I have always enjoyed hearing family stories and having family get-togethers. But I never realized how little I knew about some of my ancestors. My maternal grandparents were old when I was born. My grandpa died when I was ten, and he was almost 80. My grandmother died when I was 23 right before my first children were born. I quickly realized I did not have knowledge of my ancestors. My aunt has filled in some of the empty spots but come to find out even my aunts and uncles have very little knowledge of our family history.
I have been lucky to have information on my maternal grandmother's side of the family. But her lines have been done by hardworking individuals before I was born.
Do you have someone in your family who took the time way before you could get on a computer, who went town to town walking cemeteries, going to courthouses, and finding relatives with information not found in other places? I have been lucky to have information on my maternal grandmother's side of the family. But her lines have been done by hardworking individuals before I was born. Now to just keep it up to date. But on my maternal grandfather's side of the family anything past my great grandparents is pretty much unknown. I have spent 25 years looking. We have paid other people, joined everything we could to try and figure out what I needed to do to find these people. Finally, after doing two separate DNA tests six years ago this month I finally got something that broke down one wall.
I had a male cousin who had taken his DNA test a little while ago. I had asked him to take it hoping to find relatives through his YDNA. So I did what I have been doing for years: find all our common DNA matches and go through any new ones to see if they have a family tree hooked to their profile. This time I hit one that had a common ancestor and the common ancestor wasn’t even in my tree, it was a suggestion. So I got on their tree. They had a lot of my family, and their connection in the tree was a sister to my great great grandma. Wow! Once I verified all the data, I had my 2xGreat Grandma’s name and when she died and approximately when she was born. I had a few items from after she was married and had children but never could find anyone in her family. From that I have now further found a total of 3 sisters and two brothers and their parents.
In genealogical research, sometimes no records are found.
Genealogy can be frustrating. It is time consuming and sometimes brings no results. It can be frustrating. But as more and more information is being digitized. As more and more people are taking DNA tests I highly recommend going back over your DNA matches. Go back over hints in your family tree on the different genealogy sites. Continue to keep looking and you never know one day you may just uncover hundreds of family members because one person took a DNA test.
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