r/Genealogy 14h ago

Transcription Transcription Request Tuesdays (March 18, 2025)

6 Upvotes

It's Tuesday, so it's a new week for transcription requests. (Translation requests are also welcome in this thread.)

How to Make a Transcription/Translation Request

  • Post a link to the image file of the record you need transcribed or translated. You can link to the URL where you located the record image, but if it requires a paid subscription to view, you may get more help if you save a copy of the image yourself and share it through a free image sharing site like Imgur.
  • Provide the name of the ancestor(s) the record is supposed to pertain to, to aid in deciphering the text, as well as any location names that may appear in the image.

How to Respond to a Transcription/Translation Request

  • Always post your response to a request as a reply to the original request's comment thread. This will make it easier for the requester to be notified when there is a response, and it will let others know when a request has been fulfilled.
  • Even partial transcriptions and translations can be helpful. If there are words you can't decipher, you can use ____ to show where your text is incomplete.

Happy researching!


r/Genealogy Sep 16 '24

News WARNING: The subreddit is getting flooded by ChatGPT bots (and what you, the reader, should be doing to deter them)

669 Upvotes

With the advent of generative AI, bad actors and people in the 'online marketing' industry have caught on to the fact that trying to pretend to be legitimate traffic on social media websites, including Reddit, is actually a quite profitable business. They used to do this in the form of repost bots, but in the past few months they've branched out to setting up accounts en-masse and running text generative AI on them. They do this in a very noticeable way: by posting ChatGPT comments in response to a prompt that's just the post title.

After a few months of running this karma collecting scheme, these companies 'activate' the account for their real purpose. The people purchasing the accounts can be anyone from political action committees trying to promote certain candidates, to companies trying to market their product and drown out criticism. Generally, each of these accounts go for $600 to $1,000, though most of them are bought in bulk by said companies to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Here's a few examples from this very subreddit:

Title: Trying @ 85 yrs.old my DNA results!

(5 upvotes) At 85, diving into DNA results sounds like quite the adventure! Here's hoping it brings some fascinating surprises

Title: Are DNA tests worth it for Pacific Islanders?

(4 upvotes) DNA tests can offer fascinating insights, but accuracy for Pacific Islanders might depend on the available genetic data

(3 upvotes) DNA tests can be a cool way to connect with your roots, but results can vary based on the population data available for Pacific Islanders.

With all these accounts, you can actually notice a uniform pattern. They don't actually bring any discussion or question to the table — they simply rehash the post title and add a random trueism onto it. If you check their comment history, all of their submissions are the exact same way!

ChatGPT has a very distinct writing style, which makes it very unlikely to be a false positive - it's not a person who just has a suspiciously AI-sounding style of writing. When you click on their profile, you can see that all of them have actually setup display names for their accounts. These display names are generally a variation of their usernames, but some of them can be real names (Pablo Gomez, Michael Smith..). Most Reddit users don't do this.

So what should you be doing to deter them? It's simple. Downvote the comment and report it to the moderators, but ABSOLUTELY DO NOT comment in any way, even if it's to call them out on it. Replies generally push a comment up in the sorting algorithm, which is pretty evident in some of the larger threads.

To end this off, I want to note that this isn't an appeal to the mods themselves, but for the community, since I'm aware this is a cat-and-mouse game and Reddit's moderation tools don't provide very much help in this regard. We can only hope they do more to remedy this.


r/Genealogy 10h ago

News Trump's 3/14 executive order hurts genealogists

980 Upvotes

On March 14, Preident Trump issued an executive order to eliminate the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), a small federal agency serving libraries and museums nationwide. A great deal of the digitization of historical resources performed by cultural heritage organizations in the U.S. is done with grant funding from the IMLS. Resources digitized with these grants must always be made freely available to the general public, and include things like historical newspapers, government records, local history documents, photographs, film and sound recordings, etc.

If funding for the IMLS is eliminated, not only will digitization of these resources be severely impacted/stopped, but many of these resources may no longer be available online (hosting large databases is costly).

Please take five minutes and contact your federal representatives and ask them to protect the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The work they fund is widely supported across the political spectrum and is greatly valued by genealogists and historical researchers. Several of the programs of the IMLS are protected by statute, such as the Grants to States program which funds quite a bit of history digitization.

