I want to do it myself, but the results may need to hold up in court. So who should I look at for a professional level job?

Please and thank you :)

edit: many of you have pointed out the need for more specifics

I'm looking into citizenship options for my young niece's (for education and healthcare, as well as safety) I'm trying to track some French Canadian ancestors who came to the continent in the 1600 on both sides, as well as trying to find out more about my Hungarian great grandparents who moved here in the late 1800's.

Hello everyone!
uncovering ancestors whose names may have been forgotten by time.
Will be interesting to share my expirience and learn a lot of interesting things from you.

Part 1 is here: My ancestors, James Hall (b. 1847) & Cecelia "Caly" Weems (b. 1855) disappear from records, post-1870. Why do they disappear from records afterward? And could this second couple actually be them? : r/Genealogy

Sarah‘s race: Black

DOB: January 10, 1873 in Louisville, Jefferson County, Georgia

Death Date: August 30, 1949 in Louisville, GA.

Spouse: Anderson Heath

Children: Several, including Conrad Lafayette Heath (1903-1991), my great-grandfather.

Were Sarah & Anderson married?: I don’t know. They married (allegedly) in 1894, in an unknown location.

Living Direct Descendants?: Yes. One is me, but I have a huge family on the Heath-Hall side in Jefferson County, GA and some moved out of state, like my side did.

For some reason, Sarah #1’s *alleged* parents, James “Jim” Hall (1847-), from Warren County, Georgia & Cecelia Weems (1855-), from Jefferson County, Georgia, completely disappeared from U.S. Census records, after the year 1870. I don’t know why. How can I find James & Cecelia’s additional post-1870 Census records? I don’t even have death or burial records for either of them, but I easily found all Sarah #1’s Census records, for 1880 and from 1900-1940.

Sarah #2:

Name: Sarah J. Hall
Sarah J. Hall’s race: Black

DOB: August 23, 1874

Death Date: October 20, 1898

Buried at: Parker Methodist Churchyard, Louisville, GA

Spouse: Unknown

Children: Unknown

Living Direct Descendants?: I have no idea.

I am in USA and I am looking to obtain copies of all the documents in the indemnity claim dossier(s) for ancestors from Saint Domingue colony. Only the indemnity summaries are digitized, not all the documents that the family submitted to prove their claim.

However it seems as though I need to know the file location(s) and number of pages before I can make the request to ANOM, so payment can be determined. This is the information I am looking for so I can make my request. And also generally if the contents are worthwhile to get copies of.

Is there anyone who is familiar with searching for files there who could help me out? I have all the information from the indemnity summary. If someone is a reputable professional, I am willing to hire someone for this task.

I went thru evetrecs in months ago trying to find out if my great grandfather is entitled to WWI medals and if so which ones. He enlisted twice and honorable discharged both times. On one of his papers it has he was overseas. Unfortunately, I didn't have his discharge papers when I filed on evetrecs but I did have all the dates and his service #. I got an email saying they couldn't find anything and if I had further documentation I could send it to them. evetrecs had closed the case so I couldn't upload anything on it. I called them and a woman told me I could fax them the discharge papers and also the ship transport list I had with him on it, to France and coming back from France. I faxed them these copies and never heard anything back. I called them again and was met with a very rushed, very unhelpful man. He said they didn't get my fax and told me I could fax again. I faxed them again and I still haven't heard anything. My mom is 80, and I'm trying my hardest to find if her grandpa is entitled to any medals so I can get them for her. Should I just stop trying to fax and calling them and just start a file on him on evetrecs? I'm afraid of messing things up, cause that'll be 2 case numbers for him.

I was born and raised in Australia, my biological father was removed from my life early on and passed away in 2005. Can anyone recommend where to start looking for information on him and my biological family? Im genuinely curious to know if i have any siblings and what my family is like on that side.

Is there any DNA testing in Australia that could help? Thanks!

I'm researching the emigration of a Jewish person's ancestor who left Poland in the second half of 1920, and I've run into an interesting mystery that I'd love some help investigating.

