Question of the Week: What's on your genealogical bucket list?

Question

Is there anything on your genealogical "bucket list"?

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Answer 1

I would love to go to the Family Search Library in Salt Lake City.  Oh, to be able to hold, read, see all the books about my family.  I grew up in El Paso, Texas and they had quite a large genealogical collection.  I was able to find several books about my mom's family in Virginia. It was quite a thrill to hold a book and find information you didn't have.  I was able to break down a couple brick walls with a Will Book from Virginia.  Imagine what I could do with all the books they have in Salt Lake City!!!!

Don't get me wrong, here in Kentucky they have a good collection, also. But, it is mostly about Kentucky (and mostly local so I've had to go to multiple counties for information). This was great when I was trying to identify my dad's birth parents. Knox County, Kentucky even has a wonderful website that lists quite a few births, marriages, and deaths. (My dad was from Knox County so I've used it quite a bit).

Comments

Now you know why I moved to Salt Lake City when given a choice to move anywhere

Answer 2

I want to get Y-DNA test data for all 8 of my great-great-grandfathers. A complete set even farther back would be amazing, but starting with a number under 10 seems reasonable. However, it is probably not possible. I am confident that for one of my great-grandfathers, there are no living male cousins that descend from his patrilineal great-grandfather. Only one of his brothers seems to be a possible ancestor of a candidate to test, but he lived in Ireland so it is hard to trace.

Answer 3

To track all of my non-Native American ancestral lines back to the immigrant. So far that’s produced 130-150 members of PGM with many more to go, not to mention the many others who seem to have mostly arrived before 1710. The side benefit on WT is getting to meet all the cousins working on their genealogy here.

Answer 4

I have quite a few goals and, like New Year's resolutions, I suspect most are just aspirations.

GOAL 1.  I have lately been using an interesting "obsolete" WikiTree app called "Missing Links" to make corrections to the family trees two generations up and two generations down from each of my great-grandparents.  The way it works is it lists each individual and identifies whether their parents are in the system or not and also lists how many spouses and children they have in the system.  This enables clearing up profiles for parents (most are available but haven't been entered).  Of course, when a person's parents are entered that enables siblings to be entered as well, which usually leads to their spouses and children.  The app doesn't highlight siblings and children where the WikiTree profile is marked "no more siblings" or "no more children" but will show spouses where "no more spouses" has NOT been checked.  This immensely helps when cleaning up profiles.

I've been through any American and Canadian great-grandparents and their Swedish, Norwegian, Irish, English, Scottish, and North European forebears and am now at the end of the exercise working with 100% Finns which is challenging for a host of reasons.  So one genealogical goal is to struggle through on the Finns and (no pun intended) finish the exercise.

GOAL 2.  I also have a six-generation WikiTree gap to fill on my maternal grandmother's Swedish father's side.

GOAL 3.  My third major genealogy goal is to try to encourage other relatives to join WikiTree.  Specifically, I'd like to get at least one.  Thus far, she is using the WikiTree profiles that I've developed but, to my knowledge, not using WikiTree to record her own research.  She is probably correctly concerned about privacy and maintains her tree offline.

Comments

Update: Thanks to work of the WikiTree Sweden Project, I have completed Goal 2 although I still have many Swedish profiles to add to round out the family tree.

Answer 5

My main genealogical goal currently:

Research the church books of the Lüneburg parish district (which according to Dieter's update have been digitalized in 2023) as they very likely contain info on my paternal brickwalls J.H.Timme, A.D.Jacobs, H.C.Meyer, Wilhelm Detje, J.H.Putensen and many more!

Answer 6

Complete the descendancy and first circles of Marie Anne Lannéval (1815-1883). With 17 siblings, 16 children and over 70 grandchildren (I'm not yet finished with those), her C1 is at 37, C2 at 170 and counting ...

She and her husband Jean Joseph Cougard were millers in Gourin, Bretagne, and her first circles contain a lot of my cousins.

Answer 7

I would like to figure out my Paternal line.

Answer 8

My greatest wish/goal is to find the family of Elizabeth White, who married my ancestors Thomas Beaman in November 1753 in Massachusetts.  I have been searching birth records to no avail.  It's like she appeared out of nowhere.  If I could make that link I would be thrilled.

Answer 9

I have two matches I was hoping to uncover of my true ancestry one is King Bela III of hungry to my great grandmother Belo, the only line that is uncovered for me at the moment from and it was a 99% match to him on there. Also I have a 96% match to Viking Floki of Iceland and a second match on his burial with 60%. I don’t which line this maybe on could be. If anyone wants to work out this with me or take over what I have, I’m mainly at my walls now. I’m willing to help or let someone take over. I struggled with what I have been able to find but it’s the two things I was hoping to do.

Answer 10

Finding my mother's maternal grandparents' names and the names of her siblings, as well as info farther back.  I've found info on her father's family from the Polish archives (both of her parents were Bojko Rusyns from what is now SE Poland), but no info on her mother's family so far.