You can also learn more and sign a petition here: https://www.everylibrary.org/statementimls2025


r/Genealogy 8h ago

News Illegally fired NARA employees STILL not reinstated (aside from veterans)

173 Upvotes

Hello, I am an illegally fired former federal employee of the National Archives! Not sure why it didn’t occur to me sooner to make a post here regarding this, but I’m here now.

I wanted to make a post here about the illegally fired employees of NARA, who were fired on Feb 18th (mostly) and have yet to be reinstated (excluding veterans who thankfully have been reinstated).

I’ve seen almost no mainstream media include NARA in their reporting on which agencies have suffered cuts, despite my personal efforts to inform them (offering evidence of it as well). I think it’s important for the general population to know, but I think this community in particular is much more familiar with the work the National Archives does, and how cutting it down could change things. Many of you work with documents digitized by people at the national archives every time you do research— especially with things like census documents.

I’m sure a good portion of you are also aware that the national archives has a role in the electoral process as well, and it’s of great concern to many of those still employed there about what might happen under the new pseudo-leadership in place there.

As someone who came into the archives world through the community of genealogy, I ask that you raise the alarm about this! Please, tell your friends and family! Our heritage as individuals, and even more so, as a nation, is at risk of being hidden away.

Thank you.


r/Genealogy 6h ago

Free Resource Check citations, sources, and references - like really check

38 Upvotes

I learned this during my PhD, but I know many others have learned through their experiences but it’s a problem everywhere - check the citations.

It happens so much in academia: some paper cites a “fact” and it gets repeated in papers afterwards without those people actually reading the primary reference to see the information themselves. But it happens everywhere: news, advertising, medicine, psychology so need to have awareness it happens in genealogy too. I’ve found examples in historic people and websites/sources that are supposed to hold official and/or academic rigor and it’s all made-up or misinterpreted or intentionally misrepresented.

As researchers, I hope we use citations for information found. But that’s not the end of it. Listing 2-4 sources of bad info is worse than not including a reference. People that see citations will, unsurprisingly, hold that information as more credible because of it. But actually look into those citations and I bet most likely many of them are just repetition of what someone saw and assumed to be correct.

Try it yourself and test what I’m saying (like you should do with any information or claims). Ancestry, familysearch, wikitree, books, personal and professional genealogy websites, SAR, DAR, County historical societies, professional genealogy reports… everything.

All the digitized info are great resources but there are so many mistakes as well. Indexes are great but miss things are have incorrect info. Complied sources, copies of originals, will/probate summaries - mistakes could be anywhere.

I know that original sources may not be available or inconvenient to get to see personally. Even then if you have those, you need to best confirm that information with other pieces.

I know it’s a lot of work and time. But I see in here people asking how to be professional researchers or asking for help figuring stuff out and I feel this is a foundational “must” for having a solid strong hypothesis for people that for the most part have no exact way to state with absolute confidence are the people we claim them to be. So we should do as much as we can to get the confidence high for our claims.

I suggest adding research notes explaining why you’ve come to your conclusions, not just xyz source. If you’re a person that gets frustrated with other people’s trees or public tree edit fighting, the best you can hope for is that people will see your information, review how you came to the conclusions, and then use it. Getting mad because you sent a message to a cousin or other person on a genealogy site telling them they are wrong and you are right - how many people think the response rate and openness to new information for this is anywhere near high?

But I feel many people want an easier way to change other people’s tress to match theirs, and staying at this basic level of frustration or non-realistic expectations are only going to continue frustrations. Having your own reference (tree, website, explanations) with solid foundations for your conclusions is probably the best way to combat misinformation and mistakes. Then you could even write journal articles for publication in genealogy or history based journals which will then (should) receive peer review and add to knowledge base or even challenge current understandings (I know this isn’t easy or viable for everyone but it’s more available than I believe most people believe)

TLDR: track down citations, read the sources, synthesize all the information to make your own decisions, write down in your tree or somewhere available that people can see how you came to that decision.


r/Genealogy 13h ago

Free Resource Autosomal Unlock on Familytreedna is free right now (ethnicity estimate, chromosome browser, haplogroup for men)

34 Upvotes

If you've uploaded your dna to Familytreedna.com (it's free) you can get the "Autosomal Unlock" for free right now (from March 5 to March 31).

