough to use the services they have to help you out.


Give it a try :o)