Tracing family tree stuff - any experiences?

[xoggoth]

Never been that interested until last night somebody told me about something my grandmother said, that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a great, great, whatever, uncle. Brill, although being a direct decendent of Jack the Ripper would be better. Anyone done this ancestry tracing stuff and know best way to go about it?

[RichardCranium]

"It's a wise man that knows his own father."

[EternalOptimist]

my mum reckons that we are famous. decended from kings in Ireland and stuff like that, but I did a bit of tracing and I found that our coat of arms was three crabs rampant on a field verde sinister
and our motto was/is

'verily
if at first you dont succeed
try the boot and then the heid'

[Sands of Time]

Hi,

One of mine went to the Sarf Pole with Capt Scott - well on the ship as an Able seaman. I got a copy of the manifest from Royal Geographical Soc and yep he's on it and details of his pay for the expedition.


Bing!

[mudskipper]

I've got a diamond ring, which is said to have belonged to the Earl of Kilmarnock who was beheaded in the Tower of London. Have spent some time trying to prove the family connection but haven't got there yet.

[NotAllThere]

I spent a couple of years tracing family tree using genesreunited to document it. The Mormons have a website which you can use for searches. There's freeBDM, which is an online births/deaths/marriages repository. And there's various pay services to get census and other info.

I found that my great great grandfather was the great great grandfather of one world figure. His branch of the family were involved in SOE during WW2. My branch ... school teachers!

[xoggoth]

That freeBDM looks good cheers. I would also be an ancesteor of Richard Doyle, the cartoonist who drew the first ever cover illustration for Punch.

[NotAllThere]

familysearch.org is the site for searching the Mormon's records.

[amcdonald]

I looked up my family and found I had a half sister I didn't know about

[Zippy]

If you want to trace people in Canada try their national archive. It has a great collection of immigration and military records.
The Australian national Archive
For NZ BMDs

They are all free to search, but the records may be locked for up to 100 years.

Our National Archives operate a pay-per-download system (or you can order printed docs on line). You can often get access to useful summary info for free though. I found some interesting transportation records on there (one of the distant relatives was a soldier guarding the poor sods).