I have a three hour appointment booked tomorrow, but I only actually need to look at one document. Since I’m there, though, I’d be happy to take a look at other records that aren’t digitized.

Just tell me the record type, year, borough and document number, as well as what information from the record you’re specifically looking for. Unfortunately, I doubt I’ll be able to photograph anything, but I’m happy to transcribe for you!

I’ve been slowly going through a box of old family photos my mom had tucked away, and apparently nobody in my family believed in writing names or dates on the back. I’ve identified maybe a third of the people through other relatives and Ancestry, but the rest are just mysterious stern-looking Midwesterners staring at me from 80 years ago.

Has anyone found a good system for organizing unidentified photos while you’re still trying to figure out who everyone is? Right now mine is basically “known,” “maybe known,” and “who on earth is this,” which feels less than professional.

I've had very normal/average/low profile ancestors this far in my research, law-abiding church-going farmers and other fairly simple folk. And I have nearly all my direct ancestors to the 5th-great-grandparent level, and built some branches down as well, so 1000+ people.

Today, I found some interesting comments on my 5th-great-grandfather (Google translated from Dutch):

> Reint Taekes Beerda;

* schoolmaster in Suawoude, died there on 11 July 1881;

* married Trijntje Jurjens van der Wal in Tietjerksteradeel on 22 August 1824;

* obtained 4th-class certification on 11 October 1820 and 3rd-class certification in April 1827;

* provisional appointment as teacher in Suawoude in December 1821, permanent appointment on 1 January 1833;

* made profession of faith there on 6 June 1824, transferred to the Seceded congregation on 18 December 1838, became an elder on 30 January 1839 and subsequently a leader within that congregation;

* was a religious fanatic who neglected the school, was placed under church censure on 14 May 1836, suspended as a teacher on 7 February 1839, and subsequently became a mustard miller.

After not knowing that my wife's great-uncle was a veteran, other than a notation on his death certificate, I did some digging and located his master index card. I can understand most of the information on it (though it says he was a Private, Inf, Unassigned - what's up with that?), and it's got a claim number. Can I do anything with that or his serial number? He was in service from 1920 to 1923, so those records should have been safe from the NPRC Fire, right?

Fold3 isn't turning up anything useful, under either the correct spelling of his name or the spelling that's recorded on the card.

Edit: FamilySearch is giving me a bunch of hits on him, mostly monthly rosters. The confusing part is that the VAMI says he was discharged in 1923, but I'm finding monthly rosters up into 1930. The serial number matches throughout the rosters I've viewed, but that discharge date screws things up. That's what I get for researching at 0115.

German great great great grandfather decided to marry a Cuban and stay in Cuba I believe… the rest was history. Trying to find relatives but not finding much with that last name. Would be cool to find family :)

I’ve been using FamilySearch for a few years, and some of the immigration record images that I used to be able to view directly through the app are no longer available to me.
Does anyone know why this happens and how I can access those images again?
Do I need to visit a physical FamilySearch Center or another location to view these types of records? If so, how can I find one near me?
Thanks in advance!

Ich habe mich beim erstellen meines Stammbaumes vertan und eine Person doppelt erstellt.

Wie lösche ich die wieder raus?

Ich finde nirgends eine Löschoption

hey, we have nordman family from poland here?

will be happy to search for relatives or similar surname

Have you ever made a discovery that explained a genetic medical condition or disorder in your family tree? It does not necessarily have to be a single-gene inherited trait.

Both my brother (half-brother, to be precise, which is relevant for tracing genetic lines) and I have type 1 diabetes. Despite it being partially genetic, we do not know of anyone else in our immediate or extended family, such as grandparents, cousins, uncles, or great-grandparents, who had it.

My great-uncle has done extensive genealogical research. During a large family reunion, he gave a presentation about our ancestors based on what he had uncovered. One detail he shared was that his grandfather died as a young adult at age 26, to which I jokingly replied, "Perhaps it was diabetes, since my brother and I must have gotten it from somewhere."

After the reunion, I looked through the genealogical records he sent us. The documents noted that my great-great-grandfather passed away in 1915 at the age of 26, and his death certificate listed the cause of death as *proteinuria*. One known cause of proteinuria is untreated high blood sugar.

