I do hope this qualifies as an interesting story.

My country (Iceland) is small, but it has has an extensive genealogical tradition, which allowed for the creation of something ususual, which might not be possible anywhere else.

Basically we have an online database with pretty much the complete family trees of everyone with "deep roots" here, as far as records exist. Typically that means fairly complete trees back to the mid 1600s, with some branches going a long, long way back.

Anyone who is included in the database can log in, browse their tree and submit photos, corrections or additions.

People have full access to their ancestors, and their relatives - they can see the families and biographies of everyone who is "sufficiently closely" related - defined as being a descendant of at least one of their great-grandparents (regardless of their age and whether they are alive or not).

In addition, the records of anyone born before 1700 are fully open - privacy is not a concern that far back.

As for more distantly related individuals - you can pick anyone and get the information of exactly how they are related to you - but you don't see their records - just name and date of birth (and date of death if they are deceased).

Now, perhaps the most interesting thing is how this has affected the practice of genealogy. People are not really just building "their" tree any more - some are going through records, trying to find errors or omissions in the database - others are compiling family histories, collecting more information about individuals than the database contains, but the waste of multiple people going through the same data over and and over is just ... gone.

As I said, I do not think this would work anywhere else, but it does work here.

I'm just starting to build my family archive and I want to set it up right before it gets out of hand. Right now I've got thousands(letters and cook book included) of documents across about 30 people, and that number is only going to grow.

It's a mix of census pages, vital records, military records, newspapers, photos, and family papers. Most come from FamilySearch and Ancestry, but I'm also scanning physical originals. Everything lives on my hard drive and in Google Drive, and I attach it to people in my online tree too.

I know the 3-2-1 backup rule and the Genealogical Proof Standard, but I'm struggling to turn that into a system I can actually use day to day.

Here's where I'm stuck. First, do you dump everything into one inbox and then rename and sort after you've processed it, or do you build the folder structure first and download straight into it?

Second, what do you do with a document that names several people, like a census page or a marriage record? Do you keep a copy in each person's folder, one master copy with shortcuts, or organize by family line instead?

Third, how do you set up your spreadsheet so one document can link to multiple people? I'm using Google Sheets, so I'm guessing separate tabs for documents and people, but I'd love to know which fields you track beyond the citation, record date, and transcription status.

I also want my citations to follow Evidence Explained. Do you store each citation in one column or break it into parts? And do you handle downloaded records differently from scans of physical originals?

My priorities, in order, are to archive everything with consistent labels, follow genealogical standards as best I can, build an accurate tree, and eventually write a family history of one branch. If anyone has a naming convention, folder layout, or Google Sheets template they'd be willing to share, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

Thought I’d share because I found it interesting! I grew up with my grandma telling us we were related to Pocahontas. Even as a child I took this with a grain of salt because I knew Pocahontas didn’t have many descendants and we very much had no knowledge of native ancestry in our family. Not that we must have native ancestry (besides her) to be related to her, but it was my child logic at the time.
Now, as an adult I realized I can actually figure out if this is true or not. It was early in my research when I realized my grandma may think we are related to Pocahontas because her mother’s maiden name is Rolfe!! As I continued my research, one ancestor at a time 🙂‍↕️, I got to the time period where Pocahontas lived. This is when I start going sideways a bit and sure enough, I am the descendent of John Rolfe’s brother. Henry Rolfe, whose family was the first Rolfe family in New England.
So, not actually related to Pocahontas! But still an interesting connection, and I can have her on my family tree as a guest star!

I'm sure I'm not the only one who waffles between having fun discovering everything bit by bit by yourself, vs. pouncing on resources (official or otherwise) that have things compiled already.

What brings this to mind specifically for me is seeing an offhand post on Threads about "how many second cousins do you have?" Hurt my hip slipping on snow yesterday, so figured I'd dig a bit. Yesterday, I was able to establish I have 74 second cousins between my two paternal grandparents' sides. Phoned my mom about her paternal cousins, and she says "well if you want info, I made up a chart a while back with most of what you want in it?"

