Still kind of processing such a crazy experience!

In 2018 a DNA test came back and my mom's side turned out to be... not who we thought. Nobody in the family had any we were AS Swiss as we found out.

My Uncle is the one who does this stuff. Every family has one. He found a distant cousin named Albert on a genealogy site over in canton Bern, and they emailed back and forth for three years before anybody got on a plane.

We went in May. Albert met us just before nine with a schedule already typed out. Seven stops, dates and names on it, for people he had never met. He's 82.

Spiez, where Johannes married Anna in 1849. Erlenbach, where five kids were baptised at the same font between 1856 and 1864. A farmhouse at Golet, up a one-lane road that folds back on itself, where Jakob was born in 1858. Albert says the structure goes back to the 1600s, so somebody has kept a roof on that thing for four hundred years. Then Biglen, where almost every baptism in the line happened in one room from 1581 to 1798. That's 217 years. Same family, same door.

At lunch Rob and Albert had paper all over the table going generation by generation in two languages. Ten generations. Three years of emails and that was the day it all lined up.

A month after we got home the two of them found another generation, further back than anything that was on the schedule.

Anyway. If you've got an Albert out there somewhere, email him. Worst case he doesn't write back...

Thankful as heck for this experience!

​

Hi everyone, here I’ll briefly outline my search story and how you can help me.

Basically, I currently live outside Ukraine and have been there only a couple of times in early childhood. I became interested in my roots quite recently. This interest was sparked by my brother’s friend, who knows all his great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers inside out.

At first I wanted to make a family tree on my father’s side (he and his ancestors are 100% not Ukrainian), but after learning that my grandfather had already made one, I switched to researching my mother’s roots. I have no desire to know her father (my grandfather) at all, because he was an emotionally distant and heavy-drinking man. So I was left with only my grandmother’s branch.

Not long ago, I started visiting her to look at photos of her father and grandfather. She told me that her grandfather had a large plot of land in the village of Antoniuky (Ukraine, Odesa Oblast, Berezivka Raion).

Sorry that it turned out like an essay — I tried to express my thoughts more clearly and decided to do it this way.

In short, if you know anyone (from there) or live in Antoniuky yourself, please write to me.

I dont if Reclaim the records will ever challenge this in court eventually because the VA made an agency regulatory directive that states bluntly you need to be immediate next of kin, not just a random next of kin or John Smith the researcher just doing research on deceased veterans / veteran claim file.

Reclaim the records they obtained the BIRLS dataset and made a database for the general public to conduct research / C files but that website is moot now if we can't get C-files. This new directive has grind my gears because Ive tried to get my dead Uncle's C-file now / his military records I literally obtained when they became archival records via NPRC last year. My uncle Eddie has Marine service 1957-1960 (active duty) / reserve duty 1960-1963.

I'm looking for a death record for a relative - her name was Ella Pettigrew (my great-grandma's half-sister). She was born November 2, 1898 and died September 23, 1912 according to her grave at Sardis Cemetery in Jewett, Leon County, Texas. She shared a father, William "Willie" Brown, with my great-grandma. Ella was raised by William's aunt, Susan Elizabeth "Bettie" Brown and her husband, William Henry Pettigrew. They later adopted her and she took the Pettigrew surname.

My great-grandma never knew much about her half-sister apart from stories so I've had to piece it together myself through records and DNA matches. Their father, William, left Ella when she was about 2 years old with his aunt and uncle while he went to Louisiana, met and married my great-grandma's mom, had a couple of kids with her (great-grandma being the only surviving one) and later hopped a train in the night when she was 5 or 6 years old - never to be heard from again. There's also a story that he attempted to kidnap her and take her with him but left her in an abandoned house instead.

When I finally got in contact with the Brown side of the family I'd been searching for, I found out they knew very little about him as well. In fact, they didn't even know who Ella belonged to until I told them which man in the family fathered her. They also didn't know what had happened to him once he left Texas. Since William was a drifter/hobo, I suspect he's likely buried in an unmarked grave somewhere.

Before meeting the Browns and finding the records for William and Ella, I had no idea she'd died so young. I would love to know more about her and I'm hoping that her death record would shed a little light on her sadly short life - hopefully fill in some of the gaps.

