Are you aware of the local geography where your ancestor lived? Having access to maps is a great help, but having a certain amount of information “in your head” can save time.
For your city ancestors do you know the “name of the neighborhood” (if there was one)? Do you know names of nearby neighborhoods and towns? How close did your family live to the line that divided one city from another?
For rural ancestors the same thing applies? What were the names of adjacent townships? How close were they to the county line? Did they live in a part of the county that had a nickname (perhaps based upon where most residents were originally from)?
Failing to know some local geography may cause you to look in the wrong place for your relative.
4 Responses
Also be aware that county/township, even state, boundaries have changed over time.
I know, r as has occurred, wrong pronunciation or spelling can send u in the wrong direction. Also wrong state.
Some of my family have several place names they could be listed under, Beaver Township, Summerville RD1, Pansy, in Jefferson County PA. Also could be Brookville, the closest big town. I like to be precise for births and deaths, but sometimes it is hard to figure out!
Knowing parent and child counties is very helpful. Those boundaries don’t just change, often a new county is created from parts of several counties. Sometimes smaller jurisdictions are absorbed by larger ones. WeRelate.org has a great place wiki which charts child and parent counties and date of creation. It was the result of hundreds of volunteer hours, Getty and Wikipedia.