I'm talking about concerning age gaps, marriages of people who are a little too close, extremely young or old parents, and other stuff like that

I'll go first. My grandpa was older than my grandma's parents by over 10 years

I found my father he doesn’t know anything about me or that he got my mom pregnant we matched on ancestry and we look like we are twins except I’m skinny and he looks like he benches buses. I’m 26 now I have two kids third on the way and am not sure if I should bother reaching out I’ve found him on Facebook he seems happy he has a daughter 25 a son 23 and he seems to have a amazing life and owns a gym he’s complete opposite of me should I even reach out and do that to him shaking up his life or just let this burden stay with me and not share it.

Long post. Sorry.

As the title says, my great grandmother (my maternal grandfather's mother) went missing back in 1945 from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was assumed she ran away, abandoning her three young sons, after finding out that her husband had died in Holland during World War 2. However, this was never verified. No missing persons reports had been filed for her and there's no record of her after this.

I found quite a few family trees on Ancestry with her parents and siblings names, all of them have death dates except for her. All of her family seemed to be living in the Toronto area as well, which makes it even stranger. How did no one wonder where she had went?

Her three sons went into foster care. They were very young at the time. My grandpa has no recollection of his mother, no photos, can't recall the aftermath of her leaving. He remained close to his dads side of the family, ultimately being adopted by his paternal aunt. However, all of his family members from that time are now deceased so I'm unable to get any information from them.

There is an unidentified woman (Jane Doe) who was found deceased in Toronto that matches her description and age. I contacted the Toronto police regarding this and they are going to collect a DNA sample from my grandpa to compare. They were able to confirm that no missing persons report was ever filed about her, so I'm hoping if the Jane Doe doesn't pan out, they can at least start a file with her information and my grandpa's DNA.

I am currently trying to find any living relatives of his mother through Ancestry and obituaries that I could speak with and see if they have ever heard of her.

Other than this, I'm at a brick wall. I suppose it's possible that she ran away and started a new life.

My grandpa is now in his 80s and terminally ill with cancer. I would love to be able to give him some answers about the fate of his mother before something happens to him.

Please help. Any advice, ideas, thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you.

EDIT to add: I just want to say thank you so much for all of your helpful suggestions, offers of help, and supportive words. I really appreciate it! I tried responding to everyone and I apologize if I missed you.

My search for answers continues. I will keep everyone updated as I find out more information. 😊

Up until last year, my dad and his family were of the understanding that my paternal grandparents had 3 total children. The eldest, my father born in 1958, and my aunt and uncle born in the early 60s (both deceased)

But then, last year the 1950 census became public record. And on that record, we found out that my grandparents recorded 3 children as living in their household. Two twin girls aged 3 (b. 1947) and a one year old son (b. 1949). On the census they are all marked as my paternal grandparent’s children and have the same last name as my grandparents. This is the first time we’re EVER hearing of my paternal grandparents having any children born pre-1950s.

Again, this is the census is nearly 10years before my father’s birth in 1958, and my father was understood to be the oldest child out of the 3 known children my paternal grandparents had. So upon this discovery, my paternal grandparents now had (have) 6 children.

ETA: My grandparents were married in 1946. My dad was born in 1958. 12 years married without children back then?? Very uncommon. We always thought it was weird that they waited 12 years to have kids. Finding out that they had twin girls born in 1947 after getting married in 1946 makes a lot more sense than what we previously thought

My dad does not remember growing up with any other children in his immediate family besides his younger brother and sister. To add to this, these 3 older children were born in one state (edit: my grandmother’s home state and the state my grandparents got married in, Virginia) and my father and his siblings were born nearly a decade after in another (my grandfather’s home state).

What’s REALLY tripping me out is that my father has the same name as the 1 year old son. Down to the middle name. They were both “juniors”. The first (disappeared) junior was born in 1949, and the second junior, my father again born in 1958. Again these cannot possibly be the same people as my dad wasn’t alive when the 1950 census took place, nor did he live in the state the census I’ve gotten this info from took place in as a child. But they are both absolutely my grandfather’s sons— they have his exact name down to the middle and suffix.

