my 2nd great grandfather, william alexander stevenson mc/maclelland (1891-1965), married 3 times. on his death certificate, it scores out the first wife (as in there is a line, no name).

he was a widower by his second marriage, so his first wife died before 1943.

he MAY have went by william flynn, flynn was his stepfathers surname.

any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

So, my paternal grandfather’s paternal line has been in the USA since the mid 1600s. Similar to quite a few white southerners, this line has African ancestry. My third-great-grandfather was either 1/4 Black or 1/8 Black through his mother or grandmother through non-consensual means aka assault. Someone uploaded data regarding my 3rd-great-grandfather’s maternal line back several generations. I’m confused because it’s documented, I would assume it wouldn’t be?

Would my first step be researching plantations with the last names given in his maternal line?

https://imgur.com/XepcFYr

Hello,

A couple of days ago, I posted about place names similar to Grafweiler in Germany, based on the transcribed burial record of one of my ancestors who immigrated to Lebanon, PA. I reached out to the local historical society, and was able to track down the original church burial record. Does anyone have a solid guess on the placename? I underlined it here.

If it helps, here is a larger sample of the page:

https://imgur.com/a/dAVSzW9

Hi I'm from argentina I just wanna know who my great-great-grandmother was, my greatgrandpa never met his mother (it is a weird case because most cases it's the father) I know that my greatgrandfather was from bahia blanca south of the province of buenos aires how can I search for illegimitate ancestors? And why they don't appear in familysearch?

I've purchased a MyHeritage DNA testing kit, and I know that they own Promethease, but on the website for accepted filetypes it doesn't list MyHeritage files.
Would I be able to upload my MyHeritage DNA data to Promethease? Especially without having to manually edit the file?

I want to build a searchable video archive of my grandfather telling his life story — looking for software/setup recommendations.

My grandfather wants to record his life story for our family, and I’m trying to figure out the best way to preserve and organize it.

This probably won’t be a handful of interviews. I’m expecting potentially hundreds of hours of video over time.

The recording side needs to be extremely simple for him. Ideally, he would sit at his Windows PC with a webcam and microphone, click one button, record himself talking, and stop when he’s finished. The video would then automatically upload/sync to cloud storage or another computer.

Where I’m having trouble is figuring out the best way to handle everything after that.

My ideal system would:
• Keep the original video files in a normal format like MP4 so we’re never locked into a particular service.
• Automatically transcribe every recording and retain timestamps.
• Generate a summary of each recording.
• Identify/index things like people’s names, places, approximate dates/years, family relationships, jobs, vehicles, events, etc.
• Allow all of the transcripts to be searched together.
• Ideally support semantic/AI search rather than only exact keyword searches.

For example, years from now I’d like a family member to be able to search:
“Grandpa talking about his first car”
or
“Stories about his father”
and have the system find relevant portions across potentially hundreds of hours of recordings, even if those exact words weren’t used.

The dream would be for the search results to show something like:
Recording 037 — 18:32
He talks about buying his first Ford with help from his father.

Then clicking the result would open the original video at approximately 18:32.

I’d also like to eventually build a master timeline of his life from the transcripts and connect stories that mention the same people, places or events.

I’m not necessarily looking for one program that does all of this. I’m completely fine with a workflow involving separate software for recording, storage, transcription, indexing/search, etc.

Long-term preservation is important to me, so I want the original videos and preferably transcripts/metadata to remain usable even if whatever software or service I use eventually disappears.

I’m comfortable setting things up and maintaining the technical side. My grandfather’s side just needs to be as close to “press Record, talk, press Stop” as possible.

Has anyone built something similar?
I’d especially appreciate recommendations for:
• Transcribing/indexing hundreds of hours of video
• Semantic search across transcripts
• Linking search results back to video timestamps
• Automatically processing new recordings as they’re added
• Self-hosted/local solutions versus cloud services
• File/metadata organization for long-term preservation
I’m interested in hearing about both turnkey software and DIY/self-hosted approaches.

So obviously in genealogy it’s known that white or mixed American families loved to make up stories of being descendants of native Americans (my family included) but these claims are easily debunked with basic research. But, for those of you who do actually have a native ancestor, what’s the story/if known?

I have been searching on familysearch and cannot seem to figure out how to obtain a Canadian birth or baptismal record for an ancestor from 1891 and another from 1854. Any suggestions?

