Humbled by my Ancestors

Everyone has a past you just have to dig for it.. I have been using my gift membership to Ancestry.com nightly and getting so many records its just unreal.  Someday I hope to chart all of this on a great big chart, but for now, I am very happy with my going green/ paperless family tree.

Last night I decided to work on my Great Grandma Hastings family, and got about to 1340 A.D., and much to my surprise, I am a niece of King Henry VI.  Everyone has someone in their family that is famous, just sometimes its not the famous type you would like to have. 


I also looked for my boyfriend who has been told since he was a teenager that he is related to Outlaw Jesse James, he too wasn't quite sure how to take that, or to be real happy about it.  But I found it, they are distant cousins, just not so distantly, only by about 125 years. 


As I was digging for my own ancestry, a lot of the deaths were at Tower of  London, that gave me a very unsettled feeling.  Mostly sadness, I am sure it was due to the King, he seemed to be a very difficult man.  My own GGGGGGrandmother was beheaded by his order, and for that, just makes me sad, I am still working on trying to find out why she was beheaded, she was only 54 years old. 

In that time era, it seemed common place to find you guilty and then behead you.  Which I find ironic, since today's society its, you are found guilty, but then can spend the rest of your life in jail at the expense of others.  Maybe the King did have a point, maybe if you were truly guilty of what he said, off with your head, and be done with you.  But a lot of the crimes people committed were stealing food because they were poor, or not affording the taxes, and lastly, religious views, some wanted to remain Catholic, and others didn't, Hence the introduction of Protestants...

As I dig more into the how's and why's of my ancient family, I will post my findings.  If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask,

Tracy

Where to Start..

When you are seeking your family's tree, how I start is at the end. Yes it sounds morbid, but they cant go anywhere after they are buried. So start with the cemetery. It will give you more than likely a birth date and a death date, and some markers have been fixed with sentiments like wonderful father, husband, uncle etc, that will give you the clue that he had a family. Take the dates that you have and work through the records, you can get a death certificate, birth certificate, and marriage certificate. They will cost anywhere from $10 to $20 dollars, depending on your city.

I started loading all of my family tree information onto Ancestry.com, helps keep it in one place, and well because its free to build a tree, make sure you set it to private, because anyone can copy your photos and take credit for them, and well, im all about sharing but as long as they ask for it, and not take it.

There are many websites that will offer help, most you have to pay, but some are free, and that helps a lot. So many records are being uploaded daily in hopes that others may need, find, discover their families history. Some generations dont go very far, not for lack of looking but for the sheer fact that records weren't kept, or were destroyed. And some generations can go as far as you can find. One of my lines is now up to its 19th generation, they were a very popular family in the 1500's and they kept going on their records as far back as 1100 A.D.