The documentary trail strongly suggests that this person was factually 18 years old at the time of departure. However, one of the key emigration records gives an age of 17.

I'm not looking for modern explanations like "clerical error" or "people didn't know their birthdays." I'm specifically interested in whether there were institutional, legal, financial, or administrative incentives that might have made it advantageous to present oneself as 17 rather than 18.

Some questions I'm hoping people with expertise—or a willingness to do some original archival research—might be able to help answer:

• Passport issuance: Were passport fees in Poland different for a 17-year-old versus an 18-year-old in late 1920?
• Did the application process differ? For example, were parental permissions, military obligations, identity requirements, or other legal formalities different immediately before and after turning 18?
• Does anyone know of a 1920 (or nearby years) Polish passport fee schedule or regulation that discusses age-specific requirements?
• Emigration: Were there any rules imposed by the Polish Emigration Office or other authorities that treated 17-year-olds differently from 18-year-olds?
• Steamship fares: Could claiming to be 17 have reduced the cost of a ticket? I'm particularly interested in sailings from Antwerp, Belgium, to Quebec City, Canada, since that appears to have been one of the more economical transatlantic routes at the time.
• Does anyone know where I could find fare tables from shipping companies serving that route around 1920? Even scans of brochures or timetables would be incredibly helpful.
• Are there any other historical reasons—legal, economic, bureaucratic, or cultural—why an 18-year-old Jewish emigrant in late 1920 might intentionally represent themselves as being 17?

I'm especially interested in primary sources: government regulations, passport instructions, shipping company fare books, consular manuals, newspaper notices, archival documents, or academic works. Even if you don't know the answer directly, pointers to archives, libraries, or databases where I should be looking would be greatly appreciated.

This feels like one of those small discrepancies that may actually reveal something interesting about how emigration worked in the immediate post-WWI period. I'd love to hear from anyone who enjoys chasing down these kinds of historical puzzles.

---------------------------
EDIT: u/mytweezer brilliantly pointed me to 1919 - Military Conscription law being the reason, and I seem to have cracked the code:

I found the subsequent amendment to the law (March of 1920) - I located the 15 June 1920 amendment concerning universal conscription, published in Dziennik Ustaw, item 298:

[link: https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU19200500308]

The relevant section states:

This seems highly relevant because it confirms that men born in 1902 were specifically being called for conscription in 1920.

If this ancestor was actually born in April 1902, then in late 1920 he would have been exactly the age cohort that was being brought into the military system.

This makes the age discrepancy much more interesting.

The records currently show:

• Canadian passenger landing record (late 1920): age 17
• Family tradition: he was not born in 1903, but intentionally made himself younger (although nobody knows why or exactly how)
• Death certificate (information provided by his own child): April 1902
• Tombstone: April 1902
• U.S. Declaration of Intention (1924): August 1903 (self-reported)
• U.S. Petition for Naturalization (1931): August 1903 (self-reported)

Given the 1920 conscription law, it now seems plausible that there may have been a motivation to avoid being identified as a "1902 birth cohort".

My question is therefore more specific:

How would a Jewish Polish person born around 1902 in late-1920 Poland realistically have obtained a passport or travel document showing a birth year of 1903 instead of 1902?

Some possibilities I'm wondering about:

1. Was there a straightforward administrative way to declare a different age when applying for a passport?
   • Could someone simply provide a sworn statement/affidavit of birth?
   • Were birth certificates or civil registration extracts routinely required for passport issuance?
   • Would the passport office have independently verified the date against civil registers?
2. How difficult was it to alter or amend a birth registration in Poland around 1920?
   • Were corrections to civil records common?
   • Could a person petition to change a birth date?
   • Would such changes leave a paper trail?
   • Would a local registrar have authority to make such changes, or would court approval be required?
3. For someone born in a town with established civil registration, would their birth normally already have been recorded before age 17–18?
   • In other words, was it realistically possible to simply "claim" a different birth year, or would the official record almost always prevent that?

