At the risk of oversimplifying, a “life estate” in property (generally a widow) is the right to use the property and receive income from the property during the person’s lifetime. They do not have the right to bequeath the property to someone or to sell it. Oftentimes a widow is given a “life estate” in a piece of property from her husband and in so doing, he specifies to whom it is to pass after her death. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If your ancestor was a landowning farmer and migrated from Point A to Point B, see from whom he purchased that first piece of property when he arrived in Point B. It might have been a relative or former associate, neighbor, etc. The owner of that property in Point B might have been looking to sell it and heard that his relative or former neighbor was thinking of moving. Worth a shot when you are stuck. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If records at the county level have not brought about success, consider town/village level records or township or federal records. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
As you make copies of records, either on paper or in digital form, track the source. If you don’t do it as you go, the chance you do it goes down…… ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Are all the records you have for your ancestor showing him with his name spelled the exact same way? I have very few ancestors where their name is spelled the same way on each document or source. Chances are if your ancestor’s names are spelled the same way on everything you have that you have not researched as many documents as you should have. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Fill out as much of your research log as you can while you are preparing to do you research. Doing this will help you to prepare and a partially completed research log (with titles, etc. already filled in) will increase the chance you work on your log as you research. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
As a special to the readers of Genealogy Tip of the Day (website and newsletter), I am offering a special discount on my May 2010 research trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The trip runs 27 May-3 June 2010. We spend one week at the Family History Library, with morning presentations by me, research assistance in the library (both consultations and “drop by” help), and help with pre-trip planning via a password-protected website. For more information on the trip, visit http://www.rootdig.com/slctrip.htmlFor a limited time (until Sunday 1 November at 10:00 p.m. central), you can register for a total of $150 (this is a $50 discount from the regular price). You must use one of these links below in order to get the discount […]
One question: Is all your data backed up? or “Have you backed up all your data?” for those of you who don’t like to end things with a preposition. Either way, make sure you “git ‘er done,” if you haven’t. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Is your ancestor listed in a record with his (or her) middle name listed as his last name? ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
In an upcoming column for Casefile Clues, one of the key methods to locating certain people was to trace the stepchildren of their father. Finding them lead me to information on the people for whom I was actually looking. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Is there anyway that information you are trying to analyze can be put into chart format? Think about how you could make headings and what items you should extract from each record or source to create a table. Sometimes just organizing things in a different way makes things stand out that you didn’t notice before. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
I may be a little bit too picky, but when reviewing a GEDCOM file if I see names of places spelled incorrectly (especially names of counties in the United States when the database is compiled by an American researcher), I get a little skeptical of the rest of the file. Of course, the occasional typo is one thing (which can easily be avoided in most programs by the way), but if the database I find has some of these spellings: Hartford County, Maryland Amhurst County, Virginia Schuler County, Illinois then I am a little worried about the rest of the data. Call me persnickity, but genealogy is about details. If place names that are established and standard (as these are) are not spelled correctly, how certain can I […]
Occasionally when I search on Google for an ancestor’s name one of my hits is the search results page for that name on www.familysearch.org, the website of the LDS Family History Library. Very interesting. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Normally an ancestor has to be dead to have an estate settlement, has to be born to have a birth certificate, etc. Think about what really HAS to be when you research your ancestor. He didn’t have to get married to reproduce. He didn’t have to name his oldest son after his father. He didn’t have to get married near where his first child was born. He didn’t have to have a relative witness every document wrote. There are few “have tos” in genealogy. Make certain you aren’t using “have tos” to make brick walls for yourself. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If the name as written on a document sounds like the name you are looking for, consider it the same name. Your real work is to make certain you have the same person. That’s the problem. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
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