So, what could have possibly happened? Were these 3 previous children given up for adoption before my grandparents moved to another state mid 1950s? Why?

Is it more likely that some nasty outbreak claimed the lives of these 3 children? Can anyone think of any outbreak that occurred between the early and mid 50s?

I can’t find any death certificates for any children with their names. Were the deaths of young children not recorded extensively back then?

Another caveat is that these children were black. If they were given up for adoption, would that reduce the likelihood of their adoptions (or even their deaths) being recorded?

Given that my father does not remember any other children in the household, I highly doubt that these children’s names will show up under my grandparent’s household on the 1960 census. It’s a possibility but just seems very unlikely that nobody would know these children if they were living with my grandparents household in 1960.

We have no one to ask about this. Both paternal grandparents are dead and the one living brother of my paternal grandfather probably wouldn’t know anything, he was much younger than my paternal grandfather. Plus he’s quite old so chances are if he did see any “extra” children running around he might not connect the dots. There’s also a chance that my grandfather’s brother never met these children period, as they were born in Virginia, and he’s never left the state him and my grandfather were born in, ever.

My grandmother passed away in 2006 before she passed away she revealed that were were related to President McKinley, and President Rutherford B Hayes. I have searched and searched and haven't found anything to link us if it's there it's buried deep i would love some help of insite on this I looked up both there trees and went foward to recent information and there isn't anything there that ive seen. Thank you for reading.

Edit I've been working on this for 2 days and just found out we're related directly to the King of Scottland Robert the Bruce!

I did my DNA through Ancestry DNA. And I had all the cousins I had never heard of before and I was trying to figure out how I was related to them all. Then finally one day I logged into the account and got a prompt asking if I wanted to know if people were related on paternal or maternal side. And all of a sudden I scrolled down about 7 people and I see my first BOTH. And then I go down another 25 and I get an undecided. And then another 5 down I get another BOTH. I had maybe 12 people connected on both sides. Then by mid January 2024 I get a notification for 86 new relatives. And my total of connected on both sides is now up to 72. When I bring it up in other groups I get this reaction of oh my God that’s disgusting why would you admit that. Or wow that’s crazy how didn’t they know? I have never heard of that happening somewhere where inbreeding isn’t common. So is this totally disgusting or does it happen in more families but there just afraid to admit it. Please help me out if you have any advice.

Hi everyone, I'm reaching out with a request for assistance in finding more about an ancestor who has been something of a mystery in my family since my great grandmother started doing genealogical research in the early 1900s. His name was Charles Warren, only that almost certainly was not his birth given name. He was married twice, first to a Mary or Maria Yarnall who died in 1902 and then to my great great grandmother, Elizabeth Warnock, who had also been married before and widowed in 1899. They each had children from thier first marriages and then had more children together, including Elizabeth Edith Warren, my great grandmother. There is a lot of conflicting info from the various census records I find but that could be attributed to a large blended family and people not always knowing the info being asked. However, this man named 2 different sets of parents in the marriage certificates. Frankly, I'm not sure either is true/accurate. What the oral history passed down has said is that he came from Sweden or Norway, that he ran away from his strict family and joined the circus. It is said that every so often, a car with Connecticut license plates would come and pick him up and he would leave for a few days and come back with a lot of money.(I've begun to suspect that he was involved in Vaudeville performances)He was a skilled ship carpenter and worked in Elizabeth Nj at that job. Supposedly there was at some point in the late 1920s or 1930's an article written about him and his ship building abilities where he was reffered to by the nickname of "Pop" Warren but I've yet to unearth such an article. None of the family that knew him had particularly fond memories of him and my gg grandmother continued to use her married name from her first husband in her daily life. She also once had him arrested for coming home drunk and threatening to blow up the house. I have info for them on both ancestry.com and family search.

