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 […]
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.
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