Yes, for about 20 years. I've discovered so many interesting ancestors. One served on the jury for a witch trial (surprisingly, they acquitted). A far past grandmother died three months after being scalped. A grandfather, who was a Huguenot and fled from France to London as a boy with his father, emigrated to Virginia and operated a tavern. He was killed one night on the front steps of the tavern, presumably by someone robbing the place.

It's a very addicting and satisfying hobby.

I began on ancestry.com about 9 or 10 years ago, spending hundreds of hours in the rabbit hole. My father grew up dirt-poor in Kentucky, and lost his mother at 9 months. I never realized how much that shaped his life until I spent so much time with him in his last years. I hoped to show him a more illustrious background—Kentucky pioneers were a hardy bunch—and even in the 1700s his ancestors were living into their 80s and 90s. I was able to show him, along with other interesting stories, that a city in Virginia carries his long-gone mother’s last name to this day (his ancestors settled there). But, one of the most interesting things uncovered was that an ancestor of mine and an ancestor of DH both lived in the nine block of New Haven in the 1600s. The names are documented on the map. I need to get back on. There have been many changes and additions to ancestry over the years.

I've looked back on my father's family quite a lot and found major errors in Ancestry. And over the years, I've checked again, and the old errors are still there. Pfft. What good does it do to have those errors?

DH was doing some research on a story his mom has told about an ancestor. The full story as he ultimately related it at a family gathering was a riot. Then I told him our library has a subscription to Ancestry, and he started down THAT rabbit hole. It’s a bit addicting!

Yes, for years now. I have several thousand on my tree (actually 3 trees). It is both fascinating and a YUGE time sucker. I've gone back to the 14th century on my German side--records are unbelievably excellent--but not terrible far on the Czech and Slovene side due to lack of records on ancestry. FamilySearch is a free service that duplicates materials found on ancestry but also can provide new materials. Best thing is that I have met several relatives I never new existed before.

sushipup - The errors occur because a lot of people just blindly copy what other people have in their trees. I was guilty of this myself when I first started my research. Then I started noticing discrepancies that made no sense, like a mother being five years old when her children were born. It took me a lot of time to clean it all up.

Looking at other family trees can sometimes be helpful but you need to pay attention and make sure you have actual records that support your tree.

I go for several days until I am cross-eyed,

This. But I am that way about everything. In this case, it has literally kept me up nights.

As far as errors, I have not found that many but they seem easy to correct? And If you arent sure you keep it as a "maybe."

Oh yes!! I tend to stay in the rabbit hole. I have been into genealogy since I was about 10. My Dad used to drag me with him to the libraries & historical societies when he researched the "old fashioned" way -- microfilm & papers. I would go explore the museums while he researched.

Wish he were still here today. He's love all the information that is so easily accessible!!

I tried it off and one before Mama passed so before 2004. i see it’s gone up in price since then of course. What are you specifically subscribing to? I never found stories etc and the details y’all are mentioning. Maybe I need to try again.

I did correct stuff as I found errors. I have a cousin who did my mother’s dad’s side and he and I talk frequently. I haven’t gotten copies from him as he says it all in boxes and he’s so busy , at 91 1/2 he owns a RR and works full time! And cares for his GF who has Alzheimer’s so I can’t press him for info lol!

Yes, searching for my Grandfather's parents... and still searching. Have you used Ancestry DNA? That will give you even more rabbit holes :)

IDK, trail, i bet he'd love to share what he knows, rather than see it all for naught when he goes.

As far as stories, some are from histories that others have done, but most are from newspaper articles, court records, wills etc. Marriage certificates list both parents and place of birth, death ctf have a lot of info too. For example, I found a will from the mid1800s, accounting for who got each item, down to knives and forks. I found a newspaper article about a murder. I found an affidavit that my ancestor filed to claim his pension from the Revolutionary War, detailing when and where he fought and his frostbitten feet. The Census data is the best, or at least it was from ~1870 to 1940, when instead of just counting people, they asked them all sorts of nosy questions. Eg, look at 1900 https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/index_of_questions/1900_1.html

One of my cousins (a first cousin, daughter of my father's brother) was into it, and so I got a lot of information from my (and her) father's side. I was able to find out information about ancestors we had back in Rhode Island in the 1600s, which is a long way from Texas. They got to Texas from RI via Virginia, South Carolina, and finally Louisiana. From Rhode Island, I could trace them back to various parts of England, and this was the first I knew about having English ancestors.