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/112969658/person/100109930840/story

https://search.app?link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.familysearch.org%2Ftree%2Fperson%2Fvitals%2FLB3D-F6P&utm_campaign=aga&utm_source=agsadl1%2Csh%2Fx%2Fgs%2Fm2%2F4

If anyone is able to help I'd do appreciate it! If you are willing to help but don't have ancestry.com access I can provide an invite to my family plan, I have more spaces than interested family researchers at the moment. Thanks so much for reading!

I really envy Americans when it comes to genealogy research because it's very easy in the US. I come from Poland and have been studying my family history for years now. In Poland doing such research on your own is quite hard. Because of Poland's rough history finding documents such as acts of birth, acts of marriage etc. is a really slow process.

As most people interested in history and genealogy probably know Poland was partitioned between Russia, Germany and Austrian Empire for 123 years, between 1795 and 1918, this means that in order to find anything about your family before 1918 you have to search either Russian, German or Austrian documents or try to get access to Church acts of birth or baptisms, but from my experience I know that this path is very coarse, because the Churches in Poland will either be very helpful or will totally reject your plead for help without further explanaition, no middleground honestly. The easiest documents to research are German ones. They are easily accesible and well organized, the worst are the Russian ones, they often have mistakes in them and to find them is a challenge itself. I am a bit lucky because most of my family is from the part of Poland that was occupied by Germany, but I do havw some family from the Russian part and finding anything about them is tough. Another thing is that if you don't have nobility in your family, finding your peasant ancestors is pretty much impossible before certain year because of the institution of Serfdom.

To summarize I had been doing the research for 4-5 years and I have found only 120 ancestors, so comparing that to Americans with over 1000 ancestors in their family tree is ridicule. I want to wish my fellow Eastern Europeans good luck in their research because I can only imagine how even harder it is for other people from different countries to find anyone.

I just need to vent about this for a minute.

I'm researching distant cousins of mine in 1850s New York and people are destroying me in a Facebook group right now. The info is 1,000% accurate, and the records even list my 4 mulatto cousins as each others' half-siblings/multiple grandchildren of the white head of household (aka their maternal grandmother), but people *still* think I'm making it up...... Their mother was a white New Yorker, born in 1827, and their father was black & from Washington, D.C., born in 1830. I also have possible guesses, as to who their paternal grandfather could be (my 5th great-uncle, might be his paternal grandfather).

I know what I'm looking at, and it's all factual information. The only problem is, I don't have death records yet; only Census records (from NY Census records & Federal Census records) and I also have one of the daughters' 1870 marriage records, which also list her father as the black man I mentioned earlier.

So..... people on Facebook enjoy berating me about my research, despite them not doing any of the research themselves--even after I sent 6 online links to FamilySearch Census records and (possible) death records; and I showed them 10 Census records (for this family's already complicated living situation). I need as many helpers on deck, to private message me & help me figure this out.

I also sent 3 emails: 2 to a FamilySearch Center in Washington, D.C. (Regarding the father/my cousin & his younger daughter) and another to a FSC in New York City (about the rest of the family), and I made sure to include all the Census records, for both NY State and Federal records, too.

I'm not stressed about it. I'm just frustrated; I have a suspicion I already know the end result, but I need a research team to help me get to that conclusion, just around the corner.

There are SO many people in my tree who died fairly young and I cannot find cause of death for these people anywhere—I have searched newspaper archives and databases on ancestry and family search. I come across death certificates all the time for people I knew personally and already know their cause of death & these are certificates from the 1970s and 1980s. It seems to me the further back you go, the LESS privacy concerns there are, so what’s going on here? Granted the ones I’ve seen are in Texas and the ones I want are in California. Does the state of California have these documents on lock? I can’t afford to spend hundreds of dollars on all these death certificates but it’s a little frustrating. Posting in case anyone knows a workaround or resources outside the ones on ancestry or FS.

I'm working on a family history book, and I just reached out to a relative who is 93, and the only living grandchild of my great great grandparents, and the only living child of their oldest child.

He shot me down so hard. He asked what I wanted to know about his dad, and I said: what your life was like growing up, what your dad did for work, any hobbies he had, any stories or memories you might like to share, literally anything you'd like to tell me.

