I’ll be taking a group to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City this summer. Our trip is no-frills, focused on research, and not full of “forced group” activities–and our price is reasonable. Check it out. Or join me in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, at the Allen County Public Library for a somewhat shorter trip with the same focus. Our price is reasonable.
We need to make assumptions in our genealogy research. Many times assumptions are necessary in order to get our work off the ground. But after a point, it may be that the assumption is hindering our work or that we have forgotten that an assumption was made. If you are guessing that the parents were married near where the first child was born, that is a good start. But somewhere in your notes, indicate why you believe where they were married and that you have no proof. If research does not validate your assumption, it may be that your assumption was incorrect. And if you enter your assumption in your genealogical database as fact, it can be very difficult for that information to go back to being an […]
Ancestry has released their initial index to the 1950 US Census. It’s not perfect, but for those who have no idea where their person of interest lived, it can be a start. Make certain to try a variety of searches based on name spellings, residence in 1950, date and place of birth, etc. Remember that information in the enumeration can be incorrect, difficult to read, or transcribed in correctly. Also bear in mind what surname variants will be caught with the various search options. Fortunately a relative of mine whose name was spelled as Niell was easily located. I’d initially work on the people who are easy to find and go from there. Make certain to review what you think you know about the person in 1950 as […]
Locations can cause all sorts of research difficulty, especially when an indexer or database creator uses a location that’s not quite the “correct” one or at least not the one the locals know. Several of my ancestors attended a Lutheran church a mile from where my grandparents lived in Hancock County, Illinois. It was near the town of Basco and locals referred to it as the “Basco church” to distinguish it from the Lutheran church in the county seat of Carthage a few miles away. When Ancestry.com included the records of this church in their “U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Records, 1781-1969,” they used Carthage as the location, not Basco. I never thought of the church as being in Carthage–largely because it is not. When looking for any place […]
When we “think we know” everything, we can overlook more things than we realize. I was several years into my research until I realized how close my mother lived to her maternal grandparents. I knew where the farms were located for all her grandparents, and had a verbal description of where Mom lived (on a rental farm), but I had never mapped them all out–even the approximate area–until I had been researching for some time. Being familiar with things can occasionally cause us to overlook things–and that’s not just true with locations on a map.
Do you Google those sayings your parents and grandparents had? One popped in my head today from when I was a child Put your shoes on Lucy, we’re going to town. My Mother often said it when I was small and it was time to get ready to go somewhere. I had always assumed it was a phrase she had made up. It wasn’t. The first part was from a song originally recorded in 1949. My Mother would have been seven years old. It’s possible that my Grandmother was the one, at least in my family, added the “we’re going to town” part of the little phrase indicating it was time to get ready. Google searches for those phrases or sayings your relative liked to say may provide […]
If your ancestor owned real estate, make certain you have a record for how each piece of property left his ownership. Was it deeded in her will, sold for back taxes, sold before his death, quitclaimed by the heirs after her death? Each of these transactions has the potential to reveal significant information–particularly if the property was still owned by the ancestor at their demise.
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