jungleplanewreck

I was curious as to how many of you have invested time, and perhaps money, into researching your family history?

I'm really interested in researching mine, but I'm unsure how to go about it. Can anyone offer any advice?

Salah

I voted for both the first and the third options. I'm predominately German and Scottish, but with some Irish, American Indian, and possibly Jewish blood in my veins as well.

On German side, I have ancestors who fought for the Union during the Civil War, whereas the Scottish side is (supposedly) descended from Robert E. Lee.

My grandfather on my mother's side supposedly has a fair bit of Native American in him, but I haven't been able to conclusively figure out which tribe.

The Irish element of my family has been in America for less than a century; my great great-grandmother spoke both Gaelic and English.

Master Chief

I did research my family tree back when I had a lot of time on my hands. It involved a lot of travelling though.

GalataTurk

Father side:My grandfather is from Bulgaria and grandmother from Albania.They are both Turks.
Mother side:Anatolian Oghuz Turk.

General Michael Collins

I have indeed. Actually, I think I started a topic on family history months ago. As for where my family name comes from, it is originally saxon, though my family line has been in Ireland since about 1000 AD.

History Chick

I just posted on this topic on my blog: History on Kindle: Today's Highlight: Genealogy
The books are ones on Kindle but they are of course mostly available in paper format as well, aside from some of the public domain ones mentioned.

The first place to start is with the oldest members of your family, hopefully a grandparent but if not, a parent. Get their vital data/BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death), as well as that of their parents and if possible, their grandparents (and their spouse, if necessary). That should give you something to start with. Before investing a lot of money with a site like Ancestry.com - check out www.FamilySearch.org, they have the largest free records database on the internet. If you're still interested, check out Ancestry.com's free 14 day trial - FamilySearch has a great free database but it's very limited compared to Ancestry's. That is the easiest and cheapest way to get started. You may find you want to pay for Ancestry in order to continue your search (not everyone can find everything in 14 days and don't forget that they are constantly added more records all the times). The books I posted in my blog should help you get started too.

Keep in mind a few things:
1. Other people's trees can be and quite often are wrong! Do not take information from them unless they have accurate records to back it up (and if you do take info from their tree, a "thank you" is very much appreciated, the genealogy community can be a little precious about "their" info and many privatize their tree so people can't "steal" their work).
2. Records can be wrong - especially censuses. Names are frequently spelled wrong and ages/dates can be slightly off, birth locations can be just plain wrong. And I don't just mean the transcriptions - the original documents can have errors too.
3. Ancestry.com's "hints" can be wrong so always verify the record before added it to your tree.
4. Because of all this, don't assume something is true until you have 3 separate sources to confirm it (and 3 member trees don't count, they were probably all copied from each other).

Knarly Dan

My dad's family history is nebulous, but on my mother's side all are Norwegian - every one. Being a small country, population-wise, it'd probably be relatively easy to trace distant cousins etc., living there right now.

I might even be related to royalty!

plutoboyz

such sites will never works for me. because I don't use surnames.

The Imperial

My family history is somewhat messy..... By the descriptions I get about my great-grandpa, seems he was a Maratha mercenary captain.... Rich guys who due to their Ksatriya caste were the de facto chiefs of their settlements.

Still farther up my lineage.... am related to Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj....

Much of my ancestral family was displaced in a famine 30-40 years ago.... so most of them are outta contact, but heard many of them made to top notch careers (one of great uncle is the head of a University in one place).....

This is the most I could dig up my history... LOL!!

Cicero

I've taken as true what family members have told me, but never investigated on my own.