This article is sponsored by Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com is a unique service that connects people with their past through the world’s largest database of historical records. Ancestry.com thrives by helping people learn fun and exciting facts about their family’s origins.
One thing I have always loved to do is sit around and listen to stories of my grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles about their lives when they were kids and the family that went on before us that I was never able to met. My great-grandma (aka Nana) would tell stories, but when I’d ask for details she wasn’t one for sharing -or maybe she didn’t know. But as I get older and some of my family has passed away I find myself wondering more about where I came from – and I was never really sure where to start.
When I was given the opportunity to review Ancestry.com I was so excited to see where my family came from.
*My Grandpa Roger Rouse on his Uncle Bill’s shoulders
I decided to go back to find my origins and see how and when we came to America. I decided to start with my Dad’s side of the family and see where my maiden name ‘Rouse’ came from. I was surprised how easily I was able to find generations of grandparents, aunts & uncles and in about an hour I traced back our family as far back as 1670 where a great x9 Grandpa was born in Zweibrücken, Zweibrucken, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany!! I also found out that our name was originally Rausch – not Rouse! When my family came over from Germany into Virginia they changed the spelling of our last name. How amazing is that to find out?!
I plan to find out more about what they did for a living – see if I can find more photos, and also look into my Mom’s side of the family. My kids were so excited to find out where we came from and especially to know about the way our name was changed.
Are you interested to know where you come from??! Check out ancestry.com and start your free trial today!
I keep seeing commercials for this, but all of the generations in my family older than my grandparents came from Europe, so I always thought it would be too hard to track them down.
I love ancestry dot com, but I find that I get MORE out of my central library and it’s geneaology room. Ancestry is a great place to start before you need to dig up proof. I’m actually related to Shakespeare on my mother’s side.
My grandfather did some intensive searching to figure out our family tree. I can’t recall how far back he went, but it was a fairly detailed process. My mom has somewhat taken over since he passed. I love that this site could potentially make the search easier!
My brother used ancestry.com to go WAY back into our family history. It’s a great site and love everything that he has found.
my dad used ancestry.com forever. i am going to start researching my scottish side… the new outlander show has inspired me LOL
This sounds like such a neat service. If I had any idea who my ancestors were, I would totally do this!
my father’s family has been doing this for years. We’ve recently found many distant relatives
Ancestry.com is such a cool website. I love that we live in an age where our family tree is just behind our computer screen.
It’s so cool to see your grandfather when he was a boy. I’ve got to give ancestry.com a shot. It’s super cool.
I want to look up my family history. I just haven’t got started on it yet.
I think I found the most about myself.. as far as from my mom’s side.. when she passed away and I had to clean out her house and go through all of her papers. It’s amazing what she had from years ago!
That sounds like an easy way to trace back your relatives! I think it’s great that you were able to not only track down your ancestors, but learn details like the fact that they changed their name when they arrived in Virginia!
My dad has been using this site for years and he always shares his new findings with us. It is so awesome to really know where we come from. He’s tracked us back to the Mayflower 🙂
I find genealogy fascinating! We have been researching several branches of our family as well. Ancestry.com is a great resource!
My dad was adopted so it’s always been a thought in the back of my mind about where I truly come from, but no one has answers for me. I haven’t spoken to my dad in YEARS. I’ve recently connected with his biological sister (they were adopted together) but she too has no information. So it really sucks! I would love to find out all the info.
This is such a great way to track your ancestors. My family is from Jamaica, no way to find it through this source, but I totally wish I could
I haven’t looked into this. One day because I’m curious, I will!
My sister has found out so much about our family using Ancestry.com. It is really fascinating to know the story behind your ancestors.
I would like to look up the information for my husband’s family. No one seems to know anything about their ancestry on that side.
I’ve considered using Ancestry.com. I’d love to find out more about my family’s history.
I Have always wanted to try out Ancestry.com. I would love to see where I come from.
I love history. It’s so neat thinking about family members from long ago. I’ve used Ancestry before too.
I know my heritage is ruited deeply in scotland but I would love to know exactly how deep. I’ve always wanted to join Ancestry.com and start the research.
My mother and I created our family tree using ancestry. We knew we were related to Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), but were able to prove it using this tool. Super cool experience.
I’ve always wanted to try that website. I not sure if I have enough information to even find out of my ancestors are but it’s worth a try.
I had a aunt who traced our family back. It was very interesting to learn all sorts of things about our family.
My great uncle has been working on our family tree on my grandmothers side for quite some time. It’s so neat to be able to see where my family comes from. He even helped out and did my grandfathers side.
I am curious about our past history as a family too. I think this is a great service ancestry.com is providing!
I’ve always wanted to try this. I think it would be awesome to discover my family.
Since I have so little family who cares, I would love to learn more about the family. It would be so amazing to know my family’s history!
I have been so tempted to try this. I know a few friends who use this.
I really need to do this. Back in school I did a little but not all the way.
A friend of mine just tried Ancestry and was able to go back 6 generations. She found out a lot of history of relatives that served in the military and owned businesses. Pretty awesome!
It’s fascinating to find out family history. Ancestry.com makes it really easy and actually quite fun.
Ancesty.com is a really useful tool for leaning about your lineage. I remember when you had to visit libraries and city halls and all kinds of things to learn this stuff.
My grandfather uses this and looks up our family history – its really interesting I love learning about our past and where we come from.
I love reading others genealogy stories! I am really into genealogy and made an amazing discovery on Ancestry.com last year about my family history- http://www.savingsmania.com/blog/2013/5/31/my-surprising-genealogy-update-kings-queens-and-vikings.html