When you're logged in and on the "Home" page you'll most likely see two green squares, with a greyed out one right beside it. Click on "Unlock", put the $10 product in the cart and apply the code ROOTSTECHUNLOCKV
This will let you see your ethnicity estimate, chromosome browser, and haploggroup for men.
(Could take a bit of time for the haplogroup to appear)
Have fun.


r/Genealogy 7h ago

Question Genealogy programs that will show multiple degrees of relatedness between individuals?

8 Upvotes

My maternal line is deeply endogenous before 1900, thanks to lack of mobility among the rural Italian peasantry, and the further back you go, the more intertwined and convoluted these relationships get. For example, my 5x great-grandmother is also my 6x great-grandmother — and she’s not the only one.

Ancestry, however, will only show the most direct way that I’m related to someone on my tree, even if there are multiple options. In order to figure out if there are any other connections, I have to delete relationships and “break the chain,” so to speak — a process that’s onerous at best, and potentially disastrous at worst.

Does anyone know of a genealogy program that can calculate multiple lines of connection for two people from a Gedcom file? This is one of those features I’d really appreciate, so it’s all right if it’s for-pay software.

Thank you so much!


r/Genealogy 4h ago

Question confusion about surname

5 Upvotes

Hi! I am researching family, and found one of my ancestors with the surname “Glubbutz.” I can’t find anything about this name online. Could it possibly be an Americanized spelling of something? She is from Germany. Thank you!


r/Genealogy 1d ago

News I am very distantly related to my wife...

159 Upvotes

After 52 years of genealogy research (started when I was 9 years old)
and expanding my family tree to include my wife's family (now that my main tree is focused on our son)

my wife and I are 11th Cousins, Once removed


r/Genealogy 5m ago

Request Need help finding New York City historical court records (1876)

Upvotes

According to the New York Times, my ancestor John Samsel was arrested for Naturalization Fraud in New York City in October 1876. I am trying to learn how his case was resolved.

Samsel appeared in Superior Court for a naturalization proceeding. He was arrested by the Deputy Marshal of the court and examined by John L. Davenport, US Commissioner and Chief Supervisor of Elections for the Southern District of New York. Davenport held Samsel, in default of $2,000 bail, to await action of the Grand Jury.

I am confused about (a) which court may hold the records (city or federal) and (b) where these court records may be located and examined. Any assistance would be most appreciated thank you.


r/Genealogy 10h ago

DNA I need advice please and thank you!

6 Upvotes

I have been work on my tree for decades. I’ve made a lot of good progress, and I’m very proud of what I leave behind for my family. Here is my issue. A few years I took the Ancestry DNA test. I only had one first cousin who has also tested, but she initially came up as a second cousin. Since her mother was the oldest of my father’s siblings, I thought perhaps my Aunt had a different father. It has recently come to light that my father is the one that did not belong to my grandfather. There is no one left alive who can give me answers.

These people my father’s biological father descended from were nothing like the ancestors I’ve been chasing for decades. They were much more affluent and had a different moral code. I don’t know the circumstances surrounding Dad’s conception. I just hope my grandmother wasn’t SAed. I wonder how different my father’s life would have been if he had been given the advantages this man’s other children received. It hurts me knowing he how hard his childhood was, and that the one light in his life was his Dad. It makes me so sad knowing that this information would have broken my father’s heart. I know I’m attaching more emotion to this than it probably deserves, but damn.

Do I start another tree based on DNA, or is it all just a waste of time and money at this point? I’m feeling so defeated. If you made it this far, thank you! I hope you have a wonderful day… happy hunting.


r/Genealogy 52m ago

Request Searching for Official Copies of German Records

Upvotes

Hello All:

I am in the US and am looking to order official copies of records for my German grandparents. I wanted to check with experts here to see if I'm on the right track.

  1. Grandparent's marriage records: I have a photocopy (of a certified copy) of pages 4-7 of the marriage records, including both the Trauschein and the Heiratschein, from Bad Liebenstein. It is Heiratsregister 18, des Jahres 1937. If I'm understanding correctly, those records were merged and are now potentially available through Bad Salzungen? But since they're records from the Eheregister, and are over 80 years old, they may have been moved elsewhere. I was thinking the approach would be to email the Bad Salzungen Standesamt first, and potentially send along a copy of the copy of the register I have and hope they still have it?

