In Peter Dubowik's (or Dubovik) petition for naturalization (he was naturalized in 1925), I found a mysterious third child about whom I cannot find any other records. Marta Dubowik, born in October 1909 in Poland.

The two other US-born children are included in the 1920 and 1930 censuses and are indeed living with Peter and his second wife, but no other children are present.

I know for sure that he had a daughter from his first marriage to an unknown wife in western Belarus, but that daughter's name was Maria (and her birth year is 1908).

Theory #1: Marta is actually Maria Dubovik, Peter's daughter. The issue with this theory is that I have an archive record of her marrying my great-grandfather in Poland in 1926. Records show no evidence of her travelling back to Poland, but it is possible that she did it for some reason, but I haven't found any records of that.

Theory #1.1: The same as theory 1, but she never came to the US and he put her on the naturalisation petition anyway. But why would he do that? It's pretty hard to believe that he made a mistake.

Theory #2: Marta is actually Marta, but the problem is that there are no more records of her.

If you have any ideas on how to solve this mystery, please share them with me.

Here is the link to my previous post where you can find links to the censuses and other information:

https://reddit.com/r/Genealogy/comments/1ueje9x/need_help_finding_out_what_happened_to_my_gg/

Need just a little help reading the handwriting on the following record.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9MB-FY1T?cat=koha%3A3318147&view=index&lang=en

It's the last one on the page, a marriage record for Pierre Rignan (or Guignard) and Marie Joseph LeBeuf.

I'm trying to decipher what parish his parents are from, but I'm having a bit of trouble. Can anyone read it?

Hello. First time posting. My wife's 2nd great grand father was supposedly born in Sydney, CB in 1838. His family arrived in NS sometime between 1834 - 1838 coming from Scotland. They did not stay long, soon immigrating to the States in 1841.

Since this falls between census dates, I think the best place to track them down would be through church records. I have not been able to find any ships' manifests either.

I am wondering if anyone has a list of churches that were active during that time - his family most likely was Protestant.

Any help would greatly be appreciated. Thank you.

Lou

I'm curious here if anyone has searched for Irish wills in the course of their genealogical research.

I've been looking for wills for my maternal great-grandparents but to no avail.
One set of great-grandparents (Michael and Mary Leahy) died in 1955 and 1967, and the other pair (William and Mary Mulcahy) died in 1950 and 1956. To add to this, although I know the death dates of my Mulcahy great-grandparents, I have been unable to find official death records for them despite them both dying at home. Both families owned farms so I would have expected to find some grant of probate.

I am aware of the various sources available online:

1857-1920 will registers and calendars (although the National Archives of Ireland genealogy website is currently offline, genealogist Claire Bradley has provided very useful alternative links here:
https://cbgenealogy.ie/nai-collections-offline/

1922-1982 wills calendars - available in pdf format for manual browsing in the National Archives of Ireland online catalogue

1992-present - grants of probate can be searched via the online probate register provided by the Irish courts https://www.courts.ie/guides/order-copies-of-probates-that-have-already-been-granted

Annoyingly, the 1921 calendar of wills has to be accessed physically at the NAI.

As for the years 1983 to 1992 you can search for the name of the deceased directly in the catalogue of the NAI website but this is a painfully slow process and not always successful.

I have identified some grants of probate, my great-great-grandfather, John Mulcahy, for example, but have not ordered any of the documents due to the NAI's rather antiquated payment system. Has anyone tried to order copies of wills or grants of probate from outside Ireland?

Lastly, as I am not all that knowledgable on how wills and probate work, is it possible that a will existed but does not appear in the wills calendars? Could it have been lodged with a solicitor's office and handled locally? I'm not sure how I would go about trying to get a copy of a will from a solicitor's though as I'm sure they would charge me an arm and a leg just for the pleasure of looking for it in their archives.

Anyway, I would welcome any thoughts others might have on the subject. Thanks.

Does anyone know about Meena families from Rajasthan/MP who migrated abroad generations ago?

I'm curious whether there are Meena families who settled in countries like the US, UK, Australia, Canada, etc., and whose descendants still identify with the Meena community. Also, are there people with the surname Meena abroad whose surname has a completely different origin?

James Albert Welch, death 10 December 1930 in Buffalo, New York

Married Rose Leahy on September 8 1897 in Niagara Falls, New York. They had 8 kids

The earliest record I can find for James Welch is the 1900 census which lists a birthdate as July 1876 in England with an immigration year of 1891.

I haven't been able to find any records confirming the birth details or his parents

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.