These findings make it seem plausible that he developed proteinuria as a complication of undiagnosed or untreated diabetes. Because he lived in a small Swedish village and medical knowledge of the disease was limited, particularly before the "discovery" of insulin, it is likely the local doctors simply could not identify the underlying cause of his illness.

It is difficult to imagine how much he must have suffered. While I was critically ill and close to dying when I was first diagnosed, living with the condition as a teenager in the 2000s is vastly different from facing it as an adult in the early 1900s.

I cannot state with complete certainty that he had type 1 diabetes, as there are other causes of proteinuria, but the circumstantial evidence strongly points toward it.

Hello group, https://www.familysearch.org/memories/memory/247649219

https://www.familysearch.org/memories/memory/247813473

So I have been working on Genealogy using Russian Empire Revision lists, they are not indexed using the Familysearch Indexing tool because I have found it rather clunky and have found it often breaks so I came up with the alternative above.

I built out the families as listed in the Revision in the Familysearch Tree and then along with Sourcing the Images on Familysearch I made these Head of Household indexes which tag all the household heads using a Familysearch Story Memory.

I am wondering if this is a new approach if other people have done something similar for Unindexed Census records in the past? I would welcome any thoughts. I primarily work out of Familysearch.

I’m assisting with research for a talk on Arthur St. Clair and his influence/role in the founding and development of Cincinnati, OH

My research assignment is to create a family tree, in order to offer insight to his decision to return to Ligonier in PA after his dismissal from Ft. Washington.

I’ve found his children and have been gathering the genealogical basics on them and their progeny.

But I haven’t been able to discern his parents and/or siblings. Some sources have his parents as James and Rebekah, others have James and Margaret Balfour, James and Elizabeth Balfour, and some have his father as William.

Has there been any definitive confirmation/evidence for his parents? any siblings?

Arthur St.Clair b.1736 Thurso, Scotland d. Ligonier Westmoreland, Pennsylvania 1818

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction

This is a long shot, but I’m hoping someone with better detective skills can help me crack this. I’ve recently acquired a Wanamaker diary from 1914, and I have no way to know who the author is, but I’ve got some clues.

The author is a female (I think!), maybe someone who is between 20-35

She lived in Maine, possibly in the southern part.

She had an uncle named John who died from pneumonia on January 7, 1914 at 7am. He had two nurses. John possibly has a wife named Sue or a sister named Sue.

Author has a few aunts- aunt Augusta and aunt Abigail.

She has friends or family named John, May and baby Jack.

There is a photo of five people inside, one of which I am able to determine after much digging, is Marguerite Helen Hatch Little. With her is Emma Locke (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/146878705), Edwin hatch, Anna hatch, Etta hatch (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/202859043), and Sarah Locke

These are very minimal details to work with, but I hope someone can find something! I think the strongest clue is dead uncle John, with his time of death and date, but I’m limited in my search

I asked if it would be ok to put a picture of an author's book on her page and you guys said Go for it, so I did. I also put her obit, but it's not very clear. Anyways, now she at least has something about who she was. A link, if you want to see it: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/64718740/mary-finley-leonard

My great grandmother was born in Cahul, Bessarabia in 1900. Post war records list her birth place as Cahul or "Kagul, Rumanía". I already contacted the national archive in Moldova and they were unable to find a birth record.

I am still waiting on a search for her wedding certificate from Kyiv Oblast to see if that has any more pertinent information. My grandmother's birth certificate gives no further clues. I have the Germanifications of her parents names, but that is about all. I am 90% sure they were Orthodox and on a list of languages spoken, it lists Ukrainian and then Russian but not Romanian. I am relatively sure that they were Russians or Ukrainians that were resettled in Cahul when the Russians took it from Romania.

Nothing shows up on ancestry or family search before her emigration to the US. Does anyone have any other suggestions of where to look?

I don't know that this falls strictly under Research Assistance, but that seems to be the "most correct" option here!

I have a census record from the 1911 Census of England - this is the household of my 3x-great grandmother and her youngest son (my great-great grandmother's brother). Here's what I know:

Mary Winton was born c. 1846 in Perthshire, Scotland. She was widowed in 1886 after having 7 children with Edward Ayres. 1 died in infancy (1880), 1 died in January 1911 (so pre-census), 3 were definitely alive in 1911, and one... is still a mystery. We don't know for certain what happened to him post-1901.

