Granny
Gold Member
Do any of yall do any research on Ancestry? Ive been doing it the last couple years with emphasis on finding my Dads side of the family. Quite honestly Im surprised (and delighted) at the information I have found considering how little I actually know about Dads family. I found both sets of my paternal great grandparents pretty much by dumb luck, but never-the-less. Its amazing how badly the spelling of Polish surnames names can be slaughtered from one passenger list to another and from one census to the next.
Ancestry is continually adding new stuff to its databases and I go back from time to time on some of my searches and up comes information that was not there before. One of the newer additions is using DNA to find relatives. I thought about that for awhile and then decided, What the hell Ill do it. A few weeks later I got back the information on myself showing my ethnicity being from the British Isles and Eastern Europe. And that was it, period. No surprises there - I already knew my mothers people originated in England and my Dads people are from Poland.
There was also a map with pinned locations of birthplaces. Apparently my British Isles ancestors are mutts of some kind because I couldnt find one single pin anywhere in that area, although Ive always figured that my mothers maternal ancestors were from the area of Durham, England. That would make sense with Durham as the surname. I could not find a pin for one of my Polish great grandfathers. A few weeks later Im not sure what I did but I saw this one lonely little pin way the hell over in the middle of damned Siberia! It had his name attached. So apparently sometime in human history I must have had people in Siberia who migrated westward through Russia. According to passenger lists those great grandparents lived in Suwalki, Poland which is at the far eastern border of Poland and Russia. They lived in Russian territory under the rule of the Czar of Russia. The other great grandparents lived in the central/west part of Poland under German control by the Kaiser.
Then some possible match notices started coming in. I dont understand this DNA business at all. It has had me totally confused from the get go. At this point Im getting sorry I ever got involved in the process to begin with and wondering whether the whole mess is a hoax. Every week Im getting new notices of possible matches sometimes in excess of 100 people at a time and after hours of going through previous matches Im still working on those when I get hit with a load of new matches! Ive got some 60+ pages of people to go through - but Im down from the 70+ pages I did have.
Each of these matches shows the ethnic background of that person whether Southern European, Scandinavian, Middle East or whatever and theres a symbol to show the background that matches my own ethnic background; that persons family tree and an alpha list of all the surnames in their tree. Matching surnames are already pulled so I can go into that surname and see where or if theres a matched name in my tree. Well, I have deleted a good 98% of those matches. I think I have marked about 12 matches I want retained for further research. I have a formula for this process:
1. If the other person has not made a family tree its an automatic delete. Why in hell would someone donate to a DNA project and not ever set up a tree even if it only contains that persons name? I dont get it.
2. People with private member trees are an automatic delete. Im not going to ask people if they will allow me access to their tree so I can figure out for myself if theres a relationship. Aint gonna happen - blip!!
3. People with no matching surnames to my surnames? Blip!
4. The people who have no ethnic background information matching (no British Isles/Eastern European) bloodlines make me wonder why they might be related to me. When the matches of people with West African
blood lines started popping up
hello? I dont get that at all!! Blip!!
Have any of you done any searching or have you participated in the DNA project. Anybody know how the hell DNA works in the first place?
Ancestry is continually adding new stuff to its databases and I go back from time to time on some of my searches and up comes information that was not there before. One of the newer additions is using DNA to find relatives. I thought about that for awhile and then decided, What the hell Ill do it. A few weeks later I got back the information on myself showing my ethnicity being from the British Isles and Eastern Europe. And that was it, period. No surprises there - I already knew my mothers people originated in England and my Dads people are from Poland.
There was also a map with pinned locations of birthplaces. Apparently my British Isles ancestors are mutts of some kind because I couldnt find one single pin anywhere in that area, although Ive always figured that my mothers maternal ancestors were from the area of Durham, England. That would make sense with Durham as the surname. I could not find a pin for one of my Polish great grandfathers. A few weeks later Im not sure what I did but I saw this one lonely little pin way the hell over in the middle of damned Siberia! It had his name attached. So apparently sometime in human history I must have had people in Siberia who migrated westward through Russia. According to passenger lists those great grandparents lived in Suwalki, Poland which is at the far eastern border of Poland and Russia. They lived in Russian territory under the rule of the Czar of Russia. The other great grandparents lived in the central/west part of Poland under German control by the Kaiser.
Then some possible match notices started coming in. I dont understand this DNA business at all. It has had me totally confused from the get go. At this point Im getting sorry I ever got involved in the process to begin with and wondering whether the whole mess is a hoax. Every week Im getting new notices of possible matches sometimes in excess of 100 people at a time and after hours of going through previous matches Im still working on those when I get hit with a load of new matches! Ive got some 60+ pages of people to go through - but Im down from the 70+ pages I did have.
Each of these matches shows the ethnic background of that person whether Southern European, Scandinavian, Middle East or whatever and theres a symbol to show the background that matches my own ethnic background; that persons family tree and an alpha list of all the surnames in their tree. Matching surnames are already pulled so I can go into that surname and see where or if theres a matched name in my tree. Well, I have deleted a good 98% of those matches. I think I have marked about 12 matches I want retained for further research. I have a formula for this process:
1. If the other person has not made a family tree its an automatic delete. Why in hell would someone donate to a DNA project and not ever set up a tree even if it only contains that persons name? I dont get it.
2. People with private member trees are an automatic delete. Im not going to ask people if they will allow me access to their tree so I can figure out for myself if theres a relationship. Aint gonna happen - blip!!
3. People with no matching surnames to my surnames? Blip!
4. The people who have no ethnic background information matching (no British Isles/Eastern European) bloodlines make me wonder why they might be related to me. When the matches of people with West African
blood lines started popping up
hello? I dont get that at all!! Blip!!Have any of you done any searching or have you participated in the DNA project. Anybody know how the hell DNA works in the first place?
