For years I have been wondering about my ancestry. Researching our family’s roots and creating a family tree is something my Mom and I have been talking about doing for a while now. Somehow, we have never found the time to get started on it. Getting the opportunity to partner with Ancestry.com on the #surnameproject was the kick in the pants we both needed to get started discovering our ancestry and the meaning behind our family name.
That first night, after creating an account on Ancestry.com, was a real eye opener to our family history. Once you start discovering things about relatives, some you don’t even know you have, it quickly becomes addicting. My Mom stayed up that entire first night working on our family tree.
My Mom never knew her own father, so that is where we started. She has his name, but other than that we knew nothing about him or the rest of his family. Within 15 minutes of exploring on Ancestry.com we learned a lot, including that Mom had a half-sister that she didn’t know about. Sadly, her sister is now deceased but we are hoping to connect with some of her children. We also learned that one of my Great Grandfathers was a farmer in Texas and was once injured in a shoot-out.
Then we came across an image of another of my Great Grandfathers from my Grandmother’s side of the family. Mom and I both immediately noticed that my son is the spitting image of this man. It’s amazing how much they look alike. Luckily, one of my Mom’s distant cousins has already been on ancestry.com and has done a lot of the legwork for us, including some old family images that she has uploaded.
Ancestry.com has given us easy access to a variety of public records like my Grandfather’s World War II draft record. I am quite certain we would have never otherwise located these bits of history.
We have only just begun our family tree, but have already learned so much about our family. I look forward to expanding the branches of this tree to include my Father’s side of the family, and also my Son’s family from his Father’s side who immigrated to the U.S. from Italy.
What do you know about your last name? I am so grateful for Ancestry.com free trial I received and the chance to discover more about the origin of my family’s last name.
Ancestry is the world’s largest online resource for family history. Ancestry strives to fill the fundamental desire people have to understand who they are and where they came from. With a unique collection of billions of historical records, including handwritten historical documents and state and local government archives, Ancestry is the perfect place to learn fun and interesting facts about your family’s tree.
Thank you to Ancestry.com for sponsoring this project.
I’d love to sign up. I think it would be so fun to try.
Wow, how neat to learn more about your grandfather’s WWII info! Such a neat website
My last name is very strongly Scottish, and is even traced back to royalty. I would love to trace my history with Ancestry.com
I love to learn about my family’s past. I have an account. I need to use it more.
I love the photo you came across of your great grandfather! My mom and I used this service a few years back to build a family tree. It was excellent and easy to use.
Ancestry is such an awesome resource. I can’t believe how great your and your mother’s experience with it was though! How awesome!
My dad has been using Ancestry.com and another site for years. He has gone back many generations so he knows all of that stuff but I don’t. I need to sit down and learn about my family one of these days
THat is sooo cool! I’ve been wanting to do this for forever! 14 day free trial deal is awesome!
It is fascinating to go back in time…to see where and who we came from. I recently learned that my grandfather originated from Portugal. 🙂
My cousin is really into finding out more about our family tree. She has used Ancestry.com and really loved it. She got a lot of information and said that it was so easy to use and navigate.