My great-grandfather's last name was either Oneskevitz or Oneskewicz. First name Prokop or similar spelling, changed to Proctor at Ellis Island. Historical documents vary so much. These documents show he's from Brest, Grodno, Poland. I have been trying to research his lineage for over a decade, but can't find any of his ancestors or other information.

If you know anything about this surname, please let me know! Or if you have suggestions on where/how to search for more, that'd be great - I currently have an Ancestry.com membership :)

Jefferson Davis Adoption, Part II?

Like I said, I am mainly trying to find Margaret Elizabeth Tillman's birth parents, with no luck. All I know about her parents is that their last names are Tillman, obviously, they probably lived in either Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama (Margaret lived in all three, but was born in Alabama) and that she had a sister named Rebecca (middle name MIGHT be Jane) Tillman, but people called her "Beckie." I checked censuses, and I could not find anything. What are some ways that I can find her birth parents? Thanks!

Jefferson Davis Adoption?

My great, great, great, great grandmother was adopted by Jefferson Davis. Her name was Margaret Elizabeth Tillman. Her husband's name was Henry Hooks. I have evidence that she was adopted. I have a few letters from Varina Davis to her. I have found that she is also mentioned in Varina's will. Margaret is also mentioned in many newspaper articles online, and I have a Times magazine that has her obituary, it also talks about her being adopted. I was just wondering, if anyone has time, can you do just a little snooping around, and see if you could find any extra information? I'm trying to find her birth parents, but so far, no luck. But any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

You are an American citizen with a mixed heritage.

Exactly what you tell people depends on who asks. The passport control officer at the airport, for instance, doesn't care where your parents, grandparents or third cousins were born. You go in the line that says "Citizens" and show him/her your passport with the eagle on it.

If you meet a young lady with flashing dark eyes and a dimple who wants to know why your hair and eyes are that color, you tell her it's a long story and offer to buy her a cup of coffee.

You should look at the resolved ("reference") questions. Either browse them or use the advanced search at least three times, for the words

Free family tree
free family history
free ancestry

People ask the same basic question, "How can I find my family tree, for free?" 4 - 14 times a day here. All of us top 10 have stock answers. After 2 - 4 of us paste our stock answer, the rest don't bother. All the stock answers are well worth reading. All of us top 10 are warm, wise, witty, well-read and, above all, devilishly handsome. We have quite a bit of overlap on our favorite links, but we emphasize different aspects of the hunt in our advice.

Here is my stock answer:

There are over 400,000 free genealogy sites, but

1) They don't pay Google to come up in first place. You have to pay attention to those words, "Ads" in VERY small type, and ignore those results.

2) Some of the free ones have ads, which ask you for a name, then take you to a pay site. You have to pay attention to the form.

In either case, if you don't pay attention, you'll end up on one of those sites where the search is free, but seeing the results costs you money. They are dishonest, in my opinion, but they didn't ask my opinion.

3) With very rare exception, all the free sites do is give you data to let you research your tree. They won't show you your tree. The exception is when someone, like your great-aunt, has done the work and uploaded it.

Among those free sites (without http://)

www.cyndislist.com - 250,000 links, all categorized.
www.familysearch.org - The Mormons. Gazillions of records.
wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com - Roots Web World Connect - 700,000,000+ entries
usgenweb.org - Sites for every county in every state in the USA
vitals.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ca/death/ - California Death Index, 9,366,786 records
www.findagrave.com - tens of millions of records
genforum.genealogy.com - Query boards for every county in every state, and thousands of surnames.
boards.ancestry.com - The other Query board site; counties and surnames too.
archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com Roots Web Mailing List Archive - Over 30 million messages

I have a page with real links to all of those, but you'll have to wade through some advice and warnings first.

If you didn't mention a country, and you didn't go into Yahoo! by one of their international sub-sites, we can't tell if you are in the USA, UK, Canada or Australia. I'm in the USA and my links are for it.

