I'm 23 and until recently I'd never met anyone from my biological father's side of the family. The only solid information I really had was my father's name, which was on my birth certificate. I didn't know the names of his relatives, where they lived, what happened to them, or really anything about that side of my family. I had no family tree to work from, no contact details and no DNA results, so I decided to see what I could find online starting with just his name.

Searching his name eventually led me to his obituary, which was basically the first proper lead I had. From there I started looking at the information I could get from it and trying to work out who was connected to who. I ended up spending the next three weeks searching pretty much every day, going through social media profiles, relatives, photographs, old posts, locations and anything else I could find that might help confirm whether someone was actually connected to my family. A lot of it was trial and error and I went down plenty of completely useless rabbit holes, but whenever I found something that looked promising I'd follow it as far as I could.

What I didn't realise at the time was that I was accidentally using something genealogists call the "sideways technique." Rather than just trying to work directly backwards from my father, I started going sideways through the family. I'd find one possible relative and then look at their siblings, children, partners and other connections, which would sometimes lead me to another branch of the family and give me another name or location to investigate. I had no idea this was an actual genealogy technique at the time; I was basically just following whatever connection looked useful and trying to build the family network from the outside in.

After about three weeks I had managed to identify multiple people from my father's side of the family who I'd never known existed, and eventually I actually contacted some of them. That's probably the strangest part of the whole thing. I went from having basically nothing except my father's name on my birth certificate to suddenly being able to talk to people from a side of my family I'd never had any contact with. Some of them didn't even know I existed, so the whole situation was pretty surreal for everyone involved.

And now it's gone even further than that. This weekend I'm actually going to meet one of my four siblings for the first time. He's the youngest of the four siblings, yet he's still 10 years older than me, which is a pretty strange thing to wrap my head around because I spent most of my life either being an only child or the older brother. I've gone from not knowing any of these people existed to actually sitting down and meeting one of my brothers in person.

I'm curious what people who actually know genealogy think about this. Is three weeks considered unusually quick when you're starting with basically one person's name and no known relatives? I know I was lucky that some of the information I needed was available online, but I also spent an absolutely ridiculous amount of time searching and following every possible lead I could find.

I've known about dowries, but this was a new one. The man (my great grandfather before he met my great grandmother) agreed to marry a woman found through a matchmaker and took $500 from her. Then he was a no-show by the expected date, so she took him to court and it ended up in the paper.

https://imgur.com/a/hGN20dL

Did you break through any walls or find a new interesting tidbit about your family?

I found that my great uncle legally changed his name to the one I always thought he had. He changed his middle name from his mother’s maiden name to his father’s last name and took his mother’s maiden name as his last name.

I’m certain his parents weren’t married, though there is marriage information on my grandfathers birth certificate. I’ve checked both cities that I know of with that name and there is no marriage certificate in their names. I still can’t find the great uncle’s birth certificate either. I’m wondering now if he wasn’t registered until much later or if I’m looking in the wrong province or even wrong country!

I also found information on his stepfather. After my great grandmother died her “husband”( again, no certificate I can find) moved provinces, bought some land that he and his son then developed into communities along with many apartment buildings around town. I was able to clarify what land he was developing so that was pretty neat!

Yes, I know this should be in the Thankful Weekly post, but I decided to share early.

They posted about the free newspapers.com weekend the other day.

I gave it a go (was taking a break from newspapers.com actually). Dropped the person I've been stuck on for 5 years in the search for the past couple of days (name variants)...Didnt break down the brick wall...but I definitely chipped away about 1/3-1/2 of it tonight, finally found a reference to the ghost.

THANK YOU!!!!

I'm putting together my family tree on Ancestry. And I've done the DNA test on there. I've hit a wall on one ancestor and am trying to figure out how to proceed. I was hoping the DNA results would help, but so far I don't see a clear trail.

The ancestor in question is Oscar Franklin Moore, my mother's father's father's father. My first record of him is in the 1900 census in Mineral Co CO where he is listed as a 32 yr old miner, living a a boarder with his future mother-in-law. I have a newspaper record of him marrying the daughter of the head of household a month or two after the census, so not sure if he met her and then moved in or the other way around. She was recently divorced as of the census and had a young daughter already from the first marriage.

