Who Do You Think You Are?

For those of you who are following WDYTYA on Fridays, this past week was different from the others.  Kim Cattrall was tracing her long, lost grandfather and found out he was quite the scoundral.  This is a far cry from the wonderful, wonderful lives of most of the other people researched.  I think it gives you an idea that you may not always find you are related to the Queen of England or high society, but there is an occasional horse thief or two that you should be prepared to find.  That’s what makes genealogy so interesting.  It is also something to think about ahead of time in how you are going to handle the information you find.  Would your grandmother be horrified if this got out?  Kim’s mother and aunts initially didn’t want to contact  the other family involved, but after the filming did contact them.

Watch for this week’s episode of WDYTYA on NBC.

Who Do You Think You Are?

Another good week on Who Do You Think You Are?  This week was Rosie O’Donnell, last week Tim McGraw and the first week was Vanessa Williams.  All were well researched by the best in the industry.  It will give you an idea it is very easy, but it took a lot of researchers and alot of hours.  Don’t let that deter you.  There are lots of professional researchers who are willing to help, but be humble.  It took them many years to learn what they know. Listen to their advice and don’t try to tell them their business.

Try out Ancestry.com and pick up a book on genealogy, or better still, take a course in genealogy.  Ancestry and FamilySearch are two of the best websites.  Write everything down and cite your sources.

Beardsley/Beardslee Family Reunions

This week I’m working on my Beardsley family and found a distant cousin.  Kevin helped me to connect my family to my elementary school best friend, Diane.  I’m beginning to think I’m related to all of my school buddies from Bradford County, PA.

I’m looking for a Beardsley who may have fought in the Revolutionary War (on our side) to get another supplemental in the DAR.  The Beardsleys I’m looking at are the family of my gr., gr., gr., gr. grandmother Ruth Beardsley who married Ziba Morse.  Her father was William, who was born in the middle of the Revolutionary War (1777) so couldn’t have joined the fray.  His father, Jesse, was born 1737, so could have been in the war.  This will take a bit more research to connect the whole way back to William Beardsley who immigrated here in 1625. Until then, I’ll just keep collecting cousins and hope to find more Beardsley/Beardslee’s to share research.  If you have information to share, please reply to my blog.

Duart Name Official

I’m working with the Duart family again and taking a course in One-Name study to improve my website  http://www.one-name.org/profiles/duart.html to help the Duarts around the world locate others researching the same name.

The one big thing that my research and website have done so far, is to get Duart included in the Septs of the Clan Maclean.  When we went to the Clan Maclean gathering on the Isle of Mull in 2007, I inquired with the researchers of the Clan about proving all of this.  Their response was that it would be hard to prove otherwise, so go with it.  That doesn’t deter me from trying.  I might even prove them wrong and find some information that explains the Duart Sept.  A little help from my friends would be appreciated.