People tend to marry and reproduce with others who share their culture and life experiences. While there are exceptions to this practice, it is not hard to see why people gravitate towards others with whom they have things in common. It’s human nature. Some cultures encourage this in a subtle fashion. Some cultures and groups are more stringent in their requirement that members of the group marry others within the group. That practice is referred to as endogamy. An endogamous group is one where individuals marry within the group. My maternal ancestors who came to the United States in the late 19th century from Ostfriesland were somewhat endogamous. All of my maternal ancestors (until my mother married in 1967) married others in the same ethnic community. This was […]
Your relative might have had interests or hobbies that were unrelated to his “real” occupation–the one that is always listed in census records, death certificates, etc. But those non-occupational interests or hobbies might have caused your relative to appear in certain records–most often newspapers. A relative who was a semi-professional musician may have been mentioned in the newspaper in a write-up related to a concert, an athlete may have been mentioned in the local sports pages due to a notable performance in a game, a local actor may have been mentioned as appearing in a local play, etc. Document these activities that your relative was involved in. It will help you when searching for newspapers and other items where activities of this type may be mentioned.
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