Even documents that are not supposed to provide parental information could. This World War I draft card indicated that the registrant was working as a farmer for his father, naming the father. One never knows when a document will provide extra information that’s not really required. It pays to look. A big thanks to GenealogyBank for being our sponsor! Please check out their August offer for Tip of the Day readers, fans, and followers.
Political boundaries are often arbitrary lines drawn by politicians and diplomats. The laws, procedures, and records created on one side may not apply on the other. Cultural lines are often less precise, but just as important genealogical research. And one country may have several different cultural regions contained within it.
In some cultures, it was common to reuse the name of the child that had died. Don’t assume two children with the same name and different years of birth are actually just the same child. It could be two separate children with the same name.
Another site with thousands of scanned out-of-copyright books is Hathitrust.org. The items can be full-text searched as well and includes county histories, town histories, genealogies, and more. Visit https://www.hathitrust.org/
If your ancestor left the US military before his Civil War term was up, he likely was charged with desertion. Some deserters later appealed this charge, particularly as pension laws became more liberal and would qualify him for a pension–if he had not deserted. Even if their appeal to change their discharge was denied, information contained in the file may provide additional details about your ancestor and his life during the Civil War and after. These records are at the National Archives. A big thanks to GenealogyBank for being our sponsor! Please check out their August offer for Tip of the Day readers, fans, and followers.
For those who were not aware, GoogleBooks has digital scans of thousands of out-of-copyright books on their site. Many of the out-of-copyright books can be downloaded in their entirety, but some cannot. They are full text searchable and one can make unexpected discoveries in these items. Scanned items include: county histories family genealogies city, town, and occupational directories state statutes reports of court cases heard by appellate courts and more The direct link is http://books.google.com A big thanks to GenealogyBank for being our sponsor! Please check out their August offer for Tip of the Day readers, fans, and followers.
Occupational journals may provide a variety of unexpected details on an ancestor. This entry from a 1900 edition of the Moulder’s Journal includes a “Black Record” of union men who members may wish to refrain from employing or doing business with. Many of these journals have been digitized and are available on GoogleBooks. The people mentioned in these books do sometimes include common men–not just “movers and shakers.”
Some indexes and finding aids do not indicate how many times a given name appears on a page. Always read the entire page in case there are multiple references to the same person. Don’t just take the first reference and quit. Those additional references may tell you more than the first one did.
The death of a spouse shortly after marriage, the death of a young child, or a host of other events can be emotionally difficult for those left behind. In some families the response is simply to “not talk about it.” Sometimes that unwillingness to talk eventually leads others to conclude that there’s some “scandal” or “big story” connected to the event. That’s not necessarily true. Scandals are not the only things that people may be reluctant to talk about.
The number of online indexes to records grows daily. For some of these records there may also be handwritten indexes created by the original record holder. If you’ve got good reason to think your person should be in the record and they are not in the online index, see if there are other indexes available created by the original record creator or other indexers.
Immigrants who married in the new country may have known each other in their homeland. If you know the overseas origins of one member of a couple, try looking for their spouse in the same original area. But it is possible they were also from different locations and had no knowledge of each other until their arrival in the new country. Don’t conclude without evidence.
Any age given in any document can be incorrect. Never assume an age is 100% correct, especially if there are no other documents available. The key is that the ages an individual provides in records are relatively consistent. They will not match precisely. There’s a good chance that at least one age will not be the exact same as the others.
Your Civil War ancestor may have served from a neighboring state to help that state meet its quota. Don’t limit your Civil War service record searches to the state in which your person lived. They may have served after crossing the state line. And never assume that there’s only one guy with your somewhat unusual name. I originally thought these two George Trautvetters were the same person who served in an Illinois and a Missouri unit. As it turns out, they were likely first cousins.
Always know what you are searching whether you are searching an online database or a printed book. The “Restored” marriage records shown in the image are from a variety of local sources. They are referred to as “Restored” because the original records from the county were destroyed in a fire. Always read the preface or any introductory material in order to determine exactly what you are searching or using. That’s the only way you will know whether that next book on the shelf is something you need to use or not.
If you are fortunate enough to help someone new to family history research, try not to overwhelm them with suggestions, every source you can think of, or citation advice. Sometimes too much new material, new information, and new family members can add to the confusion “new” people sometimes feel. If anything, try and encourage them to work initially on a family that doesn’t seem too difficult to research. There’s time later for them to become totally confused and frustrated with brick walls. Give a suggestion or two of what to try next and suggest that they ask you again when they’ve tried those suggestions. And go from there. Ideally you want to keep the person’s interest and let it grow slowly.
Recent Comments