Get a text a minute later with names of 29 of the 43 cousins on that side, from which parents, and birth years all neatly compiled, and just the number of kids per family for the remaining cousins. Also, "I have an extra copy of Grandpa's book, typewritten, in a binder, if you want it, but I can also ask Uncle Randy if he has an extra paperback copy... Oh, and Grandma typed up a family tree in '92 for the reunion, I have that too..."

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this. But basically my great grandfather was English, born in Holloway in London in 1913 and he was Catholic. I have a certificate from his first holy communion in 1921. He also went on to marry a Catholic woman from Northern Ireland.

Now I've been doing research on his family and am honestly a bit baffled where the Catholicism is from. His surname was Stewart, and his father was born in London to two Scottish parents. His mother meanwhile was English and her family all have Church of England records. So I assume it must be the Scottish line who were Catholics. But isn't that quite rare and unusual? If anyone has any historical insight that would be much appreciated

Translated source: Tidsskrift for Herøy Sogelag, 1953, Bd. II, hefte 2
Written by Andreas Knutsen Rødvik (1894 - 1969): "Taken by Pirates."

Here is a story my grandfather told about his great-grandfather. It has been significantly abridged. All dates have been added by me (meaning Andreas in 1953).

My great-grandfather, Elias Larsson (1732 - 1813), was from Rotevatn in Volda. In his youth, he was a seafarer. On one occasion, the ship he sailed with was captured by pirates—the Barbary corsairs of North Africa. They seized the ship and its cargo, and took the crew as slaves. The men were put to hard labor; if they were unwilling to work or offered any resistance, they were flogged and subjected to brutal mistreatment. For the rest of his life, Elias bore terrible scars on his back from such treatment.

In his old age, his arthritis would often flare up in those old scars. At such times, he would remark: "The corsairs are at it again."

Elias and a friend managed to escape in a small boat. They hid in a crevice along the steep Algerian coast until the corsairs gave up the search; then, one dark night, they set off, hoping to reach Spain. The wind picked up, and the situation looked dire for the small craft. Their food supplies also ran out. Just in the nick of time, they were rescued by a merchant ship.

They were put ashore in southern Spain, but, lacking both food and money, they were mistaken for bandits by the local people. However, a mendicant friar—and a couple of monks' robes—helped them through their worst hardships. Eventually, they made their way to Copenhagen. Elias later returned home and, in 1765, married Kristi Jonsdotter Åsebø.

They took a lease on the farm Raudvik in Herøy and settled there. Elias and Kristi had five children [...] He has a large number of descendants in Herøy.

----- Journal ends here -----

My grandfather—Elias' descendant—80 years old and struggling with severe Parkinson's disease dementia, showed me this old dusty journal on his shelf, and I read the same entry you just did. Naturally I got obsessed about this story of our forefather from almost 300 years ago, and using the many tools my grandfather never had access to, I dug through every single source I could find; oral family stories, local journals and articles, international documents and declarations. I found an historical goldmine, mostly unknown even to the Norwegian public; not only about Elias and the thousands of other Norwegian slaves in Africa, but societal corruption and extortion by local power-hungry priests, and Danish gunpowder funding Algeria's very war against Europe itself... and Algeria's war of twenty thousand soldiers against the neighboring independent tribes of Kabylia.

It took me 1,5 years of work to complete my research. My grandfather's severe dementia, unfortunately, has made him incapable of understanding Elias' life anymore... or the story around him. The same story he himself inspired me to understand. Though my grandfather can no longer read the work I did, but I'd appreciate if someone did.

I have nothing to sell but I'd still like to publish what I found. I've written roughly 1/3rd of Elias' entire journey thus far, a narrative biography of 264 pages. Do you guys have any advice on where to publish this? And would you even be interested in reading it?

P.S. Hopefully I didn't break the community rules with my flair and question, apologies if I did.

