Knowing how your relative likely said their name makes it easier to know when you have run across a reasonable variant or to determine what variants for which to look. There are numerous genealogy groups on social media where you can find out how your Swedish ancestor said their last name, how your Irish ancestor may have pronounced his place of birth, or the way your German ancestor may have said his first name. This knowledge matters. Sometime before she died, I heard my great-grandmother say her grandmother’s maiden name of “Behrens.” It sounded somewhat like a combination of Burnes and Barnes with a little more “umph” to it that one would say “Burnes” or “Barnes.” But that is why I find the name written as Barnes, Burnes, […]
One can be tempted to avoid getting marriage records for those unions that do not result in descendants. That’s a mistake. The record itself may tell you something about the relative that you do not know. The spouse in which you are “not interested” may actually be a relative (in some other way) by marriage or blood and that could be a clue as well. And in some cases, like the one I’m working on now, the marriage that resulted in no children was to a Civil War veteran and that resulted in the wife getting a widow’s pension which may tell me more about her origins and her first marriage.
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