Hints on tracing your ancestry!

**sirdaniel1975** · 16th August 08, 03:10 PM

As promised and as predicted by Ron.. here's my post on photos.

This is something that I tend to still accumulate, and have recently acquired many more photos. What's great about the digital age, is that they don't have to give you the photos just yet. You can scan them.. and I strongly suggest scanning photos anyway. If there is a fire or something and you have scanned your photos and had the digitized version kept in a fire safe place.. you've preserved a photo record of your family history.

Here I'm going to show off some of my pictures from Glasgow, Scotland UK. They are circa 1890's -1908.

This is one of the photos I acquired that had the persons named on the back.
1st person GG Grandmother Henrietta Hunt Williamson (maiden name Hunt)
2nd person G Grandmother Nellie (nick name for Helen) McLuskie (not yet married to my G Grandfather)
3rd person GG Grandfather John Williamson (b.1826-1894)
His death date means the photo is from 1894 the latest.

Not named, but most likely Nellie..

Another one of Nellie.. when my grandfather lent me this photo.. He said "that's my mom!"

My Great Grandfather Jervis Coats Williamson

That's one of my grandfather's older sisters "Etta" (short for Henrietta) when she was little.. probably 1908... a story as to which I will explain in another post. Again my GG Grandma Henrietta Hunt Williamson.

**sirdaniel1975** · 16th August 08, 03:27 PM

World War II is an important war for my family.. because my grandmother was a "War Bride." My grandfather was an MP in the US Army and was actually one of the MP's who guarded both presidents. I actually have about 20 photos of my grandfather in his uniform.. but I'll display just these.

Grandma Pear Rodwell Williamson (Rodwell is her maiden name), yes she was a nurse in the British Army during WWII. My grandmother is on the left.. the thick dark haired one.

My grandfather in one of his uniforms.. "John Williamson"

Here's his company, he's the 3rd one in on the bottom right.

A picture is worth a 1000 words.. collect your family photos. You'll be able to associate faces to names and vice versa.

More hints to come....

**sharpdressedscot** · 17th August 08, 01:20 PM

Cool pics!!

**Carolina Kiltman** · 17th August 08, 06:25 PM

Amen to all the advice given above!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have traced my Father's family back to 1689, (with a lot of help!) The first rule of tracing your family tree is that spelling don't count! If it sounds even vaguely like the name, then it may well be. People were often semi-literate at best, and that includes the census takers. I was stymied by the name Elijah, then found out that it was really Elisha. . . and the floodgates opened! Also many immigrants changed their names when they arrived, others had their names mangled by the officials who spelled them as they sounded to their ears. (In NE Missouri is a town named for Raleigh, NC, it is spelled Rolla). I think the point is made. Good luck to you! It is both facinating and rewarding!

**macwilkin** · 17th August 08, 06:53 PM

(In NE Missouri is a town named for Raleigh, NC, it is spelled Rolla).

It's actually in central Missouri, roughly at the halfway mark between St. Louis and Springfield on I-44.

Regards,

Todd

**gilmore** · 17th August 08, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by Carolina Kiltman

Amen to all the advice given above!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have traced my Father's family back to 1689, (with a lot of help!) The first rule of tracing your family tree is that spelling don't count! If it sounds even vaguely like the name, then it may well be. People were often semi-literate at best, and that includes the census takers. I was stymied by the name Elijah, then found out that it was really Elisha. . . and the floodgates opened! Also many immigrants changed their names when they arrived, others had their names mangled by the officials who spelled them as they sounded to their ears. (In NE Missouri is a town named for Raleigh, NC, it is spelled Rolla). I think the point is made. Good luck to you! It is both facinating and rewarding!

It isn't that spelling was mangled. It is that there was no uniform spelling until the popularization of dictionaries in the early 1800's. Until then, and later, EVERYBODY spelled words as they sounded to them. No spelling was correct and none was incorrect. So, spelling often reflected the changes in pronunciation and accent, as heard by the writer and as heard by others.

I have a deed from the 1730's in which an ancestor was the grantor. The clerk who copied it into the deed book spelled my ancestor's name one way, copied his signature the way he signed it in a second way, and indexed it under a third spelling. All of them were correct, none of them were correct.

**jhockin** · 17th August 08, 07:30 PM

"Talk to your family and find out everything and then some."

and, if at all possible, tape record the conversations!! This is less likely to change than your memory

**sirdaniel1975** · 31st August 08, 09:04 AM

Collecting family documents can shed a whole new light on your investigative case. Because, genealogical research is an investigation into the past. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, blah blah blah... Yes, they are very important, but they actually only reveal maiden names, dates, and places...

When you're looking for the real interesting information, you have to dig up something a wee bit harder to find. Here I will share some documents that an aunt had in her possession and new I would be interested in seeing them. She wouldn't let me have them, but she aloud me to photo copy them. So the images you see will be compressed versions of the scans of the photo copies. One of the documents, I disguised the #'s with a swirl effect because the document is legal in nature.

The first set of images are of a "Second Passenger List" form a trip from NY to Glasgow, in 1908 on the S.S. Caledonia. I have no proof for a certain theory, but I suspect it is from the very trip my family used to go back to Scotland to bring my Great Great Grandmother Henrietta to America.