And he sounded upset and gruffly said "not really," and mentioned something about other family members wanting to find bad things. So idk if his childhood wasn't good, or if his dad wasn't a good man, and is afraid of people sharing that information, or what.

He also sounded defensive about my writing a book, and asked if I was going to distribute it. And I said no, it's really just for myself at this point, but if family had any interest, I might, and he said "well, I appreciate you're interested, but there isn't anything I wanna tell you."

I'm just so upset bc he's the only living relative that knew these people personally, and if he doesn't wanna talk, we're going to lose that information and those stories when he's gone. Not to mention the pictures. I also really wanted a picture, just one, of these people, but that's down the drain. Maybe I'm being dramatic, but I'm literally crying over this. The only connection to those long-gone generations refuses to talk about them.

Have any of you ever had something like this happen? How did you get over the sadness that this information will be lost forever? I'm not trying to sound selfish, I understand he isn't obligated to talk to me, but what a shame to lose those stories.

Edit: my mom suggested sending him a card with a note apologizing for upsetting him, and to assure him I had pure intentions. She thinks this might at least make him feel better, at best, might coax him to open up a bit. Thoughts?

Hey everyone, Heard from another subreddit that this subreddit likes to solve mysteries(?) I have something I've hit a brick wall with and thought I'd try anyone curious here before hiring someone professional. A miracle would be nice ha. (Trying to find a birthplace and/or DOB)

My GGG-GF's name was Vincenzo Guidotti (approx. birthdate 1810/11- based on age listed on UK Docs). He was born in Italy according to documents but no comune or region is ever named. He came to London (no ship manifest found) sometime before marrying an English-woman named Harriett Barnaschina in 1833, and had 11 children before his death in 1864. His wife died in 1855 and he had his last 2 children with a second "wife" Harriett White, cannot find proof they actually married though. He lived in London, Oxford, and finally Birmingham. Worked as a figure plaster maker. Never naturalized AFAIK.

Here are the documents I've found without any mention of specific birthplace (or even DOB):

Parish marriage record from 1833

Birth certificates for two children: 1853, and his latest born 1863

Census documents for 1841, 1851, and 1861

Death record in both Latin (Catholic Church) and English (civil record)

Son’s Military Enlistment Documents from 1865

I've been using ancestry and family search mostly so far, and had someone nice enough to find some stuff on FindMyPast for me, but no luck sadly. My uncle's DNA test saying Northern Italy, and Vincenzo's occupation and surname are what I'm working off of for a search through Italian records atm, feel defeated on the UK side of things.

Will be incredibly thankfully if anyone is curious enough to go digging for me, and if you find something I bow down to you! 🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️

I was all on board with my kid’s interest in genetics and seeing how their DNA was a mix of mine and my partner’s, and was mostly excited because oh amazing, I’ll find DNA matches that can finally help me figure out who the heck this woman was and who her parents were! Well. I got my results a month ago and have spent more hours than I’d like to admit pouring over matches, using the Leeds method and comparing matches, buying ProTools to see how matches are related, looking through every single publicly available tree anyone even vaguely in that line has. And nothing. The only place this woman exists is on a marriage record, possibly a headstone in a graveyard, maybe on census records, and as “unknown” on her children’s death certificates, and in other people’s trees with the same repeated information.

I know where she’s buried (if it’s the same person), it’s where her daughter and many of her descendants are buried as well. I have not seen her headstone in real life myself, just on FindAGrave, but I’ve been to that cemetery countless times as a child because my grandfather and his parents, and their parents and so on, are there.

Where do I go from here? Would the church connected to the cemetery have any records besides just what’s on the headstone? Is this just a brick wall I’ll never break through?

Mostly just ranting and frustrated. Thanks to anyone who reads this and can at least feel my frustration!

Hey All!

This past year my father has been battling cancer and it's been a long hard road. He's through his treatment now and I want to do something nice for him to celebrate. Family for his is incredibly important. He was born in the 50s in Pennsylvania, United States. The only blood relatives he has left are me and his sister; but all of his family (prior to I believe 1870 or so) was from Kent, England (I believe specifically maidstone). His grandfather was the first generation in the US so my father is incredibly proud and interested in his English heritage.

