We’ve mentioned this tip before, but it bears repeating. Is there some document, picture, or record where the only copy in existence is in your possession? Have you scanned, copied, or otherwise reproduced/shared the item in an attempt to preserve it? What would happen if your only copy was destroyed without being reproduced? ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Learning to read another style of handwriting can be difficult, particularly the words written in it are in a foreign language. One way to get better at recognizing individual letters is to practice them yourself. After all, how did you learn to write in the first place? ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If you are fortunate enough to find an ancestor’s biography in an old county history, bear in mind that information submitted for these biographies was not fact checked. Usually the person paid to have their biography published in this late 19th and early 20th century books. If your ancestor’s payment was good, so was his biography. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Some families name children according to naming patterns and other families do not. Names being repeated in a family can be clues to connections, but they should be used as clues and not as facts. And just because other families named the oldest son for the paternal grandfather does not mean that your family did. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
In any form of testimony where someone indicates they have known your ancestor for a specific number of years, determine when your ancestor and this “someone” met. Did they know each other when they lived in a different location? If you can’t find your ancestor in their previous area of residence, search for the “someone.” Then maybe you will find the ancestor. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Depending on their family and work situation, there is a chance that an ancestor is enumerated more than once in a census. The census was not necessarily always taken “on just one day,” so individuals who moved around the time of the census may have been listed by two enumerators. Individuals who were living in one household and working as domestic help in another may show up in twice–once in each household. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
The death notice, obituary, death certificate, and tombstone all have the same date of birth for great-grandma. This probably does not mean that you four totally separate pieces of information provided by four separate and independent sources. What you most likely have is one person who gave the same information four times. Remember that before you think that just because four sources “agree” that they are correct. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
While most couples who took out a marriage license did marry, it is always possible that they did not. If there is a record that a couple got a license, indicate in your records that it is a license date, not a marriage date. Even if they did marry, there’s no guarantee that they married on the same date as the license. And clearly indicating that the date is a license date tells others (and yourself) that the marriage record has not been located. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Derivative citizenship is citizenship that is “derived” from someone else’s citizenship status. If your alien ancestor was under the age of consent when his father naturalized, then your under the age of consent ancestor had a citizenship that was “derived” from that of his father. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Do you keep track of what databases you use and what people you try and find in those databases? Or do you just keep entering in names, hoping to find something eventually? Knowing what you have already looked for in a database helps you to formulate new searches and strategies. Research logs are not just for manual searches of unindexed books and local records. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
When was the last time you read some local history for the area adjacent to where you are doing research? A little more background information never hurts. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
When researching urban ancestors and using city directories, determine if more than one publisher published directories. If you are only checking the directories published by one publisher, you could be missing out on clues–especially if your ancestor moved around quite a bit. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
For those who are new: I currently write and maintain the following blogs: Genealogy Tip of the Day http://genealogytipoftheday.blogspot.com/ Genealogy Transcriber http://genealogytranscriber.blogspot.com Search Tip of the Day http://genealogysearchtip.blogspot.com/ Casefile Clues Blog http://blog.casefileclues.com Viewing or subscribing to the above blogs are free. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Some immigrants, when providing birth or origin information in their new country, may have provided a town “close” to where the were actually from or were born. Some might have thought that no one had ever heard of their actual place of birth and instead gave a nearby larger town–perhaps the local seat of government or town where most business was conducted. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
In viewing some marriages as listed in the Bourbon County, Kentucky, marriage register for the 1815 era, it was easy to see that the marriages were not listed in the register in precise chronological order. In looking at the entire set of pages, it became clear that they were listed in the order in which the minister or Justice of the Peace brought them in as the entries were clustered by the name of the officiant. There may be a reason why things appear “out of order.” You may not be looking at the right part of the record in order to determine what the order actually is. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
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