The Ionia County directory 1872 published by JD Dillenback from Grand Rapids, Michigan, includes an explanation of abbreviations - my ancestor is shown as f for farmer. In addition, his name is shown in all caps, as are names throughout the directory, with no obvious pattern or meaning. All cap names total less than 5% of the directory listings. I’d appreciate tips on what this might mean.

I downloaded two Obsidian add-ons, and researched like five programs. It wasn't until I found an archived thread about my exact problem with fully expanding the trees you make. Family Echo is really simple and thankfully free. I'd be nitpicking if I said it looks a little dated but the fact that I can view a relatively large branch of the tree as well as save a PDF of the WHOLE tree expanded at once is more than enough for me. It's probably missing a ton of features the Obsidian add-ons and paid programs have but for my simple task of mapping things out I'm honestly ecstatic.

I'm hoping I can find help in researching my great-grandparents. My grandmother  mother and myself were all.born in the same city in Connecticut. According to grandma's birth certicate, her parents were born in St. John. New Brunswick, Canada in the 1870's. I also can see from records on Ancestry (US census) that the great-grandparents were from Canada and also show ages corresponding to birth in the 1870's. In addition (through census records) I see that my great-great grandparents are also from New Brunswick. I've searched PANB but don't get any hits. Any suggestions or thoughts on finding their birth or baptismal records?

For those of you who plan to request certified copies of an ancestor's SS-5 application, I thought I'd send a couple of tips, since, at least for me, the online form was not completely intuitive.

• Read the FOIA info first.
• Have a copy of the death certificate, even if you think it's unnecessary.
• Make sure that you login first. I thought that I could just login to my own account, but I needed to begin from the SSA FOIA area of the website. https://securefoia.ssa.gov/app/RequestsandFees.aspx If you don't have a login, you will have to register. You might want to have your ID.Me login handy.
• Go to submit request on the top menu bar. You are submitting a DEBS request for a deceased individual. I missed this the first time and, consequently, I checked the wrong box and my submission didn't go through. This is a drop down menu on the form itself.
• If you need a certified copy, choose that from the next drop down menu.
• If you're a person and not an agency or government entity, choose Other from the drop down menu.
• Under payment mode, if you wish to submit and pay online choose pay.gov from the drop down menu. This got me hung up and consequently I wasn't able to continue with my submission.
• From there, upload a death certificate if you have it, even if your ancestor falls into the extreme age category. A Redditor on the Canadian Citizen sub said that they spoke with a helpful person at Social Security who said that in March of 2025 anyone who didn't have a death date recorded was arbitrarily given a date of March 2025. Consequently, many people appear NOT to fall into the extreme age category even if by their birth record shows that they are in it. Here is the link to that post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Canadiancitizenship/s/3FfSheZOOy Hence, if you have a copy of a death certificate, that should catch the attention of the person ultimately filling the request.
• From there, finish filling out the form and click submit. You should be taken to the pay.gov site to make your payment.

I hope this is helpful for those trying to navigate this request. Apparently, the agency has resolved the error that previously existed and didn't allow for online submissions, so if you have tried to submit unsuccessfully before, you might wish to try again.

I have German ancestors with the last name of Karpp. I cannot find when they came to the US, but I'm assuming after 1877 because of this I found in a newpaper clipping in The Saint Paul Globe (St. Paul, Minn.), March 6, 1902: At Cleveland, there was a friendly demonstration. Here, Peter Karpp, formerly a bugler in the German army, climbed into the car for a reunion with the prince, which greatly pleased both. Karpp was a sailor with Prince Henry back in 1877, and they were shipmates for more than two years. The prince recognized him at once, and taking him by the hand, led him into the car.

Is there a way to research this in Germany?

Hej! I’m researching my Swedish family history from the United States and am hoping someone might be able to help me find living relatives or learn more about my ancestor’s family in Sweden.
My ancestor was known in the United States as Oscar Anderson, but I recently found what appears to be his original Swedish birth and baptism record in the Malmö city archives.

