FamilySearch has a database of Ireland Civil Registration Indexes, 1845-1958 which includes over 23 million names. There are no images, but parents’ names are a part of the database.
Irish civil records indicate that several members of my Neill family lived in Derry Beg in the north of Ireland in the 1850s-1880s. The handwriting in the records being used made it look like “Derrybeg” so I assumed it was one word. I had a difficult time finding it on a map in the appropriate place (parish of Drumachose) until I realized that it was Derry Beg–two words. There were several other places in Ireland named Derrybeg as well. I knew I they were the wrong ones because the county was incorrect. There can easily be more than one place in a country with the same name and when searching for places, spaces matter.
A few years ago I discovered a probable sister of an ancestor in Ireland. In reviewing the information later I wanted to make certain I had not overlooked any other probable siblings of the ancestor. The problem was I could not remember how I found the name of the sister in the first place. My concern was that I got so excited about finding one sister that I researched her before I made certain there were not others as well. It took me half a day to “recreate” the original search to “refind” the sister. All it would have taken was two sentences in my notes on this person and I could have saved half a day. My notes just needed to include a brief synopsis of how […]
For those who were not aware, FamilySearch has digital images of the United States Enumeration District Maps for the Twelfth through the Sixteenth US Censuses, 1900-1940.
Did your ancestral couple permanently separate but not divorce because “we don’t do that in our family?” If so, there may be a court case for “separate maintenance” or a separation agreement filed in the local records. The illustration for this post is from a separation agreement from 1862 filed with land records in Campbell County, Kentucky. The couple was not divorcing, but did separate all their property in the agreement.
We’re excited to finally announce the release of the recorded versions of my two latest webinars: Irfanview and Organizing Digital Media. If you registered for these and did not receive the complimentary download, please email me at mjnrootdig@gmail.com. Irfanview One of the most popular image viewing and manipulation programs around that has the best price–free! This presentation focuses on basic skills that are useful for the genealogist, including cropping, adding citations, adding text, adding metadata, batch renaming, and more. Geared towards those who don’t have much familiarity with the software. Order here ($7) for immediate download–handout included Organizing Digital Media This presentation is not software or operating system specific. It focuses on file organization, file naming, consistency, and reducing duplication of effort. Our focus is on an easy […]
Did your ancestor marry again after the death of a spouse to whom they had been married for decades? Did your ancestor marry at the very end of their life? For female ancestors this could mean that their last name changed which would impact how their name appears in death records, probate records, and other materials created after their marriage? If the time period was right, it could mean that they qualified for a military pension based upon the service of the final spouse. For male ancestors, it could mean additional children, changes in their will, or other records of interest. And the marriage record, if it was created in the right place and at the right time, could provide information on the actual ancestor that is not […]
Mom did not always call it “pie crust.” Often there was an expletive in front of the word “pie.” I’m fairly certain the frustration was directed towards the crust and not the pie. When writing up research notes and stories on individuals whom you remember personally, consider including their favorite swear words. Or, if that’s something you don’t feel comfortable with, at least include those things that frequently made your family member frustrated to the point where they felt like using those words. For Mom, it was pie crust–and that’s a memory I want to preserve.
It never hurts to read that transcription, summary, query, genealogy blog post, etc. over one more time. And one more time again–especially after letting the content sit for a while Errors can easily creep in and sometimes in that last review the “obviously” incorrect becomes more obvious.
OVer 89,000 books (out of copyright) from the Allen County (Indiana) Public Library’s collection of genealogical materials are online free through Archive.org .
“Grandma’s signature looks like my mother’s,” was my colleague’s response when I found her application for a military tombstone for her husband. I could see the excitement in her eyes as she saw the document for the first time. Sometimes when we’ve researched for a while, some of that excitement is gone–or at least we don’t experience it that often. It can also be easy to get stuck in a rut, forget about certain sources, forget basic ways to search, and become lost in our own perspective. Helping a newer genealogist, or just another genealogist, can be the break you need to get a fresh perspective on your own research.
FamilySearch has an online index to 2.5 million passports between 1795 and 1925. United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925
Entries in death register are often transcriptions of the actual death certificate or the information that was given or submitted to the informant. This 1883 death register entry was filled out by the clerk who took the information from the certificate that was completed by the informant (in this case the doctor). If the entries in the ledger are all “in the same hand,” they were filled out by a clerk and not the actual informant.
Elephind allows searchers to search thousands of free online digital newspapers at once. We’re periodically featuring “old” sites that users may have forgotten about or not have been aware of.
Any source can have information from a variety of informants whose knowledge of that information can vary. A death certificate for an eighty-year old woman may have a son-in-law for the informant. His knowledge of the mother-in-law’s date and place of death may be very accurate (that information would be primary information). His knowledge of his mother-in-law’s parents and date and place of birth would be secondary (he wasn’t there when she was born and may never have met either of her parents). Always think about each piece of information on a document as having a potential different level of accuracy. All information is not created equally–not even from the same informant on the same document.
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