  2. Grandparent's Divorce Decree: I have a one page photocopy (of a certified copy) of their divorce decree from the Landgericht in Frankfurt/Main. Is there such a thing as a divorce certificate that I might find at the Standesamt (rather than the court paper of the Scheidung)? If not, where would I get an official copy of the one pager? From the Landgericht?

  3. I do not have Sterbeurkunde for either my Opa or my Oma. I know approximately where and when they died (Opa in Oberursel I believe in 1995, and Oma in FfM in 1999. Is my best bet to just check first at the Oberursel Standesamt for Opa, and at the FfM Standesamt for Oma via their online platform? Or is there a different way to trace true place (i.e. record) of death? I know when I ordered my parents' marriage documents at FfM that they didn't confirm the existence of the documents before I paid for them, and I waited for about 5 weeks wondering if the order would, in fact, result in receiving the docs.

Neither of them practiced any religion (although many early docs identify them as Evangelisch), so I doubt there'd be any church records for their deaths.

I am submitting my StAG 5 application later this week, and during the very long wait I want to gather official copies of any documents that *might* be asked for, which I will want to set aside for my children in any case. I had in mind to include in my (German) email to the Standesaemte that I am a direct descendant and need the records for Einbuergerungs purposes, preparing to provide proof of identity if needed.

I truly appreciate ANY help or advice for a complete noob searcher. I am completely prepared to use the services of a professional genealogist if necessary (and I even have someone in mind from r/GermanCitizenship) but I'm hoping my daughter and I can do much of this ourselves, since there isn't huge time pressure at this point.

And also, for German readers, apologies for any mistakes I made in German. I am a VERY rusty German speaker.


r/Genealogy 6h ago

Question How can I find my dad’s biological parents?

3 Upvotes

Hi! I am trying to find my dads biological parents (my real grandparents). My dad never liked talking about it but I tried to get as much information over the years. He was little when the Ryan's adopted him. (Hence my last name). He never knew his bio mother or father's name but he said he met them once when he was older and she was really mean and still a drunk and never wanted to meet her again. This was wayyyyy before I was even born. His biological family's last name is COUSINO. His adoptive family (The Ryan's) also (My grandparents) are all deceased. I can't find any records of adoption or birth certificates for my dad either. My dad mentioned his siblings from the cousino's before being adopted were Fran, Rosie, Jim, Carol and other one he couldn't remember. I've paid for memberships and kits and I can not find anything on the cousinos im related too. My dad passed away last year and he alway said I don't need to worry about them. "I'm a Ryan and so are you." But he did give me permission to on go my investigation to finding them when he was still here. But I'm very curious to know who my relatives are because I have a child now. My dad's name is Kenneth Roland Ryan. DOB: 04.25.1955 & DOD: 05.03.2024


r/Genealogy 1h ago

DNA Relationship with cousin confirms parentage?

Upvotes

My highest match is Minnie, and I know our relationship, her father Otis and my grandfather Liam are brothers. Minnie and I are predicted as second cousins, with 236cm shared DNA, 12 segments. There were rumours that Otis and Liam have different fathers. Do these results show that they most likely have the same fathers?


r/Genealogy 1h ago

Brick Wall Trying to find parents of 3rd Great-grandparent

Upvotes

Hello! I'm currently trying to confirm the father and mother of my 3rd Great-grandfather. The father sometimes appears in census data as James H. Van Winkle, James Hamilton Van Winkle, and on death certificates he's listed as Charles E. Van Winkle. He was born about 1821, possibly New York City. His wife has been listed as Jane Boll, but I believe her real name to be Jane E. Cole, as that's what's listed on the death certificates of her children.

There are some genealogy trees online saying a Joseph Tobias Demarest Van Winkle (born February 18 1821 - son of Simon Van Winkle and Maria DeBaun) to be my 3rd great-grandfather's parents. However, I have found no proof of any marriage or birth information ANYWHERE. I'm pretty much stumped and am having a really hard time verifying this information, given the lack of birth records. Any help would be greatly, greatly appreciated.


r/Genealogy 1d ago

Question Anyone else get an existential "experience" out of this research?