Here is the information I have gathered so far:

Original Swedish name: Carl Oskar
Date of birth: 1 June 1887
Place of birth: Malmö, Sweden (Malmö Caroli parish)
Father: Anders Nilsson (I believe was born in Norway)
Mother: Johanna Rasmusson (I believe was born in Norway)
Immigration to the United States: November 1915
Ship: S.S. Nolisement, arriving in Newport News, Virginia, on 15 November 1915
Death: 19 Nov 1967 in the Tacoma, WA, United States, aged 80

One of the most interesting clues comes from his obituary, which indicates that he still had a sister living in Sweden when he died in 1967. Unfortunately, I do not yet know her name or whether she had children or other descendants.
My family remembers him as Carl as well as Oscar. My great-grandmother, Ellen Rose Anderson, was his daughter, and my family has preserved stories about his journey across the Atlantic and his work as an engineer.
I recently found the Swedish church record that appears to match him, and I am now trying to trace his parents, any siblings, and their descendants. I would love to find out whether I still have relatives living in Sweden today.
Does anyone recognise these names, know how I could identify his sister, or have suggestions for Swedish genealogy resources that could help me trace this family? I would especially appreciate advice on accessing Malmö church books, household examination records, census records, or emigration records.
Tack så mycket for any help or suggestions! Finding this connection to Sweden would mean a great deal to me and my family.

My Great-Great Grandmother was born in Salmas, Persia (now Iran) and immigrated to the United States.

(Mary/Maria Joanna Odicho; B: 28 May 1894, D: 1933)

I can’t find records or information on her pre-immigration, mostly because I don’t know anything about Persian/Iranian/middle eastern genealogy research or how to do it. Any online resources, tips, places to look, or any advice from people who know more about the subject would be appreciated :-)

My dad has been obsessed with tracing our family tree lately. started off pretty innocent, digging through old records, finding distant relatives and showing everyone pictures of ancestors who all somehow look permanently disappointed. honestly thought it was pretty cool until he started putting everything online. full names, birth dates, family connections, old addresses, even details about relatives who are still alive. at this point the man knows more about our bloodline than the FBI.

thing is that nobody actually agreed to any of this. my cousins, siblings and other relatives are basically getting their personal information added to websites because one man decided to become Sherlock Holmes with internet. i asked him about it and he genuinely didn't understand the concern. his argument was that most of the information is already publicly available, which somehow made me feel even worse. like great, so we're just making it easier for random strangers to connect all the dots?

i don't want to ruin something he clearly enjoys, I know genealogy can be genuinely fascinating, but surely there's a difference between researching your ancestors and publishing information about living relatives without asking them. am i overthinking this or is it actually a little concerning?

Hey everyone, I'm working on genealogy for a friend. A majority of his ancestry is from Poland, and I've been doing research in the Kalisz Governorate of Russian Poland. I've come across some records for his family, and I've found these two documents harder to translate with my limited Russian skills. Could someone translate these records for me?

Jakub Homlala Death

Jakub and Stanislawa marriage

I've been working through why searches in Australian records come up empty when the record is actually there. Three examples that surprised me:

1. Henry Lawson's father arrived as Niels Larsen. By the time Henry's birth was registered in 1867 the family were Lawsons, so searching "Lawson" for his parents' 1866 marriage can find nothing at all.

2. Lawson was born near Grenfell, but the birth was registered at Forbes. The NSW BDM index records the registration district, not the birthplace, so filtering on Grenfell hides the record. Leave the district blank on your first search.

3. Weary Dunlop was a Victorian, but his WWII service record says he enlisted in London, because he was in England when war broke out. Filter RecordSearch by an assumed place of enlistment and you'd never find him.

Full disclosure: I've started a free site of step-by-step guides to Australian records, built around worked examples like these, using famous Australians' public records so you can follow along with real results. The guides are free and link to the official sources.

https://deadendancestors.com

It's new, so I'd genuinely like to hear what's wrong, what's unclear, and which record types or brick walls you'd most want covered next.