One of my ancestor's in Rhode Island was convicted of adultery and was caught with his pants down and the woman's dress up, according to the description. He and the woman did not have any children together. I never knew I had ancestors that lived in Rhode Island either, but that's where several of them settled when they arrived from England.

I guess I need to see . Because when I did the basic membership I could see the census but that was all there weren't any details at all on any listings. I never saw links to newspapers or wills etc. I think you must have the most involved of the memberships. Thank you for the info. I will have a look. c

Honestly, Trail, I'm not sure, since DH signed up. I know I have paid for access now to european marriage records, US newspapers, the DAR and something called Fold3, with military history. When it's 2am and you are trying to track it down, you click on that subscribe bar like a mouse in a lab.

Arapaho, no DNA yet. But I was saying to DH, I wonder how different the "real" family is. Like personally, I don't believe the 1800s ancestor who married at say, 35, did not sire any children before that age. Just sayin'.

I've been researching my families genealogy for about 2 months. I use myheritage.com. I found that website because there are two people there who had my grandparents in their family trees. All my ancestors were born in Italy. It's amazing to me how much information can be researched online. Birth, marriage and death records dating back to early 1800's. I've become quite adept at translating handwritten Italian! Familysearch.org is a great resource. I plan to visit one of their 'family libraries' soon to do more research there.

I currently have 129 people in my tree... all direct ancestors. I will have lots more once I start filling in siblings of all those g+fathers and mothers!

It is most definitely addicting and time consuming.

cool, I will try that too

Should I do multiple, or stick with one?

You are so lucky that you have only started researching now. I've been doing this on and off for over 40 years. The internet and genealogy web sites have helped make The Quest (DD's nickname for my hobby) so much easier. I started when I was in grad school and used one of my electives to work in the research department at the university. Talk about time sucking experiences - if you could even find a lead you then spent hours dealing with microfilm and fiche or tracking down original sources.

Did you sign up for All Access which includes Newspapers.com and Fold 3? Welcome to the labyrinth!

No, I of course signed up separately,(in a frenzy to get more more more )since that is so much more economic. (BAER)

Another is Familysearch.org which is the Genealogical Society of Utah (Mormon),

Oh yes - I've been at it for years. I sign up for a while and then deactivate for a while. I spent a bunch of time on it last year after I retired - looking into DH's family since I'd kind of hit a dead end with mine. I subscribed to the whole thing including international, newspapers, military, etc. which I hadn't done before. The historical newspapers are fascinating. Since DH's family has a long history in Minneapolis I found all kinds of info about them in the society pages. Both DH and I got to know his grandparents, aunts and uncles in a way we'd never been able to do before.

My sister started participating in Ancestry DNA awhile back. The person she 'matched' most closely with is an older woman we are familiar with from my dad's old hometown, but - to our knowledge - is in no way even remotely related to us. Which of course gets you thinking.

My sister mentioned it to one of our aunts, and our aunt told her that, after her mother (my grandmother) died, she had once said to one of her own elderly aunts that she wished she knew more about the maternal side of the family... and the aunt told her not to go looking too far, she might not like what she found.

Our aunt said that had always bothered her, and she wished she'd asked again but now most of that previous generation are gone, and there's really no one left to ask. Who knows what might have happened. Someone had an affair that resulted in child, or someone somewhere raised a child as their own but really wasn't.... Maybe we'll someday figure it all out using tools like Ancestry DNA.

I certainly visited a few rabbit holes several years ago. I started out with my mother’s maternal side. This was because a family member had researched a good bit of it and passed along her results to anyone who wanted a copy. There were some very interesting findings, many of which were documented from property records, War of 1812 discharge papers and church records. Then I started down my father’s maternal side. Wow, it’s really both addicting and frustrating and I’m sure there is much more available now.

I feel exactly like Ladypat. Except I haven’t been doing anything for more than a couple of years now.

I’ve been doing this actively for many years now. I have used Ancestry and found Newspapers.com which provided a lot more personal information. In fact I have just finished writing an over 300 page book on a branch that originated in Wales, and will be trying to decide on a publisher over the next week. It has been so enjoyable. If you like history and solving a good mystery, it may be worthwhile to pursue.

