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Post by heatherk on Nov 12, 2015 0:12:07 GMT -5
I've been researching my family history for about 10 years, so I've tried several sites. I am a little rusty at what's out there, though, because it's been a while since I started.
Honestly, Ancestry was the best bet for me, because it was able to find the documents for the US. Without being much more familiar with your ancestors, it's hard for me to make recommendations of course. But it was able to trace almost all of the documents for my ancestors in the US (birth, marriage, death certificates, burial records, cemetery photos, veteran's records, other military records, censuses, even phone book data). Proving this strong connection going back has been very important to showing that I am actually related to the person from Luxembourg/whatever. I have actually done this for all of my ancestors, because my goal as a teenager was to trace every ancestral line back to their "home country" to find out where all of my ancestors were from. I did this going back to greatx4 grandparents for almost every line of my tree, and much further back for many of them. I've traced back to the 1200s on one line and about half the lines are traced to the 1600s. I have ancestors from Germany, Luxembourg, France, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England, Austria, Sweden, Russia, Hungary, etc. and had no problems at all.
It is also able to search the trees of other members, but I took their research with a grain of salt. There were many misunderstandings. One of my Scottish descended ancestors told everyone in her town that she ran away and fell in love with a Native American, who was the father of her child that I am descended from, but there was no good proof of this and many records saying that it probably didn't happen. Another record said that one of my Irish ancestors "served under" an extremely famous person in the Revolutionary War, and several researchers took this to mean that this ancestor WAS that famous Revolutionary War person and recorded their name as such. A similar thing got Sir Francis Drake stuck in our tree.
I ran into problems like this a lot with non-Ancestry resources. At the time that I did the bulk of my research, much work was done with "One World Tree", where records of many researchers were combined and computerized in an attempt to simplify things. It actually made things a lot worse in many instances, where parts of trees with missing people were connected with no evidence because the dates and places and names were similar. Much of the trees you'll find on other sites use things like this (e.g. in Familysearch), so if you find something like that, make sure you have records to back up all of the information, and check them carefully (census records are great for this, to check the names of family members).
Ancestry often was able to find ship passenger lists showing my ancestors' arrivals on ships, so having that strong connection back, adding all the hints and dates, allowed it to find these things. The ancestor that came over from Luxembourg is also likely going to have participated in censuses, and Ancestry is really good at finding census records that can help you pin down a lot more information.
If I were to start from scratch, I would gather as much info as I could to strengthen my connection to the ancestor first. Once that's proven, research the ancestor and make sure they fit.
Once you have a bunch of documents, many states (Minnesota for example) have older records in searchable databases online, and you will often use these to order the official copies. These databases can help you find some of the documents, but not all.
I had a lot of records to track down as I have to connect to my great-great-great-great grandfather, so I'm getting pretty familiar with how this all works. Personally, I had an impossible time finding much on Familysearch. I felt good enough with the data I had from Ancestry to just contact the communes my ancestors were from and they were able to find the records with no problem.
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Post by dreamingsarah on Nov 24, 2015 18:19:33 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing your story. Were you able to find links to Luxembourg records from a specific database on Ancestry, or did they all have ties to the US that you were able to use to dig for more information?
At this juncture, it would appear that going back to my maternal great-great grandmother is what needs to be done. With the very generous help of twoj we've been able to come up with a lot of information, but there are some odd inconsistencies and things we're finding with the great-great grandmother. We found a potential birth record, but can't find a marriage record or death record anywhere and thus it's hard to validate whether or not it truly is the right birth record. My family says that she had many children, but we can only find record of two. I have reached out to some extended family hoping they can provide additional information.
I've actually gotten very good at using the FamilySearch records while looking for my great-grandmother's paperwork. I have scoured over half of the communes records +/-10 years of when I think she would be married and have come up totally empty-handed. There's nothing in the commune where she was born, or in the commune where she had her children, or in any adjacent communes. Is it at all possible that her marriage wasn't recorded?
Sorry for my delayed response- I was in Paris and Brussels on holiday which turned out to be not much of a holiday at all, given the current climate...