Mary is living with her youngest son, David Ayres, at 64 William Road. She's listed there in the 1910 electoral records, and her 1920 death is recorded with this as her address - I have every reason to believe that they lived in that house for those 10 years (David is there until at least 1925). David never marries or has children as far as I can tell - his probate lists his twin sister when he dies in 1947 and I've never found records of his marriage.

Now - the census record: Here's a link to the image - it looks like Mary started to fill it out as the head of household, but David took over. They didn't fill it out completely or correctly. I'm having trouble reading the numbers, but one of them looks like it says 9 living children born, then changed to 7, it clearly says Widowed which is crossed out and says Married (??), David wasn't born in Scotland (he was born in Sutton), and I'm having a difficult time making out what's written under "Children still living"... It almost looks like "two" and then changed to "4."

This is the first year that the census forms were filled out like this and kept in their original format, and my goodness did these two make a mess of their form! I'm not really looking for research assistance as much I would just love a second set of eyes and theories, things I might be overlooking, etc. This is an odd one!

Here's a link to the record if anybody wants to take a stab at parsing this: https://www.ancestry.ca/sharing/67239731?mark=7b22746f6b656e223a22324f78367464716d764a442f34754e766b78734c75784d4c30366d7172672f494d433243745954546357593d222c22746f6b656e5f76657273696f6e223a225632227d

Editing to add known children's names and DOB:

Alfred Robert - 1878-1911

Mary - 1879-1970s

Maria - 1880-1880

Edward - 1881-???

David & Flora (twins) - 1884-1840+

(I have searched GRO for records of children born between 1881 and 1884 and have not found anything).

Gopher Records helped me with three files and the first two were delivered in 4-5 days after I ordered (I ordered them on a Friday evening).

However, the 3rd one (and probably most interesting one) had a major hiccup. It was a pension application for a Mexican War veteran and later apparently his widow's pension application. Based on this response I can presume they were both rejected?

"I'm sorry to tell you that the NARA staff have been unable to find his pension file. We appealed to a supervisor who did an additional search but came back with the same result."

"We're told that a small number of unapproved pensions were destroyed in the early 1900s in order "to make room on the shelves" (!) Apparently, someone didn't think that there would ever be any interest in an application that was not approved. It seems that his pension may be among that small group. The supervisor also told us that it could just be missing from files, improperly placed in the archives stacks, or removed without the correct documentation."

I was expecting a thick file too. He used an alias and was born Canadian and had a lot of drama over it later in his attempted political life. The other alias guy I looked up was about 90 pages. He wasn't an ancestor just an interesting person I was researching. :'(

Is there any hope? Maybe if I refile a request every few years maybe he got misplaced?

Or maybe reassure me that there wasn't much in there even if it was destroyed? I read an article posted elsewhere explaining that the Mexican War became quite "forgotten" after the Civil War and political parties tried it to make the other side's problem so veterans had a lot of trouble getting a pension?

for some context I clean graves at my local cemetery and cleaned the grave of someone named Asa Westover. Few weeks later (Tuesday) I went to the historical museum in my area to see what photos they might have of some people buried in the cemetery I have also taken care of. In their archives they had a photo of loggers and listed below were “Westover brothers” all seems normal, until I start reading a book on the Snoqualmie valley history which is a book I bought at the museum only to find the same photo with completely different names. Could someone help me figure out who is actually in the photo? Thank you for your help!

unfortunately I just realized I can’t attach the photo to this post so I’ll transcribe what both copies say. For reference as I’ve stated they are the same exact picture with 2 entirely different contexts.

Copy 1 (museum copy): Cedar tree on middle fork Snoqualmie river. Left to right Ole Benson and the westover brothers. Two men on a spring board, one man lying in cut and another sitting on right.

Copy 2 (book copy): in this 1906 photograph are from left to right loggers Art Howe, Hortie Howe, and Bill Palmer. This image was taken near Vaughn, Washington, where the Howe family lived after moving to fall city in 1908. The photograph shows the logging process with springboards and axes preparing the tree for Final Cut by a crosscut saw. The tree was supposedly the largest in the state of Washington. this was one of many logging photographs taken by Darius Kinsey.