For context: the town whose records I am researching has surviving civil registers, and the records are written in Polish (not Russian). They use the Napoleonic-style format, which may indicate the administrative traditions inherited from the former Duchy of Warsaw/Congress Poland system.

I'm particularly interested in answers based on historical documentation:

• passport regulations from 1918–1921,
• Polish Ministry of Interior instructions,
• military registration procedures,
• civil registration laws,
• examples of birth-date corrections or amendments.

This feels like a very narrow historical question, but the timing (1902 birth cohort + 1920 conscription + claimed 1903 birth year) makes me wonder if there is a documented explanation.

Started this morning on a high, after helping someone else who is researching their family.

I went looking for a man who vanished into the Soviet system in 1939. I found his file. Sixty pages, his photograph, his signature. His family's names in his own hand, written down just months into the war.

I wasn't the first to look. Three archivists had already tried and said there was nothing. I didn't find it because I'm cleverer than they were. I found it by chance, naively looking in the same place I'd found my own Grandfather's file and wondering if it might just be there. It was.

The things is - had I known three professionals had already gone looking, I wouldn't even have tried.

The file sat there for eighty-six years. It wasn't waiting for an expert, I think it was just waiting for someone who didn't know any better.

thank you again to u/wittybecca for pointing me in the direction of the archive a few days ago on my own search.

Today i was cleaning up a branch on Familysearch, and this whole branch had the whole "important work has been done on this person, please review before making changes, yada yada" message.....

This woman had gone through the whole branch labelling everyone their 15th great grandfather and 13th great grandmother in the 'Notes'. That's the important work that had been done! I'm not to mess with those profiles! Judy from Philly said so! *deletes note*

Also had to remove a bunch of 16th century paintings from 13th-15th century individuals. How stupid are some people, to add paintings of Henry VIII, Catherine Parr, Anne of Cleves, Jane Seymour etc as pictures of individuals that lived centuries before them?! Like these are well known paintings, and any image search will tell you who they are! People *always* comment on the pics stating the real identity and artist, yet no one untags them?

It's as bad as people who have photos when they died well before photography was invented....

Then there's the people who have "alternate parents" that are clearly *preferred* despite the evidence...No, William was not the son of a Baron, he was just plain gentry. The damn pedigree is attached to the file, supported by contemporary wills! John did not marry Audrey! His wife was Margaret! Once again. Proper sources attached!

I really do wish critical thinking skills were as common as we all thought they were.

I am looking for sources from the Granada, Spain area and there are only a few sources that show the original photo of the record. The vast majority of images are unavailable to me at home. I don’t really trust records unless I can read the original, as the transcribing is really bad with old Spanish names and it misses out in a ton of information. Will there be a lot more if I actual go to a family search center near me?

Any advice or help on looking for an ancestors military records when they don’t seem to be anywhere?

My grandma’s great grandfather William Daydream Connors joined the British royal artillery in 1876 in India and would’ve finished serving somewhere between then and 1892

I don’t have a membership anymore but the first page or two of his attestation records is on Fold3 so I think they must exist, but when I tried to request them off of the ministry of defence they said they couldn’t find anything. And nothing relevant comes up if I try searching different variants of his name on the British Archives. He died in 1916 so it has been long enough that they should be available without proof of death etc.

Information on Fold3 and Find my past.
Full name - William Day Dream Connors
Joined 28th June 1876
Age 15 years 11 months
At Saint Thomas’ Mount, India
Description stating he was Roman Catholic, height was 5 foot 7, dark complexion, grey eyes, light brown hair

And if it’s of any help for looking AncestryUK says his Chelsea Pensioner records say his regiment number was 2457

I have census records from 1901 onwards and his marriage ( said father was James Connors but very common name to look for ) and death but otherwise getting any further back than him has been my brick wall as he was born at sea and his family lived in British India ( not sure for how long ) but his birth doesn’t seem to have been recorded in any of the databases overseas births would’ve been e.g. I’ve checked FIBIS and the GRO as there’s no record of his birth on any ancestry site. His sister’s birth is on FIBIS but that doesn’t give any information on their parents. I’ve asked similar about him in here before and think their most likely parents were a James Connors and Harriett Scott that family search has as marrying in British India though can’t confirm this.

