Sometimes life is just about getting things done, but there are many things that a person starts in life that they do not complete. Your ancestor may have done the exact same thing. Even if your ancestor did not complete something, it does not mean that there are not some records left behind. Those “uncompleted tasks” are often ones that do not get passed down as stories from one generation to the next. It’s possible that your relative: Started college and did not finish. There could still be records, yearbook pictures, etc. Started a homestead and did not complete the process. There should still be an incomplete homestead application (at least the initial filings) which could provide information. Declared their intention to become a citizen but never naturalized. […]
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If the goal of the genealogist is to collect as many records and images as possible, then the genealogist needs to talk to the keepers in the family. And those keepers may not be genealogists. They may have an interest in their family’s history. They may not. But for one reason or another family photographs and other ephemera may have filtered through the generations into their hands. My great-aunt had the picture that illustrates this post-including her and my mother posing two family pets in 1949. Aunt Ruth wasn’t a genealogist, but she was the one who went through her mother’s effects when she (my great-grandmother) died in 1986. And so those items fell into her hands. Another great-grandmother lived with her daughter for several years until that […]
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