DNA testing services...

[sumdumguy]

OK, you guys. You give me a hunerd bucks, your name, your mother’s maiden name, your address. I can find enough information on you and the origins of your names to give you your familial information - very cheap. Furthermore, I wouldn’t give anybody on the internet my personal information. Just saying!

[poorboy]

Are they doing this all from your DNA or from your name and many years of people posting geneology info.

Not sure if it was true or not, but told that someone had collected dna from their dog and sent it in with their own name and info and it came back saying that it was from region x, which is the correct region based on history and last names.

[makar]

I am the closest living relative of the Neanderthal, and everyone thought they were extinct.

Forgot to mention never cut his hair either. You may need the six hundred dollar test and watch out for black helicopters.

[farmaholic]

Forgot to mention never cut his hair either. You may need the six hundred dollar test and watch out for black helicopters.

Black helicopters....schmelicopters....come and get me! They can read my cellphone GPS co-ordinates but not my thoughts through the steel plate in my head shielded by a tin foil hat.

Back on topic....

What a bunch of dead ends and forks in the geneology highway. Records can throw you off when surname spelling errors were made. When did VitalStats start recording info? Church records can be a good source of info. Early newspapers too. But like I said spelling errors can be tough. Interesting none the less.

[makar]

I got my church records from 150 years ago, now what do i do with 600 pages of handwritten ukrainian in greek alpha.

[grassfarmer]

So what's the furthest back any of you have traced your families? We have good records going back to 1690 of an ancestor on the same farm my Dad was born on. My cousin sold that farm in the 90s ending over 300 years of the same family there.

[farmaholic]

I haven't dug that deep Grassy. Other than knowing we were Germans settled into the Kleinlebenthal area of Ukrainian/Russia. South of Odessa by the Black Sea:

[farmaholic]

.....only about 4° more south latitude than where we live now but likely a much more temperate climate. Probably God's farming country in the Ukraine.

[makar]

Sounds like a fantastic place to live under better circumstances, unlike the warring army racetrack sandbar shithole we escaped from. Anyone what to see what my family came from watch the movie come and see, shows the sandy soil poverty swamps and the horror of war my family left behind endured.

[makar]

Ever look at this farma
http://www.grhs.org/chapters/gdo/villages/kleinliebental_odessa.htm

[farmaholic]

Makar, we were out of there before all the hell broke loose....made it to North America Nov 1886.

What area specifically did your family emigrate from?

[15444]

15444, did you get more than one type of testing done?

Our family emigrated to this country alone, no other family members came. Just my Great Grandfather, his wife and kids. No brothers or sisters of the adults came. We were German Russians. They departed Europe from the port of Bremmen on the ship the SS Aller and arrived at New York, I had a copy of the ship's manifest photocopied from Sask Archives.

Church records used to play a big role in genealogy research but alot of people have abandoned the churches, they had birth, marriage and death records. I guess Vital Statistics is now doing all that.

No I didn't. It's not that I don't know where I came from, it's that the relationships with family from old country on maternal grandfather's side ended with him, so that connection is lost even though it's a mix of Prussian ancestry and a dose of royal blood from the Habsburg monarchy. And the Nazi's loved to burn records, so they are not much help either as many don't exist. It's going to be a lifetime of research to uncover anything from that side of the tree. DNA is a big help though.

[makar]

Corner of poland ukraine belarus, from belarus to the south of us the pripayt swamp and the ukraine, 15 miles west brest and the polish border, village was pozhezhin, apparently means burnt by fire. Swamp to south forest to the north, gramma said you had to look at what flag was flying in the courtyard to know what country you were from. Neighbors who come from south of the swamp in ukraine said lived in 3 diffferent countries and never left the house. Uncle went back in 1968 and was appalled at how much worse home was under the soviets. He thought communism was great till then since it was so bad before. How backward it was even though a major city was 15 miles away my dad saw his first car leaving for the boat in 1939.

[15444]

Are they doing this all from your DNA or from your name and many years of people posting geneology info.

Going from DNA. 80% of the people on Ancestry DNA have no family tree created and are not regular users - they are just trying to figure out where they came from. You would be amazed how many people know nothing about their family beyond their grandfather - and some not even that. Case-in-point, 3rd-gen cousin was shocked when I reached out to him through DNA. His father was raised staunch German Lutheran in Janesville Wisconsin and married a woman with Jewish blood in her from Silverton, Oregon (this all happened just after WWII). Well that caused his entire family (other than youngest sister) to disown him so my cousin had no idea that his father had so many siblings (8) or that his grandfather had a sister (my great grandmother). His dad never talked about family other than his sister. I could share many similar stories from other branches of my tree.

[Horse]

Seen a program where in a town in england they were doing an ancestry DNA testing and had to quit as they found 50% of the ofspring didnt belong to both spouces. Guess thats why they call it jolly old england .EH