Answer 11

One I might actually make progress on this next month or so is to finish transcribing and then translating the court record of a trial of one of my ancestors. The seven page document, from the 1700s and written in Dutch, tells the results of the appeals trial of my direct ancestor, who was part of a gang of neighbors accused of stealing peat. Their defense seems to be that the leader of the gang actually had the right to harvest the peat. My preliminary translation suggests that the court treated their defense as a side issue, not a true defense, and determined that they were guilty. (I confess that I skipped ahead to determine that, so maybe the nuances of the trial will provide more context.)

The project is complicated by the fact that I don't speak or read Dutch, although my meager abilities in German are more helpful than you might expect. The document is also written in an old handwriting style that seems to combine elements of multiple handwriting types, so there's some challenge in that. A recent project I worked on to transcribe an old church record book written in German has certainly helped me polish my abilities to read the old handwriting.

I have a rather extended period of time scheduled to be away from an Internet connection, so plan on making some headway on this project while I can't work online.

This fascinating document was found by a cousin who provided it to me years ago for me to translate. First, various life responsibilities got in the way of finishing it. Then, I got distracted by WikiTree and getting my ancestors' profiles on it. And then I branched out and let other shiny genealogical objects be my focus. It would be lovely to finally be able to provide my cousin with the translation I promised.

Answer 12

Is there any DNA tool that will allow me to determine whether Samuel Graham b. 1762, my 2nd great grand-uncle married a Coltrin?  Unfortunately at that time his siblings Sarah Graham, Jane Graham and Hugh Graham all married Coltrins: Sarah m. John Coltrin, Jane m. Elisha Coltrin and Hugh m. Rebecca Coltrin.  I think this is called pedigree collapse. I have found no documents to support this even the first name of Samuel's wife.  Thanks for your help.  Dorothy Coltrin

Answer 13

My father’s grandmother met my paternal great grandfather in Chicago USA during the rebuilding of the city after the Great Fire. Great Grandma had two younger brothers, both of whom stayed in and around Chicago after she followed Great Grandpa to Australia and married him.

Family legend has it that she and her brothers were all sired by a Native American Indian in New York City in the years prior to the Civil War. Following the Civil War, G-Gma and her 3 children moved to Chicago from New York City, along with her younger brother, his wife and daughter. Once they moved, they became known by a new surname, apparently taken from a man who had been very kind to them in New York City. While G-Gma and her siblings apparently hailed from Ireland.

Census records have G-Gma + 3 children living in NYC in 1861 with her maiden name, then a decade later in Chicago with the adopted surname, and all 3 children having additions/changes to their original forenames as well as the newly adopted surname.

A few years ago, I had an Ancestry DNA test done - results currently stand with all UK heritage, with just a little bit across the channel. I recently got results of a MyHeritage DNA test, showing mostly UK results, with just a bit of Scandinavian, and 1% from the Middle East. I have no idea how to make sense of all this, and would *love* some WikiHelp.

Answer 14

I am asking myself if I have family who immigrated to USA or Canada.

Answer 15

I am still trying to find out information on my Great Grandfather. I have found school records but that is all.  I have an oral history from my Great Aunt but it leaves more questions.  What did he do to my Grandma to cause him to loose custody of his kids and be run out of town! I didn't know about him, only my Step Great Grandpa for many years.  I didn't know he was  a step until  I was an adult. His name was Edward William Zink born approximately 1884 in Washington State.  Not sure of death as I cannot verify but so far it appears to be around 1919 in Washington State.

Answer 16

I would like to visit my family homeland Scotland.

Answer 17

I have several brick walls I'd like to get through, around, over or under.  I also don't have origins for many of my branches and I'd like to have those.

Answer 18

I want to solve the puzzle of who are the parents of my Samuel Jackson.  I have been searching for five years with no real proof.  This would complete my Plantagenet lineage.

 Jackson-3146
7. Samuel is the son of Elizabeth (Vance) Jackson (1680-bef.1750) [unknown confidence]

Answer 19

I would like to find solid proof of my 3rd great grandfather Pleasant Nance (b. abt. 1814) parents.. Have done yDNA testing through a direct descendent and done atDNA on 4 of us who descend from Pleasant with still no luck.

Answer 20

I would love to find my grandfather Fred C Crawford that supposedly is from Canada. He had 6 kids with my grandmother Ida Jane Dowless 1897-1990 from Bladen NC. I don’t believe they were ever married and all his children died not knowing their father. Their first child was born at Florence Creighton In Charlotte NC and Fred Crawford is listed as the father and his birth place was written as NC scratched out and Canada was added. He is such a mystery and Ida would not talk about him to her children and told them if he cared anything about them he would be there. I know that had to be heartbreaking for his children. My mother always wanted to know who her father was. She said she just remembered a tall man coming and going.