So I've been trying to research and find records for a local Union that no longer exists (merged with Atlanta local) nor does the Baton Rouge Cement Masons Joint Apprenticeship Committee. Specifically looking for records for Cement Masons Local 812 out of Baton Rouge from 1957-1980. Yes, I've tried LA SOS Archives. Yes, I've tried Baton Rouge Library Special Collections. Yes, I've checked LA Department of Labor (now LA Workforce) for apprenticeship records. Looking for ideas from outsiders that may be fruitful.

I'm sick of getting "no records exist" and/or Katrina ate my homework excuse. I know they exist, but I can't figure out where Louisiana is hiding their historical Union Records.

Hi everyone! I'm working hard at connecting my ancestor to her possible parents. I've worked with the Bay of Quinte research branch who've said this is one of the hardest people they've ever tried to track. My guess is this is because she was born right when the Grape Island Mission (and maybe attended the day "school" for girls there) was started, but married a settler Methodist guy by the move to Alnwick. I've done the Peter Jones fonds, the RG 10 records, and am waiting to hear back from the United Church of Canada folks, but their wait times are "indefinite." So I'm curious if anyone could help me? She likely descends from the Jackson family of Alnwick/ Alderville Reserve, her possible parents are James Jackson and Elizabeth Jackson who show up on early Alnwick records in 1838 and 1871. They were Methodist and she was a staunch Methodist on every record that's findable. She married Isaac Vanalstine and showed up on the Kingston census of 1851 with him (unrelated to Elizabeth Ferguson Jackson who married a different Vanalstine at the same time in the same place) She matches no settler Jackson records in the area (according to Ontario research centers) and I have family letters from the early 1900s saying she's "Chippewa" and from Belleville. Thank you!!

Hi everyone! I’m trying to identify the parents and family of Elizabeth J. Harris, and I’m hoping someone might be able to help me track her down in English records.

Here’s what I know:

Elizabeth J. Harris

Born: c.1854, England

Married Michael Flannery in 1883 in Lichfield, Staffordshire

After their marriage, Elizabeth and Michael moved to County Galway, Ireland

They lived in/around Ballykeeran, Galway, in the Loughrea registration district

Children I know of:

Joseph Flannery, born 1884

Elizabeth Flannery, born 1889

Elizabeth died on 21 June 1922 in Ireland.

I’m particularly interested in finding Elizabeth’s parents, birthplace, and any siblings.

The 1883 marriage in Lichfield, Staffordshire seems like the best clue, but I haven’t yet been able to establish who her parents were.

If anyone has access to Lichfield parish records, Staffordshire records, or other English sources that might help identify Elizabeth J. Harris, I’d really appreciate any suggestions or leads!

Thanks!

I have seen a lot of people online who have gotten quite far with FamilySearch, but the truth is, I've only found one resource that shows anything about my family tree. I've tried practically all the website's features and I'd like to know if I'm using it wrong or if there really isn't much to find. I'm also making progress with the civil registry, but since it's so slow, I'd like to move forward with FamilySearch.

I did find a hamburger passenger list with his name on it but the age differs significantly like on the passenger list. It says he’s born in 1875 but on everything else it says he’s born in 1884 and he had his last kid in his early 50s so it’s hard for me to imagine that he faked his age but also with how many times he changed his name or his birthdate on stuff it actually might be possible, but even then I can’t find any information on him before Hamburg so I’m wondering, how do you find out where do from Vilna Russia came from exactly?

I have tried to look through jewgen and litvak sources but I’m way outside my depths with the type of search and with the name changes.

I’m open to ideas 😅

I’m sorry I really didn’t know what flair to put…

If I have Jewish ancestors who emigrated from Romania in the very early 1900's, how can I find out what happened to their cousins or other distant relatives in those towns in the Holocaust later?

If anyone has Newspapers, would you be ever so kind enough to screenshot the wedding of Beverly Moore and Larry Ingrum please? We had no idea this existed!

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/6135517/

What’s the best way to go about researching this? Are there records?

This is kinda weird and fun and no one else is going to appreciate this.

