I have dna tested myself, my dad and my maternal grandfather. After uploading these kits, I got a match with me, my father and another person on the website. However, the person who matched is closer related to me 0.8% (59.1‎ cM) than my father 0.2% (16.2‎ cM)? Also no match with my maternal grandfather? Is it an error or a relative of my maternal grandmother got together with a relative of my dad?

Hi all. I'm trying to help somebody in their research, but as someone who doesn't usually do UK research, I'm feeling a bit out of my depth.

We're trying to find immigration records to determine the hometown of a Japanese man who moved to the UK in the 1910s.

According to the family, he was born in Miyagi Prefecture and settled in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, in 1916. (I think they believe this based on info written in a local history book, and I'm not sure what that book's sources are.) I haven't been able to find records to corroborate this info.

These are the few details I have on the man:

- name: Tomoji Doi

- born: 6 Oct 1893 (Japan)

- married: Oct 1923 (Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire)

- wife: Gladys Wilberforce (1897-1953)

- 1939 register: living in Middlesbrough with wife+children, occupation given as "seaman, discharged 21/8/39, last ship Dona Isabel"

- died: Oct 1971 (Teesside, North Yorkshire)

I was able to find a couple of 1940s passenger lists from the UK to the US which I think are a match for him (after all, how many British Tomoji Doi's can there be), but no passenger lists for him from Japan to the UK.

As I've said, I don't usually search UK records, so I don't know where to look/what to look for when trying to figure out the exact location of origin pre-immigration.

Thank you for any help/pointers!

Within Familysearch, my great-grandfather's birthplace (born in 1881) is listed as Kürtow, Arnswalde, Brandenburg, Prussia, Germany. I tried looking up where that is and I think it's a village now called Korytowo in Poland. Is there any chance of locating records such as birth certificates from that area? How would I do that? Is it likely that any records there might have been destroyed or misplaced?

I come from a family of artists, successful in one country or another. I was a child when most of them were around, so I don't remember ever meeting them. They've passed either before my birth or around the time when I was around ten.

I've been in touch with their children, but we haven't came around to discussing about them specifically per se – it's more about the mysteries in the family, not their parents.

A couple of books have been written about either these relatives or their bands, and I've took the liberty to read them... Yet I feel so weird about it. Recently an actor that played one of my relatives pictured themselves in front of the family grave, and I felt a bit weird about it, even though I didn't see it as a negative thing.

I don't know what's the question I'm exactly asking, but I guess it's this: should I avoid reading the biographies or books before I talk to the specific relatives more involved with them?

It's Saturday, so it's time to ask all of those "silly questions" you have that you didn't have the nerve to start a new post for this week.

Remember: the silliest question is the one that remains unasked, because then you'll never know the answer! So ask away, no matter how trivial you think the question might be.

Like the title says- what are the most common first names you keep encountering over and over among your ancestors when you trace back? I descend from 12 Katherinas, 9 Johanns, 6 Matthiases, 6 Marias, and 6 Magdalenas so far

I'll probably get downvoted for this but hear me out.

I was adopted, and I grew up into adulthood before ever meeting my parents. When I did meet my siblings they told me growing up they would volunteer at a tribe in oregon. Once a month or so much. When I spoke to my uncle he said that his mother had done it with her parents and so on with theirs, and that his great grandmother was a part of a tribe somewhere near Snake River in NE Oregon. He has photographs too. I thought this was cool and wanted to continue this family tradition with my family.

I see low levels of native 0.75 - 3.5% in almost every dna test but I'm having trouble finding out more about them because my uncle is going through some health issues an is hard to get a hold of.

I'm not saying "im native" but would kinda be cool to study the history, learn the language (I'm a polygot) and adopt traditions to pass down.

Is this sounding like a family myth or is there too much?

Hi all,

I have a brick wall on one of my German lines that I have been trying to figure out for quite a while now. My 5-G Grandparents, Anton and Marie Elisabeth Hohn, emigrated to Maryland with their children in the 1840s from Bischofsheim in der Rhoen, a small village in what is today Northern Bavaria. The earliest record that I have confirmed to be them is the passenger list from the ship that they came over on. I did find a marriage record in the Civil Registration for Bischofsheim for an Anton Hohn and Elisabetha Deget, however I'm not sure if it's the right couple, as Marie Elisabeth is listed as having had the maiden name "Driesh" (Dreisch was a popular last name in Bischofsheim at the time) in a few records that I have from America. I can't find any other Anton Hohn that lived in the area at the time.

