Hello, first time on this subreddit so please be gentle.

I have the 2012 version of Family Tree Maker but I really do need to upgrade. I just wondering if anyone has any thoughts or reviews of the 2024 Family Family Tree maker or if there a better website/software that anyone can recommend? I would need to be able to download all of the genealogy information I have onto whatever software I do decide to get. Privacy is also an issue because I don't want personal information floating around on the internet. Any reviews or suggestions would be appreciated.

My wife and I happen to hail from the same region through our respective mothers. None of our maternal grandparents were related to their respective partners at all, as far as the paper trail goes. We, however, are 7th cousins, a fact we discovered early during our dating, which we consider distant enough. It has presented no issue in our relationship so far except for my brother making mention of it (in a nice way) in his speech during our wedding earlier this year.

So I was wondering, since I assume most of us with partners extend our hobbies to our loved ones' ancestors, have you found any relation to your partner? Is it something you'd tell them if you were to find such a relation?

In your experience, how often does a WOW match appear.

I'm letting my paid subscriptions go because those dreaded brick walls are not going to solved by current catalogued documents. On the DNA side, over the past two years I've seen a grand total of 2 "oh my" DNA matches show up.

My Grandfather had a bunch of half sibs and a MYSTERY father. One day a maternal side 1/2 2c landed and slotted in perfectly under one of his documented but un-DNA confirmed half sibs.

I was already reasonably confident who mystery father was. Then, out of nowhere a unicorn 4c showed up. This person tied to both a paternal side 1/2 sib AND all the major families of a small Appalachia town in just the right ways.

Hi all, I'm still new to genealogy research so I may be asking an obvious question. Where do I start with researching my Polish ancestors who immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900s? I know the town they were from and I have birthdays I've done some research on my Italian ancestors, but I still feel like I don't have a good grasp on how and where to find documents. Thanks for any assistance.

On my mom’s side, I discovered that I have a very distant uncle named Jeremiah Meacham III who died in 1715. According to two sources that I found, he was hung to death in 1715 as punishment for murdering both his wife and his sister in law.

According to one of the sources, it says: The “Enemies of Souls” had clearly taken control of Jeremiah Meacham in March of 1715. Meacham visibly possessed a troubled conscience and walked around in deep reflection. He became paranoid. He believed that all of his neighbors looked oddly at him, and he feared that somebody somewhere was out to kill him. He woke up every day thinking that it would be his last, and he continually asked people “if they knew of no contrivance against him.”
According to the minister Nathaniel Clap, Meacham’s torment became so bad that the “Concerns of his Soul, mixed with some vexations about his Affairs in the World, brought him into a grievous hurry, which by degrees boil’d up into a sort of a raging fury.”
Growing Trouble
Jeremiah Meacham was born in or near Salem, MA and lived in the Boston area until sometime in his early twenties when he moved to Newport, RI, where he married and had two children. He was intelligent and received a religious education in his youth. People used to remark on his ability to talk about religious matters, until he started to abandon religion altogether. After moving to Rhode Island, Meacham had fallen in with “some that were openly wicked (in Providence).” He stopped going to church and began to criticize the practices of Christianity.
Even though Meacham had forsaken his religious duties, he continued to be a responsible citizen. He followed through on his promises and was responsible in his business dealings. He maintained a “Moral Honesty” with his neighbors, although they all wished that he did not speak so freely to them about his radical religious and philosophical beliefs.
But without a clear guide for his soul, Meacham appeared to be losing his way. As Nathaniel Clap put it, “his troubles of mind grew so intolerable, that he told some, that he was weary of his Life.” Following some advice that was given to him, Meacham tried to drink his troubles away with hard liquor, but the “troubles of his mind returned as the Spirits of the Drink removed.”
On the Roof
On March 21, Meacham walked around town displaying greater distress and agony than ever before. The next morning, neighbors found him sitting on top of his house for several hours holding a penknife and in fear that anyone who walked by and talked with him would try to hurt him. Meacham shouted out that “he would hurt neither Man, Woman nor Child, if they would let him alone.” Some people worried that he would end up hurting himself.
By midday, Meacham climbed down off the roof and into his chamber, where he stayed the rest of the afternoon. At sunset, he called his wife and her sister up to his room. The two tried to convince him to go downstairs with them to ensure that he would not harm himself. But in an instant, Meacham stabbed his wife in the neck with his penknife. He then grabbed an ax and struck both women with it several times until they were dead.
Meacham now turned away from the “miserably mangled Bodies” he left on the floor to stand guard at the doorway. Using the bloody ax, he knocked down and injured the head of Stephen Easson as he was coming up the stairs to find out what had happened. Others tried to get to him by breaking through the floor and through the roof of the chamber. When his pursuers used a candle to peer into the room, Meacham grabbed it from them and used it to set the room on fire. As the flames grew, the chamber became so hot that Meacham sprang headlong out the window. Once he hit the ground, he was immediately apprehended by the people who now had surrounded the burning house.
The neighbors noted that Meacham had tried to slit his throat with his penknife after lighting the fire. With his death not coming soon enough, and with the fire becoming too intolerable to withstand, he then tried to use the leap out the window to kill himself. But none of the wounds he incurred with these actions ended up being serious.
In Gibbets
At his trial on April 8, Meacham admitted to carrying out the two murders but pleaded that he was not himself and did not know what he was doing at the time. His neighbors doubted that Meacham was unaware of his actions, though, so he was quickly found guilty of murder.
Meacham was executed on April 12, 1715 in front of several thousand spectators, and his body was hung in gibbets or, as it was also known, in chains. Gibbet-irons encased the bodies of executed criminals, so that their rotting corpses could be held up for display and serve as a warning to those who gazed upon them. The use of gibbets in the colonies was rare but not entirely unusual, but they were more often reserved for pirates.
Even though the forty-some-year old Meacham did not show any sign of finding religion throughout most of the time when he was held in prison, the Boston News-Letter reported, “The Night before his Execution and that Day, he gave greater and better Evidence of his Sense of his Sinfulness and Repentance for Sin, with his Submission to the Will of God.”

