Most US county recorder’s offices have a “miscellaneous” record where a variety of documents have been officially recorded. Usually what is in those volumes can vary, but I’ve seen copies of out-of-state divorce decrees, out-of-county death certificates, medical licenses, etc. It may be worth a look to see what is available. And while you are there don’t forget to ask about soldier’s discharge records. Many counties made official record copies of soldier’s discharge paperwork in case the soldier ever lost his papers.
We will be discussing this in a future post, but I could not resist sharing this 1803 plot of a parcel of property surveyed for Thomas Sledd in Amherst County, Virginia. It was surveyed a few years before he left for Kentucky. These old drawings are wonderful. They are land records, but sometimes these survey plots are recorded in a separate series of books.
City directories may contain list of abbreviations in the prefatory material. Do not just look for your relative’s name and quit.Those lists may include name of local employers that were easier to abbreviate than print over and over. Genealogy Tip of the Day is proudly sponsored by GenealogyBank. Try their “GenealogyBank Search” and see what discoveries you make.
If your ancestor obtained a United States military warrant which was used to acquire property in the federal domain, consider obtaining a copy of the application for the warrant. These applications are housed at the National Archives and should contain documentation of a soldier’s service. If the widow applied for a warrant after the soldier’s death she would have needed to prove her marriage also. Copies of the warrant applications can be requested through the National Archives. They are not online.
It can be hard to get transcription and writing variants on a new family where you have not located records before. To get ideas of potential handwriting variants and transcription mistakes, consider writing the name in a sloppy fashion and having someone else who does not know what the name is read it. This may give you some variations you had not thought to look for.
Many Americans obtained federal land, either through military warrants, homesteading, outright purchase, or several less-popular options. Federal land patents can be searched at the Bureau of Land Management website. The records documenting the acquisition are at the National Archives. The amount of genealogical detail in those records can vary, but cash land sales generally yield little in the way of additional information. Genealogy Tip of the Day is proudly sponsored by GenealogyBank. Try their “GenealogyBank Search” and see what discoveries you make.
In areas where real property is described in deeds using the metes and bounds, make certain you read that legal description of the property. While it may be tempting to gloss over the angles and lengths, the names of adjacent property owners could be helpful.
Never assume that your ancestor wouldn’t have attended “that church” because it was the “wrong” denomination. It is possible that your knowledge of your ancestor’s religion is not as accurate as you think it is or that the lack of a preacher of the right denomination caused someone to be married by a preacher who was “close enough.” In frontier times, people sometimes had to attend services of whatever what close–as long as the beliefs were relatively similar.
In Ancestry.com‘s “1916 Canada Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta,” the age of William H. Sartorius is transcribed as “88” instead of “38.” That’s enough of a difference that using any age or year of birth for him relatively close to the right one won’t find him. Consider removing any age-related information from your search and using other search terms instead.
There is still time to sign up. Please let me know if you signed up and did not receive your registration information. We are again offering my popular “Organizing Genealogy Information” class this June–starting later in the month. Additional details are contained in our blog post.
The early-19th century will of John Tinsley in Amherst County, Virginia, clearly indicated which child was to receive which piece of property. This was located early in my research when I did not know too much about records. For years I only used the will in my research. Later I discovered there was an accounting of all the receipts and disbursements that provided more information on a few of the children and better glimpse into the family’s financial state. Genealogy Tip of the Day is proudly sponsored by GenealogyBank. Try their “GenealogyBank Search” and see what discoveries you make.
When making digital copies of original records, I take notes on paper instead of using some sort of note taking software. Those notes (what I found, what I didn’t find, what I noticed, etc. ) are important and need to be kept with the images made from the actual records. My last step after I’ve made record images is to take a picture of my notes and put it in the same digital folder as the record images. Genealogy Tip of the Day is proudly sponsored by GenealogyBank. Try their “GenealogyBank Search” and see what discoveries you make.
When using original local records, indexes created by clerks are often the gateway to locating material. When making digital copies of these records, make a copy of the index as well as the records utilized. That way you will know you got everything and looked up all the relevant entries. Genealogy Tip of the Day is proudly sponsored by GenealogyBank. Try their “GenealogyBank Search” and see what discoveries you make.
The key word here is “may.” Widows in pension cases sometimes had difficulty proving their marriage to the veteran. Sometimes the only witnesses to the wedding would be relatives who had lived near them for their entire lives. Sometimes the witnesses would be children of the marriage who could testify to their age and use that as an approximation of when the veteran and the widow married. Look at how long the witness has known the widow in a pension application. Does it suggest that there might be a relationship? Genealogy Tip of the Day is proudly sponsored by GenealogyBank. Try their “GenealogyBank Search” and see what discoveries you make.
If the names in a tax list or pre-1850 US census record are in rough alphabetical order (usually by just the first letter of the last name), proximity of names does not necessarily indicate near geographic neighbors. A list that is not in alphabetical order likely is organized geography.
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