My next thought was to look for a birth record for one of their children. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like any of the church records (which is where I would find baptisms) are digitized (yet). I'm also unsure of whether they were Lutheran or Catholic, but my best guess would be Lutheran. I'm out of ideas. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

hello! I am wondering if anyone with access to Ancestry could help me find a record in the Hamburg Passenger List. here's the info I have from naturalization records of the individual I'm looking for:

• Name: Stephen Winter OR Winters
• Departed: July 7, 1913, Hamburg, Germany
• Arrived: July 15 OR 17, 1913, New York, New York
• Vessel: Imperator
• Line: Ham Am G
• Born (maybe): December 28, 1887, Preszof, Austria (Prešov, Slovakia)

I'm particularly interested in more information about or confirmation of this person's hometown / place of birth. please let me know if there's any other information that would be helpful, and, if you are able to assist...thank you for your generosity!

They're for the following people:

1. Charles Augustus Jones, born in NYC in 1834. Father: Charles Jones. Mother: (Listed by her maiden name, Mriknacone). Wife: Aurelia Mary "Amelia" Washington (born in NYC in 1847). I have a possible death record that lists an 1873 death, but I could be wrong.
2. His wife, Aurelia Mary "Amelia" Washington. Possibly listed under Aurelia Jones. Born in NYC in 1847. Her parents: Robert P. Washington & Elizabeth Varrick (1827-).
3. Aurelia's sister, Catharine Varrick (born in NYC in 1839). Parents: Mary Varrick (1805-) and David Cowpland. I don't know if she married.

Charles & Aurelia's 1870 marriage license: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Kinda confusing which is it?

I know who my mother’s mother is but I have very little on her father. I believe we only have a first name and scant details. (And I think the name that was provided upon her adoption was different from the details my mother’s mother provided when she finally made contact with my mother). I did get my genome sequenced but the “heritage” details were vague - basically 99.9% western European (English/Irish/Scottish) and one lone Hungarian. How might I find out more on this dead end with my maternal grandfather? Is there somewhere I could upload my genetic results to find matches while still retaining privacy?

I found a match sharing 9 CM with me, whose tree leads to a couple that is my direct ancestor couple. We would be 4th cousins one time removed.

Ancestry DNA shows him as sharing only one segment with me.

Shouldn’t people who share DNA have at least two segments, because they descend from at least two different people?

Or is it that the segment corresponding to say, my 4th grandfather stuck around while the one from his my 4th great grandmother was more short lived and disappeared? Or viceversa too.

How likely is it that the entries above and below my ancestors are their immediate neighbors? I know that earlier census records didn't list an address. Thanks!

I can't find it. But there has to be a place where I can see the OCR of the image.

I have found a newspaper article that lists relatives but when I search the text, it doesn't come up in search. What I'm thinking is that the OCR is seeing something else, but I can't figure out what it's reading it as. Is there a place in Newspapers to get the transcription/OCR version of what it's saying? If so, I can't find the link....

Thanks!

So from my understanding, my family has arabic descendants that came into mexico and their last name was guteraq. I found some of these on ancestry, but it doesn't go any further than my grandparents grandparents. They eventually change their name in mexico to gutierrez, to make it easier. But other than that, I cannot trace it back any further than my great grandparents from mexico, and there's only like generations of it. Apparently, they came from saudi arabia, but any people that are arabic that I speak to never heard of that last name and I cannot find the last name online either. Any possible way I can find this information other than ancestry because it is not available .

I am researching my grandmother's family in Italy. Her family is from Itri. My great great grandmother's maiden name is Maschina. I can't find anything about that branch of the family nor is it a common last name. I know her and her husband did not immigrate to the US. I am starting to think that her family might have immigrated to Italy at some point.

I'm trying to find the parents of one James Annan Wilson, born in the Bengal presidency in 1905. His baptism records list the parents as "John and Emily Wilson", as well as that they lived in Lucknow, and that his father worked for R&K Railway. I've also found a baptism record for his older sister in 1903 (same information given about the parents). And that's... all I can find?

I've got plenty of info on James himself (including his entry in the 1921 census in Scotland, when he was sent back for schooling). But I can't find any records of a marriage between a John Wilson and an Emily that could possibly fit, either in India or in Scotland.

I've explored the possibility that "Annan" might be Emily's maiden name, but none of the individuals that brings up could possibly fit. It doesn't help that "John Wilson" is about as common a name as it's possible to have in the UK.

Does anyone with a bit more knowledge of British India records have any suggestions about what to try? Would the railway have kept records of their employees? Is there some way to track when the children travelled between the UK and India for school? (The passenger lists on findmypast didn't get me anywhere, but possibly they're not the only ones).

I’ve hit a brick wall with who I think is my 3rd great grandfather. Where I’m really getting stumped is his name– Tomperich.

Here’s his FamilySearch profile: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/about/GGYD-WFW

He goes by Gergorio Tomperich, then George Thompson, then he switches between Tomperich (sometimes spelled Tomperick) and Thompson for the rest of his life.