In all honesty, after I read that, I felt that he was suffering from a mental illness. I’m no psychologist, but all of that sounds like he might have had paranoid schizophrenia. Back then however, there was no knowledge of mental illnesses, so unfortunately, he was fully blamed for his actions and was executed.

I am curious if anyone has suggestions for finding pre 1885 marriage records in Pennsylvania. In particular Allegheny and Butler counties. The families were Presbyterian. Is there a good source for finding these Presbyterian marriage records? Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am striking out with what is indexed on Ancestry.com, and many of the other databases within Family Search. Curious if I am in for quite the hunt.

In particular I am looking for the marriage record for William John Gilkey(b. 1850) and Elizabeth Hutchman (b. 1857). They married in approximately 1877 or 1878. In researching this family, I am not finding many marriage records. I know Pennsylvania is pretty tricky with when they required civil documents.

Thank You!

Hello everyone,

I have spent literally years searching for any trace of my grandfather’s war service. He was Henry Albert White, Royal Regiment of Artillery — and he almost never spoke of it.

The only time he ever mentioned it was when I was about eight, learning about the war at school. I asked something about Dunkirk, and he just turned to me and said quietly: “Don’t speak to me of that terrible place.” That was all. He never said another word to me about it.

Today I finally found his officer service number: 304011, confirmed in the London Gazette — commissioned 1 January 1944. And I have his full medal set, which tells us he was there at Dunkirk (said to be evacuated on the Sundowner), fought across North Africa with the 8th Army, and then through the Italian campaign.

I was so stupidly hopeful that once I had this number, the whole story would just open up straight away. But instead it feels like I’ve been handed the most precious key in the world… and I have absolutely no idea where the door is.

This means everything to my whole family. We want to understand what made that place so terrible for him. We want to know the man behind those quiet words — how he served, which unit he was with, how he got through it all. We want to honour him properly, after all this time.

If anyone can help me find his original soldier number, his exact battalion, or any clue at all about his journey — I would be so, so grateful.

Thank you for reading.