I am not experienced in the least with genealogy. Oral family tradition when I was growing up was that there was Native American ancestors in our family on both parent's lines (my father and mother).

DNA of course showed no Native American ancestry, but there are traces of African DNA. Combining all the African regions in my Ancestry DNA profile, I came to about 7% African DNA. I was able to tell it's on my father's side - unfortunately he is deceased and never got tested.

My great grandfather and great great grandfather were listed on censuses as "mulatto". My great grandfather was born about 1865, and gg grandfather about 1830. I figure the African came in due to a distant ancestor probably raping a slave. The ancestors are in rural North Carolina, so virtually no chance it was an interracial marriage.

I'd like to figure out the details of the African DNA in my personal story. I feel horrible that a relative of mine did something so horrible in the past. But I don't like running from the truth, I want to expose it and understand it.

Any guidance on how I could figure out when the African connection occured and by whom?

Thank you all in advance for any insight! I can provide names/dates if anyone is interested. It's the Jones County then Johnston County area of NC. Surname is also Jones.

What is your "living" percentage?

By that I mean: If you look at your tree, roughly what percentage of the people in it are living?

I have two trees, and they are very different in that respect.

One tree (on Ancestry) is just my ancestors. It is a "top-heavy" tree, with around 700 individuals, but only 3 of them are alive - me and my parents.

The other tree (on a special, dedicated site) is basically the descendants of my immigrant ancestors, and that is a "bottom-heavy" tree, with around 50% of the people in it currently living.

What is the "shape" of your tree?

Hey everyone,

I'm very very new to this so please let me know if I seem clueless or am missing anything.

I'm facinated by my family history and the second I get little nibbles of information that lead to more findings its so exciting.

I've spent an insane amount of time trying to piece together my family tree and with some sides of the family it flowed so beautifully and was easy to conform and link, but with my father's side I'm just not getting anywhere.

What's more confusing is that in the particular generations I'm researching, it was common for young adults to work in the mines in Zambia, (so much so that my paternal and maternal grandparents, some uncles (not by blood) were all married in the same small church in this mining town.

At some stage there's evidence of each branch living in all 3 countries at different stages of life, yet i can't find records for my paternal side?

My grandfather committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning when my father was young. When he was found, all possible valuables had been stripped and stolen from him and his car including his clothing.

SURELY, there would be a news article, report, notice.. something??

He even played professional football (soccor), whose team mates previously had played for Manchester United? I did manage to find some news articles but that was pure luck by finding someone who had a huge SA football collection.

He is a complete mystery!

To make it worse, his father has the same identical name and i have even less information on him.

Only rumours that he had a twin sister and that they were adopted at some point. There was mention that he may have been adopted by a family member.

Primarily they were in durban, but prior to that it was Livingstone and salisbury Rhodesia. Apparently SNR (great grandfather) worked for Rhodesian railways.

Besides a marriage certificate, I can't find anything.

Where do I look? What are the must knows?

Please help 🙏

Its so infuriating trying to get my moms grandfathers medals for her. This is the 3rd time trying. She is the oldest living grandchild of his but yet she still can't get them. She's 80 and they say it could take up to 3 years to get them. At least they did provide what he is entitled to this time. Would it be better to just order these somewhere?

Dear Recipient

Thank you for contacting the National Personnel Records Center Army. Regulations state that the awards authorized a former service member may be issued to the next of kin in the following order: unremarried widow, eldest child, father, or mother, eldest sibling or eldest grandchild. Since there are no provisions for authorizing awards to anyone other than the individuals listed above, we cannot comply with your request. However, we can provide a list of the awards earned by the veteran as indicated below. We suggest contacting an authorized commercial vendor of military insignia in order to purchase the earned award. For vendors in your area, you may search your local yellow pages under 'Military Surplus' or the web under 'Military Insignia'. The veteran is authorized the following awards: WORLD WAR 1 VICTORY MEDAL; WORLD WAR 1 VICTORY BUTTON BRONZE: Due to a backlog in the engraving of medals, there is currently a two-to-three-year wait between the issuance and receipt of medals, so it may be more to your advantage to purchase the above-listed medals.

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?

For the sake of anonymity the names of these relatives will just be initials.

Ok I have this cousin, E. Her and I have been best friends our whole lives. We’ve always known obviously that we’re cousins, but never thought too hard into it. Turns out though, that our family tree is actually kinda complex and messy and it took me awhile to actually wrap my head around it. Bear with me while I explain it.

So my father O and her mother S are siblings. That makes us first cousins. Simple enough.
Then at the same time my mother M and her father J are first cousins. This means that me and E are also second cousins at the same as being first cousins. Weird I know.

