Even if your ancestor’s estate was intestate (without a valid will), the probate records could contain a copy of will that was refused probate by the court. While that will was unprobated, it still could provide good genealogical clues and reading it may tell you it was not allowed to go through probate. If there was a separate court case over the will it may be filed with non-probate court records in the county where the estate was administrated.
If there is a transcribed copy of a person’s obituary on their FindAGrave memorial page, consider getting their actual obituary. There are some who add content to the obituary when posting it to the Memorial and there are some who remove some of the obituary content. Images of obituaries should be fine but confirm what’s in the obituary posted to FindAGrave otherwise.
Determining how your ancestor met their spouse can be an interesting genealogical endeavor. It may not even be possible to do anything other than conjecture about their meeting. But at the very least, researching them with the intention of discovering how they met may result in new information–even if it has nothing to do with their marriage.
When you use a statement from a source in your genealogical writing, there’s more to it than just creating a citation to indicate precisely where you found that statement. You also must determine the perceived reliability of that statement before you decide to include it in your genealogical writing. Just because a statement appears in a document, record, book, or website does not make it true. Just because you know how to cite that document, record, book, or website does mean that statements from it are true either. Evidence must be evaluated as well as cited.
From a while back… “I think Isaac Rucker died in May 1799…” That’s what Archeleus Reynolds said in August of 1834 in a deposition taken in Amherst, Virginia. The statement needs to be understood and evaluated based on context. There were several Isaac Ruckers in Amherst County, Virginia. The one Reynolds is talking about is his father-in-law–that’s made clear in other records in this case. Reynolds is making the statement 35 years after Isaac Rucker is claimed to have died. While this document should be transcribe exactly as written (along with a citation clearly stating where the deposition can be found and when it was made), the analysis should take into account the amount of time that has passed and how long it has been since Rucker died. […]
Do you keep a list of those dead-end ancestors–the ones that seem to disappear and for whom you can’t find any end of life information? Create a table or spreadsheet of their names, basic details on them, and the last date you took a look for them. The table doesn’t need to include all your information on them. That you can easily find in your database. The list can serve as a handy reference and a way to make certain you’re working on all disappearing people and not just the same ones over and over again. Today, 17 May 2025, we’re offering More Genealogy Tip of the Day for $25 (postage included). Learn more about the book here, but return to this page to process order.
Here’s another thing to include in your personal memoir: A brief bit about why you did genealogy or what interested you in it. You don’t need to write a ridiculously long amount and (personal preference here), don’t mention ancestral deeds, how good/bad your family is/was, or similar things. Instead talk about you and what your interest/involvement in family history meant to you. “I liked learning about the stories of my ancestors and how members of my family were involved in historical events or impacted by them. It helped me to see my own fit in my family and motivated me to write down some of my own story…since I wished more of my ancestors had done that. Knowing that there was always more to learn or discover always […]
I’ve read a lot of obituaries since I started genealogy research in the 1980s. A few quick reminders: These reasons are why it is always good to find as many obituaries as you can for a person and to research them for their family members as well–even if you are not related to all of them.
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When genealogists are challenged by their ancestors, they are often told to research the associates of the ancestors–including ancestral friends and neighbors. If you are stuck on a person and have tried this approach, how thoroughly have you researched these associates? An hour or two online probably isn’t sufficient. If your problem ancestor is in a place and time that’s difficult to research in general, it may take some time to really research those associates thoroughly enough to locate all potential clues.
From a while back: Do you regularly look for people in their parents’ hometown newspapers? They may never have lived in the area at all, but may appear in “hometown” newspapers as visiting relatives. Great way to discover connections.
A and B are cousins. B and C are cousins. A and C are cousins. It’s still possible that A, B, and C have no common ancestor.
I recently saw pictures of my grandparents’ former home. The exterior looked the same, but the inside had been significantly altered. It was fun to look inside the home, but the pictures generated no memories of my grandparents or the time I spent there. It was great to have a current picture of the home, but the pictures of the inside made it seem as if I was looking inside a home which I had never been in. It almost served as a metaphor for how genealogists have to look at information and people from the past. Certain things, like the exterior of my grandparents’ home, change little over time if they change at all. Other things, like the interior of my grandparents’ home, change quite a bit. […]
In genealogy, there are negative results and there is negative evidence. Negative results are when we search for someone in a record and fail to find them. Not finding a James Rampley in the Pike County, Illinois, 1870 census or in any land deeds in that county is a negative result. James was not found. Negative evidence is when the failure of someone to appear in a record tell us something about that person. Family history indicated that Jurgen Goldenstein was legally married to a woman named Jean upon his death in California in 1972. Jean was not named in Jurgen’s probate file as an heir. The failure of the probate case to list Jean as an heir suggests that she was not his wife at the time […]
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