family tree/ancestry

[Mostyn6]

Has anyone here ever used one of the family tree sites? Thoughts?

[uttoxram75]

I'm thinking of having a look when I've got time myself.

Is it worth the subscription?

[May Contain Nuts]

I think I once saw a thread like this on a Forest forum. They didn't call it ancestry though, they called it incestry.

[Mostyn6]

33 minutes ago, uttoxram75 said:

I'm thinking of havingI a look when I've got time myself.

Is it worth the subscription?

We are looking for the same answer! lol

[Sith Happens]

I always think surely has to be a way of doing it yourself 

[Parsnip]

Ugh I'd rather not know. Last I heard about Parsnip Senior he was dividing his time between stealing stuff to buy booze, and being in prison for stealing stuff to buy booze. I ain't pulling at the ancestry thread.

[Phoenix]

There's a load of information on this site (267 million records, covering England and Wales, going back to 1837, I think), and it's free. It doesn't construct you family tree but you can find all sorts of ancestors, with a bit of graft.

https://www.freebmd.org.uk/

Once you've identified some ancestors/relatives, you can construct your own tree on an ongoing basis, also for free, here.

https://www.familyecho.com/#edit:START

[Guest]

Not done the family tree but I have had a DNA test to show ancestry. I am 50% Anglo Saxon, 10% Danish (from the Danelaw in which Derby was a capital), 20% Celtic ( my mum's dad came from Wales to work at Leys and his name was John Bach Pugh as was his dad and his dad's dad - no imagination), 8% Spanish, 8% Indian, 3% Finnish, 1% Middle Eastern. 

Where in the past the last four came from God knows. But 8% Indian?  Well I do like a Lamb Bhuna...........

[ramit]

My father's family came from Norway a little before 900 ad, with a detour in the Celtic lands no doubt. There is a book with the family tree.  Mostly farmers, laborers, shoemakers, sailors and such and a surprising amount of priests and a few sheep thieving outlaws.

My great grandmother wrote down the family tree on my mother's side, but was only allowed to have one copy of the book printed because she listed all fathers correctly.  Farmers, laborers, the usual Riff Raff going back a thousand years but again a stunning quantity of priests and a whole lot of sheep thieving outlaws.

i know i am a mix of Norwegian and Celtic, but have not had a DNA check.  That would be interesting to try.

[eddie]

My sister's researching ours at the moment.

I think she's really just after the recipe for Slater Cake (something my granny used to make 50 years ago).

[Mafiabob]

Seeing I used to be a ref my parentage is questionable 

[Gaspode]

I did some work on our family tree - biggest issue is that you can go back a couple of hundred years with online records, but you then get to a point where you have to get off your backside and do some real research via church or parish records - the alternative is that you end up trusting other people's research - fine up to a point, but some people are a little slapdash (for example I found one branch that suggested a mother would have been 7 years old when she gave birth - quite clear that the person who had done the 'research' had identified an incorrect person as their ancestor and directed the whole tree in the wrong direction....).

I did manage to trace one side of the family back to Ticknall and Melbourne in the 1700s (which always gives me a nice warm feeling of belonging when I drive through either of those villages) - the other side seem to originate from Staffordshire (though I'm still not going to have any love for plucky little Burton).

[Stive Pesley]

I had a go on the free trial at findmypast.com, but it quickly becomes a sprawling mess if you have a large family or great-grandparents who had 15 children as they all seemed to do pre-birth control. Luckily at least half of them die quite young (joke)

It seemed ridiculously expensive to maintain the account once the trial had finishe so I didn't bother, just exported the data as a GED file, where it sits on my desktop this day unlooked at

[Wolfie]

Go back far enough& we're all related anyway.

Sure I saw on QI ages ago that you can pick any Roman and we're all decended from them.

[Stive Pesley]

3 minutes ago, Wolfie said:

Sure I saw on QI ages ago that you can pick any Roman and we're all decended from them.

Well I do love an open-toed sandal. Ave!

[ImARam2]

My brother and I have researched our family on several websites, as well as having our DNA analysed.

On the family tree we have taken two directions:

1. Mother's/Grandfather's side we reached all the way back 1699 and this line originated in Ireland, then Newton Heath Manchester in about 1800, followed by Staffordshire in the 1850's, then Derby around 1900. Most of this part of the family worked in the cotton mills as machinists or labourer's.

2. Mother's/Grandmother's side we reached back to 1740, and they were a combination of Liverpool, Manchester and one line from Wilshamstead Bedfordshire, then to Yieldersley, Derbyshire around 1850, and were mostly agricultural workers. One interesting point from this line is that a seven generations back one cousin went to America and was with Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, Utah.

3. On our father's side, he was from Poland and we can only go back to 1900 as the majority of those records were lost in WWII.

As for the DNA we have in our blood as follows:

(a) 37% East European (obviously because of our father. (b) 32% Scandinavian (Norway/Sweden  - Danelaw?) (c) 22% Balkans (Greece/Bulgaria - no idea where that's come from?) & (d) 8% Irish, with no 'pure' English blood indicated. That raises a good question -  that after so many generations, with invasions, wars and immigration, who has a true English heritage?

And note, every time you marry and you have a child then it then dilutes the blood line.

[Gaspode]

33 minutes ago, ImARam2 said:

....And note, every time you marry and you have a child then it then dilutes the blood line.

unless you're from Nottingham and marry your sister.....

[ImARam2]

I also wish to add to my previous post on this subject, it took over 5 years and several hundred pounds to obtain the information on our family tree.

[Ramslad1992]

I haven't but the missus has and she traced it back to the 1600's.

[Mostyn6]

thanks for the responses guys.

My cousin did one on genesreunited, had a look at that, looks like a lot of effort!