If time allows, share what information you have already discovered with others while you are able. Share images of photographs, letters, and other family materials that you may have. Don’t assume that your family will do it for you because you asked them to. Try and find someone who is interested in the family history if you can, but sometimes that simply is not possible. Organize the information you have–start small if that makes it easier. Write a biography of one ancestor–citing information you’ve located as completely as possible. It is “okay” if your research is not complete–just indicate what sources you have used and stick to details that come from actual records and not conjecture. A total lack of planning and organization on your part increases the […]
I was working on a family that I thought was closely related to mine–they were from the same little Irish village, but settled several hundred miles away. Both families used many of the same first names–Samuel, Edward, Joseph, Thomas, Charles. That was a clue to continue working on locating information on the second family to see if something more strongly connected them to mine. It was a clue that there could be a connection–it was not proof in and of itself that the families were connected.
If the time period is right, one place to potentially obtain copies of marriage and vital records is in military pension or other military benefit records. Widows would have to prove their marriage to the soldier in order to receive their pension and birth records for children of deceased soldiers would also have to be submitted–if those children were under a certain age. In some cases, the original record may no longer be extant and the copy in the pension may be the only copy. If you received a copy of a vital record from a pension file, indicate that the copy you have was made from a copy in the pension file. That doesn’t mean it’s not a valid copy–it’s simply indicating where you obtained the copy. […]
A periodic reminder to download images of records you use on any site. This way you have the images. Remember: the site may go down; the site may no longer have the rights to display the images; you may decide or need to cancel your membership. Save digital media to your own devices. Make a copy for your own use on your own equipment. Linking to your online tree in your “account,” will require you to maintain that access. Save it. You’ll be glad you did later.
I’m not one for making resolutions, but a great way to get beyond brick walls and make new discoveries is to review what you’ve already located on one ancestor or family. This can be one you’ve already researched yourself or one that someone researched previously and you thought was “done.” They might not have been as “done” as you think or you may know more about research now than when you “finished” work on that ancestor years ago.
Really getting into these things takes some time, but here are some general things to remember when you are “stuck:” Money and work motivate people to move and people are sometimes more mobile than we think-especially if opportunities were limited in the area where the person was living. Create a timeline of all events in your ancestor’s life. Gaps of more than a few years are opportunities for research. Lots of things can happen in two or three years. Do you really know what you think you know? How do you know it? Did you assume when you should not have? Do you know where that source came from? Could you be wrong? Are you familiar with all sources in the area–civil (all levels of government) and private […]
If you have identified an old photograph from a family besides your own and you can’t find a place for it, consider uploading a digital image of the photograph to that person’s Family Tree entry on FamilySearch. That’s what I did with a photograph that fans of Genealogy Tip of the Day on Facebook helped me to identify. Other options include contacting online tree submitters on other sites, but the FamilySearch post really did not take much effort and helped to “get the photo out there.” Just make certain you have correctly identified the person. The image in this post had a name written on the back and a location of the photographer’s city on the front.
We can’t really cover analyzing “old published genealogies” in one tip, but there are some suggested ways for using information printed in genealogies published in the early twentieth century and earlier. Don’t copy every statement directly into your records because “it has to be correct because it is in print.” It doesn’t. When specific dates or events are given, think about what records might have been created as the result of that event. Locate those records. The author may or may not have accessed those records. Access was significantly different when the book was compiled than it is today. For events that are within fifty years of the book’s publication, consider the possibility that someone with primary knowledge of that event (or even contemporary secondary knowledge) communicated with […]
I knew my aunt had at least three children in the 1840s in Germany with a man that I assumed was her husband. Turned out he was the father of her children, but that they were not married when some of the older children were born. Because of their parents’ marital status, some of the children used her maiden name as their last name, some used his last name as their last name, and some went back and forth between their parents’ last names. It took me forever to locate one of the daughter’s marriage record as she married under her mother’s maiden name and not the last name of her father.
It’s not necessarily genealogy advice, but sometimes in order to really process information and understand something, one need to be able to concentrate. Turn off the television, close those open browser windows, turn off the email/text alerts, etc. Really focus and concentrate on what you are attempting to analyze and understand. It may not be possible to “tune it all out” and focus as intently as Riley is in the illustration, but sometimes making an attempt to remove distractions can really help. And researching three families at the exact same time only leads to confusion.
When one is unfamiliar with the laws of an area it can be easy to assume things that simply are not true. Nancy Rampley and her youngest son sued all her other children (and his siblings) in the early 1900s over the title to her farm in Illinois. One could look at this as a great disagreement between Nancy and her son and the other children. That was not the case. Nancy’s husband died leaving no will. Nancy and all her children owned the farm jointly. Nancy wanted to sell the farm and move to town. The only problem was her youngest son was a minor and unable to sign of his own accord. Consequently Nancy and the youngest minor child had to sue the rest of the […]
My Irish immigrant ancestor was born in the 1830s and died in the United States in 1912. In 1935, when his great-grand-nephew was born, the place of birth for the mother told me where the family was in Ireland. For those whose family immigrated over decades and generations, records on the more recent generations may contain more detailed information than earlier records on the “actual ancestor of interest.” Place names may not be spelled correctly, but Limvady was close enough for me to locate the actual location.
Are you spending much time looking for a specific record that might not really even help your research all that much? There’s a couple for whom I cannot find their mid-1800 passenger list entry. After some thought, I’m not really certain how much more time I should spend looking for it. I have a good idea of where the family is from in Europe as I know where the husband’s brother was born. I know what children the couple had and where they settled. The mid-1800 passenger list probably isn’t going to tell me where they were from. And after having spent nearly ten hours trying to find them, it may be best to work on locating other records. Sometimes it is necessary to realize that it may […]
If your family lived in one small area for centuries, you may discover that you have “repeat” ancestors, people from whom you descend more than once. Of course for this to happen, cousins have to marry. But husband and wife couples who are related to each other may have had no idea of their relationship, particularly if it was distant. Charting out these relationships may be helpful to see the connection, but most genealogical software packages don’t easily allow such relationships to be diagrammed easily–paper and pencil is my personal favorite for drafting these charts as can be seen in our longer blog post.
Those with relatives in the United States may find the historical maps on the United States Geological Survey helpful in their research. Generally from the 20th century, these maps contain place names including schools and cemeteries. A map created fifty years after your ancestor left an area could still provide a detail significant to your research problem. View the map site or our post on accessing them.
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