I just came here from Ancestry.com! I’ve been on Ancestry.com off and on for about five years, which coincided with when I first did an Ancestry DNA test. As an adoptee, with a paternal grandfather who is also an adoptee, there are multiple “applicable” trees for me. My adoptive dad is building a tree based on his dad’s birth family, so I’m leaving that to him. I decided to research my birth family. I had a first cousin DNA match turn up a few years ago and she was kind enough to communicate and share with me. She also put me in contact with her mom. Through that I determined the youngest uncle of the DNA cousin was my birth father. I haven’t had much luck on birth mom’s side. I do know her name (ordered my original birth certificate, which had been in a date range that was sealed originally in the ‘60s, but unsealed through an act of the state legislature a few years back), but just hit dead ends when trying to ID her ancestors. It’s like she was in witness protection or something. Just this last week I finally heard back from a “probable first cousin once removed” and with a bit of info gleaned previously from a probable second cousin, have triangulated myself to a sibling group of whom one is likely a maternal grandmother or grandfather. But it’s slow going from there, as surnames aren’t matching up, so I’m probably looking at females, which are harder to track down.

I don’t pay for the broader deluxe services, but my dad does. He’ll research newspapers, etc. for me.

I had a subscriber for awhile. My moms side was already pretty well documented and what I found on Ancestry matched up. My fathers side was more of a mystery. They were a close mouthed bunch and I only knew one cousin on that side. I found out my great grandfather’s first name was Felix which I think is funny. Other than that, it’s all pretty dull, which shouldn’t surprise me since so am I.

The DNA was more interesting since I found out I have a mystery cousin who is 50 percent Vietnamese. My first thought was that my uncle who was in the Navy may have been responsible for that. However, I remember a story my mother said about a kid that came around their house and her mother, the kindest person ever, chased him away. Mom said she thinks that kid was her fathers “love child”. Maybe the Vietnamese cousin came from that peccadillo!

Here's how the errors in my lineage come from. The longest I go back in one line, we shall call him John the First (every generation has a John), showed up in middle TN in a record as an election judge in 1832. 1840 census shows him with a number of children, the eldest 4 years older than the younger 5 or 6 (am doing this from memory). In 1849, he married a local woman a couple of years older than him. The eldest son married a local woman about the same time. John was born 1802 in NC. Son born 1829 TN. About 1851, John took the family and moved to Texas (the house he built in McKinney is now a museum), leaving eldest son in TN to start his own family. I have a record of the 1849 wife dying back in TN some years later, evidently a divorce. And John married again in Texas.

So for some reason, all the people descending from the children who moved to Texas claim that woman as birth mother (no record of marriage, but her grave is next to John's). She also came from a family that had moved from TN.

Now, I am guessing that John the First was married 4 times. One child from the first wife, 5 or 6 from second marriage. Third marriage to woman in her 50's who did not like Texas, and then a 4th wife. The people in TX seem to have no knowledge of the TN family.

I can find 3 men with the same name and unusual middle name, one being my father, one his great uncle who died young, and a third in the TX branch.

I gave up trying to correct other people long ago.

My MIL extensively researched and published elaborate genealogical tomes on her family as well as mine. We learned that my husband and I have a shared ancestor who arrived on the Mayflower (we named our daughter after her). I am descended from a Civil War Union captain (we named our son after him). My MIL also established that I am descended from "Filles du roi" (young women from good but impoverished families from Paris environs) sent by King Louis 14th to Canada to marry Canadian soldiers. My husband's line has a Salem witch who died in jail before she could be "tried."

Then about a year ago I took a DNA test (a gift from my MIL). Let's just say it opened a Pandora's box and resulted in a seismic shift in my family tree. The story (that took place in 1933) involves banner newspaper headlines, a rape culminating in a fatal shooting (followed the next day by complete exoneration), a pregnancy and eventual birth of twins, and a family torn asunder. My head is still spinning.

My mom's cousin was a genealogist and she really got into it upon retirement. One of my best friends also has it as her hobby as does my cousin's daughter. It is on my "to do" list but I haven't gotten to it yet. I'm still in the throes of Swedish death cleaning . . . .

I've even toyed with becoming an archivist. I love story, and real life ones are the starting point . . .

What’s the secret? Even when I had full access to Ancestry through the school system I worked for I didn’t find much info at all. I only got as far as the names of great grandparents.

