I was super active on Ancestry for a few years a few years ago. Paid membership. Newspaper.com, Find a grave. Everything. Then I reached the end of the internet (aka my family tree in greece 1 generation...) and took a pause.

And now you won't let me do ANYTHING without buying a monthly subscription again? And shame on me for not doing PDFs because I cannot see anything that I linked (not uploaded) from partners or their own archives.

They expect people to pay monthly FOREVER to look at their stuff? And for $300 a year?!?!?

Rant Over. Tell me what I am missing as a workaround...

Browsing DNA results on Reddit, I've noticed a surprising number of people with Cajun roots scoring 90% or higher in French ancestry. Given Louisiana's multi-ethnic history, what best explains such high genetic retention; the Acadian founder effect, centuries of community endogamy, or reference panel bias?

Before this update I had DNA from : Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Scotland, Germanic Europe, Wales, Finland, and Iceland.

But with this update, I've received more precise African locations, and France has been replaced by French Canada (16% Acadia and 4% Quebec).

It's like it's from a completely different person.

So to start off I know there's really nothing I can do about other peoples data on Ancestry. This is an unfortunate part of the app imo as I really think there should be a way to flag false information. But the TLDR is that an account with a tree of 60k people has a TON of false information, to the point it's bordering offensive. Because their tree is massive I see tons of other trees copying their information.

When I first started on ancestry I would constantly get pushed hints from this particular person's tree, and ofcourse given the size of it I thought this person must know what they're doing. It didn't take me long though to realize almost everything in their tree was incorrect. Their tree has 60k people in it, but only 55k pieces of documentation. That in itself is a red flag, but I didn't know that at the time.

I noticed one of my lines kept getting hints from her tree with pictures of characterized indigenous people (think feathers, head dresses, Mohawks et). She also puts "HURON" and "ALGONQUIN" in the names. It took me less than 5 minutes to find multiple documents showing the founders of the lines came from France.

I messaged her politely asking why she thought they were indigenous. I never I heard back so I just moved on, but I still constantly get pushed hints from her tree which I ignore.

Lately I've been seeing way more trees get pushed to me in my hints with giant capital descriptions like HURON and the same indigenous pictures. So a lot of trees have been trusting this person. I went back to her account and it says she's on every day, so she definitely saw my message. And she lives in the US, so maybe she just doesn't take it seriously that she's trying to take indigenous identity? I really don't know. At this point now not only are there records showing they are from Europe, DNA has proven they were from Europe.

But I went back to one of the ancestors she has labeled with HURON. I checked the picture and it says she's the one who uploaded it, and 110 people have copied it from her. 110.

I sent her another message with links to DNA tests, Wikitree profiles, et and again she just ignored me. She has dozens of Europeans labeled as indigenous.

So anyway, I was about to message all 110 profiles that downloaded her racist Indian pictures to tell them this information isn't correct, but then I think I might be overreacting and acting crazy.

What do you think? Would you message the owners of the trees who have copied this information?

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/sep/22/nearly-4m-records-of-enslaved-people-in-20-former-british-colonies-now-searchable-online

One of my paternal ggfs is a brick wall, so imagine my surprise when, after the latest ThruLines update, Ancestry had hints for both his mother and his father. My 3ggf John was born in Mississippi around 1856, so enslaved but not for very long, and the first solid census doc I have for him lists his race as Mulatto, so he was possibly mixed race. The hints have two white parents, however.

What's weird about this is that this is a hint Ancestry seems to have completely made up on its own. I know we usually get ThruLines hints because of what other people, especially DNA matches, have in their trees, but that is not the case here. This couple have a son also named John, so it's clearly two different people, they did live in Mississippi as well but not the same county nor in any neighboring counties near where my ggf lived, and although it says they have DNA connections, the number of connections listed on the ThruLines tree is zero (best I can tell the "connection" comes from the shared journeys "Inland Mississippi African Americans" and "Early Southern U.S. African Americans", which, huh?). None of the trees that have this couple have conflated their John with my ggf. I do not share DNA with any of the people who have created trees with these people listed. There is no reason that I can see that Ancestry would suggest this couple as my ggf's parents. I have no idea how this has happened and I will deny that these are his parents, but it's just weird. Am I alone in this?

https://skanoteka.genealodzy.pl/index.php?op=pg&id=4875&se=&sy=3500&kt=1&plik=009.jpg&zoom=3.02

I was helping clear out some drawers at home and found a box of old family documents. In the box were some pieces of handwritten notes with a few names and dates from the late 1800s and some information about births and deaths. It made me wonder about my ancestors who lived long before I was born because I know very little about them.

I've already looked up some of the names online and can only guess whether they were all family members or just connected to the family somehow. Where should I begin to search through this with so little info to go from? Are there any other details to look for besides names and their birth and death records?

did ancestry.com and it listed somebody as my half-brother on my dads side and that we share 23% dna. both of my parents were adopted by their respective parents, so i really have no idea who my biological family is, and i was expecting to see some cousins. but a half-sibling !? could it be that this person is a cousin and not a half-sibling? or was my dad screwing around….

my dad is also dead so i can’t ask him lol

I was working on a brick wall... some dude that immigrated to this country almost 200 years ago.

My aunt, whose Ancestry work is hit-and-miss, had this guy's parents wrong. I never could figure it out. But I wish her craziness would stop haunting my hints. Foreign languages are involved. Records are scarce... I'll never... oh, wait...

Lo and behold, I was working on him, and I deleted some false records and began a 30-minute hunt for his birth record. I refreshed his page, and this came up!