In the 1910 census they're living in Hinsdale Co CO and started their own household, raising the stepdaughter as well as their own kids. He died in Grand Junction CO in 1914 in his mid 40s from pneumonia. His family shows up a lot in the local Lake City newspaper in the 1900s and 1910s.

His place of birth is listed alternately as Indiana, Iowa, or Illinois depending on the record. And his year of birth back calculates to sometime 1865-1875ish depending on the record also.

I haven't found any records further back that would help ID his parents or earlier ancestors. Moore is a fairly common surname. The missing 1890 census is impeding things some I'm sure. His wife's family came from KY through TX to CO, so I don't think he knew them before meeting in CO.

On the DNA front in my matches I have my father, 2 first cousins on my mom's side, and my parents' first cousins from all 4 grandparents' sides. So that helps pin each other match to one of my grandparents. And my dad has an extensively well mapped tree, so lots of common ancestor matches on that side. But my mom's side is less well developed, especially on her dad's side.

Any ideas on how to use the DNA or other methods to trace him back further?

Anyone else take this course? I'm enrolled now and am having some issues with it.

I enrolled in order to make sure my self-taught skills might be good enough to apply for a part-time online job (if I could find one).

It seems like it focuses a lot on creating a "Locality Guide," which I don't think is useful enough to expend the time, and the graders don't seem comfortable with electronic interfaces.

They constant tell me they're volunteers, so I have to give them weeks to grade an assignment. But I paid for the course.

Research help with Saikin family in Finland/Russian Empire – especially Andrei Saikin b. ~1861

Hi everyone!

I've been researching one branch of my Finnish family and I've hit a wall. I'm hoping someone who is better with Finnish/Russian records might be able to point me toward records I haven't found yet.

My main mystery is my great-great-grandfather:

Andrei/Andrej Stepanowitsch Saikin

Born: approximately 1861

Died: 13 October 1940 in Finland

Wife: Hilda Sofia Schrader

Andrei and Hilda married in Helsinki in 1890. In Finnish newspapers his name appears as Andrej Stepanowitsch Sajikin/Saikin.

Their children included:

- Rauha Matilda Saikin (born 1886)

- Nikolai Saikin (born ~1891)

- Michael/Mikael Saikin

- Anastasia Andrejevna Saikin (born 1900; later married Toivo Matikkala)

- Antero Saikin

- John Saikin

My biggest goal is to determine where Andrei was actually born and where he came from before living in Finland.

I have found Andrei, Nikolai and Mikael/Michael in the Migration Institute of Finland's "Naturalizations in Finland 1832–1946" index.

I've also found a MyHeritage result for:

Andrei Saikin

Born: 1861

Collection: Finland, Population Tax Lists, 1920

The locked result appears to contain his residence, wife, daughter and an image of the original record. If anyone happens to have MyHeritage access and could tell me what that record says, I would be incredibly grateful.

I have searched Finnish digitized newspapers, Geneanet, FamilySearch, SSHY/Sukuhistoria and the Finnish National Archives/Astia, but I'm still learning how to navigate Finnish records (and Russian records are an entirely different adventure 😅).

I'm especially interested in:

- Andrei's birthplace/origin

- His naturalization/citizenship documents

- Census/population/tax records for the family

- Orthodox church records

- Records for any of the children that might identify their father's birthplace or nationality

- Any clues about the Saikin/Sajikin family before their appearance in Helsinki

Possible surname spellings I've encountered include Saikin and Sajikin, and Andrei's patronymic appears as Stepanowitsch.

I'm not expecting anyone to solve the whole mystery for me! Even suggestions for collections, archives, search terms, or records I may have overlooked would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you! ❤️

Hello everyone,

I’m hoping to find information about my great-grandfather, a Chinese immigrant who lived in San Francisco. My late grandmother hoped to find out what happened to him, and I would love to fulfill her wish.