The difficult thing is that the name Tomperich doesn’t seem to exist anywhere else except for his and his children’s records. Based on his records, he seems to have immigrated from Trieste, Italy, but I can’t find any records.

So this leaves me with a few questions:

1. Was it common for immigrants to switch between their birth names and their Americanized names? Or is it more likely that these are two separate families that have been combined? I think I’m really stuck on why they would give some children the last name Thompson and some Tomperich.

2. How do I research someone whose name doesn’t seem to exist?

Any and all help untangling this is appreciated. Thank you in advance!

i ordered it on oct 19th it arrived oct 26 and it arrived at the lab today. now how long will it take to get results?

I am searching for parents of one of my ancestors. The problem is his parents were not married so I don't have any clue who his father was. Also there is not a single clue about where his mother was born I only have her full name.

I searched trough all nearby baptism indexes from his birth to 50 years prior and I could find only 1 exact match in full name of a woman that should be 38 years old when she had him.

I wanted to link them by looking if where she was born was close enough to where he later lived to make a solid connection but I can't read a single word on that page.

I would really apriciate if anyone could help and dechipher the name of the area of the place and the street name. Also if possible please dechipher the names of the parents.

The entry is numbered 44 and is the second entry on the page where the womans name is Aloisia

Link to batism entry: https://data.matricula-online.eu/sl/slovenia/maribor/sv-jurij-v-slovenskih-goricah/03144/?pg=213

The Hussey-Walsh manuscript collection has recently been digitized by the Irish Genealogical Research Society and a sample is now accessible online for free for a limited time only. The collection contains over 100,000 references to individuals, primarily from merchant, middle-class and upper-class Irish Catholic families, many of whom lived in the 18th century. More info here: https://irishheritagenews.ie/free-access-to-newly-digitized-hussey-walsh-collection-featuring-thousands-of-references-to-irish-catholics/

Or search the collection here: https://www.irishancestors.ie/search/hw_index/free/indexf.php

Part 2 is here: I just solved another brick wall! :

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Now that I've found Robert P. Washington's (1830-) enslaver in the 1850 Slave Schedule was Bailey Washington III (1787-1854), how do I find Robert's father?

Bailey is also my distant cousin (I'm descended from the Washingtons, via a separate line).

I also know Robert's daughter, Ella Washington (1869-) lived with Thomas Delaware (1791-), Matilda, Bertha and George (1845-) Washington in 1870.

Robert, Sylvia and their older daughter, Eleanor Washington (1867-) were living together in 1870, as well.

And Robert's wife was Sylvia Ann Jeffries (1848, Amherst County, Virginia - ?).

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Regarding the 1860 Slave Schedules though, there were 7 enslavers in Washington, D.C. in 1860, surnamed Washington. None of them owned slaves that matched Robert's age. However, one enslaver did concern me a great deal: There was one enslaver, listed by the surname "Washington". He only owned 1 slave; this slave had no age or gender listed. Their information was completely blank, and only had the word "Unknown" listed.

So, tell me: How would I find Robert's enslaver from the 1860 Slave Schedule?

The suspicious Washington enslaver: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Robert's enslaver, Dr. BWIII (1787-1854), in 1850: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

I don't now where else to look. I am trying to find my 3x Great Grandfather Heinrich Hormann. I don't have much info on him at all. From word of mouth he was born in Prussia, Germany (no know can tie down a city or town) supposedly on November 30, 1837 and died sometime in 1879. He may or may not have been in the miliary again no one knows for sure. He was married to Meta (Huenke) Hormann sometime in 1869. The only info I have found is on her. She and the 3 kids she had with Heinrich immigrated in 1881 to America and she remarried to a man named Henry Poehler. I found their immigration records, I can not find anything on them on any German site or American Genelogy site from before they immigrated. I also found some hand written letters in really old German that no one I know can read. The Hormann line literally stops with him because I cant find anything. No birth, marriage or death records for him. I can't afford to hop on a plan to Germany or pay someone $3000 - $11000 dollars to research for me. Also in researching I have noticed that Heinrich was a pretty popular name and most Germans had at least two middle names but I was told through the family that he didn't have that which is odd to me. I also have a family tree on Ancestry.com and took the DNA test and still nothing shows up for him. Can anyone point me in the right direction. Any info my family has about him is all heresy and I don't now what else to do. Any help or direction would be appreciated. Thanks.

I'm trying to decipher this marriage record from Rijeka. It's written in latin and I cannot make out what it says for "Originis" on line 145.
For context: This is the marriage of Beniaminus/Benjamin Papp and Anna Babrig/Babrieck. Any help is appreciated.
Here is a link to the document on FamilySearch

Anybody else have severely twisted families when they name their kids?

