Loading ...Finding your Celtic Roots
HOW CELTIC ARE YOU REALLY?
By: Wanda Corn
Ever wonder where your Ancestors really started? Maybe Ireland or Scotland or even Germany? When our parents or grandparents tell us that their forefathers came from Ireland or England that could be true but what about our forefather’s parents or grandparents. My grandfather always told me his family was from Ireland which was true but had he traced back that far he would have found that before Ireland they were from Scotland. After his MacArthur clan moved to Ireland they married into Irish families which brought the Irish blood into the family. They changed their name to Arthur when they moved to Ireland and their next move was to The United States of America.
After migrating to the USA my immediate ancestors married into English, Scottish and Irish families until my great grandfather married into a family that was from Wales. (See where this is going?) Now that makes me part Welsh also. When my grandfather married my grandmother she was part Scottish and part American Indian. Now that’s just my maternal side of the family. My paternal side is Irish and NS (Not Sure).
Most people do not realize how many great great grandparents they have or great -great -great grandparents they have. Just think about seven generations ago and how many different nationalities there could be mixed in there. By the time you go through your maternal and paternal side of the family you have over 2000 people to look for to establish how many different nationalities you actually are. If you prefer to wait for science to establish better DNA testing there will be a more accurate test at some time to actually tell you how many nationalities and what percentage of each nationality you are but until then we are all curious about where we actually came from. You might be surprised how many of your ancestors are actually from Ireland or Scotland or England even if you never knew it.
I must caution you about looking for dead people. Some of them have secrets that your family would never have talked about 100 years ago. Some even more recent, so you want be prepared for the bad to go with the good. Keep in mind also that 100 years ago families married their sons and daughters to other members of the family, usually a cousin. Some out of necessity because they lived in smaller communities and there wasn’t an abundance of mates to choose from. Some because of class status and some because they wanted their money to stay in the family. A couple of years ago one of my friends found that his great grandfather was a bigamist and had 2 other wives at the same time as his great grandmother. Since it was over 100 years ago it was very easy to hide because the technology wasn’t there to detect it and many marriages were registered in a church but not a county courthouse.
With all that in mind if you still want to pursue your ancestors there are a few good tips I can give you that will help you get started but keep in mind that once you start it becomes addictive and you could spend the rest of your life being the detective that tracks down ancestors. I’ve been doing this for several years and by the time I’ve finished I will be with those ancestors to ask questions personally. (Tha’s my attempt at humor).
I know there are a lot of great stories out there and every family has at least one so if you find it write it down and pass it along to the rest of your family. I have 3 stories in a book that was published over a year ago and the book is really a great piece of history. We all have families that are a piece of history in one way or another and just because you think your family isn’t famous it just means they haven’t been published yet even though they may have done great things.
WHERE TO START
The number one rule in researching your ancestors is to MAKE GOOD NOTES. I have my own information sheets that I use that anyone can refer back to at any time. Always work backwards starting with your mother and father and build from there. It’s like building a pyramid and you’re at the bottom of the pyramid building stone by stone.
Collect all of your mother and father’s information as well as their brothers and sisters. Full name, birth date information, where they were born (city, state and county) and their marriage information. Then collect the same information for their brothers and sisters. If they are deceased you will need their date of death and where they are buried including the city, county, state and name of cemetery.
Collect the same information for your grandparents and their brothers and sisters. Keep working your way back as far as possible with great grandparents, etc.
MAKE GOOD NOTES.
There are several places you might find the information you need if you only have partial information. These are the top 4 information sources:
1. Birth Certificates
2. Death Certificates
3. Marriage license
4. Census
Almost every County in each state has records you can get on the internet but not all are free. Each state is different in what they will publish. Texas seems to have more Death Certificates on line than the other states but don’t stop looking because every day there are changes on the internet.
Most Counties also have Genealogical Society look-ups. Counties are very important in finding information.
You can also find the US Census on line but it isn’t always free. I have a Los Angeles County Library Card and can get the information on line free. It has to be a County Library card and not a city. I’m not sure if all states offer this but you can call your local County Library and ask.
Ancestery.com has a lot of records but it isn’t free. It also has information that people have turned in that may be inaccurate and it doesn’t get changed. The same applies to the Family Center for Latter Day Saints . Once the wrong information is on there they do not change it they just add more information so there may be 10 files on each person and 9 of them are wrong.
I use Rootsweb.com to post questions and look up questions and answers and have found a lot of contacts on there. You may have to register to post but it doesn’t cost anything and it’s well worth it. Rootsweb has a number of places to look up people. There’s a World Project that is very helpful. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/
The National Archives has information on a lot of things and it’s a good place to find Civil War records and war records for WW1, WW2, Korean War, and Viet Nam.
Findagrave.com is a good source to find deceased but not everyone is listed there. It is volunteer work and dependent on people to post information they have that is accurate. I have 2 family cemeteries posted there that I keep up and one is 100% accurate and the other is about 99.5%. If you have accurate information please post whatever you can including tombstones and pictures of loved ones you can put on there.
Some counties have cemeteries posted on the internet but they are not up to date in 90% of the cases.
I use the internet for almost everything so I google as much as possible. If you want to find information in Ireland you would use google.ie otherwise just google.com gets you to a look up place and new information is added every day. Sometimes I can just type in a name of the person I’m looking for and the results are another person with question on the internet about that person. I’ve also found family pictures and been in touch with lots of distant relatives.
MAKE GOOD NOTES (I’ll bet you have guessed by now why I keep reminding you about the notes)
You can write your own family history and if you enjoy scrap booking you will love this. Collecting old family photos is one of my favorite things and it tells me what the person I’m writing about looked like.
If you want to make a family tree there are places on the internet that offer free samples and free pages you can copy to make your family tree. http://www.censusdiggins.com/freebies.html
These are a few of the places I found very helpful but when you need more just google, google, google. Keep in mind just because websites say FREE, it doesn’t really mean free most of the time.
If you want to research your Irish roots try google.ie and then go to the County you want and look for the word Genealogy. Some have names listed
http://fsbeta.familysearch.org/
http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/deathcertificates/
http://www.familysearch.org/ENG/Search/frameset_search.asp
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/
http://www.kindredtrails.com/free_genealogy_stuff.html
http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/soldiers.cfm
http://www.archives.gov/research/index.html
http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi
http://www.censusdiggins.com/freebies.html
http://www.footnote.com/?xid=18
Free Family Tree Templates
http://www.familytreetemplates.net/
This is a free account to post pictures and stories
and post inquiries
http://www.ancientfaces.com/
Another free place. You can post and invite family members to join
http://www.myheritage.com/genealogy
Irish Websites:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cotyroneireland/
http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/ireland/tyrone/
http://irishgenealogy.net/antrimgen.html
http://www.irishidentity.com/ Thanks to Ryan Kelly for this one!
This page will give you the counties in Ireland to google to. If you google.ie you can then just type in the County name and Ireland and it will pull up several options you can choose from. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~michmar/IrelandCnty.html
This is for Scotland, Ireland and Wales
http://www.curiousfox.com/sitemap_2.html
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