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A reminder: In current genealogy parlance sources (record books, vital records, marriage records, etc.) are said to be original or derivative. Original records are ones that are in their “first form.” Derivative records are ones that are created from original records–transcriptions, abstracts, summaries, compilations, and the like. Technically, according to some, scans and photographic reproductions are derivative copies as well but they certainly are more reliable than hand written copies. Information is considered to be primary or secondary. Generally speaking, a piece of information reported or stated by someone who had first hand knowledge of the event is considered primary. The statement needs also to have been made when the person’s memory was fresh and reliable. Other statements are usually said to be secondary. A source can contain […]
Make certain you note the publisher of each city directory you use, not just the year. In some time periods in some cities, multiple directories were published in one year by different publishers. And different directories may provide slightly different information.
Years ago, I submitted a set of corrections published in a genealogy newsletter to the transcription of the tombstones of several ancestors. The year was 1988. The stones today are not legible. My notes, if I still have them, are probably buried in a filing cabinet in my storage unit. I had totally forgotten submitting the correction until I found my own letter to the editor while using the full-text search functionality of the FamilySearch website. These transcriptions are not online anywhere else. Genealogy periodicals contain a wide variety and wealth of information. The problem is that for years finding it was difficult and tedious. Searching old genealogical periodicals is not as difficult as it was years ago as more things are available digitally and there are more […]
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Records of funeral homes and churches are private records and these businesses and institutions do not have to allow you to access their records. If they do, it is only as a courtesy and access is not something you should expect nor demand. Genealogists should always be polite and respectful when requesting records, but that’s even more the case with these records as the genealogist does not have any legal right of access on their side as they do with public records. Purchase my Funeral Home Records webinar for $16–download immediate. More about this webinar: “Unburying Funeral Home Records” is a discussion of the records typically kept by funeral homes, determining if the home is still in existence, and locating where the records of the home may be […]
If you are using information that you transcribed or manually copied, always double check it for accuracy before completing your analysis or constructing online searches. It can be very easy to transcribe something incorrectly or transpose digits in an age or year of birth. Doublechecking may save you time and frustration.
There are times when reading a document that it is clear someone made a mistake. A place name is spelled incorrectly, a year of birth has the last two digits transposed, a maiden name for a mother is the last name of her third husband, etc. Despite the error (real or perceived), a document should be transcribed exactly as written. It may be helpful to put a “[sic]” (without the parenthesis) after such an error to indicate that the word was written that way on the actual record. Never correct when transcribing a document. Transcriptions are always true to the original, at least as much as possible. We want to know what something actually said. Our correction may not be so correct after all. If there are statements […]
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A relative was married twice in the 1856-1880 time frame in the US Midwest. Her first husband’s last name was Williamson and the second husband’s last name was Willingham. The relative was probably divorced from the Williamson and the Willingham husband died a few years into their marriage. There were clearly two distinct husbands. The relative subsequently married a man whose last name was Graves. I keep getting the Williamson husband and the Willingham husbands confused because the names start with the same five letters. While working on the relative had her family, I had a post-it note on my computer with the first two husband’s names written down with a “1” next to Williamson and a “2” next to Willingham. Apparently others got confused as well. Various […]
Do you notice who is not listed in records where other family members are? In going through a series of “gossip columns” for a family in the early 20th century, I noticed that one individual’s husband rarely attended anything. I’ve made a notation about his frequent absence in my compilation of the columns. There are other records where sometimes people who “should be listed” are not. This happens in more than the gossip columns of local newspapers. Are you making a notation of this in your analysis of the record? Some absences mean more than others. Missing family functions may just mean there’s been some sort of disagreement, that someone is a loner, is not able to get away from work, or needs time away from their spouse. […]
Joseph Daby had four deeds recorded in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in 1738–some of which had been executed nearly ten years earlier. Not everyone always had their land record recorded immediately. Some people just waited and others waited until they had more than one to record. For these reasons, always look for land records after you “think they should be recorded” and for multiple deeds to the same person recorded at the same time. Joseph Daby may have dabbled getting his deeds recorded but he was not the only one. Deeds were recorded in the order in which they were brought to the local recorder’s office, not the order in which they were executed. Sometimes it may take decades for a deed to be recorded and that delayed recording […]
The use of the “in-law” did not always just indicate the relationship that it does today. In most modern uses of “in-law” a “father-in-law” is the father of someone’s spouse. In the same way a “mother-in-law” is currently generally interpreted as the mother of one’s spouse. In earlier uses, particularly the early 19th century and before, a “father-in-law” could be indicating that the “father-in-law” was actually a subsequent husband of the person’s mother. Today that person is generally referred to as a step-father. Similarly a “mother-in-law” reference could mean that the “mother-in-law” was a subsequent wife of the individual’s father. Today that person is generally referred to as a step-mother. The “in-law” portion of the term stems from the marriage contract signed between the two individuals marrying.
There are several genealogy reminders from this 1962 funeral notice from a newspaper in Quincy, Illinois. It never hurts to search digital images of newspapers for people even when “you know everything about them.” That’s how I originally located this item when searching for my great uncle Alvin Ufkes in a database of newspaper clippings on Ancestry.com. I had not seen the item until I performed that search. My uncle had been a pallbearer at the funeral for his great aunt Anna Buhrmeister. Four of the other pallbearers were names I recognized as members of the same family. The original database of newspaper clippings where I found the funeral notice did not include the precise date of publication. I wanted that and decided to search for the item […]
Always read those “aside” comments that occasionally get made in records. Clerks and records officials don’t add them because they are bored. There is usually a reason and working to determine that reason could lead to additional discoveries. The example in the illustration indicated that the administrator of an estate in Illinois in 1903 wasn’t certain what type of title the deceased held in a certain piece of property, but that he believed it to be a fee-simple title. That uncertainty suggests I look into that piece of real estate and how the deceased came to acquire it. There could be a story there. And if I don’t know what a fee-simple title is I need to look up that detail as well.
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