His wife said he died in 1893 of lung fever and his doctor said he died in 1893 of pleuro-pneumonia. They provided the same date and place of death. The only difference was the cause and their causes really weren’t different. One was an informal cause given by a spouse and the other was the formal cause given by the doctor. Both appeared on records in the widow’s application for a widow’s pension and the individual viewing the widow’s application was likely more concerned that the causes were consistent instead of them agreeing one-hundred percent. No two sources agree entirely. There will be differences. The genealogist should only be concerned when the information provided is inconsistent–then there’s a problem. And…if possible more sources should be obtained. Evaluation should […]
A widow’s military pension application may contain birth information on some children of the veteran–information that sometimes can not be validated elsewhere. Military pension applications typically only provide information on minor children and may be receiving benefits along with the widow. Those are the children whose ages need to be documented precisely. It may be that certified copies of those children’s birth records are included in the application file. Adult children may provide testimony in a pension application file for the widow, particularly if the widow is having difficulty proving certain details of the veteran’s life. But their ages do not need to be documented as precisely and accurately as do ones who are minors.
When I started working on my New England families, some of them were fairly easy to research–or so I thought. They were in published genealogies, town histories, published vital records, and other publications. Using those materials was a starting point. But it was only a starting point. Compilations contain errors (some more than others). Authors may have only relied on a few types of records in creating their compilation or may have relied too much on other compilations and not records of a more original nature. One of the best ways for me to add to what the compilations contained, correct the occasional mistakes the compilations contained, and put more flesh on the ancestral skeletons was to look at original land, court, and probate records. As more and […]
For every ancestral sibling that married, have you determined who the witnesses were at that wedding? Their names could be as big of a potential clue as any other witness. Those witnesses could be family members (either by blood or by marriage), friends of the family, co-workers, neighbors, etc. Or they could just be two warm bodies of legal age in the same location and have no relationship to your family at all. But it does not hurt to look.
After a few years, we have brought back this five-session class on United States land records tarting this February. Homework is optional. There is more information on our announcement page.
When James Rampley made out his will in Harford County, Maryland, in 1812, there was an apparent issue with his daughter Nancy’s husband, John Beatty. Rampley made it clear by giving real property not to Nancy, but to her two children. There was a catch. That property was only to go to Nancy’s children after her death. During her lifetime the “use and occupation” of the real property was go to to Nancy’s maintenance. Her husband was to have no “claim, right or title” to the property and Nancy’s brother was to be the trustee. The will does not indicate the issue James Rampley had with John Beatty, but likely it centered on how John would handle the sixty acres of real estate intended for the Beatty family. […]
I have two group research trips scheduled in 2020. Visit our site for more information or to save your spot! Salt Lake City’s Family History Library–May/June 2020 Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana–August 2020
Did your relative speak more than one language? Sometimes this can be difficult to determine, but 20th century census records may help with some relatives. Speaking a foreign language doesn’t mean the person was from there, but it can be a clue. Last names can suggest ethnicity or country of origin, but sometimes those clues are not necessarily as obvious as is sometimes thought. A relative with an Italian name may actually be Swiss. Genealogy Tip of the Day book is here. Learn more about it. If you’d like to get our genealogy tip daily in your email for free, add your address here.
Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. The one line from the lyrics to the television show “Cheers,” may not be entirely correct (there’s a tip about assuming and memory), but “taking a break” is sound genealogical advice. Sometimes one comes back at their problems with a new perspective and a fresh attitude. For those who just “can’t stop doing genealogy,” consider working on a family that is significantly different from your own: Your relatives urban? Try working on a rural family. Your relatives been in the United States for centuries? Try working on a family who immigrated in the late 19th or early 20 century. Your relatives Baptist? Try working on a family that was Catholic, Jewish, Quaker, etc. Your family all […]
Before you think that document says what you want it to say or before you “react” to a genealogical compilation or conclusion someone else has made: read it again And maybe read it one more time. It can be easy to jump to conclusions or assume that a record says something it does not–particularly if we’ve been searching for a fact for some time or if there are words or phrases in the document that we do not understand.
Write up every piece of information you know about your “lost” ancestor. Every piece. Include a source citation for every piece of information you know about your ancestor–if it came from an interview of a relative, so state. If it was on a piece of paper or a digital image of that paper, cite it. Make certain you have transcribed the information completely and accurately from that source. If you don’t have a source for a piece of information–indicate that. That doesn’t mean the information is wrong, just that you don’t have a source for it. Are there any relatives of the “lost person” who have not been fully researched? And if you think they are fully researched, have you really confirmed that? Are there any words or […]
I began my genealogy research when I was in junior high school. As a result my funds for copies of genealogy documents was limited–very limited. As I got into high school, I performed local research for others to earn money to support my genealogy habit. But my budget was very tight. I was selective about the items I would pay to obtain a copy of–very selective. I also wouldn’t obtain copies of records that had information “I already had.” As I review my files a few decades later, I realize that there are things on some families that I never obtained. That is the case with the death certificate of Jans Janssen who died in Illinois in 1929. I knew the names of his parents and his date […]
Internet and digital newspaper searches for individuals with common names can be difficult. John Smiths and Mary Jones are everywhere. Searches for individuals whose last name has another meaning, such as Lake, King, Noble, etc. can be just as challenging–if not more. Elizabeth Lake, William King, and John Noble create their own search problems. For some searches, location keywords based on your ancestor’s life can facilitate finding the person of interest, such as: place of birth (town, county, etc.), place of death, other residences, etc. Names of states or territories may be too common and not effectively narrow your search. Or they might perfect–if just depends. For other individuals, searches that include a specific part of a residence (particularly a street name for urban relatives), an occupation, or […]
Searching the trees of your DNA matches for names can be a way to sift through some of the low-hanging matches that are easier to figure out. Of course many DNA matches do not have trees so this approach only looks at those trees–a definite limitation. There are other things to consider as well: The tree might not be correct and the name is wrong. The shared name (and the connection to that family) might be too far back in the tree to share any DNA through that family. There might actually be other connections you have with that person (through spots currently blank in their tree or yours) and while you share an ancestral name on your paper genealogy tree, your shared DNA is through another family. […]
One of the best ways I eliminate some errors in my reasoning is to go back and look at a conclusion that I have written and look at every part of it that is based on “what I think I know” and what I have some documentation for. Thinking when doing genealogical research is advised. That’s entirely different than thinking we know. What we “think we know” may be based on: misconceptions, our own experience (when it doesn’t apply to the problem at hand); facts we have remembered incorrectly; assumptions; stereotypes about the family being researched; and so on. Any of these things we “think” we know can be hindering our research. Genealogy Tip of the Day book is here. Learn more about it. If you’d like to get our genealogy […]
Recent Comments