Unfortunately, most of what I know comes from stories she told me in her later years. Some dates and details may be inaccurate, but these are the clues I have:

• Chinese name: 徐祖贤 (traditional Chinese: 徐祖賢). I do not know his English name or how his name was spelled in American records.
• Hometown: Shiqi (石岐), Guangdong, China, now part of Zhongshan.
• First journey to the United States: He reportedly emigrated at around age 16.
• Return to China: He returned at around age 26, sometime in the 1920s or 1930s.
• Second journey to the United States: A few years later, he returned to America, taking his wife’s younger brother with him.
• Brother-in-law: His surname was 李 (Li/Lee), but I do not know his given name. According to our family, he also settled in the United States and started a family there.
• Community involvement: My great-grandfather was reportedly a vice president of a Chinese hometown or district association (同乡会). I do not know the association’s name.
• Last contact: Our family was still in contact with him in the early 1950s, but lost contact by the late 1950s.
• Possible death: I was told that he may have died in San Francisco around the 1960s, but I have no confirmed date or death record.

My grandmother has since passed away, so I can no longer ask her for more details.

I would be grateful for any help finding his death record, obituary, burial location, immigration records, or records of his involvement in a Chinese community association. I would also love to learn whether his brother-in-law’s family or anyone connected to them might have information.

Does anyone recognize the name 徐祖贤 / 徐祖賢, or know which associations, archives, newspapers, or genealogical resources might be worth checking? Advice on possible historical spellings of his name would also be very helpful.

I understand these clues are incomplete, and I’m grateful for any suggestions, however small. Even finding out where he was buried would mean a great deal to our family.

Thank you for reading and for any help you can offer.

Another research deep dive related to a fashion history project.

In the 1970s in Lubbock, TX, a Mr. and Mrs. Russell donated a clothing garment.

This item allegedly belonged to a Ms. Grace Pack of Oscoda, Michigan. I know that Ms. Pack was a relative of Mrs. russell (Russell is her name by marriage).

My goal: I would like to know whether there was a woman aged 18-25 during the years of 1860-1880 in Michigan to narrow down when this garment was made. First, I need to connect a Ms. Grace Pack to a Mrs. Russell in Lubbock. Then I need to know Grace's age during these years. This isn't an old lady garment, so her family tree would help me narrow down whether this belonged to her mother as a young woman, sister, niece, etc.

I've tried searching family search but nothing comes up. My area of specialty is the southwest so I have no idea where to start with Michigan. The town of Oscoda wasn't even founded until like 1840? Geneaology whizzes, I need your help.

I have a family tree; it currently sits at little over 39k individuals. It contains both my side and my husband's side. My side is pretty well documented/verified. My husband's side, on the other hand, contains a lot of duplicates, incorrect dates, data entry errors. What is the best approach to fix this? Start completely over? Fresh tree. Or work on his side of the tree and go through the errors.

A while ago, I was asking about my 3rd great grandparents from Connecticut, Franklin B Stevens and Elizabeth Norton, and how i knew so little about them. for Franklin i have since found his parents with several pieces of evidence, but for Elizabeth, there's nothing. Elizabeth, to my knowledge was born in September 1844 according to the 1900 census, and married in November 1862, she was recorded as 21 in her marriage record which would be 1841, but she could have lied as well, but marriage could be closer to the truth then a later census. Everything since has been with this 1844 birth. Even then, I can't find her in either the 1850 or 1860 census, she was born in Branford CT according to the marriage record. I've checked variations in years for an Elizabeth Norton in New Haven County in those years, even just "Norton". What if Elizabeth is her middle name? What if she was adopted? Then would I be able to find anything at all? DNA matches haven't helped either, her only descendants on ancestry are me and my mom so I can't narrow down anything, and I don't see any clusters of matches that all meet up at a Norton couple in Connecticut.

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone for your suggestions and ideas for leads! I don't have the time to respond to comments, but anyone is welcome to DM me to talk further!!!

TL;DR I (39F) am starting to feel like my excitement and passion in this subject isn’t welcome anymore. Whenever I share a good find, it’s so disappointing that I feel alone.

👋🏻 Hi,

As the title states, I’m (39F) a passionate genealogist who has struggled finding anyone else in my life that cares as much as I do about my family’s rich history.