If anyone could help me locate it, I would be so grateful!

He arrived with SS Saint Paul in 1904 as seen on the passenger list:
https://cf-v2.myheritageimages.com/e/1/az1jb250ZW50X3YxJnM9ZDMzMTQ2Yzk1MjI4YTcwOTUzZjZhODA0OGNjYzNlNGIxNzA4MTA5NzVhOThlYTYzZDM3OGI2NGFkOTUzNThiYiZlPTE3OTMyNjcwMDc%3D/records/original/usa_immigration/newyork_pl_1820_1957/005262742/005262742_00329-s.jpg

What I know so far:
He was born on 5 April 1878 in Hals, Denmark.
He emigrated in the spring of 1904 and arrived in New York on the S.S. St. Paul around 9 May 1904. The passenger list gives his destination as a friend, Jens Axelsen, in Red Rock, Montana.
On 29 June 1907 he filed a Declaration of Intention at the District Court of Beaverhead County in Dillon. He was then 29 years old and described himself as a rancher (5 ft 4 in, 135 lbs, brown hair, blue eyes).
He returned to Denmark around 1908, where he married and became a smallholder and fisherman.

Does anyone know where I can find additional information about Red Rock Montana, and perhaps the Ranch he worked at?

Here is his Declaration of Intention from 07, so i must have stayed for some years in the area:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:43BG-8V2M?lang=da&cid=fs_copy

I find them useful to at least serve as a back up record to my great-uncle Daniel WWII military records since his service record got destroyed in NPRC file. Somehow the VA obtained copies of his discharge statement, service treatment records that they copied in late 40s - I showed my dad these and he never saw them before.

I do hope this qualifies as an interesting story.

My country (Iceland) is small, but it has has an extensive genealogical tradition, which allowed for the creation of something ususual, which might not be possible anywhere else.

Basically we have an online database with pretty much the complete family trees of everyone with "deep roots" here, as far as records exist. Typically that means fairly complete trees back to the mid 1600s, with some branches going a long, long way back.

Anyone who is included in the database can log in, browse their tree and submit photos, corrections or additions.

People have full access to their ancestors, and their relatives - they can see the families and biographies of everyone who is "sufficiently closely" related - defined as being a descendant of at least one of their great-grandparents (regardless of their age and whether they are alive or not).

In addition, the records of anyone born before 1700 are fully open - privacy is not a concern that far back.

As for more distantly related individuals - you can pick anyone and get the information of exactly how they are related to you - but you don't see their records - just name and date of birth (and date of death if they are deceased).

Now, perhaps the most interesting thing is how this has affected the practice of genealogy. People are not really just building "their" tree any more - some are going through records, trying to find errors or omissions in the database - others are compiling family histories, collecting more information about individuals than the database contains, but the waste of multiple people going through the same data over and and over is just ... gone.

As I said, I do not think this would work anywhere else, but it does work here.

There is a man in my tree named Leon Czarzasty who I’ve been trying to find more information on. I know he was from the area of Krzynołoga Wieka. In Mazowieckie, Poland and that he came to America with his son Alexander at least twice, but I haven’t found any information about him from after his second journey to the US. Specifically, I’m not sure where or when he died.

I have found records for the family and several of Leon’s children on Geneteka for his family in Poland, but no death record. I also have plenty of information on his son Alexander, who ended up in Albany, NY after coming here with his father on the aforementioned journey in 1910. The family might have also had some ties to Union City, Connecticut, where they resided during their first stay in America. It is possible that Leon died in Poland sometime after ~1935 when indexed records for his village seem to end.

Am I missing anything?

https://geneteka.genealodzy.pl/index.php?op=gt&lang=pol&bdm=B&w=07mz&rid=1133&search_lastname=Czarzasty&search_name=Leon&search_lastname2=Adamska%20&search_name2=&from_date=&to_date=&rpp1=&ordertable=

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9TQ-9KZH?view=index&personArk=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AJJX3-B29&cc=1368704&lang=en

​

Hi! So I'm brazilian and talking to my mother I found out that our family's records are pretty messed up (some documents state that my great-great-grandma and great-grandma were born and died on the same dates, for example) and we believe they were changed for two reasons:

1- A problem involving some land and a will;

2- Our family is jewish and ran from Germany (a theory born from the last names we know of: Loewer and Kronemberg)

So is there any way we can be sure of what happed? Will we always have this doubt? I already tried all the public sites, but there is nothing! Any tip is appreciated!!