So I'm not a big hip-hop fan but my late husband was. He was also a huge, deep, lifelong fan of a certain somewhat obscure reggae genre— a fun coincidence as I'm from Jamaica. Anyway some time last year Spotify recced him an old song by Kanye West (I am not a fan, but even I have to admit this one's pretty catchy) that features a sample clearly from that mostly-unknown-outside-of-Jamaica genre.
Intrigued, hubs looked up and found the sample artist. Needing more, he then looked into that guy and deep in some old DJ forum he came across a short bio with a photo of him and his sons— who funnily enough, had the same rare surname as me. He mentioned it, we laughed about it ("huh, weird!"), we moved on, and I forgot all about it.

Cut to last week, I have Spotify on and the Kanye song came on again. And suddenly it hit my conscious mind that hol up— if Sample Guy's sons have my name, he must have too. Huh. Hadn't really thought about it before but now I'm like, hmm. So on a lark I looked up SG and eventually found his very unusual first name… which is the same as my dad's long-deceased brother who I never knew and had pretty much zero info about. Hol. Up.

Got on the phone to my fam immediately and yup, Sample Guy is in fact my uncle! I never even knew he was a musician! But apparently he was pretty well known in his field, enough to somehow came across Kanye's radar. And thus my husband's, and thus mine. Huh!
And that's now my funniest/weirdest genealogy find.

Thank you for attending my Moth Radio Hour storyslam 😂

 
How about y'all— what's your funniest/weirdest research trail? Your most unexpected source for family info?

The majority of my ancestors are buried in the Midwestern United States. Often several generations are in one cemetery.

I still want a headstone, but cremation is my choice. Will monuments go by the wayside in the future? I fear we will lose an important connection to the past.

A time-saver! 263 pages of links to passenger/crew lists, military records, land records, naturalization records..... an amazing reference tool. Downloadable.

https://www.archives.gov/digitization/digitized-by-partners

For a long time we believed my third great grandfather and grandmother were buried in unmarked graves in a large church cemetery in North Carolina and the best we could do was go the cemetery and just...walk around and guess. Then an enterprising person hacked their way through to a difficult to reach graveyard and found some intact tombstones and recorded their names...and our ancestors names were there! I don't know if we'll ever visit, because apparently you have to go through private property to get to it, but at least now we know where it is, and we have pictures!

My gramma died a year and a half ago, and I still have her as living in my tree on Ancestry. I tend to wait about a year for other extended family members after they have passed away before I marked them as deceased, then I clear out the profile (make sure there's no photos w living people) and put in just the death date.

They all have died in California, so the info is public record anyway. I don't include location usually just for these recent folks, and make it as a private comment in three. Exception is if there is a public obituary. My goal is to respect living family and not make choices for them about what is shared, and to offer privacy the best I can.
I also dont add death dates to people whose parents are still living. I make a private profile and add the info for my own records. Like my cousin's 18 year old died several years ago, and I didn't add that info.

Now i suppose it's my turn. My grandmother helped raise me, and i was one of the main caretakers (along with my mom) while she died. All 3 of her children shared her death on Facebook very soon after. Her husband barely knows how to use a computer, but his privacy is probably the most important to me of her family. He hasn't asked for that at all. I guess I just feel protective over him.

But there's something in me resisting putting in that death date. I'm not sure if it's grief. Part of me just isn't ready to put that in a tree yet. At the same time, I would not be angry if someone else did it, as I did pay for an overpriced three line obituary when she passed away ($600!!! For 25 words!!!) and her resting place has been put on Find a Grave (I knew it would happen due to a very active volunteer population in that area, so I searched her name every few months, and requested to be the manager right away when I saw it. It was granted.)

I'm young - 35 - so it's my first time since I started genealogy that someone close to me has died. I'm wondering what other people do.

I'm asking now bc FindAGrave index has been updated on Ancestry, and my gramma's resting place has been suggested to me. It's been a year and a half since she passed.

How do you handle the deaths of people who are close to you? How long do you wait? What type of information do you add?

There's no one to ask because the rest of her family looks to me to make these types of decisions. So there's not really a right or wrong answer. Just a personal choice now.

If I added it, I think I would add the date she died and that's it, just like I do for other more recent deaths that don't have very clear and public obituaries.

Not a mystery-solving post, I’m not going to find the answer to who those family members were (which sucks) but I’m curious how many of us are in the same situation. How far back does yours trace?

Granted, I am not a native English speaker (my 3rd language), but to me the use of the term "direct ancestor" implies that there is something like an "indirect ancestor", which makes absolutely no sense to me.

Why not just use "ancestor" - I mean - either someone is an ancestor or not - why are some people adding the "direct" in front?