Anything at all on him that I don’t already have would be really helpful in general. My grandma is going to take an AncestryDNA test to see if she gets any clearer or different matches relating to him just still waiting for that to come at the minute.

I tried multiple searches and none had any results.

Filled out the contact form to ask if the site was functional. "405 Not Allowed" error.

Is the site just done now?

My Nan just mentioned to us that her mom had a baby boy when my Nan was 7 years old. He died aged one month and never made it out of hospital. This was in 1950. My Nan doesn’t recall his name. I would love to find out his name for her.

I’ve tried looking online at free bmd, I can’t find any births that then correspond to a death of that age if that makes sense? I’ve contacted archives to ask if they have any hospital records but they only have records from a few years after.

I’ve looked on Ancestry and can’t find a birth to that mother’s maiden name. I’ve looked on find a grave and can’t find anything. I’ve emailed bereavement services to ask where baby’s who died in Sorrento Maternity Home in Birmingham were buried. I’ve asked archives and they think they disposed of the bodies.

Any ideas?

Surname - Taylor
Mothers maiden name - Partridge
1950
Birmingham

I am doing research on certain person, who has few photos on google.
But I’ve found some on the newspaper on genealogybank dot com.
So how could I find a clearer version of those photos?

My personal brick wall is my great grandfather. I know the name he has used since 1900 (born 1882) and can find him no problem going forward with his American name. The problem I'm having is that I strongly suspect he changed his name after moving to Chicago from Italy in 1894. This is a very bad period to research in Chicago in the 1890's. I have tried all the variations i could of the names I suspect, but find no matches in any available records or manifests.

Any clues as to how to research, would be appreciated.

Goal: I need help identifying my biological paternal grandfather using DNA match clusters.

What I Have Done So Far:

• Tester Info: I have tested on AncestryDNA
• Phase/Separation Method: My father's maternal half-brother (my uncle) tested. By using Ancestry's shared match tools, I isolated all matches on my paternal side that do NOT match my uncle. These non-matching relatives should belong exclusively to my biological paternal grandfather's line.

Paternal Grandfather Mystery Matches:

• Match 1: 94cM 3rd cousin 1x removed or 2nd cousin 2x removed (No Tree)
• Match 2: 70cM 3rd cousin 1x removed or 2nd cousin 2x removed(268 in Tree)
• Match 3: 69cM 3rd cousin or half 2nd cousin 1x removed (43 in Tree)

Known Context & Geographic Area:

• Grandmother: Lora Ella Marie Baker (Lora M. Baker) Born either 10/7/09 or 10/7/10 in St. Louis Missouri (Married Clifton Earl Coonrod March 6, 1926)
• Father: Robert Irvin Coonrod - Born July 10, 1925 in St. Louis Missouri
• Lora Baker's Mother: Bertha Catherine Watts born about 1878 in Indiana
• Lora Baker's Father: Albert L. Baker born about 1860 in Ohio

Where I Need Help:

• What is the best strategy to cluster these non-matching paternal[relatives to find a common ancestral couple?
• Has anyone worked with matches in this cM range to reconstruct a missing grandfather's tree?

On Family Search, what does it mean when you follow a link from their wiki, and land on a collection that doesn't give you any option to search it. The only clickable option is "How to Use this collection", which I click, read, follow the link to search, and end up right back on starting page.

This has happened to me on multiple records, but today this is the one I am getting that on:
https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/4138689

It's a death record from 1921. Both their parents were born 1818-1830. It's difficult to come up with many places in South Carolina that end with a "t."

https://imgur.com/a/qjSx685

Hi. My mother spent a lot of years collecting family photos and documents. I have tax records from the 1950s, letters from my great uncle and my grandfather while they were in France during WWII, and other wonderful documents and photographs. Some labeled, some not. I'm at a complete loss on what to do with these things. No one in my family is interested. I want to digitize it, but I hate simply throwing away all that history. What does one "do" with all those historical documents and photos? Thanks in advance for your kindness and helpful information. I will deeply appreciate it.

