Off the Beaten Path

The best discoveries are sometimes made off the beaten path–without a map. That’s true with genealogical records as well.

Indexes, inventories, and finding aids can be incomplete. This “family entry” from an Illinois Lutheran church was found by browsing images of the church’s records. The names were not index and the inventory did not indicate these items were included. Sometimes one simply has to browse things in order to make certain that everything was seen.