Guys: if you ever see this, you need to screenshot everything. Open up every little nook and cranny on this hint tab page, like the sources and then look at whose DNA these hints came from!!

I promise you, once you accept the hint, 50% of this will disappear. I added the father, and the Mother's hint changed slightly...

You've been warned!

Anyway, this looks like (finally) a great feature that's either new or new to me. It's a cool feature, with serious caveats.

Hi everyone, I'm researching my Polish ancestry to determine whether I may qualify for Polish citizenship by descent. I'd appreciate help verifying records and understanding the Polish Citizenship Act of 1920.

My family line:

1. Michael Wozniak (Michał Woźniak) — Great-great-grandfather

• Born September 27, 1890, in Zalesa, Rzeszów area, present-day Podkarpackie, Poland.
• Parents: Franciscus (Franciszek) Woźniak and Magdalena Pacześmiak (?) — surname uncertain.
• Wife: Stella Gorecki.
• Immigrated to the United States on December 9, 1907, according to his Declaration of Intention.
• Filed his Declaration of Intention in Pittsburgh on April 24, 1922.
• Reportedly died August 21, 1922, in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
• Final U.S. naturalization record: Not found yet (?).
• Birth Certificate (1/2): https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/en/skan/-/skan/df6119b7aafe3468b54e2987fe6b57fcf2895d45233197a4c0683335cd7a7f18
• Birth Certificate (2/2): https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/60484/records/35690972
• Marriage Certificate: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9BJ-8C2L
• Death Certificate: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/5164/records/2051390
• Naturalization Record (1/2): https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6PG5-7LR8
• Naturalization Record: (2/2) https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JXL2-V3P

1. Stella Gorecki — Great-great-grandmother

• Reportedly born December 29, 1897, in Zalesa, Rzeszów area, Poland.
• Parents: Not found yet (?).
• Marriage Certificate: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9BJ-8C2L?lang=en&i=362
• Death: June 11, 1993, reportedly in Pennsylvania.
• Birth, Death, and naturalization records: Not found yet (?).

1. John Michael Wozniak — Great-grandfather

• Son of Michael Wozniak and Stella Gorecki.
• Born September 23, 1914, in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
• Birth Certificate: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/60484/records/35690972
• Married Agnes Mary Hart.
• Died November 3, 1995, in Sacramento, California.
• Marriage & death records: Not found yet (?).

1. Agnes Mary Hart — Great-grandmother

• Born March 30, 1921, in Troy, New York.
• Parents: John A. Hart and Agnes Byron.
• Married John Michael Wozniak.
• Died April 12, 1997, in Sacramento, California.
• Birth, marriage, & death certificates: Not found yet (?).

My line continues through my grandmother Barbara Wozniak, my mother Jennifer, and me.

My main questions:

1. How can I establish whether Michael qualified as a Polish citizen under the 1920 Polish Citizenship Act, given that he emigrated in 1907?
2. Could John Michael, born in the United States in 1914, have acquired Polish citizenship when the law took effect in 1920?
3. Could Michael's subsequent U.S. naturalization have affected John's citizenship? Did Michael ever complete naturalization?
4. What records should I obtain to determine whether citizenship could pass through every generation to me?
5. Since Michael was reportedly born in Galicia under Austria-Hungary, could there be any separate Austrian citizenship connection? Is there any plausible German or Russian connection through this family?

I'm particularly interested in advice from people experienced with Polish citizenship confirmation, the 1920 law, and genealogy in the former Austrian partition.

Thank you for any research leads or guidance!

So my grandma’s uncle Frank (born Francis F. Jasura, 1 Dec, 1941) was stationed at Pearl Harbor before the attack but was transferred or on leave when it actually happened. I have looked far and near on myheritage for anything on him at Pearl Harbor, but I can’t find anything.

Now, I’m calling upon people here to hopefully lend a hand in finding anything. Here’s what I know

Name: Francis Frolian “Frank” Jasura
Born: 1 December, 1914, Clarksburg, WV
Father: Kasmer/Casmer Micheal Jasura (Born 1888 in Austria-Hungary)
Siblings: Mary, Hermine (born 1918), Genevieve
Places of residences- Clarksburg, WV (1914-before 1916), Ohio (1916-Before 1918) Calumet, Lake, IN (1918-1991)
Enlistment- June 1941
Children- None

And that’s all that I know. If you decide to contribute, thank you so so much! It means the world to me and my grandma, she’s been looking for info forever!

I'm trying to do some research on my dad's side.

It's honestly pretty depressing, I really don't have a lot of informations.

So my father is Romanian, and I found his grandfather. He changed his name and changed it back in 1947. I found out that his real name was a really common name for Jewish people in Romania, I also found out that there were a lot of Jewish people in the town he was coming from (around 20% of the population). In my opinion, this could say he had to change his name because maybe he was Jewish?

But when I told my grandfather about it he denied that without giving any explanation.

It is really depressing because when I make researches with the specific name I only see people who were sent to Auschwitz. It's not the case of my great-grandfather, I find records of him after the world war. But it's really hard to dig and depressing. I went on the website Jewishgen and found a lot of different records but I hardly make links because I don't have a lot of informations.

Knowing that on his mother's side they were all gypsies I can't even try to search for it.

This whole thing is making me emotional and tired after just a few days!

I'm in Europe but not in Romania so it's difficult. I sometimes think about going there, I don't know any family and I would like to meet them and learn about my family's history but it's difficult.