Welcome to Genealogy@LT!

Welcome to the group! I am a new administrator for the group. Please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your research interests and skill level! Let's make this group active again! In many LibraryThing groups, individuals create their own threads. This could work well for this group if you want to create a place where you can tell a little about new discoveries (or "genealogy happy dances"), about new resources you discovered, or maybe even ask a question.

I am a professional genealogist residing in East Tennessee. The European origins of my ancestors are mostly the British Isles and Switzerland. In the United States about 3/4 of my ancestry is Southern. The remaining 1/4 is split between colonial New England and Amish.

Counties of interest:
Alabama: Fayette, Lamar (and its predecessor Sanford), Marion, Walker
Georgia: Franklin
Illinois: McLean
Indiana: Howard
Mississippi: Itawamba, Lee, Monroe
North Carolina: Edgecombe, Nash, Wilkes
Ohio: Holmes, Morgan, Washington, Wayne
Tennessee: Bedford, Giles
Virginia: Bedford, Campbell, Goochland, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Nansemond
AND MANY OTHERS

Surnames: Aldridge, Allred, Andrews, Anglin, Cockrell, Dearborn, Duke, Fowlkes, Harris, Hertzler, Hester, Keim, Kurtz, Lantz, Mosely, Parish, Perkins, Phillips, Pridgen, Rathbone, Reichenbach, Ridings, Sheppard, Taylor, Thornton, Ward, Watts, Winstead, Yoder AND MANY MORE

>2 thornton37814: You and I have a few areas of overlap in our research interests.

I have been researching the surnames Gooch, Turner and Bunch from Louisa and Goochland counties in Virginia. My line eventually migrated to Vinton county Ohio.

I also have a Rathburn/Rathbone line in my tree which started out in Rhode Island/ Connecticut and eventually migrated to Meigs county, Ohio.

Other paternal surnames I am researching include Bishop, Black, Bozarth, Claypool, Donovan, Gray, Uit Den Bogart, Van Kleeck, Vandenberg

My maternal grandparents both immigrated from Germany in the late 1920's. Maternal surnames I am researching include Maier, Stephan, Foell, and Herzer.

>3 DCBlack: I believe we are probably cousins on that Rathbun/Rathbone line. My most recent is Lovica Rathbone who first married Stephen Taylor (my ancestor) in Washington County, Ohio. She married William Davis after Stephen died in the War of 1812. Her parents were Edmund Rathbone (1737-1801) and Mercy Carpenter. The line, of course, goes back to Block Island where the family numbers among the group of 1660 settlers.

>4 thornton37814: My great-grandmother was Jeannette Rathburn (1867-1957) and her great-grandparents Daniel and Muriel (Rice) Rathburn were among the earliest settlers of Salisbury twp, Gallia Ohio when they migrated from Hartford CT in 1804. This line does go back to John and Margaret (Acres) Rathbone of Block Island through their son William Rathbone (1661-1727).

>5 DCBlack: Yes. My line goes back to John and Margaret. I'm through their son John (b. 1658) then John (1693-1752) then Edmund (1737-1801) then Lovica (my 3g-grandmother).

Oh thanks for taking this on Lori!

I'm a genealogy librarian in Indiana. Despite that, I have no formal training in genealogy, just an MA in Public History, an MLS, and 16 years as a hobbyist.

My ancestors are German (Prussia and the Palatinate), Belgian (Flemish), Dutch, French (Huguenot), English, Scottish, and Irish (or Scots-Irish, the records are murky). The DNA also points to some Scandinavian; I blame Vikings. All of my family came to the United States by 1830, so we're thoroughly American at this point. My earliest ancestors to move to America were Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam in the 1670s or 1680s.

My research focuses most heavily on Indiana. I'm a ninth-generation Hoosier and almost all my family was here by 1811. I also do some Missouri research, as my paternal grandmother's family is from there. Before moving to Indiana and Missouri, my ancestors lived in Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

In Indiana I research mostly in Daviess, Dearborn, Jennings, Knox, Marion, Morgan, Orange, Tippecanoe, and Washington counties. In Missouri, Cooper and Moniteau counties.