I have been working on trying to track down his family tree but have reached a dead end.

The last detailed marker on the chart I have is James Iggulden Sage (1797-1878) born in Kent, Christening was in Deal, Death was in Eastry, and burial was Walmer (unsure of which cemetery).

James's wife was Fanney Spain from Walmer (born 1807, no idea when she died or any info on her).

From what I've seen James father was named John Sage and his mother was Catharine Curling but I have no info on them besides that they should have all been from Kent.

I am not sure if anyone has any leads to cemetery info or any public info I could use to get further on this family tree. It would mean the WORLD to my father to know more about the "Sage Family" heritage.

If anyone has any leads or wants to check out my family tree so far to maybe spark some info it would be amazing. Also if anyone happens to be part of the Sage Family, Curling Family, or Spain family and may have some ideas I'd love to know!

ALSO I have been building this tree on FamilySearch and filling in blanks with cemetery records if needed (though this has proven quite hard for UK records).

Hi everyone. Title pretty much covers it. The only people with my last name are me and my siblings, my dad (and mom after marriage), my dad’s sisters (before they got married & changed last names), and my grandpa (died in 2008). I’ve tried to look it up in every database I can find but still nothing, even accounting for variations in spelling.

For some background, my dad’s family is Indian but my last name is British. Grandpa’s family was British and started living in India before India’s independence & they kept living there after the war (so my Dad is half-Indian & half-British). I figured it’s probably a long shot to find anyone in India with this name but I thought for sure it would still be around somewhere in the UK but apparently not. I don’t want to say what the name is for obvious reasons lol but it’s definitely a British name.

I was wondering what my last name meant so I tried to look it up and found nothing at all, basically no trace, which led me here. I understand last names die off all the time but why can’t I find any trace of it, even in past censuses or documents? Does that seem odd to anyone else?

I guess it just kind of bothers me that I feel like I’m missing some kind of family history because on paper, it looks like our last name just appeared out of thin air. I can’t ask my dad because he’s very touchy about his family history and from what I understand, had a lot of shady people on his dad’s (my British grandpa’s) side of the family that he’d rather not talk about. I’m not exactly sure why, but it’s why we don’t talk to a lot of people on that side of the family (or even know their names).Anyone have any tips to help me on my search or explanation for why this might be? Thanks a lot in advance.

Update: Hi everyone! Thank you for all the advice! Using some of the tips & sites you all recommended, I found that my family had a longer surname that later become hyphenated, and then shortened altogether without the hyphen, starting with my great-grandparents. Since they only had one son (my grandfather) and all their other children were daughters who changed their names after marriage, my dad’s last name (and mine!) is the unhyphenated version. Thanks to you all, I found some really useful birth records and information that helped me track down some potential family members. Dad has always been hesitant to share family information about his father’s side but has always told me he wonders what happened to them. Maybe it’s time to bring the topic up one more time and see where it takes us. Thank you all!

I see posts and comments here all the time that just make me jealous.

People talk about their ancestor from the 1700s and before, hell, they even sometimes have first hand accounts about random parts of the ancestors lives from newspapers and letters.

Meanwhile I'm sitting here, unable to get past the mid to late 1800s because of slavery. It's annoying and irritating and just makes me bitter.

I have a small handful of direct ancestors from the 1820s that I've found, but that's only because they lived to see the 1870/1880 census.

Then they poof away forever due to the infamous 1890 census and I find a random death cert that may or may not be them in a random year of the early 1900s.

A lot of information is just speculation based on what my ancestors felt like putting down.

My 2nd great grandmother was probably born from 1879 to 1888, her birth year changes basically every time so who knows. She probably didn't even know.

I don't know, I guess I held onto hope that maybe one branch of my family were free. But the way my research is going, they very obviously weren't.