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Post by heatherk on Nov 24, 2015 18:39:38 GMT -5
Ancestry just searches ALL their records for you. Honestly, if you've got the money to spare for a month's worth of membership, and a little extra time on your hands to type in the relevant people and all the info you feel solid on, it'll automatically search through ALL records in ALL of its databases for every person on your tree that you enter, trying to find records for everything you put in as well as matches to other family trees (so that you can contact these people for where they got their information, or, in many cases, just click a button and add it all to your tree). I did find a lot of records from many countries for my ancestors using Ancestry - the ship passenger list and census records were most useful. I also checked with Xavier Drebenstedt at the Ministry of Justice who said that these census records can be used in place of missing records, so having the census records (which were easiest to find) has been the most useful anyway to connect people, verify existence of children, etc. You just need to get a "certificate of no record" from the place where the record would most likely be found, and an official copy of the census showing the information you're trying to show (multiple is better). Try digging into the census and see if that helps. I always start with the newest stuff and work backwards. I think 1940 is out now, try there with whoever was youngest in your tree in 1940 and work backwards. My ancestors' records from Luxembourg are, honestly, absolutely impossible to read (and I speak German very well), so I'm not surprised mine weren't searchable. This might be part of your problem - tiny German calligraphy, unpredictable spelling variations (our last name was spelled three different ways on one document, and the first names changed as well), etc., making it hard on the people who input the data into databases. Luckily, the people in Luxembourg who work with them all day can totally read them, so it doesn't matter if when you get them you're unable to  I would absolutely check neighboring communes and with the National Archives if you're really stuck. I had an ancestor I was sure got married in California where they'd lived for several years, but turns out for some reason they went to Nevada and filed all the paperwork there. I had another ancestor who was an extremely prominent figure in the government for the city where he went to school, was married, and died in, but they couldn't find his records at that city - turns out he filed them in a neighboring county for some reason. Countries, names, and dates are actually wrong a LOT on documents too, so if they're close enough, don't worry too much. The vast majority of my ancestors from Luxembourg were recorded as being from Germany, one because the understanding of place was different then (long story, but very common) and two because the American census workers probably thought (as loads of people still do) that Luxembourg is a city in Germany. (sorry if this was all over the place, just trying to think of as much as I can to help) |
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Post by twoj on Nov 24, 2015 21:05:17 GMT -5
I have a membership on Ancestory, I think the World edition, and I've passed I think most of the relevant people through it, that we have found in dreamingsarah family and it hasn't turned up anything. I certainly agree that they have, I think a 14 day trial and if you can, go ahead and search, its possible I've overlooked something or you can find something that I missed. dreamingsarah - I haven't forgotten you, got caught up in my own application issues. Regrettably I haven't made much progress - I'll email you with some possible avenues of attack. |
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Post by moike92 on Nov 26, 2015 6:52:03 GMT -5
Hi everyone! I am a US citizen trying to figure out if I qualify for recovering Luxembourgish citizenship. My grandmother was born in Luxembourg in 1924 and immigrated after the war. I just found out about the ability to recover citizenship and I am excited, but a little confused. Can anyone help with the following? - As stated, my grandmother was born in Luxembourg in 1924. I have read a couple of different translations of how this whole thing works, and I can't quite tell if you have to prove that your direct ancestor was alive and in Luxembourg in the year 1900, or if it is 1900 OR LATER. Could someone clarify? - IIRC my (now deceased) grandmother had said she was born in Differdange. I am fairly certain she also got married while she was in Luxembourg, but I have no clue where she might have been when she was married. Any thoughts on where to start? - I don't have my grandmother's parents' names (she died several years ago, I am trying to make some calls to see about finding it) so I thought I'd scour the internet to see if I could find any information about her birth but I'm definitely coming up empty-handed. I found the archive of birth, marriage, and death certificates online that were scanned, but they only run through 1923 so there is no useful information for me. Any ideas? Thanks so much! My husband and I have often talked of moving over there and if citizenship is not as big of an issue then it might really become a reality which is so exciting! Try contacting the commune in Differdange. This is the email mail@differdange.lu You know the year that your grandmother was born, You know the town she was born in. This is very helpful. Now, if you know your grandmothers maiden name then you should be able to get her brith certificate no problem. Which will also have the names of her parents on there. which can be used to find out for info on family farther back. But your first step in the case needs to be contacting the commune in Differdange. Just tell them that you are working on getting citizenship and you need documents to prove your connection to luxebourg. With the birth place, year, and possibly her maiden name they should be able to find her record. |
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Post by dreamingsarah on Dec 28, 2015 10:20:03 GMT -5
dreamingsarah - I haven't forgotten you, got caught up in my own application issues. Regrettably I haven't made much progress - I'll email you with some possible avenues of attack. , I just wanted to post back and let you know that I finally made contact with my relative in Luxembourg (who I confirmed is my second cousin once removed) who is mailing me his version of the family tree. He said he's got everything back to 17th century with fairly good certainty and was thrilled that one of the American kids was interested in it, so I'll give you an update when I have more information and we can see if we found the right person and (hopefully!) where she went. |
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Post by tricatel on Dec 31, 2015 9:46:05 GMT -5
Hi! I'm french. Sorry as badly speaking english. I'm living in France and I work in Luxembourg. I would like to become a Luxembourgish citizenship. I have already spent phase 1 and 2 and I'm waiting my recovering Luxembourgish citizenship.