My main surnames are Allen, Arthur, Beasley, Bull, Clark, Dell, Dunn, Ewbank, Lounsbury, Hess, Hicks, Hill, Miller, Myers, Patton, Sechrest, Sipple, Steen, Tipps, Vaughan, Veulemans, Whittaker, and more. So many more... although the pedigree collapse does help with that. :)

I'm not a professional, but have done a little cataloging of my family's genealogy based upon the efforts of my mother and those who went before her.

Off the top of my head, I have information relating these lines:

Morgan, Isaac (from Wales, saddle makers), I've visited his grave in Plainfield, CT.

Morris line (originally Marshon? from France), one of which was a drummer boy in the Civil War, opened up a dentist's office in NYC, died young due to shrapnel in his jaw. His daughter was my great grandmother, who I never met. My mother used to say I looked like her, and I have one photo of her sitting in a lawn chair, cat on her lap. Yep, that's me.

English side is from William Brewster of the Mayflower, would have to look up from which child we are descended.

Irish line came from Margaret Wall, from Waterford. The story is my great-something grandfather met and fell in love with her shortly after she arrived. She was Irish, so his family disinherited him when they married.

My grandfather left Denmark with his family in the early 1900s, went through Ellis Island. Name was Hoffmann but one of the Ns was dropped at some point. Some records indicate that they weren't originally Danish, but German.

My father's side is German and Swedish. The Germans settled in Pennsylvania in the early 1600s, many by the name of Gut or Gud.

The Swedish side came over later, would have to check my notes (not available just now) but there were a lot of Linde and Lindborg families. I'm not sure, but it might be the Swedish side that had someone surnamed Andersdatter (Ander's daughter).

Fascinating stuff.

Oh, and my husband's cousins did a bit of research, so we now know that his great grandfather was not just half Seneca, but also half Iroquois. That makes my husband 1/8th Native American.

I'm really just a genealogy lurker. My sister is the 'expert' of the the family but she's not on LT.

My ancestors are from

Wales -- (father's father) Lloyd, came to US late 19th century. Other names: Davies, Jones, Chappell, Morgan

Quebec -- (mother's father) LaRoche, came to US early 20th century. Other names St. Laurent and others

England/Scotland -- (father's mother) Parrish, came to US early/mid 19th century. Other names: Plummer, Kirkpatick etc

Germany -- (mother's mother) Graff, came to US later 19th century. Other names: Hessler etc

All these divisions met up in Pennsylvania, especially mid and western. Pittsburgh, Cresson, Johnstown, Ridgway/St. Mary's.

>9 Crypto-Willobie: Wales -- (father's father) Lloyd, came to US late 19th century. Other names: Davies, Jones, Chappell, Morgan

Howdy cousin!

>10 fuzzi:
All Welshmen, er ah, Welsh people are related.

In Welsh my name is Gwylim ap Iago Gwylin ap Tomos ap Sion.

>10 fuzzi: >11 Crypto-Willobie: My Gabriel Fowlkes is allegedly born in Denbighshire, Wales, but I don't have proof at this point. I believe he may have been in London before his arrival in Virginia.

>11 Crypto-Willobie: I love that.

Hi. I just recently joined this group. I have only been doing genealogy for a couple of years, prompted by my mother's wish to a) have the family take one of those DNA tests and b) make some sense of a box of records and notes about her family left to her from my grandmother. I am very much an amateur.

The research appeals to me though, especially the kind of research that offers some glimpse into how and why people get from one place to another. How we got here from there.

The family on mom's side is mostly Mennonite; Anabaptist Swiss-German from the Berne Canton, and Palatinate German from towns along the Rhine. They ended up settling first in Lebanon and Lancaster Counties in Pennsylvania and eventually in Stark and Portage Counties in Ohio

On my dad's side, it is Italian -- Calabrians from Nicastro and San Giovanni in Fiore who came through Ellis Island during the peak of open immigration. They ended up in Washington, PA and Wheeling West Virginia, where they worked mostly as glass workers or coal miners.

And in my generation, one of my aunts married an African American, one married a Sunni Muslim from Syria, and one married a Parsee from Mumbai -- so tracing those families all have unique and fascinating challenges.

The best thing about the project has been the connections we've made: Italian cousins who never knew each other now having zoom meetings and trading stories, a distant cousin who had letters from a great-great grandmother and was willing to share them. Stuff like that.