Oh, yes for many years now. I am currently working on some supplementals for my DAR membership, and have found lots of new info. I could spend hours on genealogy!

"Filles du roi" (young women from good but impoverished families from Paris environs)

Me too! There is a famous story in my family about how, once when my grandmother claimed we were related to French royalty, I rolled my eyes (and got in trouble, rightly so). I was a preteen. I am pretty sure, since her side came from Montreal, she was talking about an ancestor being one of the "King's daughters."

That *is* a wild story! OMG

I have a relative who had a baby at 15 during the Depression (statutory rape). I am missing that father's lineage. The mother got a job as a laborer in a factory, and went on to run textile factories in Asia and the Caribbean, with a chauffeured Benz. I named a daughter after her.

I like to read historical fiction, and genealogy is akin to that, with the added spark of connection. What i think is odd about it is the extent to which you have near brushes with relatives without even knowing. One of my kids thought about going to a Quaker boarding school for high school; if he had, he might have been taught by someone I now know is a distant relative.

I started researching my, and my husband's family trees in the mid 1980's. I've had to take time off for various reasons ( like taking care of my MIL with alzheimer's disease for three years). It can be difficult to find documents (birth, death, marriage, etc.), but I love the research.

If you're going to use Ancestry, please be careful about using information from other people's family trees, unless there is documentation to back it up. If you've been into genealogy for awhile, you 're probably aware that there are countless errors on those trees. For example, a lady had an ancestor with the same name as one of my father's older brothers, so she took him as her ancestor, thereby taking my dad's whole family. The problem is: 1. My uncle died as a child, so he certainly had no children. I have no death record, but he was one year old in the 1900 census, and is missing from the 1910 census. 2. I only have a free account and I can't message her to let her know she made a mistake. The last time I checked it still had not been corrected. mtnrdredux, as far as I know, you can correct your own mistakes, but not mistakes on someone else's tree.

Woodrose -- I'm using the two-week free trial on Ancestry.com and was able to message someone. Maybe you could sign up for that just to get the message through.

I fell down the rabbit hole about 10 years ago! Since I am a person who likes to solve puzzles, tracing and tracking down ancestors never known to me was irresistible and I would find myself staying up late - too late- following clue after clue and connecting dot after dot.

I always had some interest in history and how life was in my parent's and grandmother's time, but neither side talked much about family. I had no idea who either of my grandfathers were, nor of any extended family other than 2 maternal aunts and 1 paternal uncle.

When my mother started having some health issues in her mid eighties, she started talking. She spent a 2.5 hour drive from her home to mine continuously talking about aunts, uncles, and grandparents of hers. Most were names I had never heard, and experiences that I never knew she had. That really spurred my interest is finding out about those people before she passed on.

Mostly through Ancestry records such as census, birth, and marriage records and newspaper articles (newspapers back in the 1920s-1930s had so much more social information!) , I was able track down the names she mentioned, and to paint a picture of her childhood in the Great Depression, and gained an idea of her family background, including her father. I had no idea that my grandmother had so many siblings!

Further, since fortunately someone in that family who had done actual on site research posted (with documentation) their version of the family tree, I was able to learn where, when, and how the first of the family came to the colonies - as an indentured servant in the early 1700s from England. (I did learn early on to take other people's tree info with several grains of salt!)

Ancestry was just the starting point of unraveling my father's side of the family. I probably wouldn't know some vital information if another Ancestry user hadn't contacted me about a person on that tree, and thence put me in touch with my father's unknown first cousin. I am still working on several mysteries in that tree.

I've branched out to the Ohio Historical Society library, the Case Western library, the library in my hometown, and local genealogical societies (among other sites) to find maps, city directories, court records, election results and so forth.

I do as some others have mentioned: sign up for a 6 month subscription when it is on sale, dig out all the information that I can, then don't renew until some time has elapsed and another good special comes along. I've just gotten the 6 months for $49 deal so I will be back at it this winter.

Was thinking of trying Ancestry out in January, once the holidays are behind me. I know it will be a rabbit hole for me.

I have a good number of binders with genealogy research done by my maternal grandmother. Not sure how much is just names vs. more interesting information. It is probably fairly accurate as she was a librarian and research was her thing. That said she died almost 30 years ago and there is so much more information easily available now.

Does anyone here have experience with any app that works well to store all the family tree data that you have found? My preference would be to store everything on my own. Use Ancestry to access data but not have to pay to look at the family tree information already found?