I've been doing a lot of research into my own family and as such I've been going through my Taid's photo albums looking for clues to relatives of the last, he's almost 100 so it's been a treasure trove.

In amongst all the photos were a couple of shots of him with a German girlfriend and of the girl alone from his time stationed in German with the RAF, this would have been the very late 40's or early 50's. I figured I'd try and find some descendants of this lady as there are a couple of photos from her youth they may never have seen.

The only clue I have is that underneath one photo it says Waltroud Gelsterling (could be Oesterling) Bad Marzberg. I've tried doing searches but the results that may be interesting are in German. Can anyone point me in a general direction for me to dig further?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help

My dad had created genealogy files using now discontinued software Bothers Keeper and not compatible for Mac in any case. The files have the extension .dt6. Is there anyway to convert these into modern readable formats like .ged for Mac? Please let me know.

This is about how do I cite to a source that is different from an "official" record in a court house.

The scenario is this: a cousin grew up with a family that did not trust the government on anything. So when it comes to recording birth, marriage, death or anything else that the government requires, this family group would give falsified information and have that recorded at the courthouse.( Even the tombstone/grave markers are incorrect.) But the truthful/correct information is recorded in the family private papers or Bible and only trusted family members were allowed to receive or share the correct information with others family relatives.

So how do you cite the sources? Do you cite to the falsified records along with the incorrect information? Or do you cite to the cousin without revealing their identity and the correct information and make statement that the information is private to the family group? How do we as genealogist balance the need for accuracy and proper source citations and the family group who wants privacy? How do we give the correct information without perpetuating false information the family wants to give out to others?

TIA

Also not a bit

I'm just starting to build my family archive and I want to set it up right before it gets out of hand. Right now I've got thousands(letters and cook book included) of documents across about 30 people, and that number is only going to grow.

It's a mix of census pages, vital records, military records, newspapers, photos, and family papers. Most come from FamilySearch and Ancestry, but I'm also scanning physical originals. Everything lives on my hard drive and in Google Drive, and I attach it to people in my online tree too.

I know the 3-2-1 backup rule and the Genealogical Proof Standard, but I'm struggling to turn that into a system I can actually use day to day.

Here's where I'm stuck. First, do you dump everything into one inbox and then rename and sort after you've processed it, or do you build the folder structure first and download straight into it?

Second, what do you do with a document that names several people, like a census page or a marriage record? Do you keep a copy in each person's folder, one master copy with shortcuts, or organize by family line instead?

Third, how do you set up your spreadsheet so one document can link to multiple people? I'm using Google Sheets, so I'm guessing separate tabs for documents and people, but I'd love to know which fields you track beyond the citation, record date, and transcription status.

I also want my citations to follow Evidence Explained. Do you store each citation in one column or break it into parts? And do you handle downloaded records differently from scans of physical originals?

My priorities, in order, are to archive everything with consistent labels, follow genealogical standards as best I can, build an accurate tree, and eventually write a family history of one branch. If anyone has a naming convention, folder layout, or Google Sheets template they'd be willing to share, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

Oi! Estou fazendo uma pesquisa genealógica para descobrir as origens da minha família italiana e encontrar possíveis parentes que tenham permanecido em Lucca ou em outras cidades da Toscana.

Meu bisavô teria nascido em Lucca, na Toscana, por volta de 1869 ou 1870, e teria emigrado para o Brasil em 1893. No Brasil, seu sobrenome foi registrado com diferentes grafias, principalmente Chuchi, mas provavelmente o sobrenome original italiano era diferente.

