If your ancestor worked for a company, there may be a record out there that could help you in your family history research. Those of us who have generations of farming ancestors or otherwise self-employed family members have to rely on whatever materials our relatives left behind–and those are often minimal. However, if your ancestor worked for a large employer, it’s possible records are sitting around somewhere. Employment records for your ancestor can provide significant information on your relative, perhaps brief biographical data, citizenship status, address, etc. The difficulties with these records are that they were not always retained long term by the company, may have been destroyed when the company closed (was sold, went bankrupt, etc.), and are not public records. If you find them, you may […]
“I had a large client report.” The report, or more accurately the client report, was what was large–not the client themselves. In this case, it is probably pretty clear that the word “large” does not refer to the client themselves. But ask yourself when reading any statement: is there another way to read that? Is there a different interpretation that is reasonable? Don’t get stuck on your first interpretation of a word, phrase, or sentence. Some items genealogists use are poorly edited for clarity, particularly 19th century county histories, “mug books” of biographies submitted by family members, and more newspapers than one may care to admit. If that’s the case, references to certain items may be ambiguous. Always ask yourself: Is there another reasonable way to interpret this?
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