I use Wikitree (I did write of it on here some time ago) and it's free and collaborative, and I've gotten a huge amount of help from other members, especially in Sweden, which took me much further back than I'd had info for. I was somehow repository of paper files from uncles and other family, and needed somewhere to consolidate the information that would also be accessible to my family. I personally have trouble with how Ancestry is co-opting our own histories for a hefty price. Wikitree works well for me. I now have a pretty tree as I uploaded some pictures too, and my daughter and niece are also contributing too.

All my ancestors were born in Italy.

Same here, and it's in Italy that I hit a brick wall -- mainly from incomplete information found on public documents here having no first name, or a last name that I know is misspelled.

In US documents, family surnames are butchered, and I never knew there were so many ways to misspell Giovanni.

nancy_in_venice, My mother's parent's both immigrated from Italy - small villages in the Italian Alps not far from the Swiss border. There were many families that immigrated from the same villages and all settled in Madison, Wisconsin. I suppose one supported the next. She was our family historian and the person who spurred my interest. My father's family is a mix of German, Bohemian, and Welsh. I have been able to fully research my father's line beyond what my mother knew, back to the 1700s. The ironic thing is that we know very little about her father's family! I understand his father (my g-grandfather) married twice and we don't know who the half-siblings are or who his parents were. I think I will have to go there to research further I guess. Records could be in Latin, German, or Italian so it could be difficult.

My mother's parent's both immigrated from Italy - small villages in the Italian Alps not far from the Swiss border.

My mother's parents also immigrated from northern Italy, Piemonte to be be more exact -- one from a small village north of Torino, and one from a small city (they met in Los Angeles). I made contact with her father's family, or rather a cousin in Torino searched and found us in California. I visited, and went with my cousin to see where the family originated. We went to the municipio, and for a few centesimi, obtained a copy of my grandfather's birth certificate. They still had huge ledgers with handwritten entries for births going back centuries -- the small number of people living there probably made storage of the ledgers possible.

My father's father returned to his town in Toscana in his last years; I visited his grave so I have his date of death. I wrote the province and asked for information on his birth and death certificates, and surprisingly received an answer.

I qualify to apply for Italian citizenship based on my father's father, or at least I did the last I checked, but other circumstances tossed a roadblock and long detour in my path. With the current rise of the Italian far right, I'm not sure I want to take the chance of reliving the days of fascists brawling in the streets.

Where? ; )

Another resource for researching ancestors in Italy is http://www.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/?lang=en

Most of the records are not indexed... meaning that you have to search through pages of records to find what you are looking for. Also not all towns are listed. I am fortunate that my fathers side in Sicily and my mother's side in northern Italy is represented here. Online records only go back to 1820's. Prior to that records were kept by parish churches and are only available to research in person. Most of those are written in Latin, not Italian.

Most of the records have an index for each year. So you can scan through the index to find names with a record number. Then just find that record. My biggest problem is that all the men on my father's side were named Francisco or Domenico and all the women were named Maria something! Makes it hard to distinguish which is the right one.

I have been doing genealogy work for others for about 15 years as a volunteer at our local historical society. It is fascinating and addicting. We spend a lot of our time helping people DISPROVE what is found on Ancestry. With DNA research being very popular we often find ourselves helping someone find “ people who might not want to be found”! It is real history with live characters.

My BIL, mostly descended Finlander, has traced his tree back to 670 AD or so. Most of the work was posted by someone else who BIL is connected to . Someone recently posted a picture, a drawing of some sort, of the King, or ruler that was a ancestor. BIt actually looks like him a lot. Same scraggly beard, hair. They look like long lost brothers.

Hey, Nancy, my family are from Biella and Chiavazza on one side. Parma on another. The Piedmontese family tree has been meticulously maintained by a cousin who hosts a family reunion every June in Biella. My husband is one quarter a Italian from Tuscany. His great grandfather came here as a correspondent for Il Progresso.

My cousin in Torino has researched the paternal side of the Piemontese family -- our grandfathers were two of thirteen siblings. The maternal side is from Ivrea, southwest of Biella, and the paternal side is from the Canavese area southwest of Ivrea.

My father's side is from Toscana -- a hill town between Lucca and Pistoia.

I have asked for Acestory as a Christmas gift from my husband. I'm so looking forward to it!