There’s confusion about negative evidence and negative findings. I see it in various postings and writings trying to differentiate the two. It can be easy to confuse them and frankly they are easy to confuse. I searched for John Ufkes in the 1870 Hancock County and Adams County, Ilinois, federal census records. I used indexes and performed a manual search. That’s a negative finding. A negative finding is when I search for someone in a record and do not find them in that record. A negative finding can change if I eventually find the person in a record–perhaps by looking for my John Ufkes in a different county I find him. In that case my negative finding no long exists. I’ve got a negative finding if I don’t […]
There’s a never a guarantee that you’ll get an answer to every genealogy question you have. Sometimes that’s just the way life is. You may also get an imcomplete answer or one that raises more unanswered questions. There are things you can do to maximize the chance you do find that answer. Constantly learn about new sources and finding aids for those sources. Make certain you are familiar with records for the area at all geographic levels. Do not just focus on online or easy-to-access sources. Consider the fact that some of your information or assumptions about a person are wrong. Make certain you understand the local geography, history, and culture. Double and triple check every detail. Consider asking someone with specific knowledge in the area and time […]
I was using tax records from Dawson County, Nebraska. They were digitized and available on FamilySearch. The temptation was to jump right in and start looking for my people. That was a mistake. What I needed to do first was to familiarize myself with the records so that I searched them correctly and did not overlook any references. Individual volumes appeared to have included the personal property assessment first and then the real property assessment. One could have been tempted to find the personal property name and assume one was done. That would have been a mistake. The second was that the records were organized by precincts. After approximately 1884, the precincts boundaries appear to have followed civil township lines and those names were used. Before that it […]
When confused about a bit of handwriting on a page of script, look for any words on the page that can clearly be determined. On census pages after 1850, occupations and places of birth are great places to see examples of some letters where you clearly know what the word is. There may be first names that are easy to determine what they are. Then go back and look at that word you are having difficulty with. For me in a recent difficult-to-read piece, there were numerous references to “keeping house,” so I learned how the enumerator made their “p”s. There were numerous references to “farmers,” so I knew how he made his “m”s. It’s not always possible to do this, but look at the whole page before […]
The handwriting on a document is clear and it is clearly wrong. Do not correct it in your transcription. Make an annotation about it separately from your transcription of the document. Sometimes errors are clues. It’s pretty clear the 1870 census taker wrote the last name of my Habben ancestors as Hapen or maybe Hapem. The last letter is questionably one or the other. The first five letters are clearly “Hape” when comparing the letters to script for known words on the page. The “Hapen” gives me a clue as to how the name was said by my family in 1870. If I transcribe it as Habben that clue is gone.
We are excited to announce our October 2025 trip to the Midwest Genealogy Center at the Mid-Continent Library in Independence, Missouri. Details on our announcement page. Registration is limited.
The lucky numbers don’t mean much to me, but the “You will always be surrounded by true friends” fortune cookie fortune I found on an isolated bit of pavement at a local lake struck me as ironic. It was all by itself. That reminded me that while many of our ancestors settled in areas where they knew people from “back home,” some did not. It is always worth looking at those people who interacted with our ancestor in a new area to see if there’s some connection they had in an area of previous residence. However sometimes there was no familial or friendship connection to people in the new area. Some people just struck off in an entirely new locations without human connection from the past. It is […]
Check out our upcoming AI and Probate Classes–details on our announcement page.
Need a writing prompt for your own memories? Is there a sound that reminds you of your childhood? For me it is a rooster crowing. My parents did not have chickens on their farm, but my paternal grandmother did and for some reason the sound of a rooster crowing reminds me of growing up more than anything else.
My forebear’s name was Hinrich Jacobs Fecht. In the 1870 US census he is enumerated with the first name of Henry (reasonable for Hinrich) and the last name of Jacobs. Fecht does not appear on his census entry. Took me a while to find him. If your ancestor has a middle name that is sometimes a surname, is it possible that a censustaker just used that as the last name? Check out our upcoming AI and Probate Classes–details on our announcement page.
The difficulty with pre-1850 census enumerations is that only the head of household are listed. It can be difficult to know who is represented by those tally marks. The most likely candidates for those other people are: Depending upon the ages, the first five are the most likely candidates and where your searches should initially focus. It may not always be possible to determine who is represented by each tally mark. When trying to determine and explain who is represented by those tally marks, track your research notes and process so later you are not having to re-do your work. If you are unfamiliar with varying family structures, look at a few pages of the 1880 census in the same neighborhood. While the time period will be different, […]
We’ve sent out issue 6-1 of Casefile Clues to those who are on the subscriber list. Casefile Clues comes out twenty-four times a year and focuses on genealogy methods, sources, and analysis while being written in easy-to-understand and follow manner. Learn more or get free issue.
We’re offering a new four-week class on “Genealogy Problem Solving Using AI” and “US Probate Records.” There are more details on our announcement page.
In genealogy research, correlation of records is important. But it also is important to analyze each document separately and see what it says completely by itself. Details can be overlooked if we are too hasty to make everything fit together or if we focus too early on trying to get the overall story from all the records that we have. Letting each record tell it’s own story before we try and merge things together is a great analytical tool.
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