new ancestor spotlight on my great aunt! Olive Alberta Tripp Suhy! check it out in the pages. 

New Ancestor Spotlight on Barbara Schmidt! 

New Ancestor Spotlight on Nettie Pearl Brown! 

New Ancestor Spotlight on Archibald Tripp! check it out! 

New Ancestor Spotlight on Sterling Willis Fowler! Check it out! 

Check out the new Ancestor Spotlights posted today! 
Charles Chartier & his mother, Mach-e Quay Zance. 

Check out the Ancestor Spotlights! The latest one posted, Alex & Clara Smith, has a crazy story! 

The results are in! Here are my DNA Results!!

39% Europe East
26% Europe West
24% Great Britain
7% Ireland
2% Finland/Northwest Russia
1% Italy/Greece
<1% Scandinavia

So after getting my DNA Results, Ancestry.com connects you to others who have the same DNA as you. I have 80 pages of matches!!!! Holy cow!!!!!
1-1st cousin match
5-2nd cousin matches
3-3rd cousin matches
83-4th-6 cousins 
and then 77 pages full of names of "distant cousins". WOW!!!!

It also tells me that I am a possible descendant of Sarah Hecker (b. 1811-1855). I have NO IDEA who this person is....they aren't listed in my huge tree! Guess my next mission is to find out the connection!

NO major surprises, but still very cool to see. 

Now I just have to figure out who Sarah Hecker is.....

Talk about a strong twin gene!
I just found a person in my tree, Hilda M Bender. She was a twin.

She is my 1st cousin, 4x removed. (this means my 4 times great grandfather....Thomas Kirkpatrick, who was also a twin....is her grandfather).

She had 5 children. Then after that she had 2 sets of boy/girl twins!

Crazy!

So I finally watched the episode of Finding Your Roots last night with LL Cool J. OMG!!!! The things he found out from DNA testing were crazy!

His story was pretty interesting anyways, but holy cow!

If you can watch this episode, I recommend it!

‪#‎findingyourroots‬

happy birthday dr. seuss

In honor of Dr Suess's birthday, I have added an ANCESTOR SPOTLIGHT page about his history. Check it out!

honoring the maiden name

Many times I will notice that a child's middle name is the mothers maiden name. Even if it's not a "normal" maiden name like Roberts or Daniels or something similar.
I think this is a very cool way to preserve the maiden name and family history!

snow day!

10 inches of snow expected today! I guess that means I will continue the work on the Kirkpatrick family tree!

history lesson

I don't think I was ever interested in history. It was my least favorite subject in school.
Now my genealogy research gets me more interested in history! who knew!

family marries family

It’s more common than you think!
I have discovered so many ancestors…and think…hmmm…that names looks familiar. And then when I go back to check, I find that sometimes an ancestor’s spouse has married their brother or sister in laws sibling, or their in-laws cousin, etc.

Just to share 1 example…..My 2nd great grandmothers name is Laura Rayome. She married Gilbert Chartier. So on the later things that I discover, she shows up as “Laura Chartier”. Then I kept coming across a “Laura Chartier” who was married to Frank Glugla. So she was ” Laura Chartier” in the early records. And just to make it more confusing…..Valeria Glugla (Frank’s sister) was my great grandmother…so the Glugla name shows up a lot in my tree. And to top it off…….both Laura Chartier’s have a middle name that starts with M!!
But I finally figured out who was who after comparing everything I found. But boy what a mix up that could have been! I could probably give more than 10 examples of this happening!
Just shows you really have to pay attention to the details to figure out who is who!

on this page...

Check out some of the things I share on this page.

On the right are several pages to click on. Check out the ANCESTOR SPOTLIGHTS as well as other facts that I share.

Also, you can click on the links to check out the Family Tree & Branches Facebook page and the Family Tree & Branches Pinterest Board.

starting out....sort of...

I have been seriously working on my family tree for about 5 years now. I have over 25,000 people in my tree. I have made some great connections with some “distant cousins” along the way.
I have also helped a few friends work on their family trees.

I even have a few projects from when I was about 10 years old talking about how my grandpa came from Poland and how I’m Irish.
It just goes to show that I’ve been interested in this stuff forever!