New and Needing Help/Advise

Question

Good Afternoon,

I've just picked up my family search again after a year or two break. Let me tell you I feel like my head is spinning lol. I feel like I've repeatedly added information for family and yet somehow when I check progress on my personal tree I have nothing at least not the information I had just found and added sources to. I'm also hitting several brick walls.

I'm searching my maiden name which belongs to my mother and kind of branching off on both maternal and paternal side of my mother and so on. I'm just wanting to figure out my history and relations from the Hardin name and then the same for my grandmother's maiden name of Rego.

Hardin name is spread from West to East; relatives mainly in California but seem to have major ties to Indiana...

Rego name is direct from Hawaii but also apparently Portuguese? Trying to find any real reference sources I end up on Hawaii .gov sites searching and then can not translate and Google translate is not very helpful in this matter either...

I think maybe I'm just so deep into putting it together that I'm losing track of who where when and what....

I have yet to do any sort of genetic testing, but have a plan to in the future at some point hopefully. Is there a test that's better than another to find out if I'm truly Cherokee? And if I'm truly related to certain people? What else do these tests offer? I'm kinda skeptical obviously.

Thanks for any help and information,

-Cambria Hardin

Oh one more question, how can I find birth information on say my mother for example... I type in her name, date of birth, supposed birth place, even her parents names.... I get nothing I can not find birth record for her or my aunt's for that matter. All of them born 1955 and later my mom being the youngest born in 1968.

Comments

Gonna need more to go on to get anywhere with these people. Whatever you know, put it in the biographies and data fields and use something like family recollections as a temporary source.

A lot of times you have to work sideways, rather than directly up the tree. An obituary of a sibling can give you three generations in one fell swoop. When you find a gravesite, check that cemetery for the surnames of both spouses. Census reports are terrific especially for large families.

Finding relatives is more about the process of elimination. The more you can list the easier it is to narrow down candidates.

Your Rego line likely emigrated from the Azores in the 1880's to work the sugar plantations. But again would need more information to narrow them down.

Family Tree, Google, and Find A Grave are the big three places to start. Fortunately, you can access them all through the Roots Search link on the right side of the Biography under Research when the profile is in public view.

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the tree. everything needs verified of course.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VB9X-MYL

1940 Census. Jeannie, parents Joseph and Isabella, sister Carmen.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VB9X-MYL

1930 Census: Joseph and Isabella.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:HRLB-FCZM

5 Apr 1928: Joseph and Isabella marriage

by the way, do da and de are gendered honorifics and not part of the name for records purposes. Joseph's father's surname should be entered as Rego not DoRego or do Rego.

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Thank you Ron for responding, I apparently as another comment says put information in on another site thinking it was this one, guess that's how frazzled it's making me. I have up to, I do believe, Joseph's father and mother listed on the other site along with a whole deal of different facts I had found. I'm gonna try to figure out which site it was listed on and try to transfer what I have from there.

As for the gravesite thing I've been able to find most all I've searched except my mom's sister... I've typed in her given name and the name she preferred and used. I'm unsure of birth and exact death date, I know she was the middle child and my mom says both her sisters were out of the house and she grew up as an only child (guess she could have a memory issue maybe haha). As for death date I want to say it was between 2007 and 2015...I can not for the life of me recall what year it was. I've entered in those years and still can't manage it. I thought she passed here in California but still hitting a dead end there.

My mom's oldest sister is still alive but I can't seem to find a record of anything for whatever reason. My mom and her sisters seem non-existent. But I will continue until I find something.

Also thanks for explaining the whole do, da, and de that was really starting to confuse things.

"Your Rego line likely emigrated from the Azores in the 1880's to work the sugar plantations. But again would need more information to narrow them down."

^^ That ^^ is really awesome, I've never really figured out much further than being Portuguese immigrants. I stopped due to  thinking somehow I mixed to a different Rego family line. So I will definitely follow that up.

Thank you again!

Answer 1

At ancestry.com (pay site) is your grandmother's Social Security record - she was born 23 July 1934 in Puʻunene on Maui, Hawaii, to Joseph Rego and Isabella Costa, in December 1954 known as Jeanne Louise Barnes, in March 1965 known as Jeanne Barnes Hardin, in May 1967 known as Jeanne Barnes Vanornam, in July 1968 known as Rene Reed, in October 1988 known as Jeanne Rego Elmore, in May 1997 known as Jeanne Rego Hardin. Died 16 December 2005.

