What would we do without helpful cousins! :) We have just started reading Your Guide to Cemetery Research. Feel free to join in.
Liz

Yea, I love my mix of origins. Luckily I haven't had too much difficulty. A cousin of mine, who speaks Czech and has been back to the homeland, has nearly completed that portion of the tree, which would have been the hardest to do. I know some Czech, enough to get me through some of the Czech only cemeteries, but other than that, not so much :)

Hi Brittany,
What an interesting set of origins! Czech! You have some interesting languages to work with as you do your research :).

Welcome to the Genealogy Book Club!
Liz

Hello, new here :) My origins are:
English
Irish
French
German
Czechoslovakian

Suzanne wrote: "The last cemetary I visited was in Northern Ireland, in the company of someone who is probably a distant cousin although we still can't prove it. It was the wettest rainiest day I have ever experie..."

Suzanne,
What an interesting experience! I must say my trips to the cemetery have been uneventful. My first cemetery visit was to what, I thought, would be a small farm cemetery. It turned out to be several acres! But, we were able to find the gravestones of my ancestors by looking for the oldest stones in the cemetery. A relief to my children since we were just stopping by on our way to a bike trail!

Liz

The last cemetary I visited was in Northern Ireland, in the company of someone who is probably a distant cousin although we still can't prove it. It was the wettest rainiest day I have ever experienced; it took two days for my jeans -- soaked to my knees -- to dry, and my shoes were ruined. But I did have a very eerie experience. In this big graveyard, with a bunch of older gravestones all with their backs turned toward me, I immediately walked right toward the three or four Mayberry family graves, saying to my companion "I bet these are the ones we're looking for." I was right. I've never known anything like that to happen before!!

Suzanne wrote: "Hi -- I'm new to this group, but have been working off and on on my own genealogy as well as a book idea about why we're all so interested in doing this! (I'm a journalist with a book about Wall St..."

Suzanne,
Welcome to the group! What a diverse and interesting family history you have. I think that we are all surprised by the varied ethnic origins of our families. The US truly is a 'melting pot'!

We will be starting a book discussion in a couple of weeks on Cemetery Research. We'd love to have you join us.

Liz

Hi -- I'm new to this group, but have been working off and on on my own genealogy as well as a book idea about why we're all so interested in doing this! (I'm a journalist with a book about Wall Street coming out next summer.)

My own background is dominated by Celts.

Scotland -- Fraser, McCaw, McGee, Guthrie, Folgie, Wilson, Pollock, Sibbald, Douglass.

Ireland -- Burchell, Mayberry, Fitzgerald, Casement, Duke, Milligan, Mills and others.

Wales -- Thomas, Jones, Philps/Philips

I've got one Norwegian great-grandmother, who is also the most recent emigrant/immigrant of the bunch, having arrived in North America around 1881.

The rest is a mishmash. One solidly Yankee great-great grandmother, who traced her roots back to nearly every family in the Massachussets Bay Colony EXCEPT for those on the Mayflower! But through her I'm related to Ernest Hemingway (8th cousin 2x removed) and the Tiffany family.

Some others include German of some kind (possibly Alsace Lorraine, but unknown -- surname is Schweier) and probably Pennsylvania Dutch at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries -- surnames Sanders and Cook.

So about 2/3 Celt, 1/3 English, Scandinavian and German or Dutch... I was actually surprised to find out how diverse we were (nobody in the family knew about the New England connection or the German links). Most of the 'old world' ties had been broken by the mid-19th century, meaning I'll probably never find even distant relatives in any of those countries.

For maps you might check on Cyndi's list on the internet and you can do free research on the LDS website at familysearch.com They are said to have written down information on everyone they met so have a lot of information. They have a good website. Also there is one called rootsweb.com that is a good site to check out. If you would like more information please feel free to contact me at joseth18@gmail.com and I can give you more information or I can even search for you.

Hi, I'm new to this group with ancestors tracing to England, Scotland, Ireland, and the areas that are now Germany and Switzerland.

I'm wondering if anyone in this group would be interested in doing a group read of a genealogy book? The idea is to select a book to read and then establish a slow reading schedule that will allow us all time to apply what we are learning.

I'll add a few titles to the bookshelf of books that are on my to be read list. I hope that you will all do the same. Once I see how many people are interested, we can proceed form there.

For a model of how this might work, see The History Book Club.

Hi, I too am new to this group but have been doing genealogy along with my husband for about 25 years now.

My mother always told me that I was what is called a "duke's mixture"

English, Scotch, Irish, and Welch.

I have Quaker ancestry on both sides and on my Dad's side of the family, they are Mormons. The first time I did any research I printed out 41 pages on the computer of research my cousins had done. That has helped a lot and then ran across several books about different families in my line.

There is so much information online now that it is much easier.

I found many missing cousins at Pioneer Families of Saline County which is a MyFamily.com genealogy group. (very helpful) Its done by state and is FREE.
My names and countries are:
Scotland - McCraw
Wales - Meredith
Smith - GA - came with General Olglethorpe
Holland or Germany - Snider - Catherine in AL
and mostly English. Genealogy is now going toward genetics and you can submit your salvia for free thru these groups and be added into their research.

