Powered by Blogger.

Blog Archive

Monday, 27 October 2014

Arts & Humanities: Genealogy: “Question: Correct name spelling mosely to mosley?” plus 4 more

Arts & Humanities: Genealogy: “Question: Correct name spelling mosely to mosley?” plus 4 more


Question: Correct name spelling mosely to mosley?

Posted: 27 Oct 2014 02:29 PM PDT

You haven't even given us a whole sentence, let alone a question, so it's impossible to work out what you want to know.

However, if you meant to ask the question 'Which is the correct spelling: Mosely or Mosley?' the answer is: either can be correct. People are entitled to spell their names however they see fit and whatever spelling they choose is correct for them.

As it happens there are several more spellings of this name: Moseley, Mosely, and others.

Question: Are names ending in -witsch most likely Jewish?

Posted: 27 Oct 2014 11:36 AM PDT

Keep in mind that Russians use the cyrillic alphabet so any other spelling would most likely be a phonetic representation of the surname. I would go as far as to say that anglicized surnames ending in -witz are likely to be Jewish, since the spelling "-vich" would most likely be used if it wasn't. However -witsch to me just sounds like a German phonetic representation of a Russian surname. I think tt would be the equivalent of "vich" in English or the Polish "-wicz" or most Slavic "-vic" which are VERY common in those countries and non-Jewish.
Surnames ending in "-ow" (usually written "-ov" when anglicized) are also very common in Russia.

So, the person you are researching could still be Jewish, but their surname probably isn't.

Question: Was it possible at one time to be born in the UK yet apply for Irish citizenship, without having Irish ancestry? If so, when did that end?

Posted: 27 Oct 2014 08:58 AM PDT

It you are British and live/work in Ireland you can naturalise even now and get Irish citizenship.

Also anyone born in Northern Ireland UK can apply for Irish nationality if they choose to.

Add: As already said ONLY someone born in Northern Ireland UK and that is factually correct even now. They are British nationals and/or can be Irish nationals.

Question: Is there a way of finding out your family tree online?

Posted: 27 Oct 2014 06:30 AM PDT

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.)

Question: HOW DO I CANCEL ANCESTRY FAMILY TREE 14 DAY TRIAL?

Posted: 27 Oct 2014 04:04 AM PDT

Call Us - 1-800-262-3787
Customer Solutions Associates are available 7 days a week, 9 am to 11 pm ET

One of the buttons to push is "To cancel your subscription"

0 comments:

Post a Comment