Family geneology

[PMK]

My wife does family geneology for her family and mine. She has done this for a long time.

Her family records are kind of short as many Irish stuff has been lost.
My family though goes pretty far back, with reasonable accuracy and many others involved besides my wife.

So for many years, it was always cool knowing I am related to President John Adams and President John Quincy Adams.

This past October, the wife and I drove back to New England for my long time friends, oldest sons wedding.
The trip allowed me to visit family that still lives in Mass, plus friends.

Months prior to leaving, I told my wife, we could take several days where she could do geneology research while in New England. With that, she extended our Northward trek into Maine. We went to various old cemetaries on cold, windy, rainy days. Even attended a guided tour where a scholar discussed the markings and meanings of phrases on centuries old grave stones. Learned why old graves face East and more.

BUT, the cool part, we visited the old jail in York Maine. The folks there were awesome, but stepped it up a notch when they learned I was a grandson to one of the jailkeepers from centuries ago. They stepped it up enough, letting my wife know for her records, but also thought it cool I was there, since this great, great, great and more greats, grandfather of mine was the very first Jailkeeper AND hangman of York Maine. The museum and tour even had a reprint of an old court doccet where my grandfather had to give whip lashes to a person, found guilty.

Simply sharing, guess sometimes you never know about your family history unless you research it…

[Gwolf]

Yes, the family geniology is interesting. Had a cousin that did a lot of work on our family for a college course he was taking. I knew it went back a long way, but did not know how far. My family was in North America 3 or 4 generations before The United States Of America became a country. They were not the typical colonists. Most were trappers and explorers, or to put it bluntly, just roamed and wandered around. Some were in government later on. There are streets and schools in some of the northern states with my proper name on them. It was very interesting to find out the details on a lot of it. It didn't all come from cemertery records. A lot came from Revolutionary War records and records of the Florida Seminole Indian Wars.

A lot of the information is now on the Internet and it is much easier to look into your own family history with the amount of information available. Of course, there are scam sites on the web to sell you fake history, but there is also a lot of actual records available on the web now too.

[pegasus1300]

Thanks for introducing this topic into our forum conversation. I love the way members here are not afraid to introduce topics that have little to do with Spyders. From medical problems to Rc cars to Skiing we get to talk about it all here and it has created a multidimensional community. Thank you all for being............ you.

[ARtraveler]

Thanks for introducing this topic into our forum conversation. I love the way members here are not afraid to introduce topics that have little to do with Spyders. From medical problems to Rc cars to Skiing we get to talk about it all here and it has created a multidimensional community. Thank you all for being............ you.

That is why we have an "off topic" forum. Non-Spyder talk is also good. Some of it quite interesting. I have picked up a few tips and hints on non-spyder topics since 2010.

[canamjhb]

I have a cousin that is very much into genealogy. She has a web site devoted to it. Has traced our family back to the Mayflower and even before that. There are some things, though, that were surprising and not all pleasant. One piece of advice I heard a long time ago was to NOT participate in sites that involve DNA search's. There are a lot of reasons to not have your DNA exposed publicly. Once it's out there, you can't get it back. And results can produce unexpected surprises..... Jim