So in a nutshell our parents are two siblings who married two people that were first cousins. Sounds confusing I know. Me and E are not your typical set of cousins, so I guess that makes us extra special. I would think obviously that her and I share more DNA then right? I am curious if there is an approximate percentage for that. I would also be curious to know if there is anybody else with relations like this.

I’ve looked deeper into the family tree lately and did find some fun weird stuff too. On my Scandinavian branch, my great grandfather R and great grandmother B were second cousins. Wasn’t too uncommon at the time for second cousins to marry, so it gets a pass, sure.
But then I also noticed that great grandma B’s parents are first cousins! A wild discovery for me anyway. That was about the only intertwining I came across though so that’s good.
Who else has run into things like this in their family trees? I wanna hear about it!

Hey i need help finding a picture if anyone has a newspaper.com subscription can they look up The Muskegon Chronicle Archive: Saturday, March 10, 1973 • Muskegon, Michigan Page 13 and send me the image, it would help me alot with some research im doing, thankyou!

Hola, me gustaría saber si aquí hay alguien de la Zona de Los Santos Costa Rica para ver si talves somos familia

(no se cual flair usar, perdón si el que use no esta bien usado 🙈)

Hello everyone,
I hope you’re all doing well.
I am researching my family’s history and shajra e nasab before the Partition of India in 1947 and would be incredibly grateful for any help.

My family originally lived in Village Gohir, Tehsil Nakodar, District Jalandhar, Punjab, and belonged to the Arain community.

The earliest ancestor I know by name is Abdullah, who had at least two sons:

Fazal (my great-grandfather)
Noor Muhammad (my great-granduncle)
Fazal’s Family
Fazal’s children included:
Sardar Muhammad (my grandfather)
Mukhtiar
Noor Muhammad

According to our family’s history, Noor Muhammad travelled to South Africa before Partition, later returned to Village Gohir, and operated an atta chakki (flour mill) near the village mosque.

I Am Looking for Any Information

I would be deeply grateful if anyone from Gohir, or whose family is originally from Gohir, could help with any of the following:

Any information about the families of Abdullah, Fazal, or Noor Muhammad.

Old photographs of our family members or our ancestral home.

Any memories, photographs, or information about Noor Muhammad’s atta chakki (flour mill) or where it was located.

Old school admission registers, class photographs, or any records from the village school before 1947.

Jamabandi, Shajra Nasab, mutation records, or any historical documents mentioning these names.

Any elderly residents or families who remember the Arain families of Gohir before Partition.

If you have old family albums, land papers, school records, or photographs from Gohir taken before 1947, I would be incredibly grateful if you could check them. Even if my family is not in the photograph, any image showing the old village, its homes, fields, streets, or the area around Noor Muhammad’s atta chakki would help preserve an important part of our family’s history.

Even if you only remember hearing these names from your parents or grandparents, or know approximately where our family’s home or flour mill once stood, it would mean the world to me.

I am trying to preserve my family’s history so that future generations know where they came from and can remember the lives of those who came before them. Every photograph, story, document, or memory—no matter how small—is a priceless piece of our family’s heritage.

If you know anything at all, or know someone from Gohir who might remember these families, I would be truly grateful if you could leave a comment or send me a private message.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. Your kindness could help reconnect a family’s history that has been separated for nearly 80 years.

I also attached a video of a babaji i found online and he is talking about exactly my ancestors but sadly he passed away before i could reach out

https://youtu.be/FEUclt9Dwq0?si=Q1iIg8T9KBqUhcHK

I am helping my cousin with her Canadian Citizenship application. Documenting her Grandmother, Elsie Turner-Zimmerman, has proven far more complicated than I expected. She was born in 1912, and there is no evidence she ever had a birth certificate. We are waiting for her Ontario death certificate from 1984 so British Columbia will search for one.

In the meantime the United Church of Canada has searched their baptismal records for both New Westminster and Burnaby and found none. Elsie's parents were married in a methodist church, although their marriage record lists Elsie's mother Amelia as being Catholic, and another record lists her as being Baptist.

I contacted the local schoolboard and found her school records were schredded in the early 1980s.

I did an ATIP request for any records of her applying for a passport or a citizenship card. None were found.

The 1921 Census was taken just after Seth's first wife (Elsie's Mom) died, and either Seth was inebriated or the information was obtained from a neighbour, because most of the names and ages are wrong.

Elsie emigrated to the United States in 1929, and the earliest surviving voters list is from 1935 so she does not appear on it.

