My Family Tree Archives - Climb Your Family Tree https://climbyourfamilytree.com/category/my-family-tree/ Find Your Ancestors, Discover Yourself Thu, 13 Aug 2026 23:02:26 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4 https://climbyourfamilytree.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/cropped-CYFT-Icon-32x32.png My Family Tree Archives - Climb Your Family Tree https://climbyourfamilytree.com/category/my-family-tree/ 32 32 What Got You Into Researching Your Family History? https://climbyourfamilytree.com/what-got-you-into-researching-your-family-history/ https://climbyourfamilytree.com/what-got-you-into-researching-your-family-history/#respond Tue, 16 Jan 2018 12:58:07 +0000 http://climbyourfamilytree.com/?p=377 Genealogy isn’t just about digging for facts. It’s about telling stories — our stories. Sometimes curiosity about those stories alone is enough to drive us into researching our family histories. But sometimes it’s more than that — something specific we wanted to learn about ourselves, a particular connection that drove our passion to know more, or maybe ... Read more

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]]> https://climbyourfamilytree.com/what-got-you-into-researching-your-family-history/feed/ 0 Where Are You Really From? https://climbyourfamilytree.com/where-are-you-really-from/ https://climbyourfamilytree.com/where-are-you-really-from/#respond Fri, 12 Jan 2018 02:52:17 +0000 http://climbyourfamilytree.com/?p=373 Growing up, if you asked me what my ancestry was, I would have simply said “German and Irish.” My father’s side of the family was German. My grandfather on that side was a German immigrant after WWII, and my grandmother’s family came to New York from Germany a few generations earlier. My mother’s side of ... Read more

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]]> https://climbyourfamilytree.com/where-are-you-really-from/feed/ 0 It’s a Small World After All https://climbyourfamilytree.com/its-a-small-world-after-all/ https://climbyourfamilytree.com/its-a-small-world-after-all/#respond Tue, 21 Oct 2014 15:00:21 +0000 http://climbyourfamilytree.com/?p=242 Sometimes when conducting family history research, we can come across amazing coincidences, finding that we’re tied to others in ways we never would have expected. This happened to me and one particular colleague and friend. We realized years ago that the two of us (her from Pennsylvania and me originally from New York) had a ... Read more

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]]> https://climbyourfamilytree.com/its-a-small-world-after-all/feed/ 0 When Should You Hire a Professional Genealogist? https://climbyourfamilytree.com/when-should-you-hire-a-professional-genealogist/ https://climbyourfamilytree.com/when-should-you-hire-a-professional-genealogist/#respond Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:06:23 +0000 http://climbyourfamilytree.com/?p=118 I’ve long since hit a dead end researching my family’s history in Germany — my namesake line no less. Family believed most records there were lost when a key town was pretty much destroyed by the Russian military in WWII. The family was forced to leave their home and most of their belongings behind, and ... Read more

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]]> https://climbyourfamilytree.com/when-should-you-hire-a-professional-genealogist/feed/ 0 The Broken Branch of a Family Tree – Unexplained Name Changes https://climbyourfamilytree.com/the-broken-branch-of-a-family-tree-unexplained-name-changes/ https://climbyourfamilytree.com/the-broken-branch-of-a-family-tree-unexplained-name-changes/#respond Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:32:51 +0000 http://climbyourfamilytree.com/?p=100 I’ve talked about my issues proving my German citizenship. And I may have figured out a part of the problem. While we know the basic history of my family and their locations, the officials might be struggling to find documents on their end due to a potential name change (not covered in what they actually ... Read more

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]]> https://climbyourfamilytree.com/the-broken-branch-of-a-family-tree-unexplained-name-changes/feed/ 0 Dual Citizenship: Is it Worth It? https://climbyourfamilytree.com/dual-citizenship-is-it-worth-it/ https://climbyourfamilytree.com/dual-citizenship-is-it-worth-it/#comments Tue, 10 May 2011 12:48:57 +0000 http://climbyourfamilytree.com/?p=85 Featured

Learn about my discovery in 2011 of being a dual US-German citizen, my 3-year journey into getting proof of German citizenship, and later getting my German passport. Then explore the 13 years of comments with readers sharing their own journeys through this process of dual German citizenship (in the US and elsewhere), and get their tips on figuring out if you’re eligible for a German passport and working with German consulates and missions to help you through the process.

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]]> https://climbyourfamilytree.com/dual-citizenship-is-it-worth-it/feed/ 1079 Hitting the “Brick Wall” in Your Family Tree https://climbyourfamilytree.com/hitting-the-brick-wall-in-your-family-tree/ https://climbyourfamilytree.com/hitting-the-brick-wall-in-your-family-tree/#respond Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:33:02 +0000 http://climbyourfamilytree.com/?p=54 Of all the branches in my family tree, the most difficult to research has been my namesake’s. I hit a brick wall early on in that research, and to this day I can’t track that line beyond my great grandparents. In this case it’s a German line. My grandfather came here as a young man ... Read more

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]]> https://climbyourfamilytree.com/hitting-the-brick-wall-in-your-family-tree/feed/ 0 From Pirates to Puritans: 5 Interesting Discoveries in My Family Tree https://climbyourfamilytree.com/from-pirates-to-puritans-5-interesting-discoveries-in-my-family-tree/ https://climbyourfamilytree.com/from-pirates-to-puritans-5-interesting-discoveries-in-my-family-tree/#comments Wed, 02 Mar 2011 11:19:45 +0000 http://climbyourfamilytree.com/?p=32 One of the reasons I got into family history research as a teen was the sheer excitement of it. I’ve always enjoyed a challenge, and I love to learn new things. So why not learn new things about me and my family? Over the years I’ve learned about many interesting things. Here are five that ... Read more

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