Sometimes we can be tempted to ignore family reunion announcements in newspapers because the information they contains is often repetitive or we think we know “everything” about the family. Reunions announcements that appear annually may be repetitive but they may be clues in those lists of relatives. A 1938 family reunion announcement indicated that a relative and his wife attended a family reunion, styling them as “Mr. and Mrs. John Smith and Susan.” The reference (when compared to the rest of the writeup) seems to suggest that Susan is their child. The couple had been married for a slightly over a year at the time. Mr. John Smith is my relative. I know little of Mrs. Smith. I’ve never heard of Susan. Is she a relative of Mrs. […]
There may be more than one repository that has the exact same record. Some vital records were recorded at the local and state level. Some records may have been microfilmed or digitized and available in repositories other than the one that holds the original record. Those duplicated items may occasionally omit a record or have a blurry image. That’s a time to go back and view the original if possible, but many times the duplicate images are completely readable and usable. Those duplicates may be cheaper or easier to access than the original. Your source citation should always indicate if you used an image copy or the original–that way you don’t “go back to find the ‘original’ when that was what you used in the first place. We […]
We’ve released the digital recording of my “US Land Records on FamilySearch” webinar. More details on our announcement page.
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