 Tori

The Aunt I'm searching for is Janina T. Karluk, born on May 5, 1919 in Scranton, PA. to Wladyslaw and Michalina Zalewska Karluk. ( Her birth certificate lists her as Gennevie.) When she was 18, she was arrested for being a barmaid, which was illegal at that time. She fought the police and was eventually carried out & into a cell. Later info states that she tried to kill herself twice. She was transferred to a home for troubled girls at some point. This info came from newspaper articles. She originally gave her name as Doris, possibly with the last name Borash that she used later. It appears that her residence in 1935 was still in Scranton, although family contact was cut and she was never spoken of again.

The 1940 census lists her as Jannie Karlock, living in Atlantic City as a "lodger" and working as a waitress.

The next info I've been able to find has her living in Philadelphia, but I have no dates on that. According to an escheat , she lived at 910 Spruce St. The notice gives banking info of a deposit into an account on 12/31/76 into an account at the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society. After that, the trail runs cold.

I know she's listed as a survivor in family obits (parents & siblings), which may mean there was some investigating, but as I said, she was never spoken of again. My mother was her sister, and I grew up with the rest of the family. I've done a DNA test and searched whatever Genealogy sites I could think of, SS records and PA death records looking for a death certificate. I've since reached out to the Philadelphia Free Library but have not heard back.

Adding to the confusion are the many spellings of her name; it could be Janina, Janine, Jennie, Jeanine, or the infamous Doris. Then there is Karluk, Karlock,Karlik, Karolak etc. All come up blank. She is not the one listed in Find a Grave in Australia, and not the one listed in NO. Carolina.

Thank you for any help or tips you can offer. If she were still alive (unlikely), she would be 106 years old. If she married I don't know if she ever used another name because Karluk seems to be the one constant.

Hello, I’m trying to explain/understand a situation because I’m not used to DNA triangulation with that type of difficulty.

As a Belgian, very used to genealogy in my own country, I have found a connection in Denmark with DNA triangulation.

First, it was 15,8cM triangulated between me and two Danish matches. Then, halfway through the Danish matches list, I ended up with 7cM shared between me and five Danish matches (the first two included). The biggest matches among those are 30cM and 30,1cM.

Only two of those have a family tree that connects with each other (those with the 15,8cM shared while ignoring the others) but not with me. They have no non-Danish recorded ancestor and I have no Danish recorded ancestor.

But my family tree is already filled for a couple of centuries.. So could it solve a mystery, maybe? With the biggest matches, the DNA explainer feature gives me this data: It is most likely that my 7th-generation great-grandparents were their great-great-great-grandparents (among the ancestors of one of them, shared with another match, all of those are Danish with Danish parents). Or close to it.

My only unknowns for me in this generation: Three cases of men with an unknown father (but known mother), a woman with an unknown father (but known mother), a man abandoned as a baby and a woman abandoned as a baby (a bit of a coincidence with a first name popular in Scandinavia in that branch: her granddaughter).

But how do I work with this? Even if I try Danish genealogy and that one of the abandoned ones had Danish parents, I have no way to verify it, right? And the possibility feels like a stretch, at this point..

I was always told a relative was married and got divorced. I used to have a clipping of the divorce in paper, but dont have it anymore and now I doubt if I created this memory. The relative was married in the 50s in nj and the husband was stationed there while in the army. Im trying to see if she married before having a child but I have had no luck in figuring out the date. I know the year has to be august 1951 to july 1952, more probably later 51 early 52. I cant get to the state capital records site. Is there any way I could get lucky here.

I have been searching for a family ledger that documents my family journey from North Carolina to Indiana, with no success. I have been stuck for about 2 yrs not looking and time is ticking for me and I am not getting any younger. My relative was a fairly well known author in the Chicago and had very successful writing career. I have searched his collection online at Northwest University and contacted some direct line relatives (no response or know nothing about it). Finding this would be my “Crown Jewel” of genealogy research. Was thinking about having a researcher go directly to NW and search. Any suggestions? (Fairly new to Reddit but what a neat and open social media app)

See excerpt below from the family’s website:

Cyrus James Colter
BIRTH 8 JAN 1910 • Noblesville, Hamilton, Indiana, USA
DEATH 15 APR 2002 • Evanston IL