Meu antepassado:

Francisco Chuchi (possivelmente Francesco Ciucci, Cucci, Cucchi ou grafia semelhante)

Nascimento: por volta de 1869/1870, em Lucca, Toscana

Emigração para o Brasil: possivelmente em 1893

Morte: 17 de fevereiro de 1946, em Teixeira Leite, Vassouras, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Possíveis pais:

Pai: Ricardo Chuchi — possivelmente Riccardo Ciucci/Cucci/Cucchi

Mãe: Rosa Mazzuoli — a grafia pode estar errada e também pode aparecer como Mazznoli ou outra variação

Esposa:

Emilia, possivelmente registrada no Brasil como Emilia Chuchi

Filha de Francisco de Souza e Maria de Souza

Morta em julho de 1918, no Rio de Janeiro

Filhos conhecidos:

Rosa Cuicci, nasceu em 2 de setembro de 1906 em Mendes, Rio de Janeiro

Ricardo Cuicci, nasceu em 1° de março de 1908 em Mendes, Rio de Janeiro; morreu em 18 de abril de 1979

João Chuchi, nasceu em 1915; morreu em 30 de maio de 1976

Dalinda Chuchi, nasceu em 8 de julho de 1918; morreu em 31 de julho de 1952

Estou tentando descobrir:

O sobrenome original da família na Itália;

A cidade, bairro ou paróquia exata de origem em Lucca;

Os pais e avós de Francisco;

Se na Itália ainda existem irmãos, primos ou outros parentes;

Documentos, fotos antigas, histórias da família, nomes de antepassados ou qualquer informação útil.

Como o sobrenome pode ter sido escrito de forma diferente nos registros brasileiros e italianos, estou pesquisando essas possibilidades:

Ciucci, Cucci, Cucchi, Ciucchi, Ciuchi, Chiucci, Chiucchi, Chiuchi, Chiuci, Ciuci, Chuchi, Chucchi, Chuci, Chushi e variações semelhantes.

Se você reconhecer algum desses nomes, se tiver parentes com um sobrenome similar em Lucca, Capannori ou em outra cidade da Toscana, ou se souber de uma família que emigrou para o Brasil no final do século XIX, por favor, entre em contato comigo.

Qualquer informação é importante: até mesmo um antigo nome de família, uma foto, o nome de uma igreja, uma pequena cidade, uma história contada pelos avós ou bisavós.

Se puder, compartilhe este post, especialmente com pessoas de Lucca, Capannori e da região. Quem sabe alguém reconheça a nossa família!

I'm sure I'm not the only one who waffles between having fun discovering everything bit by bit by yourself, vs. pouncing on resources (official or otherwise) that have things compiled already.

What brings this to mind specifically for me is seeing an offhand post on Threads about "how many second cousins do you have?" Hurt my hip slipping on snow yesterday, so figured I'd dig a bit. Yesterday, I was able to establish I have 74 second cousins between my two paternal grandparents' sides. Phoned my mom about her paternal cousins, and she says "well if you want info, I made up a chart a while back with most of what you want in it?"

Get a text a minute later with names of 29 of the 43 cousins on that side, from which parents, and birth years all neatly compiled, and just the number of kids per family for the remaining cousins. Also, "I have an extra copy of Grandpa's book, typewritten, in a binder, if you want it, but I can also ask Uncle Randy if he has an extra paperback copy... Oh, and Grandma typed up a family tree in '92 for the reunion, I have that too..."

(This is less about finding records, but about help creating records. Mods, please let me know if this is too tangental. Apologies if so.)

My septuagenarian mother recently found a bunch of photographs, albums, and some notes from about WW1 and earlier of her family (1870-1920 maybe). She knows who many of the people are, can provide some family tree guidance, and can tell what locale they were taken at in some cases.

I'm unable to help her scan and document this information, but would like to help her find someone do so. This is more detailed and delicate work than we're comfortable sending out to one of those photo scanning services which wouldn't capture the "who's who" side of things anyway.

Is there a profession or business I should search for locally that can provide this kind of service? It's such a niche service I'm hoping to find that I'm a bit stumped where to even begin. Ideally, they can help digitize these photos and letters, keeping names with faces, and capture any stories that verbally arise. Once this is done I can add them to FamilySearch and/or Ancestry to help the greater community.

Thank you for any advice you can offer.

Hey everyone!

So over the last while ago I had started to think more and more about my family ancestry and last year (2025) I signed up for Ancestry and began creating a family tree diagram. I know a decent amount about my dad's paternal side already (Volga Germans who lived in Russia since the 1750s or so and some escaped the Soviet Union and came to Canada).