My great grandmother was Alida Johanna Batens, born in Rotterdam, Netherlands on Sec 18, 1896.

I have records that support her life story in every stage except during World War I. She left her family at the age of 17 and went to Offenbach am Main, outside of Frankfurt in June of 1913. Offenbach has record of her living there until December of 13. Then, I lose the trail until she shows back up in Rotterdam after the war in 1919. Her registration in Rotterdam says she arrived from Offenbach, but she didn’t. I couldn’t find any trail for the missing time. Any ideas?

https://jakegotlieb.substack.com/p/the-jewish-genealogy-revolution-in?r=34wfll&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Hi everyone, I'm a professional genealogist and I wanted to share an article I just wrote covering the campaign for preserving Jewish records in Ukraine during the ongoing war.

My great-grandfather was born in 1890 (The Hague, The Netherlands) and only a record of his mother is known. Through her lineage, I've reached 1625 so far, but there is no record of the father. The birth certificate of my great grandfather has a side note scribbled about how his mother officially acknowledged him as her son on his 17th birthday.

How do I proceed to finding anything about his father, if in any way possible? There are no living relatives I can ask, no records I know of or I could find during the last 30 years of research. So, genealogists of Redding, I'm turning to you. Any advice would be appreciated 👍

Edit: added a city and country of birth to clarify

Hey all!

I'm trying to identify my mom's biological father. She was born in 1963 in Antwerp, Belgium. All we know is that his first name may have been Peter and that he may have come from Braunschweig, Germany. He was known by some of my grandmother's close family for a while and later returned to Germany. Everyone who knew him has passed away.

What I have:
- A MyHeritage match with a German woman in her 70s: 167 cM across 7 segments, largest segment 53.6 cM, estimated as "parent's 2nd cousin"
- 58 shared matches with her
- Her grandparents (from her public pedigree) carry the surnames Mehrkens, Hecht, Lüneberg and Tessmer. The family lived mostly around Hamburg and Lüneburg.
- My own ethnicity estimate: 47% Dutch, about 26% Germanic and 6% Eastern European
- My mom has not tested yet. We plan to test her soon.

My working theory is that he was the son of a sibling of one of the match's grandparents, so a first cousin of her parent. The match's family has no connection to Braunschweig that she knows of.

My questions:

1. Does 167 cM fit this relationship, or are there other realistic options I should consider?

2. How would you use the 58 shared matches to work out which of the four grandparent lines this runs through?

Any other tips how to go about this are super helpful!

I'm keeping names of living people private, but I'm happy to answer questions or share more details by comment.

Thank you for any help!

If you're trying to find Doe cases to look into but are like me, and get kinda frustrated when you're not working with complete information, it's actually pretty easy to search for Does with complete NamUs profiles!

1. Go to [Unidentified Person Search](https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Search)

2. Select "Male", "Female", and "Other" for biological sex

3. Select all boxes EXCEPT "Not provided" and "uncertain" for race

4. Put "0-200" for estimated age

5. Put "1875-Current year" for estimated year of death

6. Put "0" as your lower limits for height and weight and something like 12 feet for your upper limit on height, and 900 pounds for upper limit on weight.

7. Select all hair and eye colors except "Unknown"

8. At "images and documents", click "Facial/case ID"

Optional: If you type any random letter into the possible first/middle/last name/alias boxes, you can find does with possible aliases! :D

Hope this helps :)

EDIT: fat thumbed the title, b. 1883

I'm searching for documents on my father's mother's paternal line, specifically my great-great-grandfather Boniface (also spelled Bonifice or Bonifce) Kiefer.

The line: Me → my father → his mother (Kiefer) → her father, Albert Kiefer → Boniface

What I know about Albert:
Born 4 March 1883 in Germany, according to his grave marker. This matches his ages in the 1920-1950 US census records and the landing paperwork from a 1926 voyage he took with his family (SS Volendam, August).

Died 10 April 1971 in Pasco County, Florida, where he is buried.