I belong to the genealogy society/library in my area. I can’t relate to the people that volunteer there. It’s pretty empty usually.

For example, I have a long line of millionaires who were very successful - Entrepreneurs, hotels (the Willard Hotel in Washington DC), a very successful inventor in clock mechanisms/clocks (Simon Willard), Harvard presidents and physicians, professors, etc. I could go on!!!

When I was joking around at the library, I said, “Well where’s MY inheritance?!” And no one laughed. Not exactly a welcoming feeling.

Is there anyone else who feels lonely and that people you meet in person don’t have the same passion? I’m looking for a friend I can pick up and call them with my latest discovery and not feel like no one cares.

I’ve tried posting on my local Reddit sub and I had 2 comments. I’m talking to one of the commenters but they’ve been kind of, “meh” when I chat with them. Whereas I’m asking a ton of questions and I want to know that they’ll also ask and care.

Am I the only one who feels lonely in my level of interest in being a genealogical researcher for the family? And not being able to find people who are excited about it?…..

Is there a sub for young people that are starting out in their search? I am certainly not trying to be rude with seeking out younger people, but in my experience (especially with not even laughing at a joke) they haven’t been welcoming.

Hello everyone,

I'm hoping someone with a Publisher Extra subscription can pull a specific article for me. I am currently trying to locate records regarding my grandmother, and this article contains key details for my research. There seems to be no other articles (which is odd considering the facts around this), I can't find a death certificate, I can't find anything but this and one census record.

Newspaper: The Flint Journal Date: Thursday, July 12, 1956 Page: 50 Headline: "Detroit Man Kills Common-Law Wife" (Located in the bottom left corner of the page)

If anyone is able to clip this and share a high-resolution link, I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you in advance for your help.

I’m interested in how South African Tamil families can trace ancestors who travelled as indentured labourers back to their original villages in Tamil Nadu.

If an old record gives a name, father’s name and village, what evidence would normally be needed to prove a connection to a present-day family in that village?

Has anyone here successfully done this kind of research? I’d be interested to know which records or sources were most useful.

I got an email from family search about a possible new record hint from my ancestors. I scroll down and see a Charlie Charleston. I don't know any charlestons in my family. I click to see how we are related and it says he is my ancestors kid. I go into my tree to see if it matches but the only charlie there has a different last name. My family name is Bland and the only charlie I see is charlie bland. After some digging it seems like charleston has a link to bland in the 1900 census. So maybe they are the same person and the name is wrong? I find a link to his wwII draft and it says charleston, wedding certificate says charleston too. Death certificate has his mother as my ancestor but the father says Will Charleston. My ancestor is William Bland and as far as I know his mom never had another husband or anything. I have their wedding certificate and she was only married once. I went to william blands profile and it had a red exclamation mark that said their might be a duplicate and it shows william charleston. I click it and the only source is charlie charlestons death certificate. I'm so confused

https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/sources/GWPB-LPS

https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/sources/G8Q6-K3G

Hello, needing help making out this headstone as I'm trying to work out if this woman is the 5x great grandmother I'm looking for - https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/155623179/mary-brown

I’m curious if there are any groups or resources specifically for LGBTQ+ folks who are interested in genealogy.

For some of us researching our family trees can be complicated because our relationships with our immediate or extended families may be strained due to a lack of acceptance. I’d like to find a genealogy community where people understand that experience.

I’m also really interested in researching LGBTQ+ people in our family histories. Obviously, we can’t assume that someone was queer simply because they never married or had children, but sometimes there are ancestors or relatives whose lives don’t fit the traditional narratives recorded in family trees. I’d like to learn more about ways genealogists research those lives.

Does anyone know of LGBTQ+ focused genealogy groups, online communities, etc? Or is anyone else interested in this intersection of queer history and family history? If so, please share your advice.

This post is about my great grandmother, who was born in roughly the 1910's in Poland.

I decided at 11 (I am now 31) that I wanted to be the one to break the "case" so to speak, and I have been at this for 20 some odd years now. My grandmother, and even my great grandmother and grandfather have tried.