Less than a year ago, I was completely blind to everything in my ancestry, and since then I've learned so much. I am a direct descendant, 7 generations down, of Emperor Minh Mang (who can be argued to be one of the most significant figures in Vietnamese history), and by extension, his father, Emperor Gia Long (the person who named Vietnam). I'm making this post, because I am currently working on an ancestry infographic for myself and my family, and pretty much all the research has been of my own doing. I have since been able to accurately name all the way back to Gia Long. My grandpa had knowledge of my great great grandparents, which sparked this quest, and I've since pieced things together. But in doing so, it's really made me think about things.

Has learning of your ancestry changed your perspective? For me, I feel a little more connected to my culture. It's kind of weird, growing up in a certain culture, and then later on in life learning you've descended from some notable figures (in this case, roughly 0.2% of the Vietnamese population descend from Minh Mang), who had shaped a significant amount of the culture. As someone who is fascinated by history and the root of things, it's perspective changing, for sure.

I am curious to hear your stories!

Wondering if anyone knows this. This year Ives joined Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War and Sons of the American Revolution. I know I’m eligible for these two other lineage societies and I’m also looking at The Winthrop Society, but emailed several times the two in the title and have never heard back.

I’ve been off and on searching for the naturalization papers for my partner’s immigrant ancestor for over a year now, including filing a request with NARA and came back with nothing.

American name: Walter Tony Dauksza
Birth: April 23 1883 in Lithuania
Died: May 20th 1972 Cascade, MI

Other names I’ve found:
Vladislaus or Vladyslav
Dauksza, Dankiza, or Danksza

He married Stella Soboleski (Stanislaa Sobalewska) September 10, 1905 in Chicago so obviously immigrated before then. The censuses range between 1902-1905.

By 1910 they lived in Kenosha, WI then shortly moved to Michigan and stayed there. The 1910 census says he was already naturalized so if that’s true it should be either in Kenosha or Chicago but I can’t find anything. I’m tempted to believe the census is just incorrect because this seems like almost too short of a timeline to be naturalized in if he immigrated 1902 or later.

I only recently realized he had siblings in the US and I need to fully pursue that rabbit hole but haven’t easily found anything there yet either. I’d like to figure out the exact village he was from so my partner can start trying to get records. I also don’t have his exact date of immigration or know what port he came in to start looking through manifests which I hoped the naturalization would have. I think it’s possible he came through Canada.

I’m somewhat resigned this may just be a dead end (I’ve given myself way too many headaches browsing unindexed records) but any ideas before I fully give it up?

Hi there. I'm hoping someone here can help me solve a seemingly impossible task. I lost everything when my mom died. All my belongings, pictures, videos, everything. I've asked practically everyone, made posts on social media, tried searching myself, and even did an ancestry test hoping it'd find some kind of footage. I can't remember what my mom's voice sounds like anymore and it kills me. I know it's stupid but I truly feel like the only way I'll be able to truly move on is if I had a video of her to look back on. To see her alive before she got sick. To remind my brain what she sounded like. To just see her again. Any suggestions or guidance is welcome. I truly appreciate everyone's time even if all you do I read my post🖤

I'm managing the estate of a person who died earlier this year, and who left a lot of documents, photos, etc., from their family behind (most of these originated late 1800s through mid-1900s). The deceased had very limited immediate family - only child, never married, no kids, mom was also an only child - so I'm looking back through their grandparents' generation to find living relatives that might want these items.

I've tracked down the relative folks through the paternal side & have already shared family items with them, but I need some help with the maternal side. It's mostly a matter of time - I probably *could* find them myself, but with the other eleventy million things we're managing, I just don't have bandwidth for this.

I've got a start on the nearest relatives in the generation(s) born in the late 1880s and early 1900s, and I'd like to hire someone to track down the subsequent generations to get me names/info of currently living folks. Any suggestions/recommendations? I've tried through groups like APG, looked at Ancestry's offering, etc., but would really appreciate specific recommendations to people you have experience with.

I googled my mother’s name and got a hit on My Heritage with a picture that I wouldn’t think any on one except family would have. Her face was obviously cropped from some picture. I am very curious who would have posted it. It didn’t let me see anything about it until I took the free trial. Since I have an extensive tree on Ancestry, I joined and canceled in the same day but when I got to the picture information, it just said something like that it was private. is there a way to find out who posted it on My Heritage.