One of the things I find occasionally mentioned in the gossip columns of the weekly newspapers published where my family lived are references to trips they took to visit out-of-town relatives or times when out-of-town relatives came to visit. I decided that it might be a good idea to keep a spreadsheet of these trips (with columns for who travelled, when, where, source of trip information, and miscellaneous details). Why spend time doing this? Because these trips are often when photographs get taken and knowing who visited whom and when may help with some of that photo identification. And who knows what else it may help with?
When evaluating information, genealogists usually categorize that information as primary or secondary in nature. The difference is not just academic. The 1937 military application headstone card for John Ehmen indicated that he died in Galesburg, Knox County, Illinois, on 12 November 1864. Ehmen’s compiled military service record contains two contemporary documents indicating he died on that same date in a military hospital in Quincy, Adams County, Illinois. The headstone application card’s death information would be considered secondary since the application was made in 1937 and the information was likely copied from somewhere–it certainly is not a contemporary record. The death information in the compiled military service record is listed on two separate original documents created shortly after Ehmen’s death (one is a hospital record that indicates his treatments […]
This is one of those charts that I find helpful when reviewing my DNA test results. It’s a chart of marriages where one person is an ancestral sibling (no further back that great-great-grandparents) and their spouse is also a relative. Double connections can frustrate DNA results. I can remember most of the aunts or uncles who married a relative, but the relationship of the spouse occasionally eludes me and this chart saves me the time of looking it up repeatedly. The chart is not detailed, but there’s enough information in it for me and that’s what matters. I also realized in seeing it while writing this post that I forgot to list my great-grandmother Ufkes’ sister who married a relative of my great-grandmother Habben. Reviewing things that have […]
Have you thought about keeping a list of place names you encounter in a specific geographic area so that you don’t have to search for them every time you find a reference to them? I have several maps for the county where I grew up and for various other areas where family members lived. When looking at maps for one specific area, many have the same place names listed. But there is some variation in which place names are on which map, depending upon the time period and the purpose. I’ve also encountered references to place names in newspapers and other print sources. A list of place names in a specific region, their location (as specific as I can get), the time period, and the source of the […]
Today you can still save $10 on More Genealogy Tip of the Day our second book. The announcement says just 2 March, but we’re extending it through the 4th for readers of our blog. Details here.
There’s only so much time and one has to prioritize where they are likely to get the most bang out of their genealogy time. That’s where I tend to put DNA matches like this one. Not because of just one reason, but really because of three. We only share 9 centimorgans of DNA. This means, probabilistically speaking, that the match shares nothing closer than a set of third great-grandparents. That’s not bad and it’s not the real problem. We also have no shared matches. That gives me no way to put the match into a pull or cluster of other shared matches whose common ancestor is known or reasonably known. There is no linked tree and the public tree the account has is lacking in details. In terms […]
Your ancestors did not have to “prove” anything when the census taker came to the door. They could get by just answering the questions and if the answers were totally wrong or just a “little off,” the census taker might not even know. This does not mean that every census enumeration is wrong or that everyone lied on the census. But it does mean that an age that is slightly off or a birth place that isn’t quite right is not usually enough to throw an entire theory out the window. But then again, there’s always that chance that great-great-grandma fudged the number of years married to make a few things fit–for those census records that asked that question.
The word looks like “popepion,” but it is not. It’s “possession.” There was a time when a double “s” was not written like one “s” after the other. Sometimes the script looks like a fancy lower-case “f” and other times it looks like a “p” in this illustration from an 1820s era court case in Harford County, Maryland. My transcription of the word is “possession” and not “popepion” because the practice was common. This is not a misspelled word.
It is always advised to compare a record of your ancestor to others in the same series of records. How does the amount of detail compare? If the document is a death certificate, is it filed in the same time frame after the death as the others? If it is a handwritten baptismal entry is there something about it that is different from others? Whenever you are confused about a document, look at similar ones to get a reference point. You can’t know what’s unusual if you don’t know what other ones look like. Like this phone from my childhood. It sat on top of a box of toys in my Grandparents’ home for years. I thought they came with a red O. They don’t. Grandma painted it […]
We are still accepting registrations for our US land records class starting on 2 March. See our announcement for more details.
A reminder from a while back. The “problem” with using certain websites, search engines, etc. is that one can locate images or content and not be certain what they are seeing. A good way to solve that problem… ask someone for help. Not really knowing what you are looking at is a good way to not understand it. The illustration used in this post is an index card to naturalizations created by the US government to help people find their naturalization record when they had lost it and weren’t really certain where they were naturalized (among other reasons). It’s not the naturalization record and is not the same thing as the naturalization record. Ask fellow genealogists if you stumble on something and do not know what it is. […]
Is it possible that your relative had an obituary in a church newspaper or periodical? These materials can be difficult to find and likely were not published near your ancestor lived or housed near where they lived. Searches for such items should begin with national or regional archives devoted to the denomination of which your ancestor was a member and continue with the state organization (state library, historical society, state archives, etc.) responsible for gathering newspapers published within the state in which the ancestor lived.
When you have finished analyzing the materials in a court case file, make note of the dates of any court action. Then search local newspapers for possible mention of the case. The court record may only give part of the story. What is in the newspaper may be unsubstantiated, but it may give you a different perspective than what was in the court record. It’s always worth remembering that manual searches of digitized newspapers are sometimes necessary and that not every newspaper that could contain genealogical information relevant to your research problem has been digitized. Most US newspapers have been microfilmed (but not all), but not all microfilm has been digitized. Don’t limit your newspaper searches to just those items that are online.
Grantor and grantee indexes to land records typically only include the name of the first grantor (seller) and the first grantee (buyer) listed on a land transfer. Deeds involving inheritances, estate disputes, and partnerships may list multiple grantors or grantees. Searching for all members of your ancestor’s extended family (relatives by blood, relatives by marriage, etc.) may locate references not found if you only look for that “one person of interest.” And since not all deeds get recorded promptly and since they are indexed when they are recorded, consider searching for after the death of the grantor and grantee as well. And if your ancestors were farmers and you’ve never looked for a deed…you could be missing out.
We are offering a four-week class on United States land records starting on March 2. There will be lectures, discussions, and optional assignments designed to help reinforce concepts. Additional details are on our announcement page.
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