I was looking for two “missing” grandsons of an ancestral couple who married in Germany in the 1790s. The men had the common name of Hess and while I knew where they lived shortly after immigration to the United States they seemed to have dropped off the radar after 1855 or so when they would have been in their early twenties.

They were alive until at least 1871 when they were heirs to an estate in Illinois. Those records indicated they were alive, but that one could not be found. The records provided no clues as to where the one who could be found was living. If they lived until 1871 they would have been in their forties and old enough to have left their own descendants.

Then I looked at my DNA matches to known descendant s of the couple who married in the 1790s. Some of those matches had trees attached–incomplete ones most of the time. Two of those trees had men with the last name of Hess as ancestors–not back far enough to help make an immediate connection, but at least a clue.

My next step is to trace those Hess men in other records to see if their ancestry has a connection to the Hess grandchildren of my ancestors that I am looking for.

After all, the presence of that name in the trees may be a coincidence. The actual connection could be through one of the other blanks in those trees.

When I was small, “What hamp?” was my phrase when I wanted to know what was going on.

As a genealogist, I’m still asking it.

Documents and records are usually created in response to some event. For vital records, the event taking place should be obvious. Probate records are also the result of an obvious event. But the precipitating event behind other documents may not be quite so obvious. An quit claim deed listing all the heirs may have resulted from the death of a surviving parent or the youngest heir coming of age and finally being able to legally execute a document. A partition of an estate may have resulted from one heir needing money from the estate or a group of the heirs having disagreement about the property. Or the attorney may said that “now would be a good time to do this before there is trouble.”

Even a family photograph may have been the result of a graduation, visit of family from a distance, etc.

Once in a while things happen for no reason, but it is still a good problem-solving technique to ask yourself, “what might have been going on to cause this document to be executed and recorded when it was?”

And the documents don’t always tell us what “hamp.” Sometimes we have to do a little snooping–and there’s still no guarantee we find the reason.

Due to a scheduling issue, we’ve moved the FamilySearch webinar to 28 Sept. at 7:30 pm. central time. Recordings will also be available for those who cannot attend live. Details on our announcement page.

My ancestor was born in Kentucky, most likely in 1818 or 1819. I’m not certain of the year. I may never be certain of the year and there is actually little chance that I ever find a reasonably reliable record containing his precise date of birth.

And that’s just fine. It’s also the reality of this time period and location. There were no civil records of births when he was born in Kentucky. No bible record has been located. He was not in the military so there’s no service record, enlistment papers, or benefit application that could be helpful either. The family was not a member of a church that kept any sort of records of dates of birth–or even ages. The ancestor died in the 1880s in Missouri and no death certificate can be located–it likely would not give date of birth any way. No tombstone is known to be extant.

I’m not really that concerned that I have no precise date of birth. Census records are relatively consistent with an 1818/1819 year of birth. My bigger concerns are: tying him to his parents, his spouse, and his children–all of which has been done with a variety of original records containing primary information.

Sometimes it simply is not possible to get a date of birth for some individuals. That’s not a “brick wall.” It’s reality.

Getting the Most from FamilySearch 7:30 pm. central 28 Sept 2021 (note date/time change). Attend live (handout included) or pre-order recording and handout–registration information below.

The FamilySearch site contains images of records from around the world—most available right from your internet connection. This presentation will focus on the actual records that are on FamilySearch and the finding aids that have been created to some of those records. We will not be discussing the online trees in this session and will concentrate on the “digital microfilm” and how that information can be navigated and used for your research. We will break the material down into two large categories: indexed and unindexed digital records. Presentation will be made by Michael John Neill and will include:

Generalized search strategy. It is easy to become overwhelmed with what is on FamilySearch. We will start with a generalized organizational strategy to effectively and efficiently navigate what is on the site.

Searching indexed digital record sets: determining what records are in the database, determining what names from the records are in the index, creating effective search queries, and organizing and tracking conducted searches.

Searching the catalog for non-indexed record images: making certain all political jurisdictions covering a specific location have been searched, determining if locally created indexes were created to records, and tracking manual searches of unindexed digital images.

Requesting copies of records will also be discussed.

Live presentation—via GotoWebinar—on 28 September 2021 at 7:30 pm. US Central Time.

Register for live attendance—$16.

Pre-order recording and handout from session–$12.

Ancestry, FamilySearch, and other online genealogical data storehouses attempt to make it easier to “grow your tree” by allowing the user to directly import a transcription from a record into an “event” for a person in their tree.

It truly makes it “point and click” easy to add events and locations to an online tree. It’s the reason why many online trees indicate my great-grandmother died in Wapello County, Iowa instead of Lee County, Iowa (because the location was transcribed incorrectly). It’s the reason why ancestor Focke Goldenstein is listed as having a variety of “first names” of which several stem from incorrect transcriptions of records (some come from his name being spelled wrong, which is a slightly different problem).

Read the original record before including something from that record in your tree. Transcriptions can be incorrect.

Every date you enter for your ancestor’s life needs to have a source. That includes dates that are estimated.

If you are using the fact that a man got married without permission on 2 June 1891 when the age for a man in that location to get married without permission was twenty-one as evidence for his date of birth, then indicate that. In this case, you should state he was born before 3 June 1870, cite the marriage record (and in your notes explain the age requirement and the fact that no permission was given–it might even be a good idea to read quite a few other records besides those of the ancestor to see if any of them do have permission notated).

If you are using an ancestor’s 1850 census enumeration as their “last known alive date” cite that census for the “dead after” date and in your notes indicate what searches of other records have been conducted.

Never indicate a date is exact when it is not. Often in genealogical research we know an event took place before or after a certain date. Cite your source(s) and in your notes explain–particularly if the reasoning may not be obvious to someone else (or even to you later).

The DNA ethnicity results that measure your “ethnicity” do so back to a time when there are extremely few records to document the existence of most individuals. You are not going to be able to paper trace your complete genealogy back to that point in time suggested by the ethnicity results. Pedigrees the extend 2000 years aren’t generally worth the paper they are written on.

Use the ethnicity results as a form of entertainment–unless they reveal something significantly different from what is expected (for example, you think you are entirely European and discover that you are 25% African or 20% Asian, etc.). Document your paper tree as best you can with as many reliable sources as you can and go from there. The part of your DNA test results that you should use are the cousin matches that you are given with the relationship estimates. Those relationship estimates are based on amounts of shared DNA.

The ethnicity results are based on a “data pool” and statistical models and, like all models and statistics, are only as reliable as the data and the assumptions–and still prone to error.

My latest results “took away” my Irish ethnicity.

No they did not. I’m still having corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day.

During the time period when women had few legal rights, it’s worth remembering to look at the men who end up overseeing their affairs in one way or another.

Always pay close attention to the person who was appointed to be the administrator of the estate of a man who died with a wife and young children. If the person is not clearly a relative of the deceased individual, it very likely is a biological relative of the wife–or perhaps her second husband.

And if there is a will and the wife is appointed executor, look carefully at who signed her bond. Those bondsmen were often relatives of the widow.

The instructions for 1950 US census enumerators indicated that a Canadian who spoke French upon their arrival in the US should be classified as “Canada-French.” All other Canadian natives should be classified as “Canada-Other.” One might be tempted to think the “Canada-French” means Quebec and “Canada-Other” means outside of Quebec. That’s not necessarily how I would have interpreted those terms had I not read the instructions.

Always read the instructions. 1950 Census instructions can be viewed online at the www.census.gov website.

Learn more about getting ready for the 1950 census release by viewing my webinar on that very topic.