The surnames on my research list include:

Stauffer, Zimmerman, Erzer, Winteregg, Sanford, Beach, Walti, Geisinger (mom's family)

Leone, Pignanelli, Torchia, Montouri, Ferralli, Niccolazzo (dad's family)

Hilloowalla, Moosavi, Thomson (the cousins)

>14 southernbooklady: my paternal side had some Stauffers.

Another cousin!

>15 fuzzi: there are masses of Stauffers/Stouffers/Stovers/Stoevers! It hasn't been easy to sort them all out.

>14 southernbooklady: Sounds like you have a smorgasboard of ethnicities to research. I'm not seeing an overlap in our Anabaptist surnames.

>15 fuzzi: >16 southernbooklady: I love it when people can make connections!

>17 thornton37814: mom's ancestry is a mix of Anabaptist and Lutheran, but the Stauffers were Anabaptist. The original ancestor was named Matthias. He came to America in the early 1700s -- 1718, I'm pretty sure.

There are also Ramseyers, Mougeys, and Riches. Where I could trace them all back to Europe, they all seem to have come from the general area where Switzerland, Germany, and France meet. I think the family is represented in every "wave" of German/Swiss immigration in the 18th and 19th centuries.

>18 southernbooklady: our Stauffer side also settled in the Lancaster area. They were supposedly descended from a family named "Hohen-stauffer" (spelling?) of Bavaria.

Interesting bit about Stauffers here: https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~ggracie/genealogy/library/stover/article7.html

Both Fuzzi and Lori (thornton37814) have invited me to join this group, so here I am.

I'm a historian, working as a professional archivist - records keeper and enjoy genealogy.
I live in Belgium and I have my roots firmly in (West-)Flemish soil. Apart from a few ancestors who lived in the south of what is now Belgium, one supposedly Irish soldier who was one of the so-called "Irish Geese", it seems the vast majority of my ancestors lived in various cities (a.o. Bruges) and villages in the western part of Flanders, an area of about 1,200 sq mi. Currently I'm systematically checking and adding the sources to all the information I had gathered years ago. With all the original sources that are available online now, I keep finding more and more ancestors which is very engaging.

>20 Trifolia: Oooh, what kind of archives do you work at?

I have ancestors from Belgium, near Glabbeek in Flemish Brabant. They came to the US in 1830, and ended up settling in a Belgian immigrant community in Missouri. I’ve found quite a bit of information on them in databases from the State Archives of Belgium.

>20 Trifolia: Thanks for joining in!

And thanks to everyone for removing our spammer!

>22 casvelyn: - Wonderful to read that you found your information in the databases of the SAB. They have done an excellent job by adding the parish and civil records and coordinating the indexing.
I noticed you have been looking into the history of your ancestor Albertine Veulemans. Do you know that her family tree of 8 generations (lineage Veulemans) is on Geneanet?

>23 thornton37814: - Thanks :-)

>24 Trifolia: Yes! I've looked at the Veulemans information on Geneanet and it's been quite helpful. I've also used the Kersbeek-Miskom church records on FamilySearch.

Hi, I'm Linda, and I'm a genealogy research addict. I have no formal qualifications, but I've been poking around the internet for clues to family history since the early days of genealogy forums (before Google, or Ancestry.com). Now I use FTM, Ancestry, and Newpapers.com as well as local resources from various historical societies and cemeteries to fill in as many gaps as possible in both my husband's and my own family trees and history.

>26 laytonwoman3rd: Looks like you are in the right place, Linda. I think there might be one or two other genealogy research addicts on this thread.

>26 laytonwoman3rd: Welcome, Linda! We're happy to have you here!

>27 Familyhistorian:, >28 thornton37814: Thanks, fellow sufferers! I forgot to mention that there is a LDS family history site nearby, which I did use for its microfilm records years ago, before so much was available on the internet.

>14 southernbooklady:, >19 fuzzi: I am in Lancaster PA, here because my father got a job in the early 1960s. As far as I was aware, my family had no historical connection with the area, but in researching my father's mother's family several years ago I discovered a full loop back to a Scotch-Irish immigrant in the mid 1700s.

>29 laytonwoman3rd: The LDS Family History Centers can still come in really handy for those "locked" records, especially during these COVID times. You can usually access them from the parking lot if you know the wifi access codes.

