Mimke Habben’s will gave his wife a life estate in his real estate after his death. This meant she could use the property, earn income from it, and (within reason) use it as she saw fit. She could not sell, mortgage, or bequeath the property. Her husband’s will indicated who was to get it upon her death–in this case it went to all their children. There are reasons a person may do this. In Mimke’s case it prevented his wife from giving the entire farm to one child–which she tried to do by writing a will that a local judge refused to probate upon her death.
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Sometimes it can seem like we are the only person researching a certain family or set of ancestors. Sometimes we get so focused on going back further and further that we neglect to track down modern descendants. This can be important even if writing a book of all your ancestor’s descendants is the furthest thing from your mind. Any of those descendants can have a family item that could be useful in your research. They may know stories, etc. I recently made contact with a descendant of one of my great-great-grandfather’s brother’s descendants. If you think about it, your great-great-great-grandparents may have more descendants than you think. Who knows which lineage path ended up with the family bible and other items?
I was convinced that I could see my mother in a recently discovered picture of her great-great-grandmother. I was certain there was no other opinion. Without telling her what I thought, asked my daughter who she thought the woman in the picture resembled. I was certain she would say “Grandma.” I was positive. She didn’t. And she rattled off the name of another family member. After thinking for a minute, I could see it. I was so set in my initial view that I was unable to see anything else. Sometimes you need to hear a different perspective, listen to it, and contemplate it. In the end you may not agree with the alternate interpretation, but being challenged and thoughtfully considering the possibility there’s another interpretation besides yours […]
I hear the following all the time, but sometimes it can be difficult to believe it: have patience keep looking something may turn up And sure enough it did–a picture of my third great-grandparents on Famil ySearch. I’ve researched these people since the early 1980s and this is the first time I have seen a picture of them. I could barely contain my excitement. But…it does not look like the mental pictures of them I had in my head. But I’ll take it.
Is it possible that your person of interest had a short-term marriage, perhaps after a longer one that resulted from the death of a spouse. A relative, shortly after his wife of twenty years died, married a local woman in the 1870s only to divorce her within a year. His family never mentioned her as if it never happened. The divorce records were quite informative and would not have been located had I not just decided to look “just in case.”
Newspaper writeups of funerals may give additional clues as to survivors. Pallbearers may be more distant family members who are not named in the obituary. Most of the men listed in the 1962 example were nephews of the deceased–there’s just one that I have to figure out who he is. Genealogy Tip of the Day is sponsored by GenealogyBank –give them a try today.
When you transcribe a document, do you make a notation if some of the handwriting appears significantly different from the rest of it? Different handwriting indicates a different person did the writing–at least most of the time. Multiple “authors” could have written on a document at different points in time, had varying levels of knowledge regarding the document’s content, or served different positions in the agency that created or maintained the record. Sometimes that really matters.
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When genealogists are challenged by their ancestors, they are often told to research the associates of the ancestors–including ancestral friends and neighbors. If you are stuck on a person and have tried this approach, how thoroughly have you researched these associates. An hour or two online probably isn’t sufficient. If your problem ancestor is in a place and time that’s difficult to research in general, it may take some time to really research those associates thoroughly enough to locate all potential clues.
Always indicate when a date, name, or a relationship is conjecture. Make it crystal clear to anyone reading the information later that the information was a hunch. Be careful making hunches. Be careful sharing hunches. Have a reason for your hunch. Include that reason with your hunch. Cite your reason if you have a document. Think one more time about the reasonableness of your hunch. Once someone spreads them as fact it can be impossible to prevent the spread. =
Who attends an estate sale? Generally speaking (with some exceptions), it tends to be relatives and neighbors. Looking at the list of buyers can provide some insight into your deceased relative’s family, social connections, and neighbors. This is an incomplete chart of the purchasers of property from the estate of Thomas Rampley in Coshocton County, Ohio, in 1823. There’s no guarantee that a chart will answer your specific questions about an ancestor, but doing some initial work on the purchasers may make something stick out that was not noticeable before. Purchaser Known Relationship 1820 Census 1830 Census comments Randles, Abraham Miller, John H. Gilliam, Samuel Huffman, James Tuscarawas, Coshocton Jackson, Coshocton Thomas’s son John married a Huffman Rampley, James Son Courtright, Jacob Son-in-law Jackson, Coshocton Barkhurst, William Markley, […]
Mary Puffer, widow of Ephraim Puffer is referred to as Mary Puffer many times in the estate record of her husband from the 1700s. However there is one signed document where she is referred to as the widow and signed as Mary Brown. Subsequent marriages of the widow can be indirectly mentioned in an estate file. Make certain to look through all the documents–even the boring ones.
A few quick reminders from this recent Ebay purchase: Sometimes things are not titled based upon the name you have for something. This was “Lincoln School” to me. It was Grade School on the postcard. Have you tried to locate pictures of places of employment for your relatives? Pictures of schools, work sites, etc. can be great ways to get someone’s memories to start flowing. Genealogy Tip of the Day is sponsored by GenealogyBank –give them a try today.
This 1920 census enumeration contains significant errors. The husband and wife were not married and he was not the father of her children. The “wife” was not divorced from the father of these children until 1921 and she did not marry the man shown here until 1922.
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