It can be fun to find copies of documents–either paper or digital reproductions of ancestral records. Do you always transcribe them or do you just scan through them? Does that will or deed seem too long, too difficult to understand, or too difficult to read? The best way to start understanding every detail of a document is to transcribe it. Simply reading a record silently can make it easy to miss key details or clues that were not originally obvious. Genealogy Tip of the Day book is here. Learn more about it and get your own copy. If you’d like to get our genealogy tip daily in your email for free, add your address here.
Individuals who have multiple middle names and who used more than one last name can create research headaches. The main reason is that they could appear in a record in any one of a number of ways. It’s important not to omit any of those name possibilities. Johann Christian Valentin Hess was born in 1827 in Wohlmuthausen, Thuringen, Germany. His parents, Ernestine Trautvetter and Kaspar Hess, were never married. His sister when she married in St. Louis, Missouri, used the last name of Trautvetter. It’s possible Johann Christian Valentin did as well. Of course, many Germans in the area where the Trautvetters were from did not use the “first name” they were given. Their “call name” was one of their “middle names.” That does not mean that they […]
Before you go to that courthouse, make certain you have answered some questions: What are the hours? What are the research policies? What do things cost? What can you bring in? Are there any special holiday closings? Are all records onsite? etc. Don’t “just show up.” You may be disappointed if you do. Consider asking a local researcher or someone who has been to the courthouse or facility before for advice.
I don’t really have a new variant spelling of Trautvetter in this entry for Anna Catharina Trautvetter that appears in the records of Wohlmuthausen, Thuringen, Germany, in 1823. There’s not a “new name” of Trautvetterin. The “in” is an ending attached to the name because Anna Catharina was female. Her last name is Trautvetter. Issues of this type are why it is important to learn about the culture and linguistic practices for the area where your family lived. What’s true in one area may not be true in another. Don’t assume an entire country is the same. My Germans who lived in other areas did not include any gender derived endings to surnames–ever. But certain parts did. And other parts didn’t. Genealogy Tip of the Day book is here. Learn […]
Most genealogists should know how people reproduce. But sometimes we forget that people don’t have to be married for that to happen. In some time periods and in some locations, having children outside of marriage was more common than a person might think. Two siblings of my great-great-grandfather in Thuringen, Germany, had several children before they were married (1830-1840 era). They were apparently in a long-term relationship with the fathers of their children as baptismal records for the children indicate that both sisters had their children with the same father. Not the exact same father (one needs to be careful how one phrases things). One sister had her children with Mr. B and the other sister had her children with Mr. S. The sisters eventually married their respective […]
My great-grandfather’s brother and his wife are buried together and have a joint tombstone in a rural Illinois cemetery. They were in their late seventies or early eighties when they died. I easily located his death certificate and other information on him, using the death date on his tombstone as a starting point. I had some difficulty with the wife who had survived him. The difficulty stopped when I located a newspaper reference their son where it referred to his “mother” with a different last name. She had married after her husband’s death. The tombstone does not mention this and it was not one of those things Grandma told me before she passed. The marriage took place in the 1940s–just where I’m not certain. It easily could have […]
We had a nice review of our Tip of the Day book in the Champaign, Illinois, News-Gazette. From the review: …a valuable addition to any genealogist’s library and would be a most welcome gift for any researcher…[read more] Ordering information is on our site.
This court case was not located until I searched the digital images of newspapers. It is only indexed in the plaintiffs’ index under Luella Barnett and in the defendants’ index under Velva Ray Schupp. Neither name was one I had searched for. When searching indexes of court records, it is important to search for extended family members as well as those individuals in whom the researcher has a direct interest. This is especially important in locating court records over estates in general and particularly when those cases may involve individuals who are only tangentially related by marriage. The case apparently was to settle up some issues with the estates of Jeanette and William Miller of Warsaw, Hancock County, Illinois, in the 1930s. This couple had no children of […]
After one of my great-grandfather’s brothers died in the 1950s, it seemed like his wife just disappeared. Until I went through every newspaper reference in the local weekly newspapers for their children. There was a reference to one a son (by then an adult) who was in the hospital and had been visited by his mother–with her name listed as Mrs. Newhusbandfirstname Newhusbandlastname. Sometimes it can be frustrating to find women listed this way. In this case it was not as I now had the first and last name of her second husband. All because I went through every social reference to the children.
Documents in handwritten ledgers can be of varying length. Always make certain that you have gotten a copy or images of the entire document in which you have an interest. When copying make certain that you went until at least the start of the next document. Don’t stop when you get to the signature (or transcription of the signature). Acknowledgements and certifications often appear at the end of the document and some times these can be easy to overlook. These items may contain geographic clues help pinpoint the chronology of the document and its recording. A deed from Indiana contained the names of all the children and children-in-law of a deceased relative. The acknowledgements of the deed (after the transcription of the signatures) had the counties where they […]
Stuck in one of the sticky photo albums of my great aunt was a picture of my brother and I wish a 4H cow and calf. There are several lessons about this picture and the image of it that has been used in this post. Don’t crop too much. This example is a little bit extreme, but the humans have been cropped from the photograph to illustrate the point. There may be times where something in the edge of the picture helps to identify where it was taken, when it was taken, the event going on at the time, etc. In this case, there is a high school in the background that helps to locate the photograph. Dates written on photographs may not be entirely correct. My great-aunt […]
If your relative was a mover from point A to point B, have you looked to see if there were any individuals who also moved from point A to point B? That person could have moved before your relative, at the same time as your relative, or after your relative. That person may have been related to your ancestor by biology, by marriage, or geographic proximity. Sometimes it can be difficult to see who these other movers were. Some ways to look for them include: Looking in county histories to see if there are biographees born in the same town/village or county as your ancestor. Searching online images of newspapers for obituaries of people who list a place of birth that’s the same as your ancestor (search for […]
A relative from New Mexico served with Teddy Roosevelt in his “rough riders.” In 1907 the relative was living in Indiana and met then-President Roosevelt while he was visiting Indianapolis for Memorial Day. The relative’s hometown newspaper indicated that he spent an hour with President Roosevelt, remembering their service time together. No such reference to the meeting could be found in newspapers in Indianapolis and Roosevelt’s schedule seemed packed with activities with little time for a lengthy informal chat with my relative. What’s more likely to have happened is that the relative went to an appearance Roosevelt had in Indianapolis. What’s important for genealogists to remember is that different newspapers may often give different accounts of the same incident.
Just about anything can appear on a tombstone–not just the dates of birth and death. Some immigrants had their place of birth inscribed on their tombstone and others may have included military service information. Any information on a stone should be compared to other sources, but never assume that the “stone won’t tell me anything I don’t already know.”
Chances are you are not. Sometimes it can be difficult finding someone who is as interested in genealogy or family history as you are. Sometimes relatives have an interest, but more of an interest in some of what you find and big discoveries that you have made. It can be more difficult to find someone as interested as you are in transcribing barely legible documents, reading through page after page of unindexed records, etc. But they may be out there. They just not may be as closely related to you as you wish. They may also not be one who actively seeks out other family members with whom to share or exchange information. While that may seem strange, they also may have gotten tired not finding relatives who […]
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