CategoriesPersonalTips & Tricks

Two Become One

I merged the two trees together, so there is now only one tree on the website. It’s much easier to search and browse now.

I logged back into Ancestry and found some new things that they have implemented. I’m really impressed with their “Personal Tree” option. What you do, like a lot of other sites, it upload your GEDCOM to it. It’s puts it into tree form, which you can share or not. But, the nice part is that it automatically searches the Ancestry site for matches. This makes it much easier that requiring you to type in the search info every time you want to find something. It now automatically takes into account birth, death, marriage, spouse, etc for you. It’s very nice. If you have an Ancestry subscription, give it a try, though I’m not even sure you need a subscription to use it.

CategoriesPersonalZalewski

More Zalewski’s

Oooh, a post title with a double-meaning.

Well, for one, there have been a few additions to the Zalewski Surname Project over at Family Tree DNA. Thanks to everyone who has joined! If you’re a Zalewski or related to one, see what you’re missing by looking at my Zalewski Surname DNA Study page.

Also, everyone can welcome Darcy Zalewski to the family. Darcy is my new wife and she is so excited to have a new, more-complicated name to use. Oh, don’t forget about being last in line for everything now.

I really need to get back into doing some more research on my family tree, but I just haven’t had the time. I also don’t want to waste my subscriptions, because you know how expensive they are.

CategoriesPersonal

Wedding Bells

Sorry that I haven’t been updating this site. It’s been an extremely busy month and I haven’t had much time to do much else. I don’t think that I mentioned it yet, but I’ll be getting married on May 27th. So, everything these last few weeks has been about that. That also means that I’ll probably be adding another family tree to mine to make it easier for us to keep it in once place. There should be more updates once this is all complete.

CategoriesNewsTips & TricksZalewski

Create your own family website

I ran across this via Lifehacker. It looks to be a website that allows you to create a “family website” including family trees, photos, calendar, and maps. It’s called JotSpot Family Site.

Use our quick family tree builder to see all the family generations at a glance. Never forget the names of your cousins’ children again.

It looks like a neat site. The design is very clean and easy-to-use. I have not signed up for a site, since..obviously..I already have a site. But, for the novice family researcher, this may be a great way to get everyone involved and up-to-date. If any of you start a seperate Zalewski site, let me know and I’ll link to it.

Speaking of Zalewski’s, there haven’t been any signups to the Zalewski Surname Study. If you’re a Zalewski, please read all about it. This could help many family’s research into the Zalewski surname origins.

CategoriesPersonal

Headstone Search

Well, no luck on the headstones I was looking for. We first looked at the cemetery in the old Dheinsville, Wisconsin near Germantown. I have an ancestor that’s listed as in this cemetery. Unfortunately, all of stones from that time period are beyond readable, some don’t even exist anymore. So, I couldn’t see if there were any other family members buried also.

I then went to the Fredonia area to check some of the cemeteries around there for some of my Quinette family. Supposedly, they passed away and are more than likely buried in the area. Well, we checked four of the cemeteries that we could find with no luck. Again, a lot of stones are very worn. Though, there are other cemeteries I didn’t find, so I may go back. It was also brought up to me that they may have been buried in the DePere area, since a lot of the rest of the family is buried there. It is possible that they traveled up there before they died. We’ll have to wait and see.

CategoriesPersonalTips & Tricks

Springtime

Well, it’s springtime (though snow is on the ground as I type) and it looks like its time to get some of those headstone photos that are needed. I have noted a bunch of them in the local area that I can hunt down. There are some farther away, such as in the northern tip of Wisconsin, but those can wait a little bit. I may make a day out of it and try to hit them all in one day. I have a few in the Green Bay area, some just north of here, and some in Washington County to check out.

Sometimes you find very helpful information from headstones and cemeteries. Sometimes you run into unknown family members buried nearby, or dates that you didn’t know about. I find it a useful, yet under-utilized piece of information for genealogy. A now, with the Internet, you can usually find some very helpful people that will take photos/notes for you in the area that your ancestors are buried. Here are some helpful sites:

  • Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness [RAOGK] – Though, it’s not the prettiest site, it does have tons of helpful information.
  • Find-A-Grave – You may get lucky and find an ancestor listed on here, or at least famous individuals buried in the same cemetery. You can add you own listings.
  • Genealogy.com’s Virtual Cemetery – Similar to Find-A-Grave, but aimed more towards your normal individuals instead of famous people.
CategoriesMoranPersonalTips & Tricks

East Coast Researchers

I’ve been doing a lot more research on the east coast states, mainly Virginia, Delaware (Hi, we’re in..Delaware), Maryland, etc and it’s not as easy as I had assumed it would be. I say this because I had assumed there were a lot more records since those states have been around the longest. I’ve been doing some more research for my fiancee’s tree (which will soon be merged with mine) and she has a lot of east coast ancestors. I have absolutely none, all of my ancestors either came straight to Wisconsin via foreign lands, or through Canada, eh? It’s very boring on this side, plus it’s not the easiet thing to find records for some of these other countries.

