Upon occasion death certificates are corrected or amended. Typically these are filed directly after the original certificate. When viewing entire sets of death certificates online if you have the ability to browse, make certain to look at the certificate before and after the one of interest in case an amended one was filed.
Your terminology reminder is: A Grantor is the person who is transferring their ownership interest in a piece of real property to someone else. The grantee is the person to whom the ownership in a piece of real property is being transferred.
Always review a marriage record completely to determine if the precise location of the marriage is given. Records may just list the county or the township, but sometimes the precise location of the marriage–a specific parsonage or residence–is listed. That residence is a big clue. People typically do not go to a complete stranger’s home to get married. If they do, make certain that the stranger is not the same person who married them.
There are a few newspapers relevant to one of my ancestral struggles that have not been digitized. They are on microfilm, but there are too many for me to go through the entire set, issue by issue, for eighty years–which is how long the people of interest lived there. I will not just run to the library that has them and start searching. I will make a list of the possible events that might have warranted mention of my relatives in the newspaper. Included on that list are: Vital events in their lives (birth, marriage, and death). Dates of other events that might have been mentioned in the newspaper, such as: arrests, land transactions, court actions, anniversaries, etc. Events mentioned in other digitally indexed newspapers that might have […]
For some of us, it can be difficult to stay focused on one aspect of a genealogy research problem. Rabbit holes may be fun diversions, but many times they don’t garner us any more information that we already had and far-afield research does not often pan out with helpful clues. If I find myself getting distracted, I stop and do a non-genealogy task. Most genealogists have plenty of those that are left undone. Another approach is to focus on small things when possible and to keep a list of what you have done and whether it was successful or not (a research log). What do you do to help you stay focused on one specific person or family instead of getting diverted with other individuals whose names you […]
There is a Henry Smith Sr. and a Henry Smith Jr. in the same location and place. Do not assume they are father and son–one may simply have been older than the other and the “Sr.” and “Jr.” designations had more to do with relative age than with being relatives. They could have been related more distantly than father and son or not even related at all. Do not assume that if a man named James Rampley had a son named James that the son James is the oldest son of James the father. It does not have to be. I have two ancestors named James Rampley who both had sons named James and neither of the sons were the oldest ones.
From a while back… The last record I have for an ancestor is their enumeration in the 1830 census. Years ago I entered “died after 1830” as their date of death. The more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized that the ancestor died after the 1830 census enumeration was taken in the area where they were believed to have been living. And they could have died in 1830–just after the enumeration was taken and before the year ended. Probably the better approach for me to take is to indicate that the last record I have for that ancestor is their 1830 census enumeration. It’s possible that they were overlooked in 1840 or hidden in one of those unnamed tick marks in that enumeration. One […]
From a while back–a good reminder about “probably.” My relative’s tombstone in a Tioga, Hancock County, Illinois, cemetery indicated that she died in 1877. The place of death is not given and I’m not certain where she died–at least not exactly. I do have a fairly good hunch as to where she died–at least as far as the name of the township. I probably know where she died. Based on the tombstone (and the death record at the church), I have the date of death. But I need to exercise some care when I comment somewhere about her place of death. Died in 1877 probably in Walker Township, Hancock County, Illinois. Probably died in 1877 in Walker Township, Hancock County, Illinois. I use the first suggestion and put […]
I was reminded this morning of the importance of having your paper genealogy tree as complete as possible when analyzing your DNA matches. I know that completing your tree is why many of us do DNA analysis, but it still helps to have that tree as complete as you can. Discovered today that my great-grandmother was related to another of her husband’s spouses–as a second cousin. That’s close enough–both families come from a set of my 4th great-grandparents–that it could impact my own DNA match analysis. This means that siblings of my great-grandmother’s husband married the following relatives of my great-grandmother: Great-grandpa sibling A married one of my great-grandma’s siblings. Great-grandpa sibling B married one of my great-grandma’s paternal first cousins. Great-grandpa sibling C married one of my […]
From 2021: A close relative dies. There is an obituary on the funeral home website that contains information on the date and place of death. Several relatives communicate with you to let you know the family member has passed away as well. You learn of the funeral date and time. You know who this person’s parents are and where they were born. There’s little doubt of when and where they died. Do you need their death certificate? Probably not. There are other good sources to document the date and place of death. The only reason you would likely need the death certificate of a recently deceased person is if you were involved with the settlement of their estate. Of relatives who have passed away during the last fifteen […]
If your ancestor or relative was given to criminal acts, consider searching for them a reasonable distance from their home. One relative who was prone to occasional crimes in the early 20th century, typically did so out of his immediate area of residence. Newspapers in his home county, for one reason or another, didn’t always mention the activities, and he does not appear in his “home county” court records because of where the crimes were committed. Location matters.
Found a reference to a cousin in the obituary of her father. The notice gave her name and residence at the time of her father’s death. I thought finding her would be easy after that. It was not. Turned out that the marriage was a short-term one and that immediately afterwards she moved several states away and took back a previous last name. Obituaries on other family members suggested a different last name for the cousin and it took some time to figure out what happened after her father died. Remember that an obituary, like most records, is a snapshot taken at one point in time. Some of the details of the person’s life may have changed shortly after the record was created.
A relative died in the 1950s with no children or descendants. The relative had no siblings so their only heirs were the descendants of their maternal and paternal grandparents. A grandchild of the paternal grandparents was the administrator of the estate. The list of heirs failed to list those who descended from the paternal grandfather’s second marriage. That second marriage resulted in a half-sister (called A) for the decedent’s mother–a half-sister who left children of her own. A married at 14 years of age, moved away shortly after that marriage and likely interacted little, if at all with her two older half-sisters. There’s anecdotal evidence that those two older half-sisters were estranged from their father and his second wife. The children of A should have been included in […]
In many locations, minors who 14 years of age and over and needed a legal guardian could nominate one to the court. The nomination would have to be approved by the court and contemporary state statue would have dictated the legal requirements for being a guardian–generally that’s someone of the age of majority at the time, of sound mind, and generally perceived to be responsible by the court. Contemporary state statute would also dictate the age at which someone was a legal adult–for much of US history that’s been 18 for a female and 21 for a male. Many state statutes are available digitally online and a search for them can be started in this list of links at the Advancing Genealogist. Do not assume both parents were […]
A relatively new DNA match, we will call him Alfred, has three shared matches with me: David Ronald Thomas David and Thomas are known descendants of my Trautvetter 3rd great-grandparents via their paper genealogy. The shared matches I have with David and Thomas are not all identified, but for each of them over two-third of the shared matches are also know members of the Trautvetter family. Their Trautvetter connection is pretty solid. My Trautvetter connection is on my paternal side of the family. Then there is Ronald. Ronald has an unusual last name that is actually common in the area of Germany where my maternal ancestors are all from (Ostfriesland). Ronald has numerous shared matches. The closest 25 matches I have to Ronald are all known descendants of […]
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