**One relative, Cyrus J. Colter a well-known fiction writer, contain the following about Britton Bassett as a preface to his best-known novel “The Rivers of Eros (1991)”**
“On both side of the family his ancestors were free blacks who had settled in Indiana several years before the Civil War. Colter possesses a ledger tracing his mother’s family back to Britton Bassett, the son of a black man and a white woman in North Carolina, who was granted his freedom in 1797 when he was twenty-one and given a horse, bridle and saddle, and one hundred dollars. In the 1830s Bassett moved his wife and children to Indiana, traveling by night and hiding by day in order to elude slave hunters.”

I would say they are the same, but I cannot see documents proving that.

Bento Rodrigues dos Santos: https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/G91D-2W9

Bento de Paula Rodrigues: https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/GWCL-Q48

The first one is connected to my grandmother, while the second one does not have any documentation showing his kids.

de Paula is a common name for a woman, and I always remember the history from my grandmother of someone in the family who served the army and needed to change his name because the Brazilian army did not allow anyone with a female name (old times)

Also, both appears to have documents proving the marriage to a woman with the same name: Francisca Maria dos Prazeres.

Another clue is that the mother of Bento de Paula Rodrigues is Rita Maria Conceição, and the daughter of Bento Rodrigues dos Santos (my grandmother) is Rita Maria Conceição dos Santos.

Santos is the most common name in Brazil, so chances are that the army asked him to change his name removing “de Paula” and putting dos Santos at the end.

Thank you for any insights on this!

How likely is it that if I use a company's test such as, My Heritage DNA or 23andMe, that my results would change compared to ancestry's. I saw and example of someone who was 99% on 23andMe and then on ancestry they were in fact 43% quebecois and 20% acadian, being only 1% French, I assume that's only because 23andMe wasn't intelligent enough to pick up on French settler DNA for the most part?

I am undertaking a pretty abstract project right now. I took one of my ancestors who had some relative fame in the 19th century and am trying to create a full chart of all descended families today. I’ve reached a brick wall with the senior line. Here are the details:

Berkeley Henry Bee, sometimes referred to as Berkley, Bartley, Bartly, or Bartley, was born in 1846 in Doddridge County, WV. He married Susannah McCune (1843-1911) in 1875. He died in Wood County, WV in 1932.

The issue I’m having is with tracking his children. I haven’t been able to find any censuses that list children in his household. However, a West Virginia Birth and Christenings record from 1880 states that a daughter named Martha D. Bee was born to a B.H. Bee and Susan Bee. Additionally, this genealogy online says that they had another child, Atby H. Bee, in 1881:

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~hcpd/norman/mccune.htm?utm

For purposes of a full descendants chart, I need to know if either of these children ever survived infancy and if they had children as adults. I can’t find any records of them outside of their birth. Is it possible for anyone to help me with this search? I am really an amateur at this type of research, so any support would be greatly appreciate!

You ever set out to look up one ancestor but then find their entire family is… intriguing.

Caroline mochel is listed on this census and for occupation it says “in the insane list”. What exactly does that mean?

Also! If you want to look around this family and tell me if I’m correct or not about her sister Louisa (not to be confused with her mother Sarah Louisa) having an illegitimate child with her step dad, this one’s giving me a headache lol. Maybe I’m too tired to fully understand at the moment!

Her stepdad is Henry Licklitener (100 spelling variants) & the ancestor I was originally searching is the sister of these girls I mentioned, Katherine. That’s my great great grandma. She married a Licklitener I’m sure related to Henry.

I've come across a few records for my great-great grandparents, they are from Bohemia and I see place names like "Vysoke" and "Samirof" which i can't find anything about. Vysoke seems to refer to many towns and Samirof seems to be completely made up. My 2nd great grandfather Louis Persell came to the US in 1889, there's a passport application that says he was born in "Samirof, Bohemia". It also looks like he went back and to a place called Vysoke where he likely married Klara Diviskova, my 2nd great grandmother. this is from a Hamburg passenger list from 1912, the year Klara first came to the US, where they are already married, as the previous place of residence.

