I do not have the original handwritten copy of this 1933 “class will.” What I have is an apparent photocopy of the will that someone likely gave to my Grandfather Ufkes sometime before his death. I need to make that clear in the commentary I add to the digital images I have created from the copy. The text explaining what the item is needs to reflect that I do not have the original will in my possession. I had to read the description a few times before I felt what I wrote truly reflected what I actually had. Make certain your descriptions and citations truly reflect what you actually have in your possession or what you actually saw.
This is one of two photographs I have of my maternal grandmother when she was a child. I suspect there are other pictures of her, but I have been unable to locate them. Grandma is identified on the reverse of the photo twice. Once she is listed (in pencil and apparently printed) as “Doty” and once she is listed in script as “Dot Habben.” The script I recognize as my grandmother’s writing and the ink appears to not be contemporary with when the photograph was taken. Based on the reverse of the photograph it appears that at one time it was in a photo album. The picture I had was loose in my grandmother’s effects. There was no album of pictures. This begs the question: Were there other […]
A great way to start analyzing an obituary is to put all the dates mentioned in it into chronological order. List all people who were alive when the obituary was written or who apparently survived the deceased. List all people who predeceased the individual who died. Also indicate who was married before the individual died–marriages are sometimes suggested by spouses listed for heirs. Sketch out other relationships if they are readily inferable from list of survivors. Use the obituary to see what other records it suggests and remember that just because something is in print does not mean it is corret.
I have a relative who was married three times, having survived all three husbands. She was married to her third husband some twenty years before she died and she survived him by several years. For reasons unknown to me when she died in 2012 she is listed in the statewide death index under her second husband’s name. She was married to him for five years and they had no children. She continued to use her third husband’s last name after his death. Took me forever to find her. Try a Genealogy Search on GenealogyBank.
If your relative died without a will and there was a need to probate the estate, an administrator would need to be appointed. The spouse and heirs usually have priority in being appointed to that office. Spouses can refuse their right of acting as administrator and children may or may not choose to accept the position. Heirs other than children may be administrators or creditors may choose to accept the role as well. But if the name of the administrator doesn’t “ring a bell,” research them to find out (if you can) what their relationship was to the deceased person whose estate they are being appointed to administrate.
If your relative died sine prole, it means they did without descendants or issue. Sometimes genealogical publications abbreviate this as d.s.p. The person should still be researched. Note if it is indicated that your direct line ancestor d. s. p., then you’ve got some more research to do. If they actually had no descendants that means they are not your direct line ancestor. Try a Genealogy Search on GenealogyBank.
Part of genealogical research is evaluating what you have and altering conclusions when new and more reliable information warrants. Early in our research when we are inexperienced, it can be tempting to rely too much on family information. It can also be easy to rely on incomplete information–especially before we learn that “official” records can be incorrect or inconsistent. And sometimes DNA and other information will cause us to re-evaluate what we thought was true even when we had a number of records and completely analyzed them. My children’s great-great-grandfather (father of their great-grandmother) has morphed through many iterations over the nearly thirty years that I have researched him–always because I have located new information: a Greek immigrant to Chicago, Illinois, born in the 1880s–turned out he was […]
At first the location on this military discharge stymied me. Then I looked at the date and it made perfect sense. A US military discharge in 1847 could easily have been done in Mexico. A little geographic searching determined the town was Comargo. Always transcribe a document in context–it helps. Try a Genealogy Search on GenealogyBank.
Many indexes do not include every name, indexes can contain errors, and some records are completely unindexed. No matter the situation, there are times when the researcher needs to undertake a manual, page-by-page search. The questions to ask are: How are the original records organized? Is it by: date of the event or document–sometimes this is known, sometimes it is not date the item was recorded–often not known–but it is after the event took place the person’s residence, burial spot, or other geographic location–sometimes known, but not always military unit or some other assigned number–can be difficult to know, is there some other record that provides this information? something else–variability here To find the person in the desired record, it may be necessary to look at other records (organized […]
Reading through a relative’s entire probate file, page by page and word by word, can provide you more than just the occasional relationship clue–it can also provide insight into their life. This 1862 reference indicated that the family paid the doctor bill of the deceased with two pigs and a rifle.
Obituaries for a relative and her husband indicate they were married in August of 1920. Their first child was born in May of 1922–according to the birth certificate (which I’m inclined to think is right) and a host of other records. The couple’s marriage record was not found among their effects. There is no family bible where the date was written down. The obituary references to their date of marriage, which consistent, provide secondary information. There is the marriage record which indicated that they were married in December of 1921. It’s pretty clear that date is the intended one on the record. It’s recorded among other records for that same month and the couple’s names, along with the names of their parents, are correct. The marriage record provides […]
There no law that says a husband and wife have to be buried next to each other. In fact, I don’t always assume that both members of a couple were laid to rest in the same cemetery. They could have died in separate locations decades apart and taking the one who died last “back” for a burial may not have been feasible. The surviving spouse in the couple may have married again and been buried with the subsequent spouse. One spouse could have been married to a previous spouse with whom they are buried. The couple may have eventually divorced or simply separated and, for obvious reasons were not buried together. The spouses may be buried next to each other but, for some reason, there is no record […]
Ancestry indicated that Anna Whitman was “Michael John’s wife of great-granduncle.” It took me a little while to figure out exactly what they meant. A better way to phrase it would have been wife of Michael John’s great-grandmother’s brother. This auto-text is not the only text that is occasionally awkward. Always read any auto-generated text created by your genealogy software before publishing it or sharing it. Make certain it says what you want it to say.
One of my mother’s first cousins died at the age of 10. She’s buried in a cemetery where her parents were living at the time and has a tombstone with her years of birth and death on it. The tombstone purchased at the time has the names of both of her parents on it as well with the name of their ten year old daughter in between the parents’ names both include their year of birth, a dash, and a partial death year (“19__”). One may think that they were buried there and the year of death had never been completed. That’s not the case. The parents divorced sometime after the daughter died and are buried elsewhere.
from our archives… Just because your ancestor uses the phrase “my now wife” in his will, it does not mean he had to have been married twice. A man might use the phrase to make it clear to whom a bequest was being made. If his will said “to my now wife I leave my farm and after her demise it to go to our children” that meant his wife at the time he wrote his will. The phrase “property is to go to the heirs of my now wife” would have a similar import.
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