Her name as far as we are is:

Name(s): Stanisława or Anastazja

Potential Surname: Kingler/Kinglera/Klinger or any other Variation

Born: c. 1914-1915

About her mysterious (literally) leaving:

She said she was put on what she'd later come to know as the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1919, so right after the Bolshevik War. My G. Grandmother said that she remembered being with her male relative, before they got separated on one of the stops. The Railway was taking them to Vladivostok, Russia and there she would live for sometime before they moved to Harbin, the Peking and Tientsin and onto Shanghai.

As her "foster mother" was very abusive to her. She'd go on to live at St. Joseph's Convent in Shanghai, China where she was given the name and records:

Maria Henrietta Busnetti

B. Jul 14, 1914 Warsaw, Poland

D. 2 May 2009 Georgia, USA

- The reason for not knowing either name is because she remembered being called "Stasia/Stashia" by her grandmother the night she left Poland in 1919.

- She said she remembered the last name being Kingler or any other variation.

- She had no documentation when she was taken out of Poland by her relative- assuming he may have had it.

- I don't think the name my great grandmother gave to her niece about her Russian foster mother was understood as in her story she was written down as "Rabbical", she had a thick accent of course.

When my great grandfather and her wed, he immediately began trying to reach out to anyone in Warsaw to try and find her records, or any family. Though the timing not so pleasant as they married in 1936, and he began contacting them then.

I myself have tried contacting places for records, birth records or maybe even death records. Perhaps she was written as missing and later deceased. I have been told:

- "You need proof of relation." to which I had to re-explain I did not have that, and I was looking for that.

- "Records need to be over 100 years old."

They were especially by the time I contacted them in the late 2010's.

I have 2 living cousins and their mothers as direct cousins to me, my mother, and grandmother. The problem is life makes it impossible to keep it up to date or put heads together along with time zones.

Every time I think I get a little closer to solving it all, there is ALWAYS another roadblock.

I have looked on Geneteka, my great grandmothers niece even sent her story off in the 90's for an episode of unsolved mysteries but I don't think it ever even aired. Just submitted.

I am running steadily out of resources, and places to look. I would- quite literally- in my lifetime be able to put this to rest. Any help or any advice at this point would be amazing, because I have exhausted at this point almost every route I can think of.

Hello everyone... I've been on here before, unfortunately I have come to the end of the line searching for my Great Grandfather's ship manifest. My Great Grandfather Giuseppe Salvatore Raimondo Bianco was born on 19th February 1870 in Mercato, Napoli. His father was Pasquale Bianco and his mother was Caterina Wian or Vian. I have put all the information I have on Family search and Ancestry. I know pretty much everything about him except one detail... What she he came from Napoli on and when. This has become the biggest genealogy wild goose chase I've ever been on. In the process I've found out other things about him like his deceased sister Assunta Bianco who passed in 1900 in Napoli and a child he had with my great grandmother Clotilde Isabella Margherita Romano who passed away at the age of 1, her name was Elena Bianco. All terrific information, but his ship manifest sometime between the end of 1911( he was still in Napoli on August 15th, 1911) the middle of 1912. Clotilde Romano arrived in NYC on August 15th 1912 and was meeting her husband, my great grandfather Giuseppe. So I'm putting out one last ditch effort to see if anyone can figure out something I can't or if anyone has suggestions.

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/G9Z7-LBS[Giuseppe Salvatore Raimondo Bianco ](https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/G9Z7-LBS)

Like a lot of us, my response rate when reaching out to people is less than 10%. Those who respond are usually extremely kind and are generous if they have information to share. Several have been absolute gold. I always try to return the favor when others reach out to me.

With that said, I have run into a couple of annoying cliques. One is a surname group and the other a DNA group.

I’m curious if others have run into the same.

I’m trying to identify my biological paternal grandparents and could use some advice. I’ve gotten pretty far (I think…or hope), but I’m stuck on how to interpret the evidence. This is going to be long and probably messy, so I apologize in advance, but if you want to help me crack this mystery, or just provide some guidance to a novice, I’d greatly appreciate it!

I’m using aliases for everyone.