>30 qebo: I have Amish ancestors from the Berks/Lancaster area (mostly Berks). They moved on to Mifflin County and eventually to Ohio and beyond.

>31 thornton37814: That's good to know, Lori. I haven't actually thought about that LDS library in a long time. I need to check their website to see what's new!

>30 qebo: isn't that FUN!? 😁

>33 fuzzi: It was fun. Also frustrating, but satisfying to connect the dots. My father's mother's family was in IL and as far as my father knew they had spontaneously generated there. Some years ago, I sent a letter of inquiry to my father's 1st cousin, the only relative still living in the same town, in hopes that he could provide more information. He replied curtly that the past is past and he had no interest in it. In sporadic efforts, I pieced together some tentatives from the census and a marriage record: a possible family in southern OH, and a possible family in western PA, but I had no way to be sure that I wasn't just making stuff up, forcing sparse facts into a story. Several years later, I received a letter from my 2nd cousin, son of the 1st cousin. The 1st cousin had died, and among his possessions was a box of family documents, including my letter, and also including exactly the sort information that would have been helpful at the time: a set of letters to the 1st cousin's and my father's grandfather, from extended family chattily mentioning names! places! dates! in the midst of mundanity. Which established that the western PA family was the source of my father's great-grandmother. Also in the box was a list of cemetery names and dates compiled by the wife of the 1st cousin, which established that the southern OH family was the source of my father's grandfather. This branch of my family is generally difficult: a couple of orphans, several rambling young men only vaguely from somewhere who worked as farm laborers, apparently a family rift, a tendency to exit the scene when the government arrived.

>34 qebo: Fun stuff!

>34 qebo: my husband's paternal side has Gay/Gae down one branch. When he was a teen he asked his grandmother if her family were related to a family in Connecticut that settled Gay City, and she clammed up, no response. Uh oh...

https://www.damnedct.com/gay-city-hebron/

Hi, I’m a retired professional librarian, and when my mom died, I inherited her genealogy files. I had helped her with the research when I was in high school and college, but after I started working, no longer had the time. Now that I’m retired, I’ve taken it up again; so different now, with all the on-line resources!

Surnames are Mair, Williams, Brebner, Vincent, Patterson, Simpson, Lovell, Sinclair, Nevils, Foster, Rackley, Melton, Brown, Arnold, Reed and Teem.
Areas are LaSalle Co., IL; Lee Co., VA; Claiborne Co., TN; Rabun Co., GA; Burke, Caburrus and Lincoln Cos., NC.

>37 staffordcastle: Most of your counties are pretty close to me I don't really have ancestors in those counties, but I've occasionally researched people in those areas for clients, but none appear to match your surnames.

Hi, I’m a retired professional librarian, and when my mom died, I inherited her genealogy files. I had helped her with the research when I was in high school and college, but after I started working, no longer had the time. Now that I’m retired, I’ve taken it up again; so different now, with all the on-line resources!

Surnames are Mair, Williams, Brebner, Vincent, Patterson, Simpson, Lovell, Sinclair, Nevils, Foster, Rackley, Melton

>39 staffordcastle: Welcome!

>14 southernbooklady: "The research appeals to me though, especially the kind of research that offers some glimpse into how and why people get from one place to another. How we got here from there."

Those are the exact things that keep me digging! Why move from Denmark to Iowa, own your farm in Iowa but then move to Washington where you ended up renting? Argh! (That is the Larson/Larsen side). History tells me about the move from Denmark, but not really so much about the one to Washington State... at least not that I have found yet.

Anyone researching Buchanan's, Hasbrouck's, Rice or Larsen?

>41 IrvinaBuchanan: nope, but I have Hoffmann and Jacobsen on my Danish side.

>41 IrvinaBuchanan: Not I. I do have a genealogy friend whose Danish ancestors went to Iowa.

>41 IrvinaBuchanan: My quick answer from my own genealogy work is "having a place of our own" or "making a living / money", not necessarily in that order. I suppose one can not rule out the occasion religious calling. This is why its good to understand the general history of the country and the area in which you are researching. I know New England very well now, but recently I was working on a friend's tree and she has somewhat more recent immigrants from England and I don't know the movements of people there as well or enough to be confidence I have found the right person (nevermind the frustrating lack of imagination in names).

