In Reply to: you found your great grandparents online???? posted by Acheick on September 27, 2003 at 07:49:31:
I found out that my Great Grandfather (the one in the photo) was a famous Judge in Texas around the turn of the century. So, I thought there must be something out there about him on the web. He also had a unique middle name. THEN.. I found out that my Grandfather put an extra "P" in our last name to keep his paycheck from being mixed up with another person by the same name. I put all that together, and typed "John Stidham Shepard" into Yahoo, and that photo came tumbling out.
I got in touch with the lady who posted it, who I'm related to in some kind of way. I was able to fill her in on people between myself and JS Shepard that she never heard of.
I think I just got lucky because one relative had some noteriety. But now that I found that one, and a person in the Family who is really into documenting this stuff, I have more relatives that I ever dreamed of.
It's kind of funny, because my parents married as teenagers (another redneck trait). When we left Texas they were barely into their 20's. So, we had no known relatives near us except each other (My Mom, my Dad and my Brother were it when I was growing up). Now I know I have a bunch of them all around here. It is a little strange after all these years.
You might try doing search for your own name in a database like this one:
http://www.rootsweb.com/
Try your parents, granparents... see if you can find someone related. Then you can follow their charts up and down. It's amazing how much work has already been done.