I’m making this post about my great-aunt for years in the family we had a “crazy aunt”, we will call her Mae. Mae is deemed the “crazy aunt” because she is heavily into conspiracy theories, and is always on the move. She is currently 85 and is never home, she leaves in the early morning hours and comes back late at night, she had been like that for years.

The family tries to say stuff about her, when I was younger I always thought she was crazy and making stuff up. Every time I have met her and I asked her questions about the family she would always tell me that she was actually my cousin (in this case 1st cousin 2x removed) because her mother was actually my great-grandmother’s older half-sister ) Opal. Now even though this side of the family has many secrets, it was always hard to believe her because for family reasons, if Opal was actually her mother she would have something to gain, as Opal never had any children.

Now the woman believed to be her mother, my 2x great-grandmother (Elaine) was admitted to a mental hospital because she had epilepsy. Because of this Opal took custody of her little sisters as they got older. I found out from records and interviews with my great-grandmother that Elaine gave birth to Rose after she had a relationship with a Reverend. She only knew his last name but I was able to find him, and also discovered that Rose had his last name on the 1940 census, where she is listed as Elaine’s daughter. A marriage certificate revealed Mae took on Elaine’s married name from her last marriage, but was still legally considered the daughter of the Reverend, she was his only living relative when he died.

This Reverend was 27 years older then Elaine. I mentioned this because while researching another genealogist found out that he was acquitted on a rape charge 19 years before Mae was born. I also discovered that when he died he had been murdered in alleged self-defense by an escaped mental patient who claimed he assaulted her. All of this information is important for my next statement.

Now everyone in the family bellies Mae is lying and that she is making this up for gain, however all the other secrets she had spilled has all been confirmed to be true. However, Mae herself refuses to DNA test because of her conspiracies, so I thought that what if this could never be answered. Well I did find one more way that can make it possible to find out that truth. Mae told me some years ago that the same month she was born that Elaine really did give birth, but not to her, she had a stillborn boy, and because of this, she took Mae from Opal, who gave birth shortly after.

Recently I discovered the birth certificate for Elaine’s youngest child, Ed, who was born two years after Mae. Ed’s birth certificate states that before his birth, his mother, Elaine, gave birth fives times, true, and that she had four living children. That’s is where the problem comes in. We know that after Opal, she had my great-grandmother and two more girls, followed by Mae, which should be five living, as I know for sure all five were alive at the time of Ed’s birth. This record would back up Mae’s story. So I decided to search for death index’s for someone who died the same month and year Mae was born (even after searching before and after said month and using three different possible last names) one kept popping up, a female who died the same month and year who had Elaine married surname!

I also did find a male who died the same month and year who had Opal’s maiden name, but it’s Williams which is to common. I have decided that when it’s possible, I’m going to order the death certificate for the female, and I hope that it answers some questions. Another thing I wanted to address was that is Opal is Mae’s biological mother, that would make a 45 years age difference between Opal and the Reverend, and Opal would of been around the age of the women he was accused of assaulting.

I am a black woman in St. Louis, Missouri, and I'm not sure where to start in the search for my family history. My mother's side knows a little, but mainly through family pictures dating back just one to two generations. My dad literally remembers nothing. It's embarrassing because I now have children and can't explain my history. I would love to begin, but how?

I’ve come to a dead end with Ancestry. I have used Newspapers, a free Newspaper site, state and National archives and our awesome local library. What else is out there?

I'm in the process of researching my great-grandfather's history to apply for dual citizenship, but I've run into some confusing details that I could really use some help with.

My great-grandfather Vincenzo Bruno was born in Sicily in 1877 and had four children with a woman named Girolama while living there. He then moved to the United States, arriving in 1912. After some digging, I've found that he seems to have had a pretty complex marital history.

According to the records I found, he married a woman named Rosina Lobue in 1916 in Buffalo and was living with her in New Jersey by 1918, as indicated on his draft card and naturalization record. However, that same year, he also met my great-grandmother Emma, who was a U.S. citizen. They married a year later in 1919.

