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I started because I need to gtfo of the US, BUT, I was able to go all the way back to my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather in Northern Germany
Trace your lineage if you're able, it's a fun rabbit hole
Apr 11, 2025

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YES. Recently went to Milan, Italy to find where my dad was born and any other info on my dad’s side. Him and my grandparents left when he was 3. I gained access to the state archives of Milan having no idea whether I’d be able to find my grandfather or not. he was in WW2 and they happened to have military archives which I looked through (old leather bound books with lists of every soldier out of Milan) and found his name! This connected me to another archive of individual soldiers files where I found a whole bunch of stuff on him including where they lived! He was even a prisoner of war and managed to escape. I had chills the whole time. we went to the house where my dad was born in the town of Gorla and while walking to the house we stumbled upon a church. there was a mass being held and my mom heard the priest singing and wanted to go in so we did. We asked someone the name of the church which was Santa Teresa del Bambin Gesu, didnt think much of it in the moment. on the way out I was like wait this sounds kind of familiar and I pulled out my dads baptismal form and it was the church he was baptized in! insane and beautiful experience we had that day. my parents even renewed their vows right then and there after the mass. on top of that we found out our last name Cattaneo dates back to the 1600s when a bunch of families in Genoa joined together under one name which was called an ā€œAlbergoā€. Apparently Cattaneo is a very common name in northern Italy. while driving around we saw signs everywhere with the name Cattaneo. it was so cool. definitely recommend looking into your lineage and asking your family about it before you lose the older people in your life.
Apr 11, 2025
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tracing that family tree back as far as possible is exciting and insightful af. I’ve spent a couple of hours looking over photos, reading stories, and crying over people that I will never meet but played a part in inventing me lol
Aug 5, 2024
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The caveat is that the Mormons own and operate it and from what I’ve heard they will use your data to retroactively ā€œconvertā€ your dead ancestors to Mormonism? LMFAO umm I’m not sure how it works I haven’t looked into it much because it’s not a huge concern for me but yeah if that’s something that you care about… it is a great site with tons of records and sources and if anyone else in your family line has done research on your ancestors on there you can pull that into your own tree (check and verify that it’s correct of course).
WikiTree is also free but I haven’t used it much. A lot of library systems will actually give you free access to the version of Ancestry designed specifically for libraries so you could try that or honestly even visit your local branch and ask them what they suggest. Findagrave is a cool website too and you can find a lot of information that way. You could also possibly contact historical societies in areas where your family members are from? I know for my ancestors there are also a lot of weird Geocities style sites where people would publish all of their research findings so even just googling names and locations in quotation marks could help (with dates if you have them).
I’m not sure how relevant any of this information is for research outside of the United States but hopefully it's helpful 🐣
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I just found out I have family still living in Poland (I’m Jewish and I thought that most of my family had left) and I’m so happy to just find out about that and all the interesting things I’ve come across when working with family members to compile this tree
Dec 11, 2024

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