Don’t assume you know your ancestor’s port of entry into the United States. While some ports of entry may be more likely than others based upon the time period and the general area of the United States where your ancestor settled, there may be things about your ancestor’s migration of which you are unaware and any of those details could have impacted their port of arrival. Where was the ancestor originally going to settle, look for work, establish himself, etc.? That may not be where they ended up or where they spent the majority of their life. You may not even really be aware of that location. Families don’t always tell everything or even remember everything. No one may want to mention that great-grandpa tried making a living […]
Did you put home movies on VHS tapes years ago? Have you made any attempt to preserve them digitally? Read about my friend’s experience digitizing his own VHS tapes in this guest post we put on our Rootdig site.
When I was small and fell and got hurt or there was something that I needed to tell my mother, she would often ask me “what hamp?” That’s a good question to ask about our ancestors as well–although we may end up knowing less about the situation than my mother did after she heard my explanation. My great-grandfather lost two farms to foreclosures between 1898 and 1910. For the next fifteen or so years he and the family moved from one rental farm to another. Then in the mid-1920s he “settled” and purchased a farm that remains in the family until this day. I did not give it much thought until I looked through the estate settlement for his father who died in 1916. It took over ten […]
A relative of my children sent me a sketch of a relative from a 1923 history of Chariton and Howard Counties in Missouri. Most of what is in it is consistent with information obtained from other sources. That is fortunate as sometimes biographies in these mug books contain significant amounts fo fiction. These county histories are typically considered secondary sources for most (if not all) of the information they contain and need to be fact-compared with other, hopefully more contemporary and primary sources. Just because a source is a secondary source does not mean it is wrong…just that a comparison is needed. Anything in these materials can be wrong, right, or somewhere in between. What’s in these biographies was often provided by the family–which can be good or […]
Some married couples never see their former spouse after a divorce. Many times that is because one partner leaves and never returns. There are other possibilities. Some former spouses may continue to reside in the same area and interact with each other, especially if they have children. One divorced couple in my family appear on a mortgage with a son-in-law after their divorce. Other times couples eventually remarry, even after they’ve had subsequent spouses. Or they may even later live together, even if they don’t remarry. Those aren’t made up examples—just situations from my own family where I’ve removed the names.
Never be so stuck on an initial conclusion that you avoid other reasonable scenarios or avoid looking for records because the person you need to find “simply cannot be in that location.” A relative concluded a family member returned to Germany for a visit and returned to the United States simply because the ancestor could not be located in the 1870 census. The story of the trip was repeated enough that it became an accepted fact. It’s easy to jump to conclusions when we are first starting out. We can sometimes “break brick walls” by going back and reviewing those initial conclusions.
Death records, probates, and obituaries are not the only place where your relative’s name could appear after their death. There are a variety of records and materials that could contain a reference to your ancestor–even if that ancestor was deceased. Barbara Haase had been dead for several years and her name was still appearing on tax rolls because her estate had not been settled. Newspapers may mention your relative’s name after their death for a variety of reasons, perhaps because their farm was finally sold, their former residence is mentioned as being their “old place.” In more modern times, your deceased relative may be mentioned as having pre-deceased a family member. They may be mentioned as the “late John Smith” in the newspaper for some reason or other. […]
Pre-orders over–regular price is $30–download immediate-handout included as well as research forms. If you ordered and did not get your link to download, please email me at mjnrootdig@gmail.com and include your receipt number. We’re excited to offer this revised presentation on the full-text searching at FamilySearch–reflecting changes made to the site since this was recorded in August 2025. We’ve redesigned our presentation as this functionality continues to change. And…we have an extensive handout complete with forms to help you find more people. If you have purchased an earlier version of this presentation–email me at mjnrootdig@gmail.com for the code to order this revision for $10. Fully Utilizing Full-Text Search: Revised for January 2026 Your purchase includes: We’ll be including and discussing: Determining what is in Full-Text Search—what you can access at home and what […]
When making copies of pages of books in libraries, always make certain you get the context for what was on the page. The index may indicate that there is a reference to John Schnuderman on page 101 and so you copy that page. Make certain that you don’t need page 100 (or 99) to understand the reference on page 101. There may be valuable clues in the pages leading up to page 100 that will help to fully explain the reference. It might even be a good idea to copy the table of contents page as well. One page with no context may leave you wanting more later.
A 1907 era court case involves the children of my ancestor as defendants. They are all listed correctly with the right first names in virtually every court document. Except one. On the deed where the judge is selling the estate, William Rampley is listed as Wilbur Rampley. William’s middle name was not Wilbur and he never used that name as a nickname. What happened? Most likely a simple transcription error. When every other reference to him in the records is William and one out of thirty lists him as Wilbur, it’s easy to realize that sometimes an error is just that, an error. The problem is that when we have just one reference to an individual it can be difficult to know if a name is simply an […]
An obituary indicated that a pallbearer for a relative was Earl Trautvetter. The other pallbearers were individuals whose names I recognized as being nephews or nephews-in-law of the deceased. Then it dawned on me–the obituary was likely referring to my uncle that I always knew as “Babe.” His real name, which I knew but occasionally put in the back of my mind, was actually Carl. Earl was likely the result of someone misreading the initial “C” in his first name as an “E” or some other sort of typographical error. An additional difficulty with this error was that the incorrect name was one that I heard differently. It didn’t sound like Carl and so it took me a little bit longer to realize what had likely happened. Sometimes […]
If you use the full-text search at FamilySearch, have you considered searching for street addresses? There are many records in urban areas, particularly those the late 19th century and later, that may mention addresses. Naturalizations and passenger lists are other records that may contain an address. Read more about our full-text search webinar updated for 2026 here.
Years ago, I used a series of records. I didn’t find my relatives in them and made some incorrect conclusions about how the records were organized and what time period they covered. Twenty years later, on a whim I searched them again. Knowing more about records and research, I found some of my relatives in the records. Did you make assumptions about records early in your research…and would it be worth your while to revisit those records and assumptions?
If you don’t care what happens to your genealogy stuff after you die, please ignore this post. If you do, consider devoting a certain percentage of your “genealogy time” to planning for after you leave this Earthly existence. It can be digitizing and identifying photographs, organizing materials, culling (yes…culling) your collection, photographing items that can’t easily be preserved, writing your own stories, writing up ancestral problems, etc. The list is personal to you. Not to be morbid, but we never know when our time is up. So think about devoting some of your genealogy time to not getting more information and details, but to doing what you can to preserve things past your existence on this planet. Unless that doesn’t interest you and it’s fine if it doesn’t. […]
If you are working on a more recent relative and you’ve got a copy of their “funeral book,” look and see if the names of those who came to pay their respects are in the book. Relatives may have copies of these books in with any personal family papers that they have. It is a good way to get ideas of who might have been your ancestor’s associates and who was alive when your ancestor died. They may have even written in their city of residence. And there’s always their signatures…hopefully they are readable.
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