ancestry.com migraine....

[flyrod6057]

well with a history like that id have to say MacBraggart!

HA!

[Burly Brute]

Ugh, I have since cancel my subscription and put things on hold--somewhat. It seems much of the time to be an overwhelming burden.

[markv]

I understand your pain. I've been trying to trace back my father's side of the family but so far I keep hitting dead ends. I know my grandfather's name and the name of his parents but I cannot find any birth records. Part of my issue is that his SSA application states one state for his birth, his death certificate states another, and my father's birth certificate states yet a third birth location for my grandfather. I've tried searching with Ancestry.com but I cannot seem to find any matches other than the documents I already have copies of.

Addicting - yes, but also very frustrating at times.

Best of luck to ya.

[Burly Brute]

I understand your pain. I've been trying to trace back my father's side of the family but so far I keep hitting dead ends. I know my grandfather's name and the name of his parents but I cannot find any birth records. Part of my issue is that his SSA application states one state for his birth, his death certificate states another, and my father's birth certificate states yet a third birth location for my grandfather. I've tried searching with Ancestry.com but I cannot seem to find any matches other than the documents I already have copies of.

Addicting - yes, but also very frustrating at times.

Best of luck to ya.

Add on top of that the incredible amount of false information. I kid you guys not, I had a woman contact me and talk for about an hour about how we were related. It was fun, but towards the end she was correcting my on how to pronounce my Great-Grandmother's name...little does she know her son, my Grandfather, is still much alive and I would assume his pronunciation is a bit more accurate of his own mother's name!!!!!

[PEEDYC]

Some years ago I started a family tree but got stuck as my great grandfathers marriage did not appear anywhere. I managed to trace it via his wife's side :- the reason, his name had been misspelled. I asked for a copy of the record only to find that it was "the bans" and not the wedding that was recorded. On a single page in the Parish Register there were around 16 names having the bans read. Only two had records of marriage written in underneath the bans record. I managed to get my tree back as far as 1790 but when my ancestor stated in a later census that he was Irish I stopped.

The problem is that many records are in Parish or Church records and depend on whoever is recording them being able to spell assuming that the people giving the information can spell too and that the information is still available. Many Irish records were destroyed over the years.

I set up a web site and through it found a cousin in Canada and one in the USA and picked up a few pen pals with the same name along the way.

I tried writing enclosing a copy of the relevant part of my tree to some people with the same name living close to where my ancestors were born and bred. None replied. One even worked with my sister in law and even when told it was a genuine request for information she still did not respond. I suppose you are either interested or not. My children aren't!

Nothing goes on my tree unless it has been verified.

I wish you good luck.

[Gael Ridire]

Yes you have a headache! You can trace back your ancestry with nearly 100% fact, but...you must go one generation at a time using primary source documents: birth, marriage, death certificates, wills, land records, baptismal records, military records, etc. The message boards, pedigrees, LDS website, are excellent guides to help one to often cut through the haze, but DO NOT accept the data listed as fact! Which has been mentioned. And sometimes these primary source records can contain false data too, especially death certificates. One of the biggest helps is the Federal census records for tracing a family's movements, but often the data it contains is not 100% fact. Also spelling of surnames are not important till late 1800s. I have an ancestor where his surname is spelled four different ways in his will that he signed. Good luck!