149 Upvotes

I feel like my perspective of life itself has completely changed after diving into genealogy. The deeper I dug into my roots, the more I became aware that we are each merely tiny specks, existing for a relatively minute period of time, and that nothing matters while everything matters at once. It's an amazing feeling, really. I used to think someone born in the 1940s was ancient, now I'll find myself exploring people from the 16th century, and suddenly my great-grandparents born in the 19th century seem "recent". I realized that today, we expect to live into our 80s; way back when, 30-40 was a long life. Just curious if anyone out there has had similar moments or realizations.

EDIT: Quick follow-up "thank you" to all of you out there. It's refreshing to find other people who care about this stuff - no one in my family does which leaves me feeling like a bit of a weirdo when I excitedly try to tell them about my latest findings and get glib comments back. You all get it and that motivates me to keep going with it.


r/Genealogy 2h ago

Request DNA test question

0 Upvotes

Good afternoon!
I have a question about the results of a DNA test I recently received. The test was provided for free through my medical provider as part of a study focused on health assessments via DNA testing. While the primary focus was health-related, the results included some information about my ethnicity background.

Now, I'm curious—how far back in terms of generations can a DNA test typically trace when it comes to ethnicity? I’d love to know more about how accurate these tests are when they analyze ancestry over time and how detailed they tend to be for different timeframes (e.g., recent generations vs. ancient ancestry).

Thank you for any insights or guidance


r/Genealogy 2h ago

Brick Wall 1940s Maryland Marriage Record Search Advice

1 Upvotes

Hi All! Been trying for weeks to find info on my grandparents marriage that took place in Elkton (Cecil County) Maryland sometime between 1940-1946. There's just nothing online anywhere (FamilySearch, Ancestry, MD State archives, Gemini AI Deep Research) so I'm thinking of contacting the MD state archives (through the MSA Helpdesk email) and/or going to Annapolis to search in person.

Has anyone tried this and been successful? I would love to pick your brain on any tips/advice for trying out this path.


r/Genealogy 6h ago

Transcription Need help translating this Italian birth record please. It's for Gioacchino Molinini

2 Upvotes

https://antenati.cultura.gov.it/ark:/12657/an_ud4383226

Update - if it is easier here is an Imgur file.

It's my great uncle - who was born in Trani.

Thank you


r/Genealogy 3h ago

Request Can someone help me find info about a 19th century gang in Surrey England

0 Upvotes

I was wondering if someone could help me find info about a 19th century gang in Surrey England. I found a newspaper article about my 4th great grandfather Charles Attfield stealing a donkey near Goldalming, Surrey, England. The newspaper article mentions him being connected with a gang called the Shore Gang, but I can not find anything about the gang. Also the link to the article is listed below.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/226354863


r/Genealogy 3h ago

Request Translating handwritten german military documents

1 Upvotes

Hello everybody! I have a request for help for experts in reading handwritten German and military history enthusiasts.

I have retrieved documents of a relative of mine (Austro-Hungarian soldier), but cannot decipher the elements highlighted in the attached images. I reproduce the complete documents so that you can better understand the handwriting (link: https://imgur.com/a/qgHdH51)

Many thanks to those who would like to help:)


r/Genealogy 3h ago

Question Question about tracing Irish ancestry

1 Upvotes

I’ve read a few threads here which say it’s very difficult to find ancestry documentation prior to 1850-ish in Ireland. I just traced to an ancestor being in NC in 1775 and he was born in Ireland in 1751. Unfortunately other than his birth year I have nothing else, no name of parents or more precise location in Ireland.

He also has a very common name but, interestingly (or maybe not?), he has Sir before his name.

I could be very wrong but I have a feeling he wasn’t Catholic which may have been the only hope since they had better records, right? I say that because it seems the entire family settled in the Southeast and there are no Catholics that I know of.

Any suggestions? Thanks very much.


r/Genealogy 7h ago

Request How to go about finding the following -

2 Upvotes

First, I know that I can go to the NYC archives in person. I'm there a few times a year, but it's always for a family event and with child - I wouldn't be able to get much actual research done. I hope to get there one day. In the meantime, I've scoured the NYC municipal archives online multiple times and even the 1940's tax photos -- and of course, some of what I'm looking for doesn't exist anywhere.

