A little humor: It would be nice if Ancestry (and the other sites) had a notice that said: Please compile your tree again. The tree submission could not be completed because your submission did not make any sense at all, violated the laws of time and space, and shows a blatant disregard for accuracy. While we all make mistakes, we have likely seen trees where the issues are larger than the occasional error or lapse in genealogical judgement.
I purchased on Ebay a copy Sorting the Smoke. It is a book of poems written by a second cousin of my grandmother–largely because it was signed by him in two places. The inscription shown here is written to someone the author knew and someone I discovered passed away in 2021. This is not a post about doing Google searches to learn more about people. It’s a reminder that after we leave this existence, we have no real control over what happens to our things. Think about your genealogy and family history materials and what you hope happens to them after your demise. Work to make that happen to the best of your ability. Reach out to others for ideas and suggestions. Think about all the items you […]
When looking for birth records of children, always consider the possibility that the mother may have gone to live with her parents, or other relatives (either by blood or by marriage) to have the child. If civil records of births were being recorded, it would be where the child was actually born. Children baptized as infants may be taken to a “home church” for that ceremony instead of being baptized where the parents are living at the time of the birth.
A tip from the past: When my parents were married in 1967, they received a congratulatory card from Ola Howes. The name did not ring a bell to me and I concluded it was a former neighbor or a fellow teacher of my mother. Upon asking Mom who Ola Howes was, I was told that “I don’t know.” Years later in my research, I discovered that my paternal great-grandfather had a first cousin Ola (Baker) Howes (their mothers were half-sisters). She had apparently seen my parents’ announcement in the paper and sent a card. Are there genealogical clues hiding in old greeting cards?
Obituaries and family members can easily hide a key detail in a person’s life. According to family members, my great-grandfather died at home. His obituary in the paper indicated he died at home. He did not. After suffering from a series of strokes, the family could no longer take care of him and he was put in a state hospital several counties away where he died a few weeks later. They cared for him at home for years, but were no longer able to towards the end of his life. That’s why it took me forever to locate his death certificate–I was looking in the wrong place.
If your ancestor owned property for several generations, do you have every deed in the chain of ownership documenting the transfers? Remember that in some places and some time periods, the a will or an estate settlement may serve in place of the deed. And for every piece of real estate an ancestor owned, even if it did not stay in the family, make certain you have determined how that property was acquired and how it left the person’s ownership–copies of deeds if they are applicable to your relative’s situation. Sometimes the acquisition and or disposition may have been through an inheritance–in which case you would want to check local court and probate records in most cases.
It could just be that my DNA results are an outlier, but I have many DNA matches who are related to each other in a way separate from how they are related to me. Sometimes that other relationship results in DNA matches that are somewhat confusing. To reduce the confusion, I’ve created a chart where I track known relationships between DNA matches that is not the relationship I share with them. My chart includes the username of each match, actual name of the match (if known), their shared set of ancestors (who are not my ancestors), their line of descent, and whether I’ve included my analysis in a master document where I track my DNA work. This reduces the chance I do work more than once and that […]
While browsing through my tree, I rediscovered that two younger half-siblings to my great-great-grandmother (last name: Haase) had spouses who were siblings (last name Baker). I added the relationship to my list of “double relationships” that I keep. This double-relationship they have with each other probably does not impact my DNA match analysis. Probably. If a close cousin of the Baker siblings (who are not related to me biologically) married a close cousin of one of my great-grandparents (very reasonable in my ancestral neck of the woods), then descendants of that marriage could be DNA matches to me. They could also be DNA matches for descendants of either of the Haase-Baker marriages. So the descendant of a Baker-cousin to my g-grandparent marriage could be a shared match I […]
Remember that if the civil record of a marriage indicates your ancestor was married by a minister, there may be a church record of the marriage as well. That record may provide additional information besides what is on the civil (government) record of the marriage.
This post includes thoughts…without necessarily answers. If my daughter tells someone her date of birth, she is a secondary source of that date. She has no first hand knowledge of her date of birth. It doesn’t mean that she gives someone the wrong date of birth, just that her knowledge of it comes (most likely) from her parents or from her certified copy of her birth certificate. If I tell someone that today is my daughter’s 21st birthday (which it isn’t, but pretend that it is), is that secondary? I was present at the birth, but if I say it or write it down 21 years later is that record primary or secondary? If I write it down with a month of her birth, that probably would be […]
Obituaries and estate notices usually appear in newspapers shortly after someone dies. There are other times a person may be mentioned years or decades after their death or departure from the area. Some small-town newspapers published snippets of items from the past as a way to engage readers and generate subscriptions. These items from ten, twenty, twenty-five, or fifty years ago were usually abbreviated versions of the original article. Given that earlier newspapers are sometimes harder for computerized algorithms to read, a digital search may find the more recent reference easier. Don’t always set your years of search to the person’s lifespan. The most interesting references may have been published some time after they were dead. And always go back and read the original reference for additional information. […]
from a while back… ‘ Joseph Daby had four deeds recorded in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in 1738–some of which had been executed nearly ten years earlier. Not everyone always had their land record recorded immediately. Some people just waited and others waited until they had more than one to record. For these reasons, always look for land records after you “think they should be recorded” and for multiple deeds to the same person recorded at the same time. Joseph Daby may have dabbled getting his deeds recorded but he was not the only one.
Don’t forget on 1840 census enumerations to look at both the left hand page and the right hand page. The right hand page includes numbers of enslaved individuals, information on individuals engaged in various types of employment (categories only, no names), and names of Revolutionary War pensioners. There might be a big clue hiding on the right hand page of that census–don’t forget to look, grandpa might be living with the family.
There are many reasons to go back and take another look at research you last worked on years ago. An email from a relative and an overseas visit by a friend caused me to go back and review a potential parentage in Maryland in the mid-18th century and a “missing family” from early 19th century Germany. New indexes and finding aids come online constantly. Our research skills get better or the “away time” from the problem gives us a new perspective. What family have you not looked at in years that may be worthy of a second look?
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