Carrying out Genealogy with very little to go on..

Chives

Chives

Chives

Soldato
Joined
17 Dec 2009
Posts
3,664
Location
Wales
Hi there,
I'm attempting to trace my family tree but have very little to go on, the particular part that I am interested in tracing is a German connection that I have, after world war II my grandfather was a soldier in the army. Anyway he met my nan whilst in the army and they married, with my mum being born a few years later. Anyway my nan and granddad soon divorced and shortly after my grandad married a German that my mum believes was working for British intelligence at the time, on the rare occasions that I see my German step nan I have asked her about her work and she mentioned experimental weapons but said she could not say any more as it is classified. I realise there is little chance of me finding out more about this if it is classified. however even more interestingly my German step nan let on that her Uncle was quite high up in the German SS of world war II, whilst obviously a horrific organisation I would certainly like to learn more about this, I have very little to work on. My German step nan refuses to speak about it and all I have is her German surname.. So could anyone point me to any websites or sources were I could possibly do some research with the very little info that I have? Cheers :)
 
Sign up to www.ancestry.co.uk for the world service and you can follow marriage and birth certificates.

Loads of help on the message boards, with how to find out and trace families.

Infact buy family tree maker 2012 world edition by Avanquest Software and you get 6months free membership. £60~ and that way you have proper software to keep track and help you.

There's also loads of family history message boards which are very useful.
And depending how rare surname is, or how much info you have is searching the name and family history.

Could be useful thread to read about German ww2 soldiers
http://boards.ancestry.com.au/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=274&p=topics.Military.german
 
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Firstly your step-nan isn't a blood relative, she is only a relative through marriage, so her entire lineage isn't your lineage. You're decended through your nan that your grandad divorced if that makes sense.

I think you might be treading on some dangerous ground, firstly you might hurt the feelings of your step-gran and possibly cause friction in your family. Secondly you might not like what you find out - once you've done it you cannot go back. Not all Germans were supporters of Hitler during the War and many people even today refuse bring back the memories.

That said if you known your step-grans date of birth, her place of birth and her birth name, then it might be fairly easy to track down her birth certificate via the local council authorites in her place of birth. If her birth name is unusual it might even be a possibility to google the surname and any links known SS War Criminals (if he was that high up there is every likelihood he was considered one and perhaps this is a good reason not to delve into the past).
 
Glaucus said:
Sign up to www.ancestry.co.uk for the world service and you can follow marriage and birth certificates.

Loads of help on the message boards, with how to find out and trace families.

Infact buy family tree maker 2012 world edition by Avanquest Software and you get 6months free membership. £60~ and that way you have proper software to keep track and help you.

There's also loads of family history message boards which are very useful.
And depending how rare surname is, or how much info you have is searching the name and family history.

Could be useful thread to read about German ww2 soldiers
http://boards.ancestry.com.au/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=274&p=topics.Military.german
Click to expand...
Cheers, found out quite a lot about my british family on that website, very useful thank you. Going to try and get some more info about my step german connection before I go searching
Andy90 said:
Firstly your step-nan isn't a blood relative, she is only a relative through marriage, so her entire lineage isn't your lineage. You're decended through your nan that your grandad divorced if that makes sense.

I think you might be treading on some dangerous ground, firstly you might hurt the feelings of your step-gran and possibly cause friction in your family. Secondly you might not like what you find out - once you've done it you cannot go back. Not all Germans were supporters of Hitler during the War and many people even today refuse bring back the memories.

That said if you known your step-grans date of birth, her place of birth and her birth name, then it might be fairly easy to track down her birth certificate via the local council authorites in her place of birth. If her birth name is unusual it might even be a possibility to google the surname and any links known SS War Criminals (if he was that high up there is every likelihood he was considered one and perhaps this is a good reason not to delve into the past).
Click to expand...
Absolutely, frankly I am glad I am not directly connected to Germans. I intend to be very careful about how I approach it, she uses email so may send her an email. All I have now is her German surname which isn't enough to get me anywhere so I am going to try and get more information. I am mindful that she is not likely to be with us that much longer, so I figured that now is the time to find what she knows if she is willing to discuss it over e-mail :)
 
You may want to shield your nan from it, but personally family history is family history. What difference does it make if you're past relatives where murdering so and so.
Every family tree has horrible events in the past, by the sheer fact a family tree exponentially grows the further you go back.

Your English side will be much easier to follow and just need to pop to council/library's and use microfilms. Again lots of guides and info on ancestry on how to do it.
 
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Glaucus said:
You may want to shield your nan from it, but personally family history is family history. What difference does it make if you're past relatives where murdering so and so.
Every family tree has horrible events in the past, by the sheer fact a family tree exponentially grows the further you go back.

Your English side will be much easier to follow and just need to pop to council/library's and use microfilms. Again lots of guides and info on ancestry on how to do it.
Click to expand...

Indeed, for whatever reason I just find the whole German side far more interesting albeit far more difficult to research due to the language barrier and lack of info.

Have been looking at my Dad's welsh family and my Mum's English family just now, very interesting
 
Not really sure I want to dig into my family history. I know my recentish family history (past 100 years) was pretty suspect.
 
Haha, I'm not offended, how on Earth were you to know? I'm not really bothered by it, I recognise that times were different back then, and people resolved problems in different ways than today.
 
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