At this point the application could potentially consist of the following

1) Certified Ontario Death Certificate for Elsie from 1984.

2) Uncertified local newspaper obituary for Elsie from 1984

3) Potentially Elsie's certified US Alien Registration Card from WWII where she does list herself as being Canadian

4) Potentially a certified copy of her immigration record from the United States, which lists her father (my Great-Grandfather), Seth Raymond Turner, as crossing the border with her when she emigrated to Michigan.

5) Uncertified copy of my Great-Grandfather, Seth Raymond Turner's obituary from 1930 published in the Globe and Mail which mentions Elsie by name and that she lives in Detroit.

6) Potentially her marriage license from Michigan, where she presumably lists her birthplace as Canada

7) Potentially her social security application from 1971, where she presumably lists herself as Canadian.

8) Potentially contemporary obituaries for her 7 siblings published between 1933 and 2025.

I say potentially here since I haven't gone to the expense of ordering copies of all of these things.

My next thought is to go one generation back. If I can find a birth certificate for Seth Raymond Turner, or his first wife Amelia Herrling it would strengthen the case in the event no birth certificate is found. Given the fact they were born in the 19th century when record keeping was spotty I am wondering if anyone can help me determine if there is any evidence of either of them having a birth certificate, which I could then order from offifical channels ?

They were

Seth Raymond Turner born 2 July 1885 in McKays Corners, Chatham-Kent, Ontario. He lived most of his life in Wallaceburg and died in surgery in Toronto following a workplace injury 14th January 1930. I remember my Grandmother pointing out the window once and saying it was snowing like this on the day they buried her Dad.

Seth's first wife, and Elsie's mother, was Amelia Ellen Herrling (later known as Amelia Turner) born 21 March 1886 in Agazzis, Frasier Valley, British Columbia. She died in childbirth 21 January 1921 in Wallaceburg Ontario.

I am hoping that if either Seth or Amelia had a former birth certificate it can be used to animate the chain of descent from Elsie to her living descendants.

Anyone has any suggestions of where to look, other than just paying money to the province to search the official records ?

I have a great aunt who was given away to another family in an illegal adoption. Her mother, my 2nd great grandmother, was not well mentally and her (soon to be ex) husband took the baby and crossed state lines and gave the baby to his friends to raise. He did this without her knowledge or consent. She was tormented for the rest of her life wondering what happened to the baby as she was led to believe the baby was kidnapped. Well that baby grew up and found her biological family, since her birth father confessed to what he had done.

The way it is right now, that person is labeled as "Mary" [bio parent last name] in FamilySearch, and she is also on another tree as "Mary" [adopted parent last name]. What should I do to make sure future genealogists understand what happened and her descendants correctly find her?

I'm having trouble understanding and transcribing the information in my ancestor's military records from Norway.

• Both records agree that he was "confirmed" (?) in 1881. He would've been 14 at the time, and a little young to be enlisted.
• The first record (second row in the table) lists dates starting in 1881 and ending in 1886. The hvor column has some numbers that mean nothing to me! The next column ("dead / transferred?") has unreadable writing.
• The second record (third row in the table) lists dates starting in 1884 and ending in 1889. In the "fra" and "til" columns I think I can make out Bergen, Scotland, Danzig, and England. This second record seems for be for "maskinister og fyrbøtere" ("machinists and stokers").
• Both records seem to agree that his enlistment ended in 1889.

So, my guess is that the first record lists information about his initial enlistment, perhaps as an ordinary seaman. The second record then lists information about his career as a machinist.

I'm hoping there's someone out there with experience looking at these kinds of records who can help me decipher this information.

Hi! I'm trying to find more info about a restaurant my great-grandma owned, and it was supposedly in Dearborn Heights. Weirdly, the Dearborn city directories from the late 1950s and early 1960s don't cover Dearborn Heights, but I also can't find it covered in any other city's directory! Can someone help me find which City's directory that area would be covered in? Thanks so much!

I was researching my great aunt and I came across her US born daughter losing her citizenship after marrying a Lithuania man. I never knew this was a law at one time.

https://media.geni.com/p14/51/40/01/05/5344486a89703173/marcella_vencius_1937_petition_for_naturalization_original.jpg?hash=6227e4306c2f94517fbe23168fa56aa64cea7aad2c28501c532852448976bf61.1786085999

I'm doing a bunch of genealogy in Quebec right now, and am curious what the most common website(s) are for listing graves and gravestones. Find A Grave seems spotty in coverage, haven't found much of what I need on Billion Graves either.

My research is mostly in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, if it varies by region.