Have you searched yourself on the Internet? (from a thread in General)

**cassiesmom** · 03-07-2007, 06:28 PM

Originally Posted by Freedom

cassies mom, the best way to figure out your family tree would have been to ask your grandfather. And his cousin.

Lots of names were altered during the trip through Ellis Island. And the family bible was the only record in many countries which did not maintain registries. (England being a major exception, with Somerset House which recorded births and deaths for eons!)

I interviewed my grandfather when it was almost too late; as it is best to be able to ask TWO people so they can agree, correct each other. I was able to verify most of what he told me, with a distant relative in the "home land," who was also aged. I now have 6 generations!

I have googled myself, just to make certain it is all accurate. And to get corrections made, where needed. sigh. It never used to be this complicated before the internet!

My dad is one of four children. The "grandkids" are now in our 40s and 50s and we started recording as much information as we have between all of us. I don't know how much more information we can retrieve about my paternal grandparents, which is why we're trying to put down as much as we can for their great grandchildren. On my mom's side she has a cousin who researched and found a ship's manifest with my great grandfather's name on it. My mom's cousin had a copy made of it for my mom. It's hard to read because the original is so old, but the handwriting is beautiful. It tells each of the passengers, their ages and where in Europe they started out. So, that's what I know about my family. We're Czech, Polish and we just found out about 3 years ago that my paternal granddad was probably Ukrainian. When I was little I wanted to be Irish or German or Italian, like every other kid at school. (Being Polish I tell everyone I'm made out of dumplings and I bleed brown gravy!)

**sparks19** · 03-07-2007, 08:18 PM

LOL My mom's side of the family tree is very complicated LOL.

There are a lot of brother sister things going on... not THAT kind... but a brother marrying a lady and then the brothers sister marries her sister in laws brother and so on and so forth LOL did I explain that well? LOL

Brother 1 marries a lady (sister 2) and then sister 1 marries a man which is brother 2 which happens to be sister 2s brother. No relation but it sure makes for a confusing tree lol.

I thinkt here is only one person in the family that can really explain the whole thing.

BUT I do know that I am DISTANTLY related to Humphrey Bogart

**Cincy'sMom** · 03-07-2007, 09:43 PM

I googled myself once (maybe from the other thread?) and found I had a publication I didn't know about. At the company I worked at before, iI was working on a research project and was listed as a coauthor on 2 scientific articles. After I left, i found they published again, and still included me as an author.

**cyber-sibes** · 03-07-2007, 10:03 PM

Originally Posted by Cincy'sMom

I googled myself once (maybe from the other thread?) and found I had a publication I didn't know about. At the company I worked at before, iI was working on a research project and was listed as a coauthor on 2 scientific articles. After I left, i found they published again, and still included me as an author.

That's pretty cool! Did you send them an address to send the royalty checks to, Amy?

I googled me and found several others wih the same 1st & last name, which is odd because people always say what an unusual last name I have! I guess it's not so unusual among our French-Canadian neighbors. However, none the results are the "real" me. My husband did his & found numerous references to his brother, who does medical research.

**Twisterdog** · 03-07-2007, 10:33 PM

I find a lot of breed rescue related sites and articles, a reference to a county planning and zoning meeting I attended .... and a few hits for someone with the same name as me, who is obviously a much better soccer player than I!

**mike001** · 03-08-2007, 09:37 AM

Never even thought of that, I usually google only writers, musicians etc. But I think I'll give this a try.

**Pembroke_Corgi** · 03-08-2007, 09:50 AM

I've googled myself before...after reading this thread I did it again. It's amazing- when I typed in my name with parentheses 5 years ago, only 3 pages of results came up...now there are 15!

None of them are me, though- although someone with my name had a tragedy so maybe that's why there are so many results now.

On another note of sharing names, though, I did have an incident with another Jill M. About a year ago, a letter arrived at my mom's house for me from Indiana, so curious, I dropped by to pick it up and it was from some woman accusing me of stealing a bunch of her fabric from her home craft business! I have never even been to that particular town in Indiana...it was really a shock. The most shocking thing, though, was that it had the names of my mom, my brother, and a neighbor in the letter, and it said those people would be involved I didn't turn myself in!

I was bewildered so I took the letter to the police, and they contacted the woman for me...I guess there was another Jill M. who stole from her, and then left town, so she had hired private investigators to track her down- and they found me instead. It was really strange, and it actually upset me a lot, I didn't like the idea of someone spying on me when I didn't do anything wrong!