Are We Related?

I’d love to learn if we’re related. One of my favorite things about genealogy is collaborating with other family researchers and meeting new relatives. I want to share my research with others who may be researching the same family lines.

My parents grew up in the same town in Western Pennsylvania. With a few exceptions, their ancestors were Scots-Irish and were Presbyterian. My parents are actually fifth cousins through our Hayes line, so that is one of my favorite surnames to research. They both have English lines, and my my mom has German and Swedish lines as well.

The more I researched, the more patterns I began to see. Allied families with the same migration together. Church rolls bearing similar names to the church in the prior county. Witnesses on legal documents were in-laws. Neighbors were relatives. And all of the documents that at one time seemed isolated began to paint a vivid story.

Genealogy is about more than accepting hints and adding more people to a family tree.

Genealogy is always a work in progress. As more information comes online, finding records becomes easier. It does not make the process of analyzing each information item of each record easier.

Take your time. Learn about the time and place. Understand how your ancestor fit into the neighborhood. Appreciate their triumphs and trials.

I upload documents and photos as I find them to my public tree on Ancestry.com . Please know that I started my tree long before I became a professional genealogist. I have tried to clean it up, but I am sure there are unsourced people and events that I missed. If you find something that is wrong, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I look forward to learning how we’re related.

My Ancestors

Megan Clark Young’s Public Tree:

Want to check to see if we are DNA relatives? My GEDMatch.com kit number is A838539.