I'm so glad you posted this. I'm definitely going to transcribe for the World Archives Project. What an awesome thing to be involved in, especially because I use the records on Ancestry for my own research! :)

I have just started to do some transcibing, I have had an ancestry account for a few years and recently got an newletter about the World Archives Project.

I don't know if you need to have an account, but its worth looking. You do have to download some software but when I did it is was quick and easy.
Ancestry obtain microfiched documents or scanned documents and then publish document sets
i.e England and Wales Criminal Registers, Naturalisation Requests for Connecticut, Kansas Census. Each document set has a rating 1 - easy 5 hard.

You use the software to download an image or set of images and then type in the info requested. It looks like a basic excel spreadsheet with values that you can choose from. Once finished the software automatically loads your entries back to Ancestry where a 2nd person checks your entries and if needed an arbitrator decides where there are differences.

As far as I am aware there is no expection on the numbers documents people transcribe so you can do a few or many as you like. When you download a document set it has an expiry of about 10 days.

Each document type has a certain number of pages: The England and Wales criminal registers have 2 pages of data with 17 people per page, the Connecticut Naturization Records have 3 cards per page and 10 pages.

So far it has not taken me more than 15 mins for either, and I have been swapping between England and Wales criminal registers and Connecticut Naturization Records as the Criminal Records are hand written (so some difficulty at times reading the writing) and the Naturization records whitch are typed.

There is a message board to post queries too, and a FAQ section for help.
Hope this helps, I am really enjoying it, I never knew we put so many people to death in from 1805 - 1892 in the UK

I would like to know more about the transcribing for Ancestry. Could you elaborate? Also, are you going to do it? I am very thankful for all the work that people do transcribing in order to make searching easier for everyone. I might be interested, if I can do it at my own pace.

My roots very boring, Scottish with some 1 person born in England but raised in Scotland.

Has anyone here signed up to transcribe for Ancestry?

Hi Emilee,

I saw your post and and I disagree that is sick to want to know what was going on in history when your ancestors were born. What better way to understand than to place yourself in their shoes for a moment. Also I think looking at other people's genealogy is boring if it only contains names and dates. Give me stories or give me death! Uh, maybe no more coffee today... Happy searching!

Oh yeah, my roots are English, Scottish, Irish, Native American and, German. Stong possibilites in Greece, Italy and Hungary. No proof as of yet but tomorrow is another day.

New to the group - glad to be here. I am aware of the following origins of myself:
-England (several places)
-Scotland
-Wales
-Denmark
-Sweden

Germany
Russia
Poland
Prussia
England
Ireland
Canada
US
I have probably a couple of others, but these are my main ones.

I started doing(serious) genealogical research a year or so ago. I too, am addicted!
My family is from Scotland and Italy-I am 50/50 right down the line. My Dad was Italian-American and my Mom a Scottish immigrant.
Having lots of difficulty w/The italian research though...Any hints?

Hi everyone:

I am a Mutt. I have roots in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France, Prussia, Sweden and Norway.

I love doing research! I know it's sick but I love it especially looking at the history when my ancestors were born.

Hi. My family is from Germany, Hungary, Latvia/Russia, and possibly Lithuania/Russia. (I list Russia because I don't know if my ancestors started out in Russia and were pushed to the outer countries of Latvia and Lithuania due to pogroms).

Hello,

My families are mostly from Britian (England, with one or two people from Scotland and Wales), and then I do have one couple in my list of gg grandparents that are from Denmark.

Hi, just joined the group and thought I'd add my family origins. On the maternal side of the family I have the Irish, Scottish & English. Dad's side of the family brings more Irish/Scotch Irish as well as German/Prussian, and Canadian ( Irish and Scottish via Canada).

Happy to find a group involved in Genealogy.

Hi, I just joined this group and I thought I would start by telling you where my ancestors are from.

England
Ireland
Scotland - Wigtown specifically
Germany/Prussia
Italy - Bassano del Gappa specifically

My research has taken me to these countries:

Holland (area around The Hague)
Germany
England
Canada

Sara -- I just attended a day long genie gathering and will post a couple of map sites as soon as I pull the syllabus out of the briefcase and get it in here to the computer -- I ordered one software program which covers the US and some other areas -- I think Canada is included. More later and if you need to jog this up -- do so. I tend to get sidetracked.

Hi, Sara! Excellent question on the historical maps book.

My own heritage has taken me back to these countries:

England
Germany
Ireland
Scotland
France (possibly)
Switzerland

It's a fascinating pasttime this genealogical searching.

Which countries are people's families from? I'm definitely a mutt! I've got ancestors from England, Sweden, Germany and Belgium/Luxembourg area. I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones I know.

Does anyone know of a good book or website that has historical maps? I'm interested in finding out where my ancestors came from at the time they came over (hence the Belgium/Luxembourg split - I'm not entirely sure what it was at the time). With borders changing all the time, it would be cool to look at some old maps.