For the longest time, there have been html tags surrounding posts made to Tip of the Day. Hopefully I have removed them. I guess I’ll know when this post runs live. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If there is a word in a document that you do not know the meaning of, look it up. And even if you think you know what the word means, you still might want to look it up. Just in case. Misinterpretations can create brick walls where none existed. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
The website with land patents from the Bureau of Land Management site is wonderful, but there are a few suggestions and warnings: the site is incomplete for several western states patents represent federal land records only–the local courthouse has subsequent transactions which likely contain more information cash file entries contain minimal information unless there is something unusual about the transaction–the claimant died during the process, was actually filing a pre-emption claim etc. And if you don’t know your township from your section, read their FAQ first. The website is at http://www.glorecords.blm.gov ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
What you find in someone’s online genealogy compilation should be used as a clue. There’s one tree on Ancestry.com (with over 20,000 names) that shows my great-grandparents with a child they never had. Some days I even wonder if it’s worth my time to contact someone whose database contains more than several thousand names. I’ve gotten some clues from the online trees, but do not use what you see there as anything other than a hint of a suggestion. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Have you really learned about the records in that “new” area in which you are researching? Don’t assume that records in one location are the same as in another. When I started my late 1700 research in Virginia in never dawned on me to ask for a marriage bond. I had never used them in the upper Midwest, so I never thought to ask for them. Had I read a basic Virginia guidebook or research outline, I would have been aware of them. Now familiarizing myself with the basic sources in a new area is one of the first things that I do. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Is it possible that the answer is staring you right in the face? Sometimes re-analyzing a document will bring the “obvious” out of the dark. Sometimes typing it will. Sometimes reading something outloud will. Sometimes having someone else look at it will make a difference. It just depends. Sometimes we jump to the wrong conclusion and never really get that out of our heads. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Remember that if the civil record of a marriage indicates your ancestor was married by a minister, there may be a church record of the marriage as well. That record may provide additional information besides what is on the civil (government) record of the marriage. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
In older documents, many times a double “s” would be written in a way that looked like a “p” or perhaps and “f” to the unsuspecting eye. Consequently my DeMoss ancestors occasionally appear in records as “Demop. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Starting today, we are offering back issues of Casefile Clues in sets. First set will be issues 1-10 and we will continue in that fashion so that subscribers can get the ones they missed easily. Those who want set 1-10 can purchase it through https://www.paypal.com/cg…i-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=8934803 or can email me directly for information.Those who wish to subscribe to Casefile Clues can do so here. Tomorrow we’ll be back offering one tip a day–so stay tuned or become a fan on Facebook. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If you need nice, fairly recent maps of Kansas counties with the civil and congressional townships shown (including sections), consider using these from the Kansas Department of Transportation. http://www.ksdot.org/burtransplan/maps/HistoricCountyTWP.asp Really neat stuff here. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If any tip of the day readers would like a copy of my weekly how-to newsletter, Casefile Clues, please send an email to samples@casefileclues.com and one will be sent to you as a PDF file. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Remember when performing a land patent search on the BLM Site (http://www.glorecords.blm.gov) that the county names might have changed between the time of the patent and today. At the time relative filed his homestead/preemption claim in 1887 his land was in Elbert County, Colorado. Today it is in Kit Carson County, which is what it was when his claim was finally approved. Just remember that those county lines might have changed. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
When transcribing data, you want to remain as true to the original as possible. However, when anlyaing data, some creavitity may come in handy. Consider organizing census information in a chart or a table, using a spreadsheet or a table in a word processing document. Take the twenty names before and after your ancestor in the 1800-1830 census and put all of them in a table? How many names (besides your ancestor) do you see repeated? Are these names possible clues? ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
I was looking for information on a lady I thought was a sister of my ancestor. I requested her obituary, hoping it would provide information on her family and her origins. It listed the names of two children, but no details of where they lived or anything. The obituary was full of nice lovey-dovey sentiments, but nothing I could use to further my research. Her husband’s obituary was a different story. It was full of information on his children (some of whom were by a different wife) and other details about him that might help me locate more information about the wife. Don’t neglect those spouses of ancestral siblings. Their records may contain just the clue you need. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day […]
When working on my brick wall ancestor, I searched probate records. I actually never searched them at all for him because I was always told he was “dirt poor.” And there he was in the estate records two times. How can you die twice and have two estates? Turns out for the time period in question, insanity cases were filed with the probate and estate records. It was two insanity cases I had located for him, not probate cases. If I had never looked in estate files, I never would have found out information about his insanity hearings. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
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