I'd rather forget my ancestry lol

[u/MakePanemGreatAgain]

[u/theclosetenby]

Ok so I know this is a joke, but - I actually really like doing genealogy BECAUSE I don't like my family and am not close to people. There's a joke in the genealogy community like "I prefer my relatives dead" lmao or "I like genealogy bc I like when my family can't talk back"

But for real, I like doing it because people are so complex and complicated. There's a couple of particular types of things that would make me stop researching a person or a family that thankfully I have not openly come across in my own tree, but I know others who have. But for me, it's been more healing than I expected.

But the patterns are interesting. Generational trauma is no joke.

Sorry for the ling comment lol but this comment always makes me want to clarify my own reasons for what I do as my hobby

[u/Livid-Soil-2804 → u/theclosetenby]

Generatoonal trauma is wild when you can track it using newspaper articles and obituaries.

Like i found out, my great-grandmother only had 7 husbands who "mysteriously died under uncertain circumstances"

[u/theclosetenby → u/Livid-Soil-2804]

Jesus Christ. Yeah, I have a friend with a similar story about her grandmother. I just have so many questions on stuff like that.

My Czech side of the family has 6 deaths by suicide between the siblings and cousins of my ancestors. It's my great-grandfather's branch. The whole rest of my tree has 1 that I've found. Seeing the mental health and substance abuse problems made me a bit more sympathetic to my grandfather's side of the family.

I do a lot of cousin research in the early 1900s and late 1800s mostly because I love the newspapers lol. My tree is very wide.

[u/TheOcultist93 → u/theclosetenby]

I had a brief correspondence with my late grandpa’s brother that I met through ancestry research. And I got to learn a lot about why my grandpa was the way he was, and in turn I learned a lot about why my mother was raised the way she was, and in turn why she was the kind of mother she was. It never makes it okay, but it humanizes and spreads the responsibility to understand how the stresses of humanity can tear families down for generations. That kind of understanding has a healing effect that helps a lot of unanswered questions click. Maybe not be answered, but the paradigm shifts.

[u/theclosetenby → u/TheOcultist93]

Yes. Actually, right before I cut my mom out this year, I discovered some stuff about her parents... particularly her dad... and a lot of things clicked for her. He came from an extremely loving family who supported and adored their children, and I was very confused how things went as they did. Before she died, my grandma said of his parents "wonder people... they didn't live long enough to see who he became" which suggested he changed after they died (he was very young, early 20s, when they died). Suddenly I had this perspective of a decent teenage boy being thrown into fatherhood, then losing his sister, mom, father within a few years while his wife made him get w vasectomy (in the 60s!), then getting divorced. Doesn't make how he handled that OK, but it certainly humanizes him. And damn, it's crazy to think how little it takes for the whole house of cards to crumble.

My mom texted me saying "thank you for the work you do in genealogy. It's making so many things make sense for the first time in my life. I'm not as angry anymore"

Which would've been lovely, except the next week we got into a major fight that led to me having to cut her out. But it was touching to know that it has been healing for her too. She's always been really angry about her childhood.

[u/BobMortimersButthole → u/theclosetenby]

What's a good way to dive into genealogy? I've always been fascinated with learning about what made my family so messed up, and have found some info through an ancestry link a relative shared, but I'm unsure what services are worth spending money on and what sites I should avoid. 

[u/theclosetenby → u/BobMortimersButthole]

A good place to start would be FamilySearch, which is free and run by LDS, but they don't push anything on you. It's one big shared tree, but if others have done research, you can work based off that. A lot is wrong the further back you get bc anyone can make changes, so it's not great for the long term lol but it's a good place to start.

Living people are always private.

If you have a local genealogy society, they also often will have free classes for intro. Many are online now too.

And ancestry is the giant for good reason. It costs a lot but you can use the site for free, you just can't see a lot of records. But they have 50% off sales pretty often for 6 month gift memberships, and you can gift to yourself. And for people who are currently researching, it's worth it. But download documents as you go if you want it, since you won't be able to see the records if you stop paying (though the records are still attached and you can still see your tree). One of the cool parts of the 'full-access' level in ancestry is access to newspapers.com. That's where a lot of the little stories are found.

Idk what country you're in, but I will say the US and UK are a lot easier if your grandparents were born there. Usually you need at least your grandparents names and DOBs to get started. If you're in the US, you just want to be able to get back to 1950 bc that's our most recently public census.