>41 IrvinaBuchanan: >44 avaland: I do agree "Land" is often a primary motivator in ancestral migrations. That was probably the case for most of my Amish ancestors. The available land in Pennsylvania caused their migration to Ohio, etc. If there was a bad year of farming, they might have needed to move west, hoping for better conditions. (That's the making a living one.) I think we also need to realize that some people just had a somewhat "restless spirit." They enjoyed the adventure. My mom always claimed to be "part gypsy" because she loved to travel. After she retired, she and Dad were able to indulge that a little more. The passenger train era gave our ancestors a little more opportunity to see the world, but it was still usually a practical visit--to see a relative--rather than the equivalent of a modern-day vacation.

>45 thornton37814: Two of my immigrant ancestors migrated to Ohio via the Erie Canal. Family lore claims that some family members actually worked on the Erie canal, although I have not yet been able to determine whether they were involved in construction or working on boats moving through the section of the canal where they lived. They lived in Onondaga county, New York at the time the canal was being built, and migrated to Ohio in the mid 1830's.

There are stories of my Virginia ancestors that migrated across the Alleghenies into Kentucky and Ohio via horse and wagon. I can't even imagine how challenging and difficult that must have been.

>45 thornton37814: "Land" is often a primary motivator in ancestral migrations

Land, but also a lack of opportunity where you are. It's a monumental effort to pull up stakes and move -- a real leap into the unknown. You don't do that in most cases unless life is becoming untenable or seems to hold no future for you. When I first started researching our family tree, the "why" people came to America, and why they moved from place to place was one of the first questions I tried to answer. The litany of reasons go something like this:

--to avoid conscription into the army since they were pacifists
--because their lands were seized and/or laws were changed to make it impossible for them to live in the towns they were from, since they were part of a religious group that was being pushed out
-- in one case, because a man either lost or stole a sheep, and his master ran him out of town and indeed out of the province.
--because the glassworks they worked at was shut down, and there was no other work to be had
--because they were the youngest of 10 children, and would not inherit any land, but simply enough cash to travel somewhere else to make a start.

>45 thornton37814: We did a driving trip once and stopped in a lovely Amish area Ohio, NW of Columbus.

>46 DCBlack: That's cool! My husband's mother's side took that route, more or less. They ended up in Ironton, Ohio (right where OH, WV & KY meet).

>47 southernbooklady: Some good points there. I would add, if we are talking coming to America (rather than relocating*):
--because they were prisoners-of-war and had no choice (Scots, Battle of Dunbar, 1652)
--because they were indentured servants and likely had no choice
--because they wanted religious freedom
--because they liked a good adventure :-)
--definitely agree with that last one because he is a younger son of many sons and will need to make his own way in the world (so on my line, he'd end up likely an indentured servant one way or another).

I hadn't thought much about avoiding conscription,but yeah...

For some, of course, the reason for coming were that they were enslaved.

>48 avaland: My ancestors lived in Holmes, Wayne, and Knox Counties for some time. My mom and I felt a connection to a certain view and piece of property in the county. When I got the land records, I discovered one of my Amish ancestors once owned it. I can't remember what it's called now, but there is a term for this type of impression that is passed on to descendants. I've read about it, and I can probably locate the term if I try hard enough. I think we definitely had that connection.

>49 thornton37814: Oh, very interesting.

>49 thornton37814: Oh, I got a shiver.

I found this in a quick search: Genetic memory is the term being used in this article.

"Reputable publications now suggest that genetic memory is not science fiction. Genetic memory is stored in your DNA."

>49 thornton37814: >50 avaland: >51 laytonwoman3rd: I think the term I'm thinking of is "epigenetics."

>52 thornton37814: Yep, that term is also used in the article. Fascinating stuff.

>54 thornton37814: It really is. I've read several articles on the topic--and at least one book. I think Zimmer's She Has Her Mother's Laugh includes a little about epigenetics. It's been sitting in my TBR pile because it's a chunkster. Maybe I'll get to it this year.

I have the Zimmer book in the TBR, will have to think about moving that up.

>51 laytonwoman3rd:

Interesting article. First time I've heard of this!

I hope more of you will consider posting and creating your own threads! The only way this group can be successful is for people to participate! Please join in the genealogical conversations -- and create your own.