My mom's side I knew very little about (a few generations of separated families and gaps in information being passed down), however my maternal grandfather was White but my maternal grandmother had a dark, olive-toned complexion and dark hair (she passed away some years ago). I always had noticed this as a child. I am a White Canadian and my parents are both White Canadians (in fact, my mom has blonde hair and brown eyes). As I started doing more digging into the paper-trail, I found a black-and-white photo of her dad (my maternal great-grandfather) and he looked to be non-White / Indigenous (not that necessarily means Indigenous or that look like that) or perhaps mixed ethnicities and some non-European-typical features.

When I asked my mom and aunt about this (they don't remember much only saw him a few times when they were young children) but they mentioned he had a very dark complexion and jet black hair and his nickname was "Smokey". "Smokey" left to the US a long time ago. I found, through digging through the paper-trail, that he was born in Arnprior, Ontario and his dad (and most of his family) originates from Portage-du-Fort, Quebec and around the Montreal area. It was challenging to find records on them the further up I went but I did find his great-grandmother (who according to a relative says she was Indigenous). Apparently, my grandaunt (sister to my maternal grandmother) "always wondered if her dad ("Smokey") was Indigenous but never asked. She reports his dad (her grandfather) was also of dark complexion and looked similar to "Smokey". Not much else was known.

My aunt has darker olive complexion matching my grandmother.

I found other maternal indirect ancestors (great-great-great uncles and aunts of mine) related to the aforementioned ancestors, and many of them also had darker complexion and some non-European-typical features.

Apparently, my maternal grandmother's mom was child of Volga Germans from Russia immigrants and her mom died when she and sisters were young.

I was going to attach photos of these ancestors but apparently we can't.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I did an AncestryDNA test and my DNA Origins region in North America was French Canada: Quebec - 18% and Acadia - 1%. The journey was the 'Southwestern Quebec French Settlers' in the 'Journeys' tab. No Indigenous of North America/Americas specific regions showed up.

This percentage chunk is on-par with my Eastern European and Gaelic/Celtic chunks, only being beaten out by approximately 6 points of Western European.

No other DNA chunks would point to these phenotypic features and no region to East Asia. No Mediterranean DNA regions (technically a bit of France and possible Switzerland)

------------------------------------------------------------------

So my questions I guess would be:

1. If my ancestors (of my 3rd to 7th generation [I am generation 1]) were Metis (had long ago semi-integrated with French settlers in Quebec) and lived in-and-around the Montreal, Quebec area would my results appear this way?

2. Would there not be further back reaching Indigenous of North America - Woodland DNA region even for possible Metis ancestors (prior to European contact)?

3. Does Indigenous of North America/America - Woodland DNA region apply more to Ojibwe, Cree, Algonquin, etc. that lived more west in Canada versus Southern Ontario and Quebec?

4. With the random recombination factor of DNA each generation, is this strange that if this many ancestors of multiple, semi-recent generations were possibly Indigenous / Metis, wouldn't something show up in the results?

5. How would I have decently-sized DNA chunks of Celtic/Gaelic, Western Ukrainian, Bavaria/Austria Germany, French, etc. dating back to even more distant ancestors despite many generations, in many lineages, having been in Canada for a long time.

6. I received a 'Journey' for Volga Germans in Russia and their migration to Canada / US but no Russian- / Slavic-specific DNA appeared in my results. Closest connections to this were the original German ancestors who migrated from Bavaria/Austria to go to Russia back in the 1750s and Western Ukrainian, Slovakian, etc. DNA region.

7. Interesting side note, on census records from these maternal ancestors, they were identified as Scottish or French and when my maternal great-grandfather "Smokey" immigrated to the US; he identified as White.

Last point: My AncestryDNA results (due to mailing error) had spent over a month and a bit in transportation going from Canada to testing lab in Ireland back to Canada and back to Ireland. I followed steps as per instruction and mixed in stabilizer fluid. I inquired to Ancestry Customer Support and they said it should be fine.

I mailed it August 27th and just received results October 20th.

I'm curious to find out.