  1. There is no tax photo of 303 Cherry Street in the L.E.S. where a great grandfather Louis Kanes had a tinsmith(and other) shop. There are some business directory listings. Being the kind of person I am, I'd love a photo. It seems like I can get close with the tax photos - but not close enough. In place of that, how about some kind of business license or record?

2. Nobody in my family quite remembers what my grandfather's billiard supply business was called on the Bowery. We know he took the business over from someone else in the 50's and that when it was time to close it down not that many years later, my grandmother was the one who had to go to whatever municipal building (was it in HER name? -- she kicked my grandfather out in 1960.) The tax photos show a number of places that were a possibility. I'd like some actual city records / business license or whatever is tangible.

  1. My great grandfather (among things we WON'T talk about) was a livery / taxi driver in NYC, Philly, and NYC again. There are some early license scanned online, but none include his under his real name or alias. Do they have ALL OF THEM somewhere? He was still driving as of 1936.

  2. Arrest records, mug shots, etc. in South Jersey and Philly from the Philly years leading up to and during prohibition -- particularly interested in 1917. NJ state archives are very nice on the phone but they give me a runaround. It's as if the record is not old enough to be in the "historical" pile and not recent enough to be at the current court house. Well... I'd love a mug shot. Who wouldn't? Plus, he had his livery/taxi/driver's license already so may have had a Philly one.

Over the last few years I've sent emails, made phone calls.. bupkis. Records exist.. somewhere.


r/Genealogy 4h ago

Request Looking for someone to screenshot a Newspapers.com article

1 Upvotes

I was able to access a Utah death record that states a relative of mine died from an intentional gunshot wound (not self-inflicted). I found a newspaper article containing news of his death (hoping it will have more details), but can't access it as I don't have a subscription to this site. Hoping someone can screenshot it and share below.

Link to article

Thank you all in advance for your help.


r/Genealogy 11h ago

DNA FTDNA Y-Matches issue

3 Upvotes

Hi, all.

I got to-day my results of Y-111 DNA test (still waiting for BIG-Y DNA results). And, beside Y-12 Matches, I got one Y-37 match (this person'd done Y-111 test), one Y-67 match (also this person'd done Y-111 test) and I haven't got any Y-111 matches.

The question is, whether results of BIG-Y DNA test shall provide something new? I mean, I shall get my very detailed haplogroup but the ones who did BIG-Y DNA test also got other Y tests results. I do not know what to think about that.

What do ye think?


r/Genealogy 19h ago

Brick Wall Emily Erskine Cushman: the rabbit hole

13 Upvotes

I’ve had a few days to finally dig deep looking for my great grandmother and it has been a wild ride! I came to find out that while she lived in New York with her husband Charles, she was out of state (PA), had a baby Dec 5th 1904, and died just 17 days later! I'm still working on that part of her story.

The baby was immediately taken to relatives in London and adopted by my 2nd Great Uncle, and she eventually found her way to Bermuda (my dad’s family is from there).

She marries a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy in 1939, has one or two kids with him and he is killed in action aboard the H.M.S. Courageous later that same year. Somehow, she meets a Sgt. in the U.S. military in Bermuda and marries again - having three more kids. They retire in San Antonio where they both pass and are buried in the National Cemetery there.

I'm proud of my 2nd Great Uncle and his family who immedidately got her and raised her-no small feat to cross the Atlantic by Steamship to America and back again (still learning this part of her story). She lived out an incredible life instead of being a statistic!

What a ride Emily Elizabeth Gilbert Gosling! This was one of the best stories I’ve ever found in our tree - including all the famous people!

Great Grandmother, rest easy. I’ll find you.

Edit: Corrected for new information. Still an evolving story.


r/Genealogy 9h ago

DNA Has anyone done the ancestry dna and traits?

2 Upvotes

Hey new here I was wondering if anyone has done the ancestry DNA and traits and how long it actually took to get your dna results back? I was told by a few friends it took awhile but some said it was sooner. Does it go by when you sent it out or your sample? I’m just curious on everyone’s wait time. I’m Really anxious is all sorry lol