Does anyone have any tips on doing research (mainly online) for the east coast? I have yet to travel to our local Family History Center since it’s rarely open when I’m available. I do have nearly full-access to Ancestry.com.

CategoriesZalewski

Zalewski Family Trees

Anyone out there that would like your Zalewski Family Tree put online, let me know. I’d like to collect as many Zalewski-related genealogies as I can. It would be helpful to get them all in one place and try to find possible connections. Spread the word!

CategoriesGenetic GenealogyZalewski

Zalewski? Inquire within.

Ok, all of you Zalewski people out there, want to find out as much information as you can about the Zalewski surname and where it comes from? Is your Zalewski ancestor related to one of the many Zalewski families being researched by others?

With advances in genetic testing, genealogists now have another tool to aid us in our family history endeavors. The Zalewski Surname DNA Project was recently organized to determine whether there are genetic links between the various Zalewski families throughout the world. It can also serve to validate research within established lines, and to prove or disprove relationship theories when no documentation has been found through traditional research.

If you are researching a Zalewski family, we invite you to participate in our study! The success of this project depends on the number of participants, so please pass this information along to other Zalewski researchers!

Here’s how it works. The Zalewski DNA Project is a study of the Y-Chromosome DNA, which is passed from father to son unchanged, except for occasional mutations. The test provides you with a genetic fingerprint consisting of 12, 25 or 37 numbers, which will be compared with the results of other participants in the study. If two people have a match, that means they have a common male ancestor somewhere up the line. The test won’t tell you specifically who that ancestor was, but it can narrow down a time frame of when the most recent common ancestor (MCRA) lived.

We have chosen Family Tree DNA of Houston, TX as our testing company. They are leaders in their field and are associated with Dr. Michael Hammer, Ph.D., Geneticist, associate research scientist in the Division of Biotechnology at the University of Arizona. The test involves the collection of cells by a painless swabbing of the inside of your cheek. The laboratory then analyzes the sample and prepares the results for comparison with other participants in the study.

For more information about the test and Family Tree DNA, refer to my Zalewski Surname DNA Study FAQ.

CategoriesPersonal

The French Connection

I broke through another brick wall last night with some research. This one is probably more sure than the last one, I give this one an high 80%-90% chance of being correct. I decided to do some more research on a line that I had inserted into my tree in the beginning of my family tree stuff, though I’ve never really done much research on it. For one, the family name was THOMPSON, so it wasn’t easy to pinpoint them. Her name I had listed as FRANCES QUINETTE, but I could not find much info on that name.

Last night I did a search for it on the Ancestry/Rootsweb Message Boards and found a few things. I found the jackpot in the QUINET forum. It turns out that a bunch of other people are researching this line of QUINETs. And it also turns out that Frances’ parents lived and are buried in the town next to my hometown. All of this time and they were right there. Well, now I have some more info on the QUINET line and it’s great.

Also, if you read this, please comment on my postings. Comments will help me know what you’d like to know about and it will help me make better posts. A login is not required for posting a comment, but I do need to approve it first.

CategoriesLinks

Today’s Links

Here are some helpful links that I’ve used in the past.

  • Zeeuws Archief – From their site, “The Zeeuws Archief [Zeeland Archives] is the principal archive for Zeeland, the most southwesterly province of The Netherlands, and for the municipalities of Middelburg and Veere. The Zeeuws Archief, the treasure house of Zeeland’s history, holds a wealth of information about Zeeland in general and about the municipalities of Middelburg and Veere in particular. Information for a family tree, but also for a wide range of historical research.” Loads and loads of useful information if you’re family hails from this area in the Netherlands.
  • Books We Own – “..is a list of resources owned/accessed by individuals who are willing to look up genealogical information and e-mail or snail mail it to others who request it. This is a free service” Very helpful if you can find the correct book. It sometimes contains priceless information.
  • Surname Helper – A very helpful surname search engine, works well with those multi-spelled names out there.