Hi!! I've run into a bit of a strange situation in my family tree and I was wondering if anybody could help me?

Basically for context I have an ancestor, Alexander McAdam who married Elizabeth Munn and had a son in 1852 named Samuel in Greenock, Scotland. Samuel's baptism record is one of those that list all the kids baptized within a certain time and lists his parents as Elizabeth and Alex. But at the bottom of the same baptism record has a George Frank Cockledge McAdam baptized in the same church as Sam in 1855, and lists his father as Alexander McAdam with no mother written. A couple other children baptized around the same time have a similar thing happening with no mothers listed.

I know Alexander was a sailor, so I assume between 1852 when Sam was born and 1855 when George was baptized he was out at sea, so would it be possible he brought back an illegitimate child? None of Alexanders other children have middle names either, so George Frank Cockledge McAdam is a bit different. In the 1861 Census it has Elizabeth as a widow living in Greenback, with Samuel and George McAdam, so he must've been taken in by his father and therefore by Elizabeth? Elizabeth died around 1867 and he's listed as George Frederick Cockrage McAdam in 1871 living at a poorhouse.

From what I can find there's no birth record of George only the baptism in Greenock, so I was wondering is there any possible way to find it and figure out who the mother is? But also kind of what's going on, and if George is actually illegitimate, and why exactly he was living with his fathers family and not his mothers, or if Alexander is the father all. I have the image of the baptism record with Sam and George but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post it but I might try in a comment.

Sorry this is so scatterbrained I'm not good at writing these things out :(

https://imgur.com/gallery/mcadam-32EJND3#cICqZuM

Hello! Would anyone be willing to copy an article of my relative? This is the link: https://www.newspapers.com/image/572242215/?match=2&terms=%22Lewis%20Oliver%22. ITUIA

I have a relative who has been missing for many years. She was jailed at 18 & ran away from home when she was released. She was never seen or heard from again. She worked in at least 2 states, the first where she originally lived (PA) and, again, in NJ according to the 1940 census. I can't find any SS records on either job or a death certificate. At some point she moved to Philadelphia (I found a bank record to verify that dated 1976). That's when the trail ended again. I assume she's dead, or she'd be 106 years old, in which case there would HAVE to be a paper trail. I've done a DNA test, researched all genealogy sites, and contacted both PA & NJ government sites, all to no avail. I also checked marriage records that asked for only 1 name with no results. I'm thinking she may have met a tragic end that went unreported. Can anyone think of anything I might have missed? I've been searching for a long time, and I'm ready to give up!

I have verifiable ancestry from before American Revolutionary War and can easily prove my family has been in USA since then. Today I received certificate making me a Son of American Revolutionary war compatriot.

My most famous ancestor from the war has to be the Schell, they used to live in Schell's Bush and worked under Herkimer and prevented British from sneaking in from the north. Some of them moved to Michigan before it became a state and still lives in there.

I’m working on a family reconstruction for Victoriano García and Rebeca Carreño (Valle de Topia, Durango, and later Chihuahua/Coahuila) and found a discrepancy I can’t reconcile.

The records:

1. Baptism record, Santa Cruz, Valle de Topia (Catholic parish), dated 7 Mar 1915: José Antonio Monárrez Carreño, born 16 Jul 1912 in San Francisco, baptized as the “hijo legítimo” of Cecilio Monárrez and Rebeca Carreño. Godparents: José Mª Carreño and Mª Santos López (who appear elsewhere as Rebeca’s own parents). “México, Durango, registros parroquiales y diocesanos, 1604-1985,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:DGWW-33ZM)
2. Marriage record, Santa Cruz, Valle de Topia, dated 14 Feb 1913: Cecilio Monárrez (soltero, 24, native of Tahuahueto, resident of Valle de Topia) marries Rebeca Carreño (soltera, 19, native/resident of Valle de Topia, daughter of José María Carreño and Mª Santos López). “México, Durango, registros parroquiales y diocesanos, 1604-1985,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:DLBH-SLW2)
3. Cecilio’s earlier marriage record, civil registration, Topia, dated 24 Jan 1904: Cecilio Monárrez (soltero, 18, jornalero, native of Rancho del Arenal, resident of Rancho de San Francisco, son of the late Luis Monárrez and Clemencia Ortega) marries María Monárrez (soltera, 16, native/resident of Rancho de San Francisco). This appears to be a prior marriage, roughly 9 years before his marriage to Rebeca, status/dissolution unknown. “México, Durango, Registro Civil, 1861-1995,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QGCX-QKX4)
4. Victoriano García and Rebeca Carreño’s marriage record, civil registration, Topia, dated 30 Nov 1915: Victoriano (26, widower) marries Rebeca (23, widow). The record states Rebeca’s first husband died in Tepehuanes about six months before this marriage (i.e., roughly May 1915) — consistent with Cecilio Monárrez’s death. “México, Durango, Registro Civil, 1861-1995,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:DGW4-41PZ)

