I’ll wait until I have time. I’ll wait until I retire. I’ll get my things organized first. I’ll decide how everything will be organized first. Here’s my answer to those four statements: Don’t wait. Life intervenes. There won’t ever be a “right time.” Retirement will end up being full other activities. Really? That’s may take forever. Again…that’s going to take forever. Friend and fellow genealogist Kerry Scott issued a plea for her fellow genealogists to just go ahead and scan their personal family ephemera sooner rather than later. Wildfires in her area drove the point home to her that scanning items could not wait. I’m in agreement. My advice based somewhat on Kerry’s comments and my own experience with a significant collection of photographs and other items–do it […]
From 2018… Part of genealogical research is evaluating what you have and altering conclusions when new and more reliable information warrants. Early in our research when we are inexperienced, it can be tempting to rely too much on family information. It can also be easy to rely on incomplete information–especially before we learn that “official” records can be incorrect or inconsistent. And sometimes DNA and other information will cause us to re-evaluate what we thought was true even when we had a number of records and completely analyzed them. My children’s great-great-grandfather (father of their great-grandmother) has morphed through many iterations over the nearly thirty years that I have researched him–always because I have located new information: a Greek immigrant to Chicago, Illinois, born in the 1880s–turned out […]
It’s easy to make digital images of documents today and those items can be shared, stored, archived, attached to files, etc. Storage of those digital images requires less physical space than paper and are more easily portable. But don’t let that cause you to not transcribe those documents. Transcribing a document forces you to look at it in detail and not overlook words which can easily happen when silently reading a document. Determining what every word is when transcribing is a great way to start figuring out what all those words actually mean and a way to help guarantee that you do not overlook clues. It is also easier to perform text searches of transcriptions for key terms or names than can be done with digital images of […]
Be careful using relationships from obituaries as your sole source of information for your database. Modern obituaries especially may: not mention all children may not distinguish children from step-children may not indicate which spouse was the parents of which children Any of these things can confuse later genealogists if it is assumed an obituary was entirely correct. This is another reason why a researcher should always source each date and relationship in their database. Every fact entered should have an indication of where that fact was obtained As far as the obituary, the best bet is to transcribe it exactly as it was written (or scan it) and look for other materials to back it up. If errors are discovered, they could be annotated as such at the […]
If there is a period of time where you are not certain where your ancestor was living or what he was doing, then you have an opportunity. Short gaps where a person is “missing” could mean military service, an out-of-state job, a short-lived marriage, a trip in search of gold, etc. Or it could simply mean they never moved and simply didn’t leave any records for a three year time period. But if you never look one thing is certain–you’ll never know. Get Genealogy Tip of the Day–the book–here!
A few years ago, I took pictures of a documents in several court case files at the Library of Virginia. The various briefs, filings, affidavits, etc. were of varying lengths. Images were made of each entire document. I photographed them consistently as best I could, the “cover,” the individual pages, any blank pages, etc. The images could be sorted based upon when they were taken and that was helpful. But because the documents are of inconsistent length it can occasionally be easy to confuse them. It dawned on me what I should have done when I finished photographing a document: taken a picture of the blank table or a blank piece of paper–anything to indicate a break between documents.
I’ll be taking a group to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City this summer. Our trip is no-frills, focused on research, and not full of “forced group” activities–and our price is reasonable. Check it out. Or join me in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, at the Allen County Public Library for a somewhat shorter trip with the same focus. Our price is reasonable.
We need to make assumptions in our genealogy research. Many times assumptions are necessary in order to get our work off the ground. But after a point, it may be that the assumption is hindering our work or that we have forgotten that an assumption was made. If you are guessing that the parents were married near where the first child was born, that is a good start. But somewhere in your notes, indicate why you believe where they were married and that you have no proof. If research does not validate your assumption, it may be that your assumption was incorrect. And if you enter your assumption in your genealogical database as fact, it can be very difficult for that information to go back to being an […]
Ancestry has released their initial index to the 1950 US Census. It’s not perfect, but for those who have no idea where their person of interest lived, it can be a start. Make certain to try a variety of searches based on name spellings, residence in 1950, date and place of birth, etc. Remember that information in the enumeration can be incorrect, difficult to read, or transcribed in correctly. Also bear in mind what surname variants will be caught with the various search options. Fortunately a relative of mine whose name was spelled as Niell was easily located. I’d initially work on the people who are easy to find and go from there. Make certain to review what you think you know about the person in 1950 as […]
Locations can cause all sorts of research difficulty, especially when an indexer or database creator uses a location that’s not quite the “correct” one or at least not the one the locals know. Several of my ancestors attended a Lutheran church a mile from where my grandparents lived in Hancock County, Illinois. It was near the town of Basco and locals referred to it as the “Basco church” to distinguish it from the Lutheran church in the county seat of Carthage a few miles away. When Ancestry.com included the records of this church in their “U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Records, 1781-1969,” they used Carthage as the location, not Basco. I never thought of the church as being in Carthage–largely because it is not. When looking for any place […]
When we “think we know” everything, we can overlook more things than we realize. I was several years into my research until I realized how close my mother lived to her maternal grandparents. I knew where the farms were located for all her grandparents, and had a verbal description of where Mom lived (on a rental farm), but I had never mapped them all out–even the approximate area–until I had been researching for some time. Being familiar with things can occasionally cause us to overlook things–and that’s not just true with locations on a map.
Do you Google those sayings your parents and grandparents had? One popped in my head today from when I was a child Put your shoes on Lucy, we’re going to town. My Mother often said it when I was small and it was time to get ready to go somewhere. I had always assumed it was a phrase she had made up. It wasn’t. The first part was from a song originally recorded in 1949. My Mother would have been seven years old. It’s possible that my Grandmother was the one, at least in my family, added the “we’re going to town” part of the little phrase indicating it was time to get ready. Google searches for those phrases or sayings your relative liked to say may provide […]
If your ancestor owned real estate, make certain you have a record for how each piece of property left his ownership. Was it deeded in her will, sold for back taxes, sold before his death, quitclaimed by the heirs after her death? Each of these transactions has the potential to reveal significant information–particularly if the property was still owned by the ancestor at their demise.
Have you thought about keeping a list of place names you encounter in a specific geographic area so that you don’t have to search for them every time you find a reference to them? I have several maps for the county where I grew up and for various other areas where family members lived. When looking at maps for one specific area, many have the same place names listed. But there is some variation in which place names are on which map, depending upon the time period and the purpose. I’ve also encountered references to place names in newspapers and other print sources. A list of place names in a specific region, their location (as specific as I can get), the time period, and the source of the […]
I recently discovered an 1860-era map for a county where I have researched family for decades. One of the place names listed on it was new to me. A search of the United States Geological Survey place names database in the United States did not include a reference to it nor did the county histories I have saved digitally. So it just goes to show you that there is always something to learn and that it never hurts to look at “one more item” even when you think there’s nothing there you have not already seen. It is also possible as well that the place name reference is incorrect and was the result of some error.
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