Know Your Past, Find Your Ancestors!

When I became pregnant with Miles, it became very clear to me that I wanted to learn more about our past and who our ancestors were. I wanted to be able to tell him where we came from, and maybe even have fun stories to tell.

But I tucked that thought away to do later…like many of the ideas I have. That is, until the show “Who Do You Think You Are” came on TV.

I was entranced watching as each week, a new celebrity would travel the globe in search of clues to their ancestry and past. I would get so excited for them as they found pictures, gravestones, and original records and stories of their past ancestors. Oh, how I needed to do this! I wanted the fun of seeing who I was related to!

So I did it! Well, I’m DOING it. There’s really no end, is there?

The show “Who Do You Think You Are” is made possible by ancestry.com, a complete database of records, public family trees and so so much more. I knew it would be a great start. And it REALLY was! I signed up for the World Explorer Membership because I knew that my family had come over to the United States only a few generations back, and I wanted to go back as far as I could.

I called my Mom, as well as Hubby’s Mom and between the two of them, I got the names and birth/death dates of each of our grand/great grandparents as a start. I didn’t want any more information than that, because really…the fun is in the findings!

**I WILL NOT BE USING MY ACTUAL TREE FOR PICTURES**

Once I had a few names, I started filling in Miles’s Family Tree:

If you know the information, you just click on a box,
Here, I’ll show you Hubby’s Father…

I clicked on +Add Father above Hubby, and a box popped up and I filled in some basic information.

Once you get a few names and dates in, you’ll start to get hints! With the amount of amazing information ancestry has, you are sure to get hints with at LEAST your grandparents, if not parents! Each hint is tagged with a leaf on that person’s box on your tree.

Here’s an example from ancestry.com’s website

When you click on the leaf, a list pops up of all the information ancestry.com has on hand about that person! I’ve found birth records, marriage certificates, World War I registration cards, PICTURES (my fav!), immigration papers, census records, and even stories from other members.

I have already traced as far back as my Great Great Great Great Great Grandpa on my dad’s side, and traced family to Germany, Poland, Ireland, & Sweeden and that’s only 1 week in! I can’t imagine where I’ll get with more time…

I’ll update you guys in a few weeks to let you know a little more about how much I’ve found…maybe even share a picture of one of my ancestors with you!

Thanks for listening in on my quest to find history for Miles…If you are interested in starting your own quest, sign up for an ancestry.com membership today! They are running a promotion for more than 20%off membership! Details on the site.

Check your local listings or go to NBC.com for episodes of “Who Do You Think You Are”

*I was given an ancestry.com membership for review, but opinions are all my own.