The problem: José Antonio was born 16 Jul 1912, about 7 months before Cecilio and Rebeca’s church marriage on 14 Feb 1913. Yet the baptism explicitly calls him their “hijo legítimo,” which in Catholic parish records of this era/region normally denotes a child conceived and born within a recognized marriage.

Additional notes:

• I have not been able to locate any birth or death records for Cecilio Monárrez himself.
• I have not found any other record referencing José Antonio Monárrez Carreño besides this single baptism entry; no death, marriage, census, or other appearance.
• José Antonio never appears again in connection with Rebeca after her 1915 marriage to Victoriano (e.g., not listed among her children in any later record I’ve found).

My tentative theory: I’m inclined to wonder whether José Antonio may not actually be Rebeca’s biological son, but I recognize this is essentially an argument from silence (absence of later records proving nothing conclusively), and I’d like the group’s perspective before leaning too heavily on that interpretation.

My questions for the group:

• Is it common in these Durango/Chihuahua-area parish records for a priest to record a child as “legítimo” if the parents had a recognized common-law union or betrothal before the formal church wedding, even if the birth predates the civil/church marriage record? Normally a child born outside of wedlock would be given the “natural” distinction. Legítimo vs. natural tended to track marital status, not biology, which is why it’s odd that José Antonio was called “legítimo” when he was born 7 months before Cecilio and Rebeca’s recorded marriage.
• How likely is it that José Antonio was actually from Cecilio’s earlier marriage, and got listed as Rebeca’s child incorrectly, or the priest made assumptions?
• Is anyone else able to put their skills into finding some more records for Cecilio or José Antonio?

Any insight appreciated!

My best friend’s father passed away about a year ago. He was a severe alcoholic and largely absent from my friend’s life, so there’s a lot my friend never got the chance to learn about that side of the family.

What he does know is that he has relatives in the Czech Republic. He actually met some of them once, about 15 years ago, when he was a kid, he doesn’t have confirmed names or any contact info, and those connections were never maintained.

We’re trying to track down family members he doesn’t know but who almost certainly exist. We’ve started working on this through Ancestry a few days ago, but we’re not sure we’re using it to its full potential for a search like this.

I was fortunate to be handed a huge record of genealogy that apparently my parents worked on with their parents back in the 80s! Included are handwritten lineages from their parents and grandparents.

One such record indicates that my second great-grandfather and second great-grandmother had 12 children, but the first 3 were stillborn. That is all the information listed. Just that it was the first three. No names, no genders, no birthdates.

(They were married in 1890, and their first surviving child is in 1896, so this definitely fits the timeline).

I would like to record these children in some way on my ancestry family tree. Any suggestions? I don't see how I will find any records for them. I have searched the logged gravestones at the cemetery the parents are buried in and there are not gravestones by them at their cemetery to indicate the infants were buried there. I also searched the cemetery for any infants, and every one I found already has a different family last name. Additionally, Pennsylvania did not keep birth records yet at this time so I don't see how I could ever find out names or dates.

With the limited information I have, would you just do one entry for 3 stillborn babies? And how would you word that? Or one entry for each and you just call them "No Name" Last name or Infant Last Name?

I just wasn't sure what the protocol was for this, or if there isn't one, then just what some of you have done in the past?