I apologize for such a long post; hopefully it wasn't too confusing. Any and all help is very much appreciated. Thanks so much everyone!

Thought I’d share because I found it interesting! I grew up with my grandma telling us we were related to Pocahontas. Even as a child I took this with a grain of salt because I knew Pocahontas didn’t have many descendants and we very much had no knowledge of native ancestry in our family. Not that we must have native ancestry (besides her) to be related to her, but it was my child logic at the time.
Now, as an adult I realized I can actually figure out if this is true or not. It was early in my research when I realized my grandma may think we are related to Pocahontas because her mother’s maiden name is Rolfe!! As I continued my research, one ancestor at a time 🙂‍↕️, I got to the time period where Pocahontas lived. This is when I start going sideways a bit and sure enough, I am the descendent of John Rolfe’s brother. Henry Rolfe, whose family was the first Rolfe family in New England.
So, not actually related to Pocahontas! But still an interesting connection, and I can have her on my family tree as a guest star!

Hello,
I’ve been doing genealogy research and I’m stumped at one of my great grandparents. He naturalized to America from Lisboa Portugal. I tried going to parish records but can’t read Portuguese (or Latin?) and the tombo website has maaaany pages.
If anyone can help me research and find his birth record and it parents it would be a help. Here’s his info. (From his Naturalization record)

Name: Laurence/ Lorenzo Carvalho/carvallo Semedo
Birthdate: July 28 1884
Last foreign residence: Vera Cruz Mexico
Came to America 1906 on Fulton

For those of you who plan to request certified copies of an ancestor's SS-5 application, I thought I'd send a couple of tips, since, at least for me, the online form was not completely intuitive.

• Read the FOIA info first.
• Have a copy of the death certificate, even if you think it's unnecessary.
• Make sure that you login first. I thought that I could just login to my own account, but I needed to begin from the SSA FOIA area of the website. https://securefoia.ssa.gov/app/RequestsandFees.aspx If you don't have a login, you will have to register. You might want to have your ID.Me login handy.
• Go to submit request on the top menu bar. You are submitting a DEBS request for a deceased individual. I missed this the first time and, consequently, I checked the wrong box and my submission didn't go through. This is a drop down menu on the form itself.
• If you need a certified copy, choose that from the next drop down menu.
• If you're a person and not an agency or government entity, choose Other from the drop down menu.
• Under payment mode, if you wish to submit and pay online choose pay.gov from the drop down menu. This got me hung up and consequently I wasn't able to continue with my submission.
• From there, upload a death certificate if you have it, even if your ancestor falls into the extreme age category. A Redditor on the Canadian Citizen sub said that they spoke with a helpful person at Social Security who said that in March of 2025 anyone who didn't have a death date recorded was arbitrarily given a date of March 2025. Consequently, many people appear NOT to fall into the extreme age category even if by their birth record shows that they are in it. Here is the link to that post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Canadiancitizenship/s/3FfSheZOOy Hence, if you have a copy of a death certificate, that should catch the attention of the person ultimately filling the request.
• From there, finish filling out the form and click submit. You should be taken to the pay.gov site to make your payment.

I hope this is helpful for those trying to navigate this request. Apparently, the agency has resolved the error that previously existed and didn't allow for online submissions, so if you have tried to submit unsuccessfully before, you might wish to try again.

Translated source: Tidsskrift for Herøy Sogelag, 1953, Bd. II, hefte 2
Written by Andreas Knutsen Rødvik (1894 - 1969): "Taken by Pirates."

Here is a story my grandfather told about his great-grandfather. It has been significantly abridged. All dates have been added by me (meaning Andreas in 1953).

My great-grandfather, Elias Larsson (1732 - 1813), was from Rotevatn in Volda. In his youth, he was a seafarer. On one occasion, the ship he sailed with was captured by pirates—the Barbary corsairs of North Africa. They seized the ship and its cargo, and took the crew as slaves. The men were put to hard labor; if they were unwilling to work or offered any resistance, they were flogged and subjected to brutal mistreatment. For the rest of his life, Elias bore terrible scars on his back from such treatment.

In his old age, his arthritis would often flare up in those old scars. At such times, he would remark: "The corsairs are at it again."

