This is your periodic reminder: Do you have family history items where your copy is the only copy? Make digital images of the item. Write up the history of the item. Share those with people who are interested–or may be interested. Try and find a way to preserve the item long term, including who will have possession of it after you have left this existence. If you can’t think of someone who would be interested, it is all the more important that those digital images and written up history of the item be shared with those who have an interest in family history but may not be able to keep the physical item.
Do not assume that men listed as Senior and Junior had to be father and son. Sometimes the notation was used to separate out two men of the same name–whether they were related or not. The court deposition from Amherst County, Virginia, in the 1790s indicated that John Sledd, Junior, ,was in fact the son of John Sledd, Senior. But there are times when Junior and Senior are simply two guys in the same area with the same name and the neighbors want to distinguish them from each other–and use age as the way to do that.
Compiling the family tree of a DNA match to determine the relationship they have with you is necessary when the match is one in which you, for one reason of another, have an interest. Just make certain you are taking your time and compiling the tree as accurately as you can–especially in terms of the biological relationships. Relying too much on one type of source (particularly obituaries) can increase the probability that compiled tree you create has non-biological relationships in it. Obituaries and some other newspaper social announcements may indicate the relationship between two people is a parent-child relationship when it fact it is not. The most frequent relationships that falls into this category is a step-parent relationship. If you’ve got the child’s step-father in your tree as […]
There are any number of movies where a key scene involves someone “getting across the county line” so they will not be arrested. While genealogists are not usually worried about being arrested or directing movies, the fact that things change when you cross the line is one to remember. Crossing any political line, including whether it be one of county, state, province, territory, or nation, may mean that the laws and recordkeeping system may change. In some cases, the change can be significant. Even when crossing states/provincial lines, the laws regarding what is recorded and how it is recorded may change. Learn about the new area’s records before you assume that Virginia in 1760 is just like Nebraska in 1860. That’s something of an extreme example, but it […]
In frontier areas, when livestock roamed without fences, farmers often had their own peculiar notch they used to identify their hogs or cattle. Records of these notches may be found at the local courthouse, recorded with other public records. In areas where branding livestock was a common practice, one may find records of brands. At the very least the image makes for a nice illustration. In Fleming County, Kentucky, in the 1810s, a neighbor stole a hog belonging to one of my ancestors. It was taken to a neighbor’s home where it was butchered and the head was left in the barn. The identification of the hog was done because it had my ancestor’s notch in the ear.
What is the probability that Aunt Margaret or Uncle Herman heard a last name of place of birth for a relative incorrectly? The more I listen to music from the 1980s on media where I can easily get song titles and lyrics, the more I realize there were many words and titles I had heard or interpreted incorrectly. Any chance Aunt Margaret or Uncle Herman heard it wrong without realizing it? Might be better than you think. Something to remember with that name or birth place that only appears on one record. It could be a mangling of the real thing.
I’m editing the last batch of Genealogy Tip of the Day for the follow-up book. One thing I’m realizing while reviewing these items is the number of leads I discovered that, for one reason or another, I never pursued any further. When reading the older tips, I realized that they served as a journal of sorts for my research. I tend to write tips when I’m working on actual research as ideas enter my head–I can see that when I’m reading them in chronological order. For that reason, it seems like keeping a research journal of what I have discovered with brief thoughts on the item might not be a bad idea. I could periodically review it and “mark off” things that have been pursued further or more […]
Some genealogists are great at searching newspapers and digital images of books for names of relatives, but remember that they can help you with other aspects of your family history research as well. For some of these items, searches will need to be restricted to specific newspapers or geographic regions to keep the number of search results manageable. Here is a short list of ideas to help get your creative energy flowing: items from an estate inventory that can be read but which you do not understand, names of businesses in an estate inventory whose business you do not understand, names of military units, names of ministers, names of churches, street names (perhaps with house number), name of school (perhaps restricted by graduation year if known), telephone numbers, […]
Sometimes I hate the phrase “maiden name.” I know what it means, but there are times that, for one reason or another, trying to determine a female relative’s maiden name can be problematic. That “last name at first marriage,” which is how maiden name is defined most of the time can be difficult to determine in some families. There is usually not a problem if the woman’s parents were married before her birth, remained living and married to each other until her birth, and if the woman remained in their household until her marriage. The problem is that sometimes life intervenes. Fathers or mothers die. Parents get divorced. Some families are unable to raise all their children. The relationship that resulted in the child did not result in […]
My great-aunt Ruth remembered a cute story that took place in my Mother’s grandparents’ home when my Mother was a small child. It involved Mom walking around the house and mentioned the northeast bedroom. The northeast bedroom? As I read it, I scrunched my nose and made that face when I am certain that something is wrong. My own grandparents had lived in the same home for thirty years. I had been in it often. There was no northeast bedroom. The entire north side of the house was the living room. Then I remembered. My Grandparents, not needing the downstairs bedrooms, had taken down a wall and enlarged the living room. The seeming error in my great-aunt’s story was not an error at all. My personal memory was […]
Just like any online record, online obituaries on funeral home websites can disappear. Funeral homes go out of business, merge with other facilities, change their entire website design, etc. Any of these situations can cause obituaries that were once online to go away forever. Newspaper obituaries may hang around for a longer amount of time, but they may be shorter than the notice published on the funeral home’s website. My mother’s obituary on the funeral home website contains the names of some survivors and pre-deceased family members that we felt were important to include, but were “too distant” to meet the newspaper’s publication standards. That’s another reason to get as many obituary copies as you can. But those funeral home website obituaries–save them when you see them. Tomorrow […]
No one website will have digital images of every newspaper you need and whether a specific site is helpful depends upon your personal research interests. Our suggestions here are meant to get you started. I’m not intending to provide a comprehensive list, but the sites listed, along with the suggestions, will get you on your way to locating digital images of newspapers you need–if they are online. Some websites with links to specific newspapers: Wikipedia list of online newspaper archives Newspaper links from the Ancestor Hunt Library of Congress’ Chronicling America newspaper images Old Fulton New York Postcards To see what might have been published try: Library of Congress’ Newspaper Directory searching the card catalog at WorldCat–use city/town as part of your search term Reach out to locals. […]
When you find someone in the census, do you look at the nativity of others on the same or adjacent census pages? How common or unusual was your relative’s place of birth compared to their neighbors? Were they living in a neighborhood where they were in the majority or the minority in terms of place of birth? Was there even a majority in terms of place of birth? If the census asked the question, were most people homeowners or renters? How does your relative’s occupation compare to that of his neighbors? Sometimes the biggest clues about a relative in his census enumeration aren’t on the line that contains his name. This tip originally ran in March 2019.
The blog of the National Archivist of the United States contained a post about the 1 April 2022 release of the 1950 United States population census schedules. Their post talked about their preparation for the release of the digital images. Questions about the rollout should be directed to the National Archives, not to me. For the genealogist wanting to prepare for the release, think about which of your relatives would be alive in 1950. Think about where they would be living in 1950. For individuals living in rural areas of the United States, the township, election district, town, or village name may be sufficient–depending upon how populated those areas are. In many rural areas of the United States, specific street addresses may be difficult if not impossible to […]
A female relative seems to just appear in an Indiana county in the early 1830s in time to marry her husband. There are apparently no records in the county of any of her other family members. There are many possibilities, but some of the more plausible ones are: Her family only lived in the area for a short time–just long enough for her to meet her husband and marry. She stayed the rest of them moved one and she was the only one to marry while the family lived in the area. She had no other full siblings, her father had died young, and her mother is “hiding” under her second husband’s name which is where all the relative’s half-siblings are showing up as well. Her family was […]
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