If you are having difficulty reading handwriting in a foreign language, after you’ve located a script guide (try Cyndislist- http://www.cyndislist.com or google for “german script,” etc), try writing it yourself. Practing the script is an excellent way to “get it in your head.” ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If your research has hit a brick wall, make certain you have completely researched the in-laws. It may be that a record on one of them provides the missing link to your direct line ancestor. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
I finally located the marriage record for an ancestor of my wife. It was the first marriage for him and the one from which my wife did not descend. However on a whim, I “googled” the name of the minister. Turns out he was well known in his area, founded what is now nationally known university, and involved in many activties in the mid-nineteenth century. Also because of googling him, I learned the name of the church and found the email of the church archivist. I think I’ll be googling more minsters. I won’t hit paydirt everytime, but one never knows. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Need help with base lines and meridians in federal land states? Here is a map: http://www.blm.gov/cadastral/meridians/pmmap.jpg The “Visitor Center” at the Bureau of Land Management Website has excellent information as well:http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/Visitors/ ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If you need a change of pace, determine those ancestors for whom you have a copy of their signature. Remember, most recorded deeds and wills do not contain original signatures. Searching for signatures may cause you to locate records for which you never thought to look. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Have you tried to learn the occupation of each one of your ancestors? Knowing how your ancestor supported his family may provide suggestions as to what kinds of records he might have left behind. It might also explain migration patterns, family social status, etc. And if you know what your ancestor’s occupation was, have you learned about that occupation during the time he or she lived? That too, may provide you with more insight into your ancestor’s life. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
A great way to get a perspective on your ancestor’s time and place is to read an issue or two of their hometown paper while you are searching for that obituary. In addition to the national news, there will be local news. Reading the paper will give you a history lesson in microcosm and may make you aware of things you never learned in history class. It might give you an entirely different viewpoint on your ancestor as well. And being familiar with the newspaper’s layout and general style never hurt either. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Sometimes the uninitiated is not aware of the neighborhood clues that are contained in a metes and bounds property description from state land states. These descriptions are the ones that give the boundaries of the property by listing the points, the angles, and the lengths of each side. Frequently these descriptions will mention by names the other owners of properties that border the property being transferred. This can be a great way to get names of neighbors of your ancestor. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Don’t jump to conclusions. Your first response to a record or a document may be incorrect. I posted to my facebook account that I had been in the courtroom in the Hancock County, Illinois, courthouse in front of the judge. One can draw several conclusions from that. The reality is that I was there for a wedding. Find out more before you reach a conclusion. Don’t assume it was my wedding either. My statement never indicated in what capacity I was there. Be careful reading more into a statement than is there. It may cause you to go off on a completely incorrect research tangent. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Never let someone tell you there is no index or there is just one index to something. Determine if there is another index or if an index was created and published privately. There were a series of land records I was searching for in a county in Illinois while at the Family History Library. They only had indexes to each volume, compiled separately in the front of each one. What they did not have was another index to the land records that was created and maintained at the courthouse. That index had not been filmed and consequently was not at the Family History Library. Using that index took 5 minutes to find the deeds I needed. Going through the volumes’ indexes one-by-one would have taken me at least […]
Consider asking someone unrelated to your family to look at a document or a record that confuses you. Going to your local genealogical society meeting can be one way to do this. Another is to scan the document and post it to a blog and mention it on an appropriate mailing list. This can be a good way to get short documents translated or at least to have someone look at a word or a phrase that is difficult to read. To see an example of how I did this on my website visit here: http://www.rootdig.com/2009/04/german-word-i-cannot-quite-make-out.html ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Always make certain you read the description of a data set before searching. This allows you to see whether or not it includes the information you need. The Family Search site includes some Ohio Tax records. I was excited as both my wife and I have early Ohio ancestors. Unfortunately at the time I visited the site, only a few counties were included. They will add more, but READING what areas are included before I search a database saves me time if the locations I need are not yet included. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Stuck on a certain problem or document? If your computer is always “online,” consider temporarily turning off your internet connection while concentrating. Maybe even turn off the cell phone. Recently I was working on a christening record from the 1870s. It was written in German and mentioned two families. The temptation was to start surfing for information on the families before I really completed my attempt to translate the document. Sometimes it is good to brainstorm and jot down ideas one after the other when you cannot immediately do some of them. Being able to search immediately can easily get you distracted and cause you to lose focus on what you were originally trying to figure out. Without constant interruption or the temptation to be distracted I was […]
Are you subtracting correct when taking an age and calculating a year of birth? It might pay to doublecheck your computations so you do not create errors in your own records. It seems like a simple thing, but a subtraction error, especially if done in your head late at night while on the computer, can easily happen. And a year of birth calculated as 1802, when it should be 1812, might make all the difference in interpreting other records correctly. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
There are many reasons a genealogist should create a free blog. One is that it can be used to post images of documents you cannot read. I am a member of several mailing lists, one of which has several members who are good at reading German script. Occasionally when I have something where I cannot read a word or two, I put the image on my blog and then post a message to the mailing list about the document I cannot read and then tell them where I have posted the image. This makes it easier for them to try and help me figure out the document. One recent posting can be viewed here:http://www.rootdig.com/2009/04/german-word-i-cannot-quite-make-out.html I usually only post small things where I have a word or a phrase […]
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