Have you made an interesting discovery?
Did you hear an interesting presentation?
Need some suggestions for breaking through a brick wall?
Have you been to a repository in person in the last couple of months? Report on the experience. I'm sure others are wanting to know what social distancing and other measures are in place?
Did you sign up for one of the summer institutes? Which institute, session, and class?

Let's get the conversation flowing!

Just last week I got a new hit on Ancestry DNA. Typically I check the other person's tree for the connection, there's nothing I don't know already (either it's a fairly close relative and recent generations, or a fairly distant relative whose information about the common ancestor is as sparse as mine and likely from the same public sources), and that's that. Sometimes I have a bit of information to offer. This tree had only one name I recognized, 5 generations back from me, 2 generations back from solid information (my g-grandfather was an orphan who went roaming as a young man and apparently lost contact with extended family)... but that name was associated with details that I would not have expected to find; the name is common, and he migrated from England to Canada and through multiple states in the early 1800s. I've messaged the person who submitted the tree.

>58 qebo: Best wishes on the DNA contact!

Hi folks. I'm new to LT groups, but not new to LT at all. LOL

I'm slightly afraid to start documenting my family history here. I come from a long line of semi-pro family historians. I myself am the current generation's person, only I've ratcheted it up quite a bit. I'm a member of multiple genealogical societies and am doing my PhD dissertation on psychological reactions to misattributed parentage, with a heavt emphasis on genetic genealogy, though not exclusively. The follow-up to that is developing a therapeutic course of training for mental health professionals and therapists to better support individuals coming to terms with this, much as genetic counselors do on the medical genetics side. When trying to explain my research to others, they either get it or they don't. For those that don't, I jokingly refer to my dissertation as figuring out how to best be Luke Skywalker's therapist in reference to the "I am your father" scene in Empire Strikes Back. 😁

My MS is in counseling psychology, which is slightly misleading as I work in (and tailored my degree to) vocational psychology and vocational rehabilitation.

Plenty more about me, but that's likely enough. I am Icelandic and Norwegian on my mother's side, Russian Polish and German on my dad's side. My mom's side (the genealogy buffs) has records of some portions of branches going to 932 C.E. Our family were in the first permanent settlement of Iceland, and yes, I am a direct descendant of Ragnar "Loðbrók" Sigurðsson. (Through his son Björn "járnsiða" Ragnarsson and his daughter Ólöf Ragnarsdóttir - their respective families intermarriage some generations down the tree.) I like to blame our family's obsession with history and genealogy on being descended from Snorri Sturluson - which probably only makes sense if you know who he is. 😊 (He wrote down the Prose and the Poetic Eddas, among other things.)

While we have no trouble cavorting through history on my mom's side, my dad didn't even know the names of his great-grandparents on his father's side and as far as he remembers, only met his paternal grandmother once - paternal grandfather - never.

Challenge accepted.

A few months later, for his birthday, I presented my dad with a binder full of birth certificates, marriage licenses, passenger manifests, census records - and the names, birth/death dates, and photos of the graveside for all four of his paternal great-grandparents. They were Russian Jews during the Third Partition - they always lived in Poland, but the country changed around them with the unstable political climate at the time. Grandpa's parents were betrothed to each other in the old country, but only married when both families were safely arrived in New York City around 1907. Grandpa was 1st generation American; his wife, my paternal grandmother, was herself a Lutheran German immigrant, arriving when she was 6 years old. We know more about Grandma's German family, as they stayed in touch with relatives still there, and visited often. My research into my dad's paternal side is ongoing. Although Dad's grandfather walked out on the family when Grandpa was around 4 years old, I learned that of the 7 children, four came to the USA. To date, through records research and genetic genealogy, I have reconnected two of the other branches in the USA (one, much to my delight, includes a gentleman who was inducted into the Jewish Baseball Hall of Fame!), and am trying to locate a descendant if the middle sister. Her name is hard to determine, having appeared slightly differently in almost every record. I have a third cousin on one of the branches and a second cousin, once removed on the other branch talking around and looking for documentation, photos, anything to help me identify the missing sister and complete the restoration of my father's paternal immigrant family.

