RootsChat.Com

Hi all,

I imagine that other folks who've gotten into this wonder about this, so I thought I'd bring it to the experts. We've done a fairly decent job converting our family history into a fairly extensive tree at Ancestry.com with good documentation - I've got 27 of my 32 great-great-great grandparents figured out. We're starting to do some DNA testing on my parents with the hope of connecting with other living relatives, distant cousins especially in Ireland and Scotland. We're trying to get over brick walls there in advance of a family trip next spring. Regardless of whether our people came thru New Brunswick Canada, or into NY/New England, our brick walls are all back there.

It would seem to make sense to network outside of Ancestry as well. We use Family Tree Maker so it's easy to export a GEDCOM, but we'd love to devote what little time we have to other websites with large tree databases and useful features. So would love some advice - should we upload to geni.com, or Family Finder, Findmypast.com, or some other sites? Which 2-4 sites might offer the best opportunity to connect with Irish and Scots relatives?

Thanks in advance for the help and advice! Our family tree at Ancestry is readily available to potential family and helpers.

With warm regards,
Andrew McKnight
Lincoln VA

Greetings from America, and here goes....

My 4th great-grandfather John William Kirkland, born ~1802 someplace in Scotland, apparently had two brothers who stayed in Scotland. They may have worked together across the pond, as he was a silk merchant who emigrated supposedly around 1830 from Glasgow to New Brunswick, Canada. At some point after arriving he married Elizabeth Sarah Weeks (she of undiscovered heritage), and they began a family in 1832 and moved around between Miramichi and Frederickton NB, as well as some time in the 1850s on Prince Edward Island.

Their son Charles was an itinerant preacher, born in 1841. At some point in 1911-12 he got word that his two uncles in Scotland had passed and left their estate to the New Brunswick family. Charles went over and spent many weeks searching them out. His last letter to his daughter in Maine is online in a book where he spoke of his frustrations. At some point he must have found them, and they must have left sufficient estate for him to book 2nd class on the Titanic. His body was never found.

His next youngest sister, Leavinia Kirkland, is my 3x-great grandmother. She lived out her days to a very old age in and around Woodstock New Brunswick.

I don't have access to Scotland's People, so I have no idea if there is any information that might help me dial in a bit more detail about any of the Kirklands, John or his two brothers. I'm afraid I have precious little else to go on. Canadian records of the day were sometimes decent, sometimes sketchy.

I'd surely be grateful for any ideas, info and/or advice. In advance, I thank you, from the Blue Ridge foothills of northern Virginia.
Andrew
(whose also a McKnight descendant of Ayrshire, and before that of Newtonards, and who knows where before that, but supposedly of the Clan of the Black Douglas. It'd make a fine drinking game

I have little to no idea of where to search because I know so little. My great-great grandmother Hannah Hennessey emigrated to the US in 1852 at the age of 6. I know plenty of her life here in the States, but no blooming idea at all of where she came from, if she came alone, was orphaned, etc. I can't find her on any passenger lists via Ancestry. I do have the International membership, and I'd surely love to find some way to learn about the Irish family she came from. Thanks in advance for any advice.