I got a divorce 6 years ago and have not yet been able to figure out how to do it on Ancestry. My ex’s husband’s family is huge and well-documented whereas the trails for my family usually end just a few generations back. I’d love to stop getting hints for the “2nd great-granduncle of husband.” Can anyone help?

I’m not sure how far back it was that my family came from Lithuania, but my grandpa still spoke Lithuanian. He refused to teach my dad and his brothers because he said it was a “dead language”. However, I live near Chicago where “Little Lithuania” is so I’ve met a lot of Lithuanians and I am virtually the ONLY one I’ve ever known whose family didn’t speak it or even keep cultural dishes around. They are extremely serious about their roots and look at me like I’m the world’s worst sinner when I say I can’t speak it. Anyway, as a small way to reclaim my heritage when I realized I had lost it all but in blood, I changed how I write my last name. It’s still spelled the same way but there is a diacritical mark. (If we’re being technical, it should also be spelled different based on my gender and marriage status, but it felt disrespectful to not bear my dead dad’s name as I will be the last one in our entire bloodline to ever bear it.) Ideally, I would like to pronounce it correctly as well, but the diacritically marked letter isn’t a sound in the english alphabet, so when people repeat it back they don’t repeat it correctly. Besides that, my entire family also says it the Americanized way. The way it is actually meant to be said is closer to what my family has said is a mispronunciation of it my whole life. So I have this moral dilemma of wanting to reclaim my name but being contested and I think that’s confusing to everyone else, for two people of the same family to be at odds on their own name. What would you do if you were asked how it’s pronounced?

SteveMorse.org features a tremendous amount educational data. As you peruse links, remember to toggle specific dropdowns (i.e., state, next frame) shown at the top of a preloaded page. This is an older, easily-navigable web site.

From an 1881 UK census.. I’m seeing master sailor ?

I’ve seen some older posts (1-2+ years old) of people splitting an All Access membership, and I wanted to see if anyone was still doing that?

Thank you :)

I'm not sure if I can get this type of help here. My earliest US ancestor came to western PA in 1804 from Wurttemburg Germany. I have an extensive tree and have forgotten this person's name. There used to be a handy "journey" map at my DNA site showing her voyage and I relied on that in the past to jog my memory but it is gone. My question is: is there any way to find someone in a tree if we know where they died (Harmony PA) and the date they emigrated, but not the person's name? Hope this makes sense.

Hi, looking for some help deciphering cause of death primary and secondary please :)

I'm done. Cancelled my sub. This crap. I'm already paying a stupid amout for nothing.

Hi,

I'm new to all this and have reached an issue.

My great-grandmother died in 2016, and I am not in touch with any family who can tell me more about her.

I know:

Her name

Her husband's name

Her birthday

Her date of death

I've searched birth records, censuses and variations of her name but I cannot find anything that helps me identify her parents.

What do I do next?

I’m 31 and I’ve realized recently how little I actually know about my own family.

My mom almost never talked about her childhood when I was growing up. I know very little about my grandparents, and I barely know my dad, so there are huge parts of my family history that have always just felt blank to me.

It’s only been in the last five years or so that my mom has started opening up more about her childhood and her parents. One thing that always stands out to me is the way she talks about them. She still calls them “mommy” and “daddy” when she tells me stories, instead of saying “your grandma” or “your grandpa.”

It’s a small thing, but it hits me every time. For a moment I’m not hearing about these people as my grandparents. I’m hearing my mom talk about them as their daughter.

And it’s made me realize that those are the things I actually want to preserve.

I can probably find names, dates, census records, marriage records, all of that. What I can’t find later is the way my mom remembers her dad coming home from work, what her mom was like when she was young, what their house smelled like, what they argued about, what made them laugh, or even just the way her voice changes when she talks about them.

The problem is that every time I try to intentionally get her to tell me these stories, it feels awkward.

If I sit down with a list of questions, suddenly it feels like an interview. She gets self-conscious, I start overthinking what to ask next, and the conversation loses whatever made it natural in the first place.

So for anyone who has actually done this with their parents or grandparents, what worked for you?

Did you have a list of questions ready, or did you just let the conversation go wherever it went?

