As genealogists continue to operate in a research climate where more records are available digitally, it’s important to ask: What should I expect to find in this place and time for this record? If I find an online record copy of a will in an Illinois in 1890, is that all there is? No. There should be a case file with a originals of probate documents–including the will. If I find an online record copy of a will in Virginia in in 1760, is that all there is? There may be other references to the estate in court order books, but probably no case file of loose papers. If a couple marries in Ohio in 1830 and I find an entry in a marriage register, is there likely […]
The apparent jagged cut on this 1809 deed from Harford County, Maryland, was likely intentional. The image in this post was made from the original deed retained by my ancestor–the grantee in this document. Originally this deed was part of a larger piece of paper. The text of the deed was written twice and the special cut made to give one copy to each of the parties involved in the indenture. Then, if necessary, the two pieces could be put back together to authenticate the indenture. If two documents claiming to be the original did not match then one was fraudulent and it would be up to a court to adjudicate. The cuts will only appear on the original. The record copy of this deed (on file in […]
Did your ancestor or relative have both a legal and a religious marriage ceremony? If the dates of the ceremonies are different, make certain you indicate which is which in your research notes. Don’t neglect researching both sets of records as well. There may be information about the couple in one record that is not in the other.
When I think of yearbooks, I think of ones from high school or college. Grades earlier than that usually do not come to mind. That’s a mistake. The image in the illustration is from a 1954 yearbook from John Deere Junior High School in Moline, Illinois. This publication included 9th graders and 8th graders. The original is in the possession of a descendant of one of the young ladies shown in their home economics classroom. Historical societies or local libraries may have copies of these yearbooks or could give you direction in locating copies. Some of them may have been scanned and made available digitally online. Another search approach may be to reach out to online groups for the towns where the school was located and see if […]
Yesterday’s tip was about children’s knowledge of their mother’s maiden name. Genealogy theory gurus would say that a child’s knowledge of their mother’s maiden name and date of birth is secondary because they were not there. Yes it’s true that a child is not present at their mother’s birth. We’re doing genealogy, not writing time-bending historical fiction. I was not there when Mom was born in 1942. But in terms of her last name (and even my Grandma’s maiden name), I do have quite a bit of “first-hand” knowledge. Mom was always referred to as her parents’ child. Their siblings referred to her as such. Her one living grandmother referred to her as her granddaughter. That all counts for something. Some children have a significant amount of interaction […]
I’ve encountered instances in my research where children have provided maiden names of their mothers that were inconsistent with information actually provided by the mother and that were completely wrong based on more contemporary and reliable records on the mother. Sometimes children do not know their mother’s maiden name. One should always try and locate contemporary information regarding the maiden name of a woman if at all possible and avoid relying solely on information provided by children (or grandchildren) decades after the person has died. That is not always possible in some locations and time periods. I’ve also encountered instances where the children gave a last name for the mother that I initially thought was “wrong,” only later it turned out to be right. Sometimes they do know […]
My great-uncle and his wife divorced in the 1930s. She married twice after that and was widowed both times. Her name is on her second husband’s tombstone along with her year of birth. The year of death is blank. She’s buried in a separate cemetery with an individual marker listing her with the last name of her third husband. A blank year of death on a stone that was “prepped” before one of the spouses died may be left blank because the surviving spouse was buried elsewhere or because no one bothered to have the date inscribed. Don’t assume they aren’t buried there, but don’t assume they are either.
from a while back… I’ve been working on the ancestry of a Mary Dingman, born in Canada (probably Ontario) in the early 1810s. There are online trees taking her family back generations. The only problem is that there’s not really anything solid on her connection to her parents. That needs to be solved before I put all those earlier ancestors in my file. Since information on Mary herself is coming up short (she died in the 1850s in Illinois), I could trace her purported parents and siblings (and maybe even purported grandparents and cousins) in hopes of something turning up on her, but I need to wait to put them in her actual tree until I have a more solid connection.
After years of researching one of my 19th century immigrant ancestors, I discovered her sister also settled relatively close to her–arriving a few years later. I had never discovered the sister because the last name is extremely common and record on my ancestor never suggested a sibling who immigrated. A few years later, it was discovered that the parents of the siblings had also immigrated–settling across the county line where they died and were buried. Some time after that it was discovered her father’s brother had immigrated to the nearby large town where he left descendants living there to this day. The common nature of the name, Miller, helped the family to fade into the background. Recently while researching the uncle, it was discovered that an unmarried aunt […]
The 1859 will of a relative in Illinois gives the entire estate of the testator to her brother. They have the same last name which suggests she never married. The will says in part that what she is giving to her brother is “all my right title and interest in all my real and personal estate…” Does this necessarily mean that she owned real estate at the time the will was written? Should I expect to find her in the local land records purchasing real estate? The answer to that is “maybe.” This will, like most wills of this type, made the bequest to the brother broad so that nothing could later be claimed to have been left out. The likely intent here was that boilerplate text was […]
When record clerks make record copies of documents, their prime directive is to copy the document as accurately as possible. The main reason is that the record copy of a document (will, deed, bond, etc.) in a courthouse functions as the legal equivalent of the original if the original is lost. Before typewriters, clerks would hand copy original records into ledgers. Most of the time the clerk would not go to any effort to make the signature look like the signature on the document. But in some cases, particularly if the signature is not in English, the clerk would try to “copy” the signature to match exactly what was written–more “drawing the signature” instead of copying it. It can be seen in the record copy of the will […]
A minor child who inherited property may have had a guardian appointed to oversee the estate in which the child had an interest. The guardian of the estate may not have been the mother of the child. The guardian of the estate may not have been the individual who had physical custody of the child. A parent was the natural guardian of the child’s person. This was often the mother if the father died while the child was a minor. I was reminded of the difference between the guardian of the child’s estate and the guardian of the child’s person when I came across an obituary for a relative. My great-grandfather’s sister and her husband died of the flu in the early 20th century in the United States. […]
Pictures can be identified in a variety of ways. Sometimes we are fortunate to have a complete identification on the back of the photograph and we know who made that identification. The reality is that some times we have something far less complete on the back of the photograph. Other times we have absolutely nothing at all. There are times when it is possible to fully or partially identify people in a picture given what we do know about the photograph. If that’s the case, our identification needs to include how we came to know additional details about the people in the photograph. The photo in the illustration is indicated to be the family of George and Anna Trautvetter. No one is specifically identified. I was able to […]
I have an 1870-era baptismal certificate for a first cousin (Mimke Fecht) of my maternal grandmother’s father. I know how I came to have it. What I do not know is exactly how that person acquired it. I have a reasonably good idea. Is there a family history item you have whose provenance of which you are not precisely certain but of which you have a general idea? It might be good for your to record that somewhere–making it clear that you are not entirely certain. In my case, the certificate likely was in the possession of the child’s parents: Jan and Meta (Habben) Fecht until her death in Carthage, Hancock County, Illinois, in the 1930s. I acquired it from the household effects of Marie Fecht (niece of […]
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