AncestrySisters on Family Tree Circles
Journals and Posts
Adoption Genealogy = new community on Facebook
We have launched a new community on Facebook called Adoption Genealogy. If your ancestors were adopted, orphaned or placed into guardianship at an early age, please join our community. We are based in the US and have knowledge on how to research these early adoptions. But this community is for anyone to discuss their mystery and hopefully find someone that can help know down those brick walls.
Please Like our page at the following link
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Adoption-Genealogy/514354208687246?ref=hl
Chicago Irish Genealogy
New Facebook Page to follow your Irish ancestors that lived in Chicago, Illinois. Please ask questions and share your stories with us.
url=https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chicago-Irish-Genealogy/1421431758111823
SEARCHING FOR MY IRISH GG GRANDMOTHER ELLEN HEFFERNAN
http://ancestrysisters.blogspot.com/2013/11/searching-for-my-irish-gg-grandmother.html
Was Mary Doefour really Anna Myrle Sizer? Help us find new clues and confirm this mystery.
35 years ago, an amnesia patient died in a nursing home in Morton, Illinois. This photo and story appeared in the Peoria Journal Star, in Peoria, Illinois on February 25, 1979. We have transcribed this article exactly as it was printed in February of 1979 for easier reading, and to honor the upcoming 35th anniversary of the Rick Baker series. Over the next week, we will post the 6-part series that ran in the newspaper so that you can experience the same interest and intrigue that we felt in 1979. Fast forward to today, we hope that our friends and genealogy community can find new clues and help confirm the mystery of Mary Doefour.
http://ancestrysisters.blogspot.com/
When to Hire a Genealogist and How to Hire a Genealogist
http://ancestrysisters.blogspot.com/
Whether you are just beginning to research your family history, or you have been working on your branches for years, there comes a time to hire a professional genealogist.
Click on the link above to read the entire blog. It doesn't cut and paste properly into this post
Mayflower Society Application Process
I have gone through the Mayflower Society Application process and our family has been officially accepted as members. Our roots traced our family back to Francis Cooke, Stephen Hopkins and Elizabeth Fisher Hopkins who came over on the Mayflower in 1620.
What an exhausting yet rewarding process. What is exhausting is the detail that the society expects when proving a connection. This is critical in order to ensure you have the true relationship established.
One must provide all vital documents for the current 3 generations in your line (birth, marriage and death records). They require the courthouse documents, not church records. And if a vital record doesn't exist because a state didn't require them at that time, then they need something in writing from the government agency that the records did not exist at that time.
Connecting the generations beyond the current 3 requires birth, marriage and death records; however this is where it gets tricky. States didn't always require them earlier in the US, parents were rarely listed on these documents, and records were often destroyed in local courthouses. One must truly be crafty to figure out how to properly establish kinship.
Census Records earlier than 1880 do not establish the relationship to the head of the household. Thus, they rarely accept them as documentation.
All written Wills and Probate records used in your documentation must include a typed translation. This sounds easy but some of the older wills were written with such elaborate scripts that they are very hard to read.
All newspaper obituaries must include a typed translation. Again, this sounds easy but some copies of newspaper obituaries are extremely blurry.
All documents must include sources and any cover pages if using materials from books.
The rewarding part came from the fact that all of my hard work over the years in tracing my lineage paid off in spades when I had about 95% of my application complete by the time I submitted my documents. But that is most often very rare. What was left to do was gather a few vital records since they would not accept church records as the main document to connect the dots. My family left just enough snippets of clues to let me know there was a connection, and then gave me a trail to satisfy that connection. It was just up to me to collect the necessary documents which included everything from Vital Records, Probates including Wills and Land Records, Newspaper Obituaries, Church Records, Census Records, Widows Pension Record, Cemetery Records, Cemetery Headstone Photos, and more.
At the end of the day, I didn't realize how much this membership would mean to me until I received an official acceptance. It is an honorable distinction to know that my family had such strong and admirable ancestors that braved the cold seas to bring us life in this new land. I am forever grateful to my family roots.
Searching for my Grandmother's Birth Parents = Updated 12/8/12
Our Bohemian grandmother was born in the year 1900 in Chicago and given up for adoption. It was one of the last family searches I attempted to work on because of the daunting nature of the challenge. ? Fast forward to this month, we just got exciting news about the birth father. I located a 3rd cousin of the suspected birth father. She took a DNA test along with my brother, and it came back with a match. It was a beautiful moment. If you are on the fence about a family connection, I highly recommend the DNA route.
You can read the blog at the site below.
http://www.ancestrysisters.blogspot.com/
Looking for Driscoll Families
If your family has the Driscoll Surname, we are looking for members to join the Driscoll DNA Project. The more people that take the test, the better chance we have of connecting with our relatives. Currently there are 79 people from around the world taking part and connecting thru DNA. See link below.
My Driscoll family came from Leap, Cork, Ireland in the parish of Kilmacabea around 1840. I have reason to beleive some immigrated to Australia. John Driscoll married Julia Dempsey.
Here is the link:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~colin/DriscollOfCork/DNA.htm
The Scary Side of Your Family Tree
My newest blog
http://ancestrysisters.blogspot.com/
Feel free to share your scary stories.
Ireland Catholic Church Records
I just got back from a week long research trip to Ireland. I learned a lot about Catholic Church Records in Ireland. If anyone wants me to look up or confirm the parish that your ancestors are from, I have a great index book that has detailed parish names, towns, and diocese, all by County. I can also tell you what records exist and the dates available to look at.