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Post by twoj on Dec 31, 2015 10:37:04 GMT -5
Bonjour tricatel et bienvenue
j'imagine que vous parlez francais comme vous travail en France. Je suis Canadien par naissance et en fait le semaine dernier je suis Francais par marriage :-)
desolee pour les faut en grammeur - je travail en Anglais - c'est toujour un problem pour les accents. Alors combien de temps il a été depuis que vous avez soumis les documents pour la phase 2?
Quel type de travail faites-vous à Luxembourg?
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Post by tricatel on Dec 31, 2015 11:53:38 GMT -5
Merci,
Sorry, my wife is working in Luxembourg but i'm working in France. She is pharmacist and I'm a teatcher. I sent all my documents in octobre and now i'm waiting my recorvering citizenships. It's for me and my child. My wife cannot. I'm living near Luxembourg (30 km) and a lot of people in my city are working in Luxembourg
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Post by twoj on Dec 31, 2015 12:40:32 GMT -5
Even if my wife was eligible I don't think it interests her to have Luxembourg citizenship, however I am doing it for my son so he can have the opportunity to live or work there. From the statistics I saw the majority of applications for Luxembourg citizenship are from France and Belgium which makes sense - they are trying to regain the territory by naturalization that they lost in WWI :-).
I take it that it was fairly simple for you to do the reclamation process?
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Post by tricatel on Jan 1, 2016 8:03:48 GMT -5
Luxembourg is independent since 1839  It was easy to find all documents and it was not necessery to translate the certificates. I'm waiting my new nationality and my new ID Card
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Post by helena on Jan 2, 2016 0:52:28 GMT -5
Luxembourg is independent since 1839 It was easy to find all documents and it was not necessery to translate the certificates. I'm waiting my new nationality and my new ID Card Just so no one gets confused, tricatel is French. Presuming that all of tricatel's certificates were from France and Luxembourg, there would be no need of translation. Those of us whose documents are not in one of the official languages of Luxembourg do have to translate our documents for Stage 2. |
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Post by tricatel on Jan 2, 2016 4:44:12 GMT -5
Of course. The 3 official languages of Luxembourg are french, german and luxembourg but no english. It's easy to translate all documents ?
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Post by dreamingsarah on Jan 7, 2016 2:18:45 GMT -5
While I'm still working towards getting all of my documentation, I have another question that popped up.
So my grandmother (from Luxembourg) and grandfather (American) met and got married in Luxembourg, and then my grandmother immigrated to America to be with my grandfather.
After they got to the US, they apparently changed their last name, so my grandmother's death certificate has a different last name on it than her marriage certificate! My grandfather's parents had divorced when he was young and he was raised by his stepfather with his stepfather's last name. However, his biological father came into his life after he got married and my grandparents ended up changing their last name over to my grandfather's biological father's last name.
How should I handle this in the documentation? Will I have to include their name change documentation along with my application, or is there a place to write down the reason for the naming inconsistency?
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Post by twoj on Jan 7, 2016 14:37:50 GMT -5
tricatel - my joke about reclaiming territory was since in WWI Luxembourg lost territory to France and Belgium - and now they are trying to regain it by having their citizens become luxemburgers. Hi Sarah - it would be my guess that you would need to get the official documentation about the name change - they will probably want to see the connection between the marriage certificate of Mr. & Mrs ABC in Luxembourg with the Birth of Miss DEF {MotherOfSarah}, ie Mr ABC changes his name to Mr. DEF in 19XX. You can contact the Luxembourg nationality info line and ask them to get a more official response.
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It was easy to find all documents and it was not necessery to translate the certificates. I'm waiting my new nationality and my new ID Card