If you are in the USA,
AND most of your ancestors were in the USA,
AND you can get to a library or FHC with census access,
AND you are white
Then you can get most of your ancestors who were alive in 1850 with 100 - 300 hours of research. You can only get to 1870 if you are black, sadly. Many people stop reading here and pick another hobby.

No web site is going to tell you how your great grandparents decorated the Christmas tree with ornaments cut from tin foil during the depression, how Great Uncle Elmer wooed his wife with a banjo, or how Uncle John paid his way through college in the 1960's by smuggling herbs. Talk to your living relatives before it is too late.

You won't find living people on genealogy sites. You'll have to get back to people living in 1930 or so by talking to relatives, looking up obituaries and so forth.

Finally, not everything you read on the internet is true. You have to be cautious and look at people's sources. Cross-check and verify.

So much for the warnings. Here is the main link.

http://www.tedpack.org/yagenlinks.html

That page has links, plus tips and hints on how to use the sites, for a dozen huge free sites. Having one link here in the answer and a dozen links on my personal site gets around two problems. First, Y!A limits us to 10 links in an answer. Second, if one or more of the links are popular, I get "We're taking a breather" when I try to post the answer. This is a bug introduced sometime in August 2008 with the "new look".

You will need the tips. Just for instance, most beginners either put too much data into the RWWC query page, or they mistake the Ancestry ads at the top for the query form. I used to teach a class on Internet Genealogy at the library. I watched the mistakes beginners made. The query forms on the sites are tricky.

If you've read this far,
And you are still interested
And your ancestors were in the USA by 1930
And you know the names of at least two people (husband and wife, parent and child) who were living in the same house in 1930
I'll look for them in the 1930 census to give you a start.
Write to me via my profile.

(I've made that offer since 2012; so far, no one has taken me up on it. I suspect no one reads this far.)

Not necessarily. It depends on what kind of scenario this is.

First, if it is accurate and your grandmother was 4/4 Cherokee, then she'd be from either eastern Oklahoma or Qualla Boundary roots. She'd be from known fullblood Cherokee families that are easy to trace and she'd almost certainly be enrolled. The numbers of fullblood members represents a minority of all Cherokee tribal members, so she'd be from the tight-knit communities of fullbloods that are in very specific locations. For example, if she were from Eastern Band, she would have been from a tribal that only has about 13,000 tribal members in 2014. So, she'd be one of only about 6,500 female tribal members. And although I'm not sure what the percentage of fullbloods are in that band, this would also help to narrow her down. She'd be one of a few thousand fullblood Eastern Band Cherokee women that are from that recognized community. Pretty small pool of people isn't it? And very easy to trace. All tribal members have CDIB and enrollment cards verifying their blood and tribal status. There are almost no exceptions. There will be very few people that are legitimately over 1/4 degree that are not enrolled.

So, in this case, you simply have to ask to see your CDIB.

However, there is a second scenario that is vastly more common and represents a completely different reality. This is the situation where a regular American family has a myth of a grandmother or grandmother that is CLAIMED to be Cherokee, but the family story is exaggerated or flat out false. In these cases, families that have lore of Cherokee blood will assert an ancestor was a certain degree of "blood" based on nothing factual. It is just sort of pulled out of thin air or a theory. In these families, the grandmother in question will no be from a Cherokee community, they will not be enrolled, and their family connections do not show Cherokee affiliation of any kind. What is left is just a vague claim, normally including a bit of haziness about their specific lineage, and the story that they had to hide out or pass. It also is quite common in families of mixed White-Black ancestry...where a grandmother with moderate features somewhere in the middle of African and European is described as "looking" Native American. This is part of family mythology and has nothing to do with actual Cherokee ancestry, or tribal affiliation or blood degrees. You can't calculate a blood degree unless you have documentation of an ancestor, listing their official blood quantum. Even this system has its flaws, but trying to guesstimate blood degrees based on family lore is even more problematic.