At newpapers.com (pay site) there is a newspaper obituary for her mother from the Honolulu Advertiser of 5 May 1990. It states, in part: "Isabelle C. Rego, 85, of Menlo Park, Calif., died April 30, 1990. She was born on Maui and was longtime owner of the Hawaiian Gift Shop in Palo Alto, Calif." Among the survivors is her brother Anthony Costa.

At familysearch.org (free, but registration required) there is a family tree for your grandmother that shows her to be indeed descended from Portuguese immigrants to Hawaii.

As for the Hardins, I see that you have already entered information for Ochs Hardin of Indiana at familysearch.org (perhaps part of your inability to see your previous work here is that you had actually been working at familysearch.org rather than here).

Comments

Thank you for the help. I have found my grandma's many names; actually found that just a few weeks ago and am still wanting to find information on those, other than being married names obviously. Learn more about my grandma's fancy secrets!

As for the newspapers.com about my great-grandmother, I knew she had passed a short time before I was born, thank you for the exact information! I had no clue she had owned a gift shop, no one has ever said anything of that!  

Really need to get a subscription for newspapers, I'm sure it would help a great deal!

And Im sure I probably did end up putting all the family information I have found into the familysearch.org; it's weird because I ended up calling asleep looking for information and when I woke up, I of course had to log back in to my account and upon doing that I saw none of the information. I then switched to this site and saw some of the information I remembered inputting yet I have no clue where the rest went. I suppose I dreamt of finding and inputting more information.

Thanks so much for the help!

Answer 2

Hi Cambria, it can seem daunting at first, but does get easier, and quite quickly.

If you go to My Wikitree, you can choose from the dropdown menu ‘watchlist’ which will show you all the profiles you are profile manager (PM) for. As to not seeing the work you have done, please save changes before leaving the edit page. If you leave the page without doing it , they will have disappeared when you come back.

If you need help finding sources familysearch.org is free to register and to use. We cannot help with living persons due to privacy laws. Otherwise ask here Including names, dates and places , please don’t abbreviate as this is world wide site.

Comments

Marion, thank you for the information. I do believe I ended up using familyresearch.org, saved the information there thinking it was here. Some of the input information I remember doing is not listed on either site though so it's gotta be floating around one of the many sites I've attempted information on. I am going to find all informations and transfer everything to this site just have to remember which sites I have used. Thanks for the help and information!

Answer 3

Many records for people born after 1950 are not publicly available since most of those people are still alive.   The 1950 census won’t be available for a couple more years.  You may need to write to the states where your relatives were born or died and obtain copies of birth or death certificates if family members don’t already have them.    

There is no DNA test that can connect you to a specific Indian tribe unless it identifies you as a close relative of a current tribal citizen.  There are some DNA markers that are strongly associated with Native Americans, but unless you have a fairly recent full blood ancestor those markers may not show in your DNA.  The Cherokee are very well documented, so the best way to find a Cherokee ancestor is to build ypur tree back to a time and place where the Cherokee lived and then look for a connection in one of the many rolls and censuses.

Comments

Kathie, thank you for the information I did not know some records were unavailable maybe that's some of my struggle. Also the fact of being unsure where some were born.

My moms uncle (still living) said and this is according to my mom- that someone maybe aunt or grandmother or something with in a couple generations of his had been registered indian (he did not specify tribe or anything) but whoever it was after that generation did not register and now the rest of us apparently can not prove anything?  I currently live close to my mom's uncle but he is going a bit senile and it's extremely hard to talk any family information with him. His sons refuse to talk about family information or just plain don't know or care. So I can't ask them either. So I guess when and if I hit that relative in the family line I might be able to pull some sort of information from somewhere at that point.

Thank you for you help and information!

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The best thing to do now is to build your tree, adding all the documentation you can find to show where people were born, where they lived, who they married, if they had siblings or children, where and when they died.  Many of those records are available for free on FamilySearch and you can link them to your profiles here on Wikitree.  That will make it more likely that you will connect to someone here on Wikitree and that you will identify the person who may have been Indian.  Family stories can get garbled over the years so it’s important to follow the paper trail.

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Thank you! I'm definitely trying to gather all the documentation I'm finding. I've ran into a mind boggle and am really confused as to what may be correct on a certain family member. Records indicate one thing but physical evidence is definitely saying different....