If your male ancestor died and his wife survived him, have you fully traced what happened to his widow after his death? Was she willed property that would pass to his heirs after his death? There might be a record of that land transfer after she died. Did she remarry? There may be mention of a previous husband when she does. She may have died under another name and left records under that name–perhaps one that mention her children by her first marriage. Did she pay property taxes after her husband’s death? Those records might help you to estimate when she died if there are no death records and she left no probate. There’s also the chance that there is no record of her after her husband’s death. […]
Occasionally I use one of the online trees to give me a little boost or nudge when working on a family–especially when I need some general direction. Sometimes they are helpful and sometimes not. Recently when working on a family in Stow, Massachusetts, in the 18th century, I took a look at the FamilySearch tree on the family. What I found had significant differences from what was in the will of the father of the family. At that point, I decided to focus on the wills and probate records of the families under study, transcribe those, interpret those and go from there. Sometimes it is best to just start from scratch and work from the original records. Learn more about research, methods, and sources in Casefile Clues.
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