I have gotten information three times on becoming either an accredited or certified genealogist, but it's not really the only thing I do professionally and am not sure I will go that far. I'll finish my NGS certificate in American Genealogucal Studies and maybe do the Boston College certificate program, but not until after I finish my PhD. I really enjoy using my photography and use my portable studio to do in-home photography of large heirloom items that can't easily be transported to a studio for digital preservation, and I love doing homestead/landscape/cemetery photography as well. My next bright idea is to do a program in archival science, but that will DEFINITELY have to wait. 😁

I did not list surnames here only to prevent myself from throwing every little thing I know and need to still learn out here. This is already tremendously long. Not as bad as "War and Peace" but definitely a lengthy intro. If you're still reading this, I appreciate it, and you, and marvel at your post-reading fortitude. LOL

Again, new to LT groups, but now to LT and definitely not new to group participation (or adminning; I do that elsewhere). Be gentle with my LT groups newbie blunders. (Please and thank you. 😊)

Becca

>60 Prism42: Sounds like fascinating research, Becca, and wow! a dissertation involving genealogy!!

DNA has led to my mother and I discovering German relatives who separately emigrated to the US (as did her great-grandparents) and to Australia!

>60 Prism42: It sounds as if your genealogical research is quite diverse. Those of us in academia understand why you might want to wait to do the BU certificate. Those doctoral dissertations consume enough time. I understand not listing surnames. I really don't think it is very profitable to list surnames alone. I get that with my "Thornton." Most Thorntons descend through a couple lines that came through Virginia, but not mine. Mine were a much smaller line. To complicate matters, descendants of one of the Virginia lines show up in the same area of upstate South Carolina/northeastern Georgia about the same time mine made their way there. Y-DNA easily separates the lines, but I still get people all the time who want to try to connect on a Thornton line when I can tell they are related via a different surname because of shared matches.

>61 NinieB: DNA can lead to lots of discoveries!

>62 thornton37814: One of my ancestors married for a first wife one of those Virginia-line Thorntons!

>64 NinieB: Not my line. Of course, the trees on those are very tangled with people who don't belong to the line because they are the easiest Thornton lines to research.

Just an aside here: my niece married a "-ski", my daughter married a "-wicz".

Apparently both are Polish surname suffixes, but the former was originally a noble name suffix, as in "from this place". The latter is more of a "son of" suffix.

Very interesting.

>66 fuzzi: I'm happy to know my grandniece married into nobility. ;-)

Hello everyone. I'm new to LibraryThing, and have also introduced my genealogy-buddy to it. We live in Canada. It looks like one could go down a lot of rabbit holes here! I've been doing genealogy for about 15-20 years now, recently having graduated from the Research Like a Pro course, as well as the Genealogy Principles course at Boston U. Next up is a Photo Identification course. I have family connections to the British Isles (Renwick, Cassidy, Folkins, Dancey, Parsons, Smith, Jones, and Hunting). The latter is my current obsession as they are the earliest arrivals to North America: 1636 to Dedham, Massachusetts from Norfolk, England. Looking forward to learning more about LibraryThing and this group.

>68 Annecestree: Welcome to the Genealogy@LT group.

>68 Annecestree: welcome, sorry for the tardiness of my response...

I hope this is the correct way to reply. I'm reviving my LibraryThing account since Amazon has gotten entirely too intimate with my GoodReads. I am also trying to make better use of online library options.

I'm Danine Cozzens -- CozyDell combines my last name with my husband, James Langdell. (He immediately coined LangZen as another option.) I'm fourth generation born in California, and have been active in living history groups, which I call the "dress up and dance" community. We do research into historic dress, cooking, manners, and dance as a way of making the past present. (Husband provides historically appropriate music.)

Family History is a longtime interest. On my Cozzens side, I have four different lines converging in 19th C San Jose: Cozzens in Massachusetts, Patrick in the South, and Quilty and Hagan in Ireland. I'm retired, and avail myself of many online seminars, attempting to be less random in my researches.

My mother's side was more organized in genealogy. One relative published a book on our Underwoods and Galeeners, and another left a charming memoir on the Johnson White family that settled in Oregon.

If anyone is still out there, I'm happy to chat. Looks like you have had some great threads on here in the recent past.

Danine

>71 cozydell: I'm still here. I have some Johnsons in my family history. As that's the most common surname (or at least it was a few years ago) here in the US we could be related, or not. Mine were from Connecticut.