For years I operated on the belief that the maiden name of an ancestor was Dunaway. I had never seen it written on an actual record. The first reference to the name I remember seeing was on a family group chart someone compiled years ago with no indication of a source listed. I obtained the chart very early in my research long before I knew the importance of source citing and evidence analysis. The name had simply been copied and copied over and over as the maiden name for my 4th great-grandmother. That meant it had to be correct, didn’t it? That repetition had to mean something.
It does mean something. It means it has been repeated.
The first time I saw it written down on an actual record not created by a genealogist was on a 1900 death certificate for the ancestor’s daughter. The last name was listed as “Dunaway,” although the handwriting is difficult to read. Maybe it’s Dunaway and maybe it’s not (and maybe it’s accurate and maybe it’s not), but it’s the earliest document on which I have seen the name written down.
Now to analyze it–because just seeing it on a document does not make it correct.
Do you find the earliest time a specific statement appears in a record?
No responses yet