My gr-grandparents had stillborn twin boys and named them. Then a year later has a son and names him the same name as one of the twins/his brother. This would be my grandfather.

Fast-forward... my grandfather remarries and starts having kids with his second wife, my grandmother. Their first is a stillborn (female), they name her. They have a boy. Then have another stillborn (female), reuse the name of first stillborn daughter. Then exactly 2 years later on the same date as the death certificate, my grandmother gives birth to my mother. Names her the same thing as her first 2 daughters.

Confirmed this information with my uncle.

I told my paternal aunt about this as I share some random highlights of my research with her and she said that this was disturbing on so many levels and wrong.

EDIT: where I grew up was common for falsified papers so there was questionable stuff in regard to my mom, especially as the death certificate has the same date but different year.

I found a U.S. immigration record for a Wilhelm Hirzel dated September 1, 1923. It says he is going to Brooklyn, New York to the home of his brother-in-law "Mr. Kinzibska". I can find no such name anywhere in America from any time or place. All I know is that Wilhelm was a German from Russia, whose family had first emigrated from Germany to Tbilisi, Georgia in the early 1800s. Wilhelm went to America from there.

I assume Mr. Kinzibska was married to Wilhelm's sister, as by 1923 he already had a couple of siblings in Brooklyn, but I don't know for certain — it's possible that Kinzibska was the brother of Wilhelm's wife, though he was traveling alone.

Any ideas as to what the name Kinzibska might actually be? All I can guess is that it was misspelled or mistranscribed. The document is typed, so it's not a handwriting issue. Thank you.

Hello all,

Recently, I've been having trouble correcting the record on an ancestor. In a report I've recently received, I'm looking at Frederick George Roberts. Info below:

born on 25 Dec 1856 in Barrow On Trent, Derbyshire, England, UK. He died on 12 Mar 1943 in Edmonton, Middlesex, England, UK (Age: 86). He married Ellen Snoswell, daughter of Sydney Snoswell and Hannah Goostree, on 29 Jun 1880 in Upper Edmonton, Middlesex, England, UK (St. James Church, Upper Edmonton, Middlesex, England, UK). She was born on 21 Jul 1858 in Enfield, Middlesex, England, UK. She died in Jun 1941 in Edmonton, Middlesex, England.

The report also says:

Notes for Frederick George Roberts: He was in the Navy and went to the North Pole with Franklin.

As far as I can tell, this is impossible, as all of Franklin's expeditions happened before he was born. However, I'm trying to see if he was in the Navy, and might have gone on a different arctic expedition, or if this is all just utter fiction. Any possible help? I wasn't able to dig up anything on my initial searches on the British archives or the free ancestry military records.

Brick Wall Smashed!

I finally did it! My Hungarian great grandfather was born out of wedlock to a woman who also was born out of wedlock. Because of the common names I had to work with, and the fact I had no two American records with the same location listed for either him or his mother combined, I don’t think I could have found him just by going off search results. My theories ranged from kidnapped child to Trianon refugee. Honestly, quite close, as his mother left him when he was 5 to come to America and started a life here. He came over in 1921 as a young adult and finally joined her.

He was born in a “suburb” of the city he said we was from, thus the record wasn’t associated with that city. The mother’s birth location (note: something not indexed and searchable) corresponds with an American record I have of her, and the informant was her mother using her husband’s name (typical situation for the time). However, the parents I had for her on American records turned out to actually be grandparents names, with an incorrect surname (likely a guess).

I’ve been working on this hardcore since the beginning of July. I started with the ridiculous attempt at doing genetic genealogy on the few mutual matches between me, my 2C1R, and her mother. These people had no more than 25cM at the highest match. But the proximity of those matches to a suspected town prompted me to just start mapping out a village. The town I had had appeared to be listed as being in a different county, which made no sense.

After burnout, despite it being really fun, I finally focused on the common surname I had to work with. I had to manually go through marriage and death records to rule out individuals with the same names based on their residences and determine if those people even made it to adulthood. Many instances of a couple whose child named after one of the parents married someone with the same name as the other parent.

I’m not entirely sure I needed to map out half of an entire village over a century, but that may be useful for what’s to come. I’ve connected two of those DNA matches together already, I think they are 3-4th cousins themselves. But now I have my ancestors back to 1821 with the possibility of still going further.

This was 1 of 3 brick walls I had. The remaining two are finding a birth record from 1680 Massachusetts Bay Colony (and he’s also likely a bastard child!), and getting a birth record from the archives in Uzhorod Ukraine during a war (to officially place that ancestor overseas).

I hope it made sense but unfortunately for y’all I’m not linking anything. I’ve damned near doxxed myself on Reddit again already.