Explore your family tree

“And when I finally had my first house, I had a lot of these frames sitting on the mantel, and I'd look at them and I'd study really close at them and look at, you know, What are they wearing? How was their hair styled? What kind of jewelry were they're wearing? What was in the background to try and identify them. And once I went through all that, then I started looking closer into their eyes, and I just felt a real connection with them to think about what brought these people to this point and this time in their life. When this photo was taken, some of them were, wedding photos. Some of them were just snapshots in the backyard, that type of thing. But it really made me curious to know more about the man or the woman that was in the photo and what brought them to that place in that time.”

“I've been researching my family tree for well over 14 years, have an extensive well-sourced tree, and have gone through many phases of discovery. Back in the early days, I relied heavily on shared trees, such as Ancestry's "One World Tree" - which turned out to be one of the worst mistakes ever. I've since deleted all unprovable data, cleared all duplicates and corrected all obvious discrepancies. I also now habitually cite my sources for every fact. [...] About six months ago, I finally decided to go down the DNA rabbit hole. I tested first with Ancestry, then with 23andMe. I've also been able to test my mother, my daughter, my son, and both of my ex-wives. They were all very thankful and eager to learn as much as possible about their heritage. I've even uncovered some mysteries, including two very close matches on my mother's side, and on very close match on my father's side, that we cannot identify in the family. Likely an NPE from a grandparent.”