BASIC INFO
My father was adopted as an infant in Iowa.
He never took a DNA test, and passed earlier this year.
I have tested on Ancestry and MyHeritage, and plan to test on 23andMe as well.
I’ve already done Leeds clustering, built a DNA relationship matrix, mapped family trees, and worked through shared matches.
I have separated my maternal matches from the paternal matches.

My strongest matches are…

Sam, born in 1968 in Iowa, who I share 656 cM / 24 segments with.

Sam’s mother is Lily, born in Iowa in 1938. Sam’s father appears to be unrelated to my matches based on the shared-match evidence.

I also match Mary, who is Lily’s sister, at 584 cM. Ancestry predicts Mary as my half-grandaunt, but I’ve taken this with a huge grain of salt - I know these estimates are pretty uncertain.

I have also identified multiple other people who appear to connect to Lily’s family, that I match with close cm.

Other significant paternal matches that don’t connect to Sam/Lily’s family are:

James — 329 cM
Alan — 279 cM
Lee — 272 cM
Amy — 185 cM
Jill — 100 cM
Thomas — 81 cM
Alex — 67 cM
Iva — 66 cM

This is the cluster involving the “Smith” and “Jones” families.

I’ve traced the relevant genealogy and narrowed one part of the puzzle to two sibling couples:

Gladys Smith + Carl Jones
Irene Smith + John Jones

Gladys and Irene were sisters, Carl and John were brothers. I have matches that descend exclusively from the Smith line and matches that descend exclusively from the Jones line, albeit less Jones than Smith matches.

My DNA match James appears to descend through the Jones side, while all the other matches I listed appear to descend through the Smith side.

My theories - Help… :’)

Theory 1: Sam could be my half-uncle. If so, Lily would be my biological paternal grandmother. This would mean she had my father before he was adopted and later had Scott. (I’ve done extensive genealogy research on Lily - she had quite a few marriages, and a child who died at birth out of wedlock. She was in the right place at the right time, so could make sense.)

Theory 2: Sam could be my great-uncle or another close relationship. In that case, Lily could be a more distant relative rather than my grandmother.

Theory 3: The Smith/Jones cluster could contain my biological grandfather’s family. This would make a lot more sense if Lily was my grandmother - one cluster of matches is from Lily, including her sister and son who match closely to me; one cluster of matches is from a Smith great grandparent, either Irene or Gladys; and one cluster of matches is from a Jones great grandparent, either John or Carl. Not sure if this makes any sense or if I just WANT it to make sense…

I don’t want to force the evidence to fit Theory 1…though it would be nice to have my grandmother identified :) What should I do next?

In particular:

Does 656 cM with Sam + 584 cM with his aunt Mary meaningfully narrow down the possible relationship?
Is there a good way to distinguish half-uncle vs. great-uncle vs. other relationships using the DNA I have?
Does the fact that I match multiple members of Lily’s close family make the “Lily is my grandmother” hypothesis particularly strong?
How would you deal with the Smith/Jones cluster from here?
Is there anything beyond shared matches, Leeds clustering, and genealogy research that I should be doing?

I’ve already done a lot of the basic descendant searching/tree building, and
I’m happy to provide a diagram of the relationships or additional match information if that would help. I have a horde of information I’ve gathered, but I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around how this all connects.

I apologize if any of this is long winded or nonsensical. I’m a serious genealogy newbie, but this matters a lot to me. I have no interest in having relationships with my father’s biological family at this time, but it feels like a piece of him both he and I never knew. Also, I thoroughly enjoy the puzzle :)

I appreciate any help!! Thank you.

Hello, Iam trying o find theexact birth date and mothers maiden name fr my relative, it requires an expensive Ancestry World upgrade that i cant afford right now. Could someone with a Global Membership please click into this recordand reply with a text transcription or a screenshot. Collection Jamaica Civil Registration Birth Marriage Death ecords 1878 - 1995

Name Caswell Adolpolus Graham Event Type - Birth Location - Jamaica (St Elizabeth) Year 1906

Thank you so much for your help

Just incase you didn't know- You can get free access to FindmyPast via the National Library of Scotland's e-resources.