The local radio station’s website referred to the Hollywood actor as a “native” (their exact word) of a town near where I live. His biography on another website (supposedly vetted by the actor himself) indicated he was born in a different town forty miles away. Of course it’s possible the actor doesn’t know where he was born, but in this day and age with a birth certificate required for many things it would seem that he would know where he was born. I’m suspecting (sans evidence) that the actor was born in the more distant town and grew up in the nearer one. That’s a rabbit hole that I do not need to go down as he’s not even a distant relative. But it reminded me that people […]
We can’t really cover analyzing “old published genealogies” in one tip, but there are some suggested ways for using information printed in genealogies published in the early twentieth century and earlier. There’s more to the analysis than this, but keeping these points in mind is an excellent start. Genealogy Tip of the Day book is here. Learn more about it.
When reviewing records on an ancestor it’s an integral part of the genealogical analysis to consider how old the ancestor was when they are appearing in various records, going through personal life events, experiencing national events, and the like. It’s important because age is one way we can determine whether or not we are likely to have the right person in a genealogical record. Whenever you find an ancestor named in a document, do you ask yourself how old they were at that point in time? Is their age atypical for someone who usually appears on that type of document (a sixty year old woman having a child, an eight year old getting married, a ninety year old signing a mortgage, a sixty year old man enlisting in […]
A relative is married in 1843 in St. Louis, Missouri. He is married again in Illinois in 1848. The most likely scenario is that she died. It is possible that the couple actually divorced or separated and never bothered to divorce. The divorce would have generated a court record. A separation that never resulted in divorce may not have generated any records at all. But I should not assume the first wife died unless there is some additional evidence other than simply the subsequent marriage.
Sometimes we have to conjecture about a relative in order to move our research forward or at least get ideas of what other records could help us. Be careful with whom you share that conjecture as sometimes speculation suddenly becomes a “fact” for which you become the source. Sometimes it just becomes a fact with nary an indication of the origins of said fact. If you include speculation in your research notes, clearly label that speculation as speculation. Otherwise you may inadvertently convert your own speculation to fact.
The address listed my parents as “Mr. and Mrs.,” but the salutation on the postcard addressed them as “Nephew & Niece & Boys.” The “Nephew & Niece” was an obvious reference to my parents and the “Boys” referred to my brother and I. My Dad had an Uncle Herschel (who was often referred to as “Hersch” or “Neill”). My Mom had an Uncle Herb. I knew immediately when reading it which uncle had signed the card, but a maternal relative thought that it was written by Herb. It wasn’t. Even if we put aside the fact that the signature looks (at least to me) more like Uncle Hersch than Uncle Herb, there’s a few clues that make it clear which uncle wrote the card. The note says “Please […]
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