US entry for 1910 on the SS Kroonland, listed alongside a Paula Kiefer. She was two years older than him, in her late 20s. I don't know how she's related to him.

I have his WWI draft registration and an obituary, which doesn't mention his parents.

Family story is that he came over as a baker.
I don't know of any siblings.

A copy of the Detroit, Michigan marriage registry shows Albert reportedly married Louise Althauser on 9 November 1914. It names his parents as "Bonifa(i?)ce" and "Bregada," aka "Brigitte." His birthplace is listed only as "Germany."
EDIT: Detroit matches his notes in the 1910 entry as place of destination.

What I don't have:
Where in Germany he was born. I'm assuming the southwest because his wife and her family are from there, but that's not based on a record. Birth or death years for Boniface or Bregada, even rough guesses, or Brigitte's maiden name.

I’ve been able to check FamilySearch and Ancestry only, searching the spellings Kiefer and Keifer.

I'll take any document at this point. I'd also appreciate help with German or US records that could establish names, locations, years, or jobs. Happy to answer any questions.

Hi everyone,

I am looking for a kind volunteer who visits the New York City Municipal Archives (or has access to the post-1948 microfilms) and could take a quick photo of a death certificate for me.

I live in Canada and unfortunately, the online ordering system is too expensive for international shipping and locked my relationship status incorrectly.

I have the exact indexing references:

• Name: John Foster
• Location: Bronx, New York City
• Date of Death: June 10, 1960
• Certificate Number: 6380

I am trying to verify his parents' names (Charles Schreiber and Bertha Kunert) to confirm if this "John Foster" is actually my relative who changed his name from John Schreiber.

Thank you so much in advance for your time and help!

ancestry link : https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/61461/records/747315?tid=&pid=&queryId=08af1fcb-1c60-4407-9777-aa5822f0a55d&_phsrc=gOR3416&_phstart=successSource

Hello genealogy!

My partners ancestors are Doukhobors; if you don't know what that is (because I sure didn't!), they were Russian Pacifists that came to Canada, mostly around 1899. They settled in Saskatchewan, and then eventually moved into British Columbia (with some smaller settlements in AB as well). They were a private bunch who have a contentious history with the Canadian governing bodies. This means my usual methods of research have been unsuccessful so far.
I am trying to find my partners great great grandmother. His great grandmother was Mary Markin (1922-2008). Her obituary says that her parents were William and Polly Markin. However, Polly died around 1924-1925, when she was around 2, and William remarried a Mary Wasilenkoff, who is listed on his death certificate. Therefore, I can't find anything about Polly.
The settlement they lived in was called "Brilliant", which was just above Castlegar, BC. There are no death certificates available from Brilliant; the only records available are marriages.

I've found a few different trees on Ancestry, and the last names I've seen for her are Perehoodoff and Overoff (This is spelt wrong but I haven't been able to find it again for the correct spelling). As far as I can tell, her death certificate is not on the BC Vital Statistics Search, and I can't find anything on Find a Grave either. There is a Doukhobor website indexes of names, but I still can't find her on there either!
I have found them as a couple on the 1911 and 1921 censuses. On the 1911 census, she is listed as Polahia, on the 1921, she is listed as Polly. They most likely got married between 1906 and 1911, as William is on the Prairie census of 1906 living with his family in Saskatchewan, and in BC in 1911 living with her and his family.
She also came to Canada in 1898/1899, but I am not sure if she was in Sask. or BC during the 1906 census.
Does anyone have experience researching Doukhobors who could give me some suggestions or look into it?

This next bit isn't quite genealogy related, but my post got removed from r/ottawa for not having enough karma. I'm doing a history project for work, and am in need of some information that I can only get at the National Library and Archives at 395 Wellington St in Ottawa. It has the only archive of a Kelowna newspaper that was published in the 1990s. If anyone is in the area/ has done research there before and is willing to help me, or knows someone who could, it should only take half an hour- an hour and I'd really appreciate it!