A review of our stats indicated that some tips are more popular than others. Here’s the list: Five Year Gap Many Conclusions are Temporary Every Step in that Provenance Mapping it out in Pencil Would a Chart Help? What Is a Maiden Name? No Kids, Never Had Siblings, and Died With Some Cash How Easy Was It For Your Ancestor to Move? Is Your DAR Patriot Still a DAR Patriot? The Paper Genealogy Tree Versus the Genetic Family Tree What’s your favorite tip?
Any document or record can be incomplete, including obituaries. Death notices and obituaries can leave out significant details for one of several reasons: editing or proofreading error; limit on the length of the obituary; cost of the obituary; compiler doesn’t know certain things about the person; compiler doesn’t want to mention certain events or people; etc. An obituary may indicate the deceased was married twice without mentioning what “happened” to the first spouse. They may have died while they were married or they may have divorced. Transcribe the obituary as written and use it for clues to further research. Obituaries can contain information that is completely true or partially true. Outright lies are less common–what’s more likely is a “lie of omission” than a blatant untrue statement. But […]
Reviewing DNA matches is like reviewing any piece of genealogical information: keep track of any conclusions from the information you make that are not specifically stated in the information. If you figure out how a match is related to you, briefly summarize (in the notes) what caused you to reach that conclusion. DNA conclusions are often tentative as more information (results from additional tests) are obtained. It’s often helpful to be able to go back and review why you thought what you did. That’s what I did with a recent DNA match of my own.
Recent Comments