How can I find my ancestry information without racking up an unnecessary bill through websites?
Hi,
I was wondering if I could trace my ancestry accurately without the ridiculous bill websites usually ask for. My parents and grandparents weren’t much help; but I did find out I may possibly be related to:
Proved nearly impossible – Mariah Carey (her father was mexican or something)
Drew Carey
Matthew Carey – American (Irish-born) journalist and publisher
Duane G. Carey – Astronaut
James Carey – Irish builder and town counciler
George Leonard Carey – Archbishop of Canterbury (1991-2002)
Peter Carey – novelist and short-story author
Henry Carey – English poet
Sir Robert Carey – English Courtier
These names are similar to my family’s names…
They share the same interests as my family (poetry, writing, construction and comedy)
Irish descent
I have a suspicion that these names came up via some website that talks about your “illustrious” origins (lord of the manor, maybe), maybe a family crest, and so and so was among the first immigrant to the US?
Did the website happen to provide the proven lineage of these persons, that documents their immigrant ancestor from Ireland? Or do they just HAPPEN to have the last name of Carey? (which means nothing at all).
This is not to insult you in any way, ok? You have found nothing, except a generic website that makes claims about surname origins. This needs repeating. YOUR ancestry is not your surname. Your surname just happens to be the label which is attached to your father (his father, etc).
YOUR ancestry is your parents (mom is a Carey by marriage only), your grandparents (4 of those, only one having the Carey name) and so on.
To trace your ancestry means using valid and provable documents, starting with yourself, and going back, one generation at a time. One HUGE but common mistake by new researchers is “let me find the first immigrant with my name, and connect to him”. No. The first immigrant might have come from England in 1702, had nothing but girls, and family died out by 1750. Your ancestor, not related to him in any way, could have come to the US in 1917, from somewhere else entirely.
Hard core genealogists are labeled picky.. until you find that there is a reason for following the process. I assume that your parents (and grandparents) all have birth certificates, and can tell you who their own parents were? The documents will confirm it. When it gets to the point that people don’t remember (or never knew) the info, records are what you will use. I don’t particularly go along with the standard “ask your relatives” routine. Yes, it is part of it to talk to them, but it does not show you how to find info, when they don’t know. Or maybe they are dead, and not askable.
One skill in research is focus your attention on the facts which relate to individual persons, and the explicit records that you need. For the moment, that would seem to be identifying your gr grandparents, when and where they were born/ died, how many children they had, where are they buried, etc. Anyone born prior to 1930, will likely be in the census, which we can do a lookup for you, if you provide a name and approx date/ place. The reality is that if you want to do real research, you need the census records.. and getting them via ancestry.com is truly a bargain. Along the way in genealogy, there will be some costs.. but you can find info online, if they are dead.
There are family trees online.. but there are many other sites that have facts. Instead of looking for someone else’s research, shift thinking to cemetery records, death indexes, so forth. But you have to start with basic documents, which are normally at home.
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