Family Tree and the Ellis Island Link To Find Ancestors

[Janice]

Have you traced your family tree? How far back did you go?

John's mother had a whole family tree going back to the late 1600's from Sweden. We even have the old 1700 some family bible that was brought over. I will have to get the tree out and find the oldest family member date.

[vbhoutex]

I've been very lucky. On my fathers side we have the family traced back to a farm in Scotland in the late 1700's-1779 to be exact. He was adopted too, so we were very lucky to obtain this info. On my mothers side we have the family traced back to my GGGGG Grandfather in the early 1800's in Germany or Prussia-he was a German Baron.
On my wifes side we have family traced back to the early 1600's in New England and actually onto the Mayflower.
I really need to get off my duff and do more research, but who has the time?

[Janice]

Yes, the Ellis Island has a great website.....

http://www.ellisisland.org/

You may find some information here if your ancestors landed on Ellis Island.

[TexasStooge]

For the past 3 years, my family traced the family tree going back to the 1600s.

[beachbum_al]

My family on my mom's side is from Sweden. My meme is full blood swedish! My great grandmother came over from Sweden to Chicago.

On my dad's side my family has actually been track all the way from the Mayflower. And on my dad's mom side we found out that Kevin Costner is a distant cousin. At first I thought they were just teasing me about the Kevin Costner deal because at the time I thought he was hot (my younger days) but there is some truth to it.

[bvigal]

What a cool topic, Janice!!

I found my grandfather's entry ship log at Ellis Island, it was really interesting! He was only 17, coming here to join his brother, and had the great sum of $30.

2 of my cousins traced one side of our family back to a signer of the Declaration of Independence, 2 passengers on the Mayflower, 2 fighters in the American Revolution, and one family that migrated all the way from Brazil to the US by wagon.

The other half were from Russia and Romania, migrating late 1800's and early 1900's. They were all Jewish, and due to centuries of persecution, most recently by communists (who just took everything from my great grandparents in the 1930's, even their home), and then by Nazis (who sent my grandfather's two sisters, a niece and her baby to concentration camp-never to be heard of again), their entire villages were wiped clean of them, and no records remain of anyone who lived there. Even the Holocaust databases have no records of any of them, as no one survived from those particular areas to provide imformation on who had lived there. (May God bless those who finally achieved a homeland in Israel!)

[Yarrah]

Someone in my family traced my mothers side of the family back to a baron living in the eastern part of what is now Germany (Prussia) around 1700. Since then, they slowly migrated to the west and ended up in the eastern part of the Netherlands around 1800.

One part of my father's side can be traced back to around 1550. They were Huguenots (French Calvinists) who fled to Zeeland (a province of the Netherlands) after a civil war and some edicts that threatened anyone who wasn't Catholic.
The other part of my father's side is more exotic. My grandma's (mother of my father) family had a plantation in the Dutch East-Indies (now Indonesia) before WWII. The had acquired that plantation around 1830, because they shared some lineage with the sultan of Yogjakarta.

[Stephanie]

I'm a member of Ancestry.com and I have used that plus the Ellis Island website to get information on my mother's, father's side of the family that came over from Italy at the turn of the century.

[MomH]

My married name has been traced back to 1705 in the US. We loose about 50 years between 1650 and that date but can continue on back before 1650.

My maiden name has been traced back to 1640's in Germany.

Now the fun part. While tracing the family I kept finding my maiden name and my married name in the same place at the same time. Both names are very rare. When I finished, I found that a line of each family shared a common grandmother. She was the last Beloved Woman of the Cherokee tribe, Nancy Ward. Sadly, I can't claim either line.

I also found there are actually four groups of my married name: white, black, Indian and Japanese. Oddly enough, the black group acquired their names from their Indian owners. They were the only ones I can find who owned slaves.

Another interesting find. Some of the white branch were part of the GA militia that rounded up the Indian branch and incarcerated them before the Trail of Tears. And to add to the fun, a member of my maiden name was a Supreme Court Justice who opposed Jackson when he took over the Cherokee lands in GA.

Genealogy is fun.

MomH

[vbhoutex]

Someone in my family traced my mothers side of the family back to a baron living in the eastern part of what is now Germany (Prussia) around 1700. Since then, they slowly migrated to the west and ended up in the eastern part of the Netherlands around 1800.

One part of my father's side can be traced back to around 1550. They were Huguenots (French Calvinists) who fled to Zeeland (a province of the Netherlands) after a civil war and some edicts that threatened anyone who wasn't Catholic.
The other part of my father's side is more exotic. My grandma's (mother of my father) family had a plantation in the Dutch East-Indies (now Indonesia) before WWII. The had acquired that plantation around 1830, because they shared some lineage with the sultan of Yogjakarta.

It is on my fathers side, but we come from the same area of Germany and descended from a Baron also. In case you didn't know, my last name is Dutch due to the fact that my father was adopted.

[JenBayles]

Hey Janice! Or should I say "cuz"? My Great Aunt Marion also traced our Swede line back to the 1600's. Once the family reached the US, they stuck with the surname Jacobson and resided in Renfield County, Minnesota. Henry Jacobson, my grandfather, went to work for the Weather Bureau (as it was called back then) just before the Great Depression and finally retired as the MIC in Albuquerque, NM. Hence, the family interest in weather.

I've been researching on my own for about 10 years. It's amazing the things you can track down with the Internet. I've managed to get war records from the National Archives, and copies of 1850's correspondence from far-flung relations. Some fun, huh?!

[Janice]

Yes, I will check out exactly what years and names are the very first from Sweden.

The first to arrive were the Follmers in the late 1600s. They were from Germany.
(One side of the family). We have the whole tree from that point.

Next, the other side, were the Woodcocks. John was born in England in 1915. There is a whole paper on him and his entire family. Good records.

Then we have the military record of Jacob Berger, John's mothers maiden name is Berger, who was in the Revolutionary War. He was a private in Captain Nicholas Kern's Company of the First Battalion of Northampton County Militia, August 1776, and so.

I will have to look for another tree with the Swedish family.