How can I trace a family line of drunken potato farmers who can't remember where they came from?

Question

How can I trace a family line of drunken potato farmers who can't remember where they came from?

Answer 1

the mormons got a good database

Answer 2

I'd use a pencil and some of that trace paper and just follow the line....its easy we used to trace faces and other objects all the time in elementary.

Answer 3

are they from maine? we got a bunch of drunking potato farmers up this way! lol.

Answer 4

start with where they are living now

Answer 5

Follow the Paper trail Birth's death's and Marriages also the census returns and Baptisms.

Good luck and good hunting

Answer 6

The first thing you have to do is write down all the information you do have on your family. Recognize that your relatives may not have forgotten but chose to bury the past so you may not have much help from interviews with older relatives. The next step would be to check obituary information from local papers to obtain more names to add to your data. Remember sometimes individuals changed their names when they arrived in America either to have a more important name such as the landowner they worked for or because the English purser wrote the name like it sounded. If you have a genealogy center for your state, you can trace newspaper obits, probate information, birth, death etc. I traced a Grandmother who hid her past by inventing a new one and a Grandfather sent to an orphanage this way by starting with my Grandparent's names and working backwards. Check online by state genealogy, then check by your county. The Genweb sites may be very helpful.

Ellen

Answer 7

There are several online databases which can help you in your search but a couple of clues on your wording:

drunken potato farmers might lead one to think that they are either of Russian or Irish extraction simply because vodka was made from potatos that had fermented and the Irish had a mass exodus to other places in the world as a result of the "Potato Famine", that struck Ireland between 1846 and 1849.

If the immigrated at that time, chances are they came through Ellis Island.

Hope that helps.

Answer 8

There are various web sites such as Ancestry.com, Family Search, Podunk and so on.  What you need to get started on is to have gathered all the names of you family members from mom and dad back to great-great-great grandparents and then check the origin of that name.  For my last name on my moms side I found out many interesting things  and based on all she has told me of her family, I was able to go back in time 5 generations and found out where they lived, how they lived and their jobs.  It is very interesting.  It took me 5 years but I loved every moment of the search.

Answer 9

Have a look at these sites posted below, there's even a Irish directory listed, and PRONI which is the equivalent  to the GRO here in England.

http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory...

http://rmhh.co.uk/ireland.html

http://www.proni.gov.uk/

http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/search_the...

http://www.ireland.com/ancestor/browse/r...

hope this helps.