If a relative reached any birthday milestone–75, 80, 90, or 100 years–there’s a chance something about it was mentioned in a local newspaper. The same goes for wedding anniversaries. These items may be located with searches of newspapers that have been digitized. For those newspapers that have not, consider searching for these items. Digital searches of newspapers are not perfect either and these are items that one may wish to search for manually as well. The names of the guests in attendance may be helpful. In this illustration out-of-town guests are named, but their relationships are not. Keep in mind locals during the time period knew how the guests were related so those details may not be included.
Ancestors do not live in isolation–after all, that’s how they come to have descendants. But it never ceases to amaze me how often extended family members migrate to where others from their family have settled. Siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, etc. In my own research it is rare for me to have an immigrant settle where absolutely no one from their family had already settled or eventually followed. The followers, particularly if they were the immigrants nieces or nephews may have arrived fifty years later, but the often eventually made their way across the pond. It was not just immigrants to a new country who tended to follow this pattern. Migrants across the United States often did the same thing. And if the other settlers were not […]
Special Announcement Our approach is to always use AI responsibly and practically as your own genealogy consultant. Maybe you can’t afford a consultant for your own research or you have too many genealogy problems to hire help with every one. AI can serve as your own genealogy research consultant. As with a human consultant, you’ll need to do the initial work on your ancestor, gather what you have, and familiarize yourself with basic sources in the area. There is no guarantee that AI will solve your problem. But using AI as your personal research consultant can help. Not by doing the research for you, or inventing ancestors that never existed, but by doing what a good consultant actually does: looking at what you have, summarizing it, discussing it, […]
I will be honest. When records are in a foreign language, I scan for names. But when viewing records in a foreign language, make certain to understand the structure of those records. This christening record from 1798 underlines and seems to emphasize the name of the father–Erasmus Trautvetter–and not the child–Johann Georg Trautvetter. Other records kept by this pastor in this place during this time period are also structured the same way. There is nothing odd or unusual about this entry–when compared to others. That’s one reason that no church record entry should be looked at in isolation. What you think is unusual may not be unusual at all.
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