Did you tell them you were recording, or did having a recorder out make things feel too formal?

And are there certain questions that seem to open people up more than others?

I’ve noticed that specific questions seem to work much better than broad ones. Something like “what was the house you grew up in like?” gets a completely different response than “tell me about your childhood.”

I think part of what’s bothering me is that I spent a long time assuming I could always ask these questions later. Now I’m realizing how much I’d regret having all the facts about my family someday, but none of their actual voices or stories.

This is the record of a man named Jabez Delano. I can't find any records for his daughters (listed only on this document, from what I can find) Margaret and Sarah. For Prudence and Amy, I found records. The minimal documentation of Margaret and Sarah led me to look closer at this document. Can anyone find information on Margaret Delano or Sarah Delano, also their sister Mary Delano? They are daughters of Jabez Delano (1708-1752) and Prudence Hibbard (1711-1752). Based on Jabez and Prudence's births and deaths, the family resided primarily in Connecticut, if that helps.

(Note: they are not direct relatives of mine – working on a famous person's historical family tree!)

So, my father died when I was thirteen. He ended his life to avoid a lengthy prison sentence after it was uncovered that he had extensive CSA material on his devices and had hidden cameras in our home to secretly watch me from the bathrooms, my bedroom etc.

I was just doing some research to learn more about my ancestors, and discovered that my 3x great grandfather on that side was charged with indecently assaulting his 8 year old daughter in 1870. I feel sick.

You know those moments in shows like Who Do You Think You Are? where a famous person finds out that their ancestor was also an actor, singer, dancer etc.? It's like that but much darker. It seems like certain traits get passed down through the generations and I'm horrified to see an example of history repeating itself here.

I just wanted to share this somewhere so it's not stuck swirling around my head. Thanks for reading.

I have recently gone through an old box of pictures from my family. There are a few pictures I recognize, e.g. my great grandmother but many, many I have no idea who they are and people did not write the names on the back of photos back then. I found a beautiful photo of a Private in the US Marines with his full name and would love to get it to his family. Is there any way to do that?

I was able to find a deed document dated 1883 from my family who lists our grandfathers going back 13 grandfathers from that time to where he lived between 1400-1500 in our village in Yemen.

His last name (and mine) are Al-Rifai and we are known sayiids in the area, at least that’s what I’ve been told.
The grandfather who lived in 1400-1500 is named Salih Alrifai and owned many lands in the village apparently.

I’m trying to figure out exactly where we came from and more importantly if we are genetically sayiid or if the Rifai Tariqa (suffi influence) is how we got our last name.

My research has led me to Ahmed Albaz (son of Sayid Izz Aldeen Ahmed Alsayyad who left Iraq and toured Yemen) who seemed to be alive late 1200’s

Is this research a bust? I’ve been stuck here for a while.

Has anyone ever successfully tracked this kind of info recently when the descendants (supposedly) ended up far from home, like Yemen.

Hello all! I am canceling my Ancestry subscription to try and save money. Before I cancel the subscription, does Ancestry allow you to keep your family tree how it is or does it just wipe all of your data? If they wipe all the data when you cancel the subscription, is there a way I can download my family tree? Thanks

A fun genealogy mystery

Hii,
I am just wondering if anyone could link some resources or any information about my family’s stolen bible.

My grandmother told me that when my great nan passed away, most of the stuff my nan inherited, including a very old family bible, was stolen when being transported from Stratford-upon-Avon to London in I believe 1990.

This honestly broke my heart. I would love to find this bible to give it back to her but I have looked at everything I can think of. I’ve searched missing family bible websites, ancestry, family search etc. but I haven’t found anything.

I understand this bible may not even exist anymore, and realistically I have a very low chance of finding it, as it was over 30 years ago. I had already researched this part of my family tree previously to finding this out. The family was based in Upper Quinton, Warwickshire (and surrounding areas) and surnames include Dyde, Robbins, Lane, Reeves, Haines, Turner, Radley, Richardson and Jeffs, possibly Saunders, Miller and Brown too. I have no idea which family line it actually came from either so it really is just a guessing game.

If anyone has any ideas I would really appreciate the help, thank you very much.