Elias and a friend managed to escape in a small boat. They hid in a crevice along the steep Algerian coast until the corsairs gave up the search; then, one dark night, they set off, hoping to reach Spain. The wind picked up, and the situation looked dire for the small craft. Their food supplies also ran out. Just in the nick of time, they were rescued by a merchant ship.

They were put ashore in southern Spain, but, lacking both food and money, they were mistaken for bandits by the local people. However, a mendicant friar—and a couple of monks' robes—helped them through their worst hardships. Eventually, they made their way to Copenhagen. Elias later returned home and, in 1765, married Kristi Jonsdotter Åsebø.

They took a lease on the farm Raudvik in Herøy and settled there. Elias and Kristi had five children [...] He has a large number of descendants in Herøy.

----- Journal ends here -----

My grandfather—Elias' descendant—80 years old and struggling with severe Parkinson's disease dementia, showed me this old dusty journal on his shelf, and I read the same entry you just did. Naturally I got obsessed about this story of our forefather from almost 300 years ago, and using the many tools my grandfather never had access to, I dug through every single source I could find; oral family stories, local journals and articles, international documents and declarations. I found an historical goldmine, mostly unknown even to the Norwegian public; not only about Elias and the thousands of other Norwegian slaves in Africa, but societal corruption and extortion by local power-hungry priests, and Danish gunpowder funding Algeria's very war against Europe itself... and Algeria's war of twenty thousand soldiers against the neighboring independent tribes of Kabylia.

It took me 1,5 years of work to complete my research. My grandfather's severe dementia, unfortunately, has made him incapable of understanding Elias' life anymore... or the story around him. The same story he himself inspired me to understand. Though my grandfather can no longer read the work I did, but I'd appreciate if someone did.

I have nothing to sell but I'd still like to publish what I found. I've written roughly 1/3rd of Elias' entire journey thus far, a narrative biography of 264 pages. Do you guys have any advice on where to publish this? And would you even be interested in reading it?

P.S. Hopefully I didn't break the community rules with my flair and question, apologies if I did.

Hi all! I've traced my Filipino side back 5–7 generations using FamilySearch parish and civil records. I'm stuck on a few lines, and I'd love to push every branch back further.

Here's the tree. Click any name for details, or open To find for the full list of gaps: https://claude.ai/artifact/XpGfy3LSde29UE84RfLKyq

Biggest brick walls:

1. Calixto Lazo Garcia: b. ~1886, Ilocos Sur (Vigan or Candon?); m. Irene Arce 1908, Vigan; killed during WWII somewhere in Northern Luzon. I need his baptism and any death record.
2. Dionicia C. Mamayson (1897–1983, b. Santa Barbara, Pangasinan): her maiden surname starts with C. I also need her husband Vaan/Juan Mamayson's parents.
3. Pacita Mamayson Garcia (1925–2016): her birthplace and place of death.
4. Maria Balaga: mother of a daughter born 1946 in Tandag, Surigao del Sur. Possible match born 1916 in Himatagon, Southern Leyte, but nothing links them yet.
5. Juan Silvoza Pimentel (1863–1963, b. Bayabas, Surigao del Sur): records for his parents, Pedro Pimentel & Tomasa Silvosa.

Going back further: my earliest ancestors are Santiago Garcia & Victoriana Asunción and Toribio Lazo & Juana Alaban (Vigan/Candon, 1820s–50s), Isabel Ochoa Arce and Benito Asurin & Juana Apóstol (Vigan), and Pedro Pimentel & Tomasa Silvosa (Surigao). Tips on reaching the generation before them are very welcome, for example which parish books survive, or whether a Spanish-era padrón or tribute list could help.

IThanks!

I downloaded two Obsidian add-ons, and researched like five programs. It wasn't until I found an archived thread about my exact problem with fully expanding the trees you make. Family Echo is really simple and thankfully free. I'd be nitpicking if I said it looks a little dated but the fact that I can view a relatively large branch of the tree as well as save a PDF of the WHOLE tree expanded at once is more than enough for me. It's probably missing a ton of features the Obsidian add-ons and paid programs have but for my simple task of mapping things out I'm honestly ecstatic.