When querying genealogical databases, it’s not always necessary to keep track of what searches you conducted–particularly if the individual is easily found. But when a family cannot be easily located in the 1860 census, instead of pounding away harder at the keyboard or swearing, keep a list of the searches you have conducted. Track the options you used. Track how you formulated wildcard searches. Track the nicknames and diminutives you searched for as well. Track the range for year of birth if that was one of the search parameters. It’s impossible to troubleshoot your search process if the only place you keep tabs on what you are doing is in your head.
It can be tempting to think that if one keeps looking and tries hard enough, that there’s “got to be” a document somewhere that answers all your questions. Sometimes. But most of the time there’s not. To be certain, I’ve found a page of court testimony that outlined the family relationships and military pension affidavits that answered many of my questions. But in most situations, determining the relationships required looking over all the snippets of information I had from a variety of records, analyzing those snippets, and trying to determine what they said in the aggregate. No clue is too small. There might be that one piece of paper in a courthouse that will answer all your questions, but likely there’s not. Chances are it’s quite a few […]
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Is it possible that your relative lived in an area for a few years and left behind no records at all? I have an ancestor who married probably in Kentucky in the latter part of the 1810s. At least I’m assuming there was an actual marriage as they lived together the rest of their lives and had over a dozen children. But her parents? I’ve started to wonder if the reason that I cannot find them is that they were only really “passing through” the area where their daughter met her husband. If they rented a home (or more likely a farm), there would be no records of land ownership or property taxes. If chattel property was taxed, I need to determine what personal property (both in terms […]
If your ancestors were movers who frequently owned property, make certain you have obtained copies of all their local land records. Deeds where they are grantors (sellers) may provide some details about where they moved. Transactions on their property in the area they left from may not have been finalized until after their move. The deed of sale may indicate their new county or area of residence or acknowledgements of the deed in front of a local official may indicate where that official was permitted to act. Either way it could help you determine where they went.
When any index takes you to an image in a set of images or a page in a record book, look at images and pages before for additional images or additional pages. Ancestry.com’s index to Missouri probate records indicated that there were a few pages for a man named George Trask who died in St. Louis in the 1860s. Scrolling beyond the initial ones indicated there were well over 100 images. Whenever I locate a land record for a relative in the local office’s land record books, I look at the deeds recorded before and after the one I found in case the person recorded multiple deeds at the same time. When you find any record for a person, make certain you have the whole item or set […]
In any record where you find an ancestor, look at adjacent records and see who appears in those records. Are there any clues in those names or records that could help you learn more about your ancestor? If it’s a death record, did they die of the same disease? If it’s a marriage record, were other family members (or friends) getting married on the same day? If it’s a naturalization petition, did other immigrants from the same area naturalize at the same time? Who filed land claims on the same day as your ancestor? Who appears next to your ancestor on a list of names that signed a petition? Did someone file three land records on the same date and they are recorded together in the records book? […]
If your ancestor was a landowner and a drop of water fell on the property they owned, do you know what path it would have taken to get to the ocean? There may be a geography lesson in there for you.
If you are stuck trying to find a document or a record or are having difficulty in interpreting something a clerk has written in a document or in a record, remember the perspective of the clerk. The clerk may not have understood what your ancestor said, may have been poorly educated himself and cared little about the accuracy of the records he left behind. Or the clerk may have been very concerned about the accuracy and reliability of his records and your ancestor may have been vague in his answers, less than honest, or generally grumpy and unwilling to provide information.
The date that a couple obtained a marriage license is not necessarily the date of the marriage. Getting a license does not mean the couple was actually married. Things can happen after the license and before the ceremony. If the license was returned with the name of officiant and date of the ceremony, then the couple got married. If you only have the marriage license date, record it as the marriage license date. And always pay attention to the how the dates on a document are described.
Very early in my research, I gave up on collecting as many names of relatives as I could. The goal of the biggest set of names, to me, seemed like a frivolous chase where there would always be one more ancestor, one more cousin, or one more in-law to track down in an attempt to gather the largest set of names I could. It wasn’t about getting as many names as I could. It was about finding out as much as I could about an ancestor, their family of origin, the family they created, their locality, their time period, and their culture. That was enough, but it gave me a better picture of that individual and that individual became more than just a name and few dates and […]
Even if a doctor is the only one who actually signed a birth certificate, there were other informants. The doctor (or midwife) did not provide all the information from their first hand, direct knowledge. The doctor or midwife would have probably known the details of the birth (date, time, place, mother, etc.) The parents likely provided their names and any other information about themselves listed on the certificate. The difficulty is that in records with probable multiple informants, it’s impossible to know exactly who provided which pieces of information. That doesn’t mean the information is correct or incorrect–it’s just that we need to think about who most likely provided it. And some of those pieces of information we won’t be able to know 100% who provided it–we weren’t there. And […]
When local records clerks create and maintain indexes to their records, they sometimes add extra details about the record in the index. It may be an alternate spelling of the name, a married name for a female birth, or additional detail. The clerk really is not supposed to alter anything on the original record, but they may have made a notation with an extra detail in the index. It does not happen often, but it does happen.
We’ve mentioned this before, but some problems can be worked around or solved by thinking about every assumption we have made about an ancestor and “their situation.” Every assumption. Especially those that are near and dear to our heart. Those are the ones that can create the biggest stumbling blocks. If you don’t have documentation for a “fact” about your ancestor, then that fact could be incorrect. Even if you do have documentation for a fact, that documentation could be incorrect. Always consider the possibility that what you think you know could be wrong–and then ask yourself: what would I do differently if this “fact” weren’t true? And then do it.
One must be careful sharing supposition online. The middle name of a child of an ancestor (we’ll call him “Bob”) suggested what his wife’s maiden name might have been. Extensive research on that last name in all the areas where the ancestor Bob and this wife lived revealed no trace of a connection to a family with the supposed surname. This apparently does not prevent individuals for listing the supposed maiden name as fact on many online trees. It’s impossible and impractical to try and get the name removed from trees. The drawback is that people either copy it over again or end up grasping at straws trying to prove it. Be careful with whom you share supposition. Middle names of children can be clues to last names […]
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