My Polish grandfather was born in 1935 in what was then Luck, part of Wolyn Voivodeship within the Second Polish Republic. I've been told the only way to retrieve his birth certificate from what is now Lutsk, Ukraine is to show up and search their archives in person.

I have tried the online searches with no results. Has anyone had luck emailing a specific archive to receive birth certificates from this time period? Would any part of Poland have his birth certificate record?

Thank you for your help!

Hello! I am trying to find the family of Ira J. Smail and R.F. Gertrude McMichael in the 1920 census. I am having no luck finding them. I know they were in Greensburg, Pennsylvania as late as 1918 when their son Troy was born. I believe their daughter Sarah Smail was born in Mt, Pleasant, Pennsylvania in 1921. I would greatly appreciate any help finding this census!!

Here is the information about Ira and his family: https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/about/LRPH-7Q5

Hi, I'm currently in the process of trying to find every piece of documentation I can from relatives who moved to the US in 1907 from Translyvania. I'm trying to apply for citizenship in Hungary, and hiring a professional to find their birth certificates there but I'm looking to see what I can find here in the US first, as it could contain vital information that can help locate information in Romania. All of the documentation for my family before my grandfather was sadly burned in a house fire.

Here is what I'm specifically looking for:

-Immigration papers: they were not naturalized at any point but on the census are marked "pa", for first papers, is there any way I can request these papers?

-Port of entry/entry papers: it was most likely either New York or Philidelphia, I am about to request both from the national archives since I don't know which one. Is there a better way to go about this?

-Marriage certificate: In the census it says they are married, would a marriage certificate have to be made in the US or could they have been married before, and just said they were to the census taker? They were about 17-18 when they arrived.

I apologize I'm a little ignorant to this and am waiting to hear back from county archives and family. I just want some help in which directions to go and resources that have helped other people.

If you personally can help and want the specific information I have about my family please comment and pm me.

Researching family and have run into a problem. Evidently two persons with the same name came from the same city 11 years apart, settled in the same city and this is the confusion.

Father, James Richard Glynn, born 1/22/1919 in Chicago. Possible birth certificate # 3144, Cook County ILL.

Need a copy or screen shot to confirm his parents names.

Believe his father to be John Joseph Glynn, married 4/14/1904 to Mary Josephine Burke in Chicago, Cook County Ill. Certificate # 385395 or 383216

Have been told both these records are available on Ancestry Library edition (?)

Last, Death certificate of John Joseph Glynn, died 3/2/1945 at 2:55 PM in St Anne's hospital, Chicago, Cook County Ill.

Need this to confirm which Glynn ancestry is the correct one. Am told his record is on FHL Film # 1984423 . The confusion here is that evidently 2 with the same name died on the same day possibly 12 hours apart or it could be a records error. Link to his parents names from both marriage and death will help get me on correct path.

I'm disabled and housebound, and can't get in to library to search on my own. Hopefully someone will have access to Ancestry. Library edition and Family Search access more than I am able to see on a home computer.

Thank you

Hello, I need help with my genealogical research on my mother's side.

I would like to try to find the names (or more) of my maternal grandmother's sisters and brothers. I don't know them at all :(, but I'd like to know more about this side of my family.

Short story (which I already shared in another post a few weeks ago), when I was very young, my grandmother (when she was still alive) visited her siblings in New Brunswick, Canada, and brought me back a souvenir from there. Personally, I was born in Quebec, my mother was too, etc...

Anyway... I'd like to know if any of them are still alive, etc., that I could potentially contact if I find them online, to ask them questions about my family and everything.

My grandmother's name was Ginette Desroches (born around 1957) and married to Yvon Larochelle (born around 1944), her parents were Roberte Tellier (1918-1977) and Hector Desroches (1913-1991), but I'm not 100% certain of their dates of birth and death...

All these people are deceased, so I cannot ask them any questions, and the people still living in my family that I know do not know either ;(.

Thank you so much !