re: #133 thedopefishlives

Yeah. I lost both my grandfathers very early - one to pancreatic cancer, one to emphysema - and never got a chance to know them or to extract the history from them. Especially my paternal grandfather, we know nothing further back than his dad. Apparently, he and his dad weren’t exactly on the best of terms, and all that history is now lost. I may have to saddle up and spend some money on some ancestry sites if I’m serious about recovering that history. My mom’s side of the family, thankfully, kept impeccable records all the way back to Scotland.

You can do some things on ancestry.com and other sites with a free membership, and public libraries may have free resources as well-including a library subscription to Ancestry that lets you get a lot more Ancestry info free. The LDS Church has familysearch.com as well as genealogical research centers at some of their churches. If you’re lucky enough to have Finnish ancestors, the Hiski Project is your friend. There are quite a lot of resources available on line.
Sadly, none of these resources have helped me track down the origins of my great-great grandfather, “Walter Smith”, so that particular line of inquiry is going nowhere, LOL.