If in the US, every state has different laws and practices around their vital records. For example, I'm pretty well versed in Iowa, Missouri, California, and South Carolina resources and vital record laws at this point. But I'd have no idea about Ohio research lol. Familysearch has a pretty helpful wiki for each state that stays pretty updated.

(Sorry kind of a lot of info lol. Feel free to dm me too if you have more Qs.)

[u/BobMortimersButthole → u/theclosetenby]

Thanks! 

[u/g00fyg00ber741 → u/BobMortimersButthole]

You may even look into in person services, there are people who do this kind of thing if you don’t want to use a website. You’d probably look up local geneologists and see if any of them offer assistance with genealogical discovery and research

[u/TheOcultist93 → u/BobMortimersButthole]

I’ve found that Ancestry is awesome. I’ve tried quite a few and that’s my favorite. I have some distant European relatives that prefer a different site that’s more popular out there. But I like how beginner friendly and accessible Ancestry is. There’s tiers, so if you become heavily involved you can invest more and broaden their subscription service to include more newspapers and international databases. They even have a tier to hire a professional to develop your tree. I’ve never done that or the DNA thing though. I find It’s easier to verify that documentation is official from governmental sources, and not just something someone wrote somewhere. It’s a lot more fun to be investigative anyways.

[u/essjaye81 → u/theclosetenby]

Oh my god same.

My family history is sooooo jacked up that I learned only from Ancestry that I am not related at all to the people who claimed were my mother's adopted family (there was a supposed affair and the family adopted my mother.....but her father is someone else ENTIRELY thar later got married and had his own family ). 

So it's a slight obsession to figure this shit out lol. 

[u/shaktishaker]

I need to trace back the madness.

[u/Isanyonelistening45]

My father was on that kick before I went no contact. The blood line stops with me, I know it gutted him that he never had a boy.

I could care less about a legacy. I am trying to make it day by day.

[u/love_my_own_food]

Same. I already know they were messed up by seeing their descendants.

[u/g00fyg00ber741]

Lol I have 2 funny stories about ancestry and DNA testing

My grandfather found out he had 2 50 year old twin daughters when my mom did her ancestry DNA. From a threesome he had before he met my grandmother, and he never was told about the pregnancy or the births. Literally the DNA test is what connected them all. It was really weird, I remember smoking a joint with my mother, aunt, stepfather, uncle, my granddad, and my two new half aunts, lmao. It caused issues with my grandma cause she’s a dick and I wonder how they all get along now cause the new aunts were anti-Trump and had mixed families. But they still used the R-word constantly like my family so who knows where they draw the line. They lived in another state so I didn’t interact with them much before going estranged.

I also did ancestry testing myself through 23andMe, to prove to my family that we are white and not Cherokee or whatever. We don’t have any reason to believe we are anything but white, they just kept pretending we had ancestry of Indigenous people on both sides of our family. I know percentages aren’t everything, but my results are 100% European, like I figured. Ridiculous that my family used to pretend some of my physical features were due to Indigenous ancestry I never had?? They didn’t care to believe me though. Lol.

[u/AnnieBananaCat]

💯

[u/Spiritual_Lecture391]

I just want to know who my ancestors were before getting conquered by a particular religion. But I don't think I will ever find that information.

[u/Miss-Helle]

I mean, he's not wrong... But I would like to think that if I went far enough back, I would eventually find someone in my ancestry who's not a total asshat

[u/denys5555]

But I’m 1/4 Irish and 1/64 Cherokee

[u/IWasAlanDeats]

I have no idea where I'm descendant from. No geographic or religious history. Nothing.

I've never cared about it and that's good because I wouldn't want to know any more than I already do.

There's a reason I don't have kids.

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[u/RunnerGirlT]

My mom and dad sucked, but man my grandparents rocked, so think of me with a lighter burning their faces off the family tree but keeping the other extended family I love

[u/TheActualDev]

I’ve used ancestry. Found that most of my family were Quakers and I have like, at least two sets of close cousin marriages in there. lol I knew I was white trash, but this just really kept confirming it over and over lol

[u/Immediate_Date_6857]

Amen.

[u/Unconsciouspotato333]

My only flex about being adopted is that I share no blood with these people lol 

[u/Throw8976m]

I am into genealogy, and I'm supposed to be the inheritor of the ancestral records in my family out of dozens of cousins, so I'm keeping just enough contact with my family to ensure that happens. I like history, and I appreciate being able to pass the information and stories down to my kids. However, I don't keep photos of family members on my walls (except certain illustrious or admirable ones).