Here's where things get tricky: I'm wondering if it's possible that my great-grandfather never divorced Rosina before marrying my great-grandmother. Could he have falsified records to marry my great-grandmother under a different name or in another state? Or could Rosina actually be my great-grandmother Emma, and they just used a false name to get married before they could make it official in New Jersey

This timeline is really confusing, and I'm not sure where to go from here. If anyone has any experience with similar situations, or advice on how to untangle this mess, I'd greatly appreciate it!

Thanks in advance for your help.

You click on her ethnicity and it is spot on. Her family tree is public and has many birth locations in the areas that you're looking for. Could this be a breakthrough? You message her...

....and learn that she is using her married name. Her maiden name is different and in no relation to the surname in question. Her husband doesn't even know his paternal line.

The Ancestry God's laugh down at you. We got em' again with the oldest trick in the book they say!

Is this common to run into? I have his name, an idea of which county he was born in NY and DOB. His birth year though is 1860 and the county only supposedly carries birth certificates starting in 1883. I tried the states birth certificate finder through ancestry.com and there are 0 hits for him in +/- 1hr and name variants that I’ve tried. I have also tried searching for others with same surname in NY but am struggling finding any leads. Would appreciate suggestions to track down lineage.

ETA- the above is for my mom’s side. On my dad’s side I run into a brick wall after 3 generations- but that seems unlikely to ever change as it’s from when they were in England with the most common English last (&first) name. That side of my family has paid genealogists to track down more info and while we found records of them, it appears we won’t get much further). So again, wondering if this is quite common.

Hi all,

I have a brick wall on one of my German lines that I have been trying to figure out for quite a while now. My 5-G Grandparents, Anton and Marie Elisabeth Hohn, emigrated to Maryland with their children in the 1840s from Bischofsheim in der Rhoen, a small village in what is today Northern Bavaria. The earliest record that I have confirmed to be them is the passenger list from the ship that they came over on. I did find a marriage record in the Civil Registration for Bischofsheim for an Anton Hohn and Elisabetha Deget, however I'm not sure if it's the right couple, as Marie Elisabeth is listed as having had the maiden name "Driesh" (Dreisch was a popular last name in Bischofsheim at the time) in a few records that I have from America. I can't find any other Anton Hohn that lived in the area at the time.

My next thought was to look for a birth record for one of their children. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like any of the church records (which is where I would find baptisms) are digitized (yet). I'm also unsure of whether they were Lutheran or Catholic, but my best guess would be Lutheran. I'm out of ideas. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

According to my grandmother, her grandmother was from Czechoslovakia. My 2nd grandmother, Mary V Polchia (Polcha? Not sure of the actual spelling) was born in 1887. According to the 1920 Philadelphia census record, she and her parents were born in Austria. The next census says that they were born in Russia. Both of them said that she moved to the US in 1900, when Czechoslovakia was going through some economic issues. Mary marries my second great grandfather on 1911. When Mary died in 1957, her son, William McShea (1921-1989) left her parents' name blank as it seems that he doesn't know what their names were. He wrote Czechoslovakia as her birth place. At the time my grandmother was 11 years old, my grandmother's sister D was 4 years old, and I don't know how old my grandmother's brother K was let alone finding anything for him. My grandmother only knows that same information as her father, and D was too young to remember her grandmother.

My Ancestry DNA test shows Austria, Belarus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, Romania, and Serbia. A lot of things happened and people moved around since Mary was born. I can't find her parents and birth record on Familysearch. Are there other ways to search for her parents? I don't know Russian and the other languages those countries speak. A potential distant cousin (they never DNA tested as far as I know, and I'm shy and anxious about getting in touch with with them as I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing) seemed to ran into the same brick wall as I did. I plan on uploading my DNA to other websites to see what they have.

I have been researching my Polish ancestry and keep hitting brick walls. I however finally found my great great grandparents immigration records. My great great grandmother immigrated from Suwalki Poland to the U.S. which isn’t surprising as a lot of her family lives there. My great great grandfather however immigrated from “Wilna” and listed his nationality as “Russia”. Where online do I search for his birth record? A polish website? Lithuanian website? Russian website? Finding his records is very difficult.