You shouldn’t have much trouble getting info as long as it’s in the US. You have to check a lot of sources sometimes to get info, too. That’s why all the links. 
Oh thank goodness!! I’ve got all those links saved to my favorites! I had to take today off due to my healing process from my surgery, I was in a bit of pain today. I keep overdoing things because I “feel” good at the moment and then I do 10 things I shouldn’t. :rollseyes:
I’m such a dork.
Thanks again for the help. 
Absolutely. And you should check to see if your library subscribes to any genealogy databases. My library has HeritageQuest, which you can access from home with a password, and the library edition of Ancestry.com that you can use in the library.
It might also be worth it to contact your official state library. Often they’re repositories for copies of wills, birth certificates, death certificates, etc. They may charge a fee, but it could be worth looking into.
To do it right takes a great deal of hands on research and going through old documents, old family bibles, and whatever public records still exist. We’ve managed to trace our family history back to Ireland as far back as the 1100s with some speculation beyond that (records earlier than that are almost impossible).
Stick with and don’t get discouraged.
My dad, nor his sibs, even knew what their granfather’s name was. There was no record of my grandfathers birth. As my dad told me that they were poor share croppers and didn’t have time to run to the city. My dad’s birth was recorded only because his great aunt happened to be going that way, and as she didn’t like the name they had picked out, she changed it to what she wanted. He was 15 when his mom passed and he had to have his birth certificate to join the airforce. When they couldn’t find him in the records, his aunt spoke up.
Oh my goodness! I was talking to my Dad again and got some more info from him and in doing so it popped up a 5 generation list!! All I did was fix one name and boom there it was. For me it’d be 6 generations cause it was off of my great-grandpa. And the names that he gave me came up on some of them. So I know at least some of them are correct. I realize the info may not all be correct, but it’s something to go of off.
I am so excited to do this, and it came up to tell us that our family is from Germany. Back in the 1700’s. I called my Dad back and he was so glad because they never knew exactly where our family came from. I’m so glad I’m doing this for him.
I just had to gush!!!
OMG! You’re kidding me??? That’s unbelieveable.
I will stick with it, thanks for the encouragement it means a lot. 
It sounds like you’re having a lot of fun! Do you know what part of Germany your family is from?? You can also find information if you can get your hands on old obituaries. They’ll often tell you more details and make your ancestors seem more real. But double check what you find there! One of my ancestors had a whole bunch of lies in her obituary (she was covering up some family skeletons), but it did give her place of birth, which helped track down what was true. You’ll learn pretty quickly, too, whether family rumors tend to be true or not.
If you haven’t bought Legacy software, I encourage you to do so before you get overwhelmed with details. It’s a great way to keep your research organized!
Because you you and this thread I’ve spent the past hour researching and building my family tree.:teehee: Thanx:hug:
My pleasure!! It is so easy once you get the names everything just seems to fall into place.
I’ll look into that Legacy Software this weekend.
I started doing this earlier this year and I found out my family were all Acadiens (French Canadians… expelled and a lot of them ended up in Louisiana) I found out I actually have a lot of family in the US and that our last name was changed by the Acadiens who moved to Louisiana to have an -aux, or -au on the end instead of the -aud that we use in New Brunswick.
Online I met a woman who lives not far from where I am now, and she is my 5th or 6th cousin! She helped me continue back through our Family tree (though she had already traced it back to the first family member that came to Canada) and now I too have traced it back to our arrival in Canada.
It is all really exciting to me, because in school we had to learn all about Acadiens, and I remember my teacher saying my name was Acadien then (actually in the very first group of Acadiens that came here) and I was just too young to be able to look into it, but it has always interested me.
I am going with my parents this summer to do a little “Acadien tour” lol, and we are going to try and learn more… and add on to the collection of family recipes. It was pretty exciting to learn too that a lot of our usual family meals are Acadien foods…
Anyway, I have written a novel, but as you have seen it is very exciting to learn about your history! 
those of you that have experience with ancestry.com, do you know how to add a half-sibling with out making them show up under both parents?
Did you pay for Ancestry.com? I thought you couldn’t do much unless you did. :??
I never added anything, but maybe someday. I use rootsweb anyway for the most part.
Nope, it’s free. I’ve added everyone I can think of from my family which is quite big and keeps growing.
:?? Huh. I need to take a look again I guess.
Its free to make a family tree, but you have to pay to search for extra family members, or ancestors that you don’t know the names of.
Ohhh… there you go! I was only thinking of the search feature since I didn’t use it as a family tree. Thanks.
To add a half-sibling, you need to add the second spouse and put the child under the new pair. (Assuming this is a half-sibling through your dad, give him a second wife, and add the child as the child of the dad and second wife. The other sibling would be the child of the dad and the first wife.)
I don’t know if this is right. Although I’m just starting this so I could be wrong too, but when I’m entering the info in the family tree it’ll do a search everytime I put in new info and if it finds something it’ll show a little leaf and you click on it and get the info. I don’t pay for that.
Now if you’re talking about something else entirely then please disregard this post! 
Just wanted to clarify what I’m doing. 
no prob
It will search for you and show the little leaf, but if you want to open the record that they found, you have to pay.