Find your source for each fact on your ancestor, determine: do you have a source? is the fact an “assumption?” For each source: is it primary or secondary how reliable is it? For some questions there’s not a “right” or “wrong” answer, but thinking about where you obtained each piece of information may cause you to break that brick wall. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Remember that virtually every record can be searched manually, particularly census and other online records. Indexes aren’t perfect and sometimes manual page by page searches are faster than formulating seemingly endless search queries. And you may make a few accidental discoveries in the process. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
The 1900 census for a relative indicated his mother was born in Ohio. This was completely incorrect. What I learned later was that the mother’s parents were married in Ohio a year before the mother was born in Illinois. While the place of birth was wrong, it was a clue as to the migration trail of the parents. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Do you have the right place for the right time in your genealogy database? An online tree for a relative indicates one of their ancestors was born in Plymouth, Mass in 1600. Seems a little bit odd to me. Double check that your locations and dates are correct within the historical time frame. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
A patronym is a last name derived from the first name of the father. For instance, Anders Swanson has sons with the last name of Anderson. Anderson would be a patronym. If Gerd Hinrichs’ children use the last name of Gerdes, Gerdes would be a patronym. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
This has been discussed on the Fan Page on face book. An electronic copy of Evidence Explained is available here for $24.95. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
A married woman whose legal rights have been combined into those with her husband, with the husband assuming control of those rights. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
A marriage bann is an announcement of an upcoming marriage. Usually made for three consecutive weeks in church, banns may also be publicly published announcements of an upcoming marriage. Usually done so that anyone with knowledge of why the couple should not be married could come forth with the reason. The publication (or announcement) of the banns does not necessarily mean that the marriage actually took place. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
In some locations in some time periods, it was not unusual for couples to reuse names of deceased children. While today the practice would be frowned upon, many of my low-German ancestors had several children with the exact same name, the first ones all dying at a young age. And it wasn’t just this ethnic group that engaged in this practice. So consider that those church records indicating three children born with the same name could be correct and look for a death entry for the first ones. Don’t just assume they were different children who had the same christening name and took different names later. All of which makes the point that it is important to learn about cultural practices for your ancestor’s ethnic group. ———————————— Check […]
It’s possible that your ancestor did not even really know how old she was. A deposition in a Civil War pension file I’m using for an upcoming issue of Casefile Clues begins with the individual stating that they aren’t really certain how old they are. Did your ancestor know when they were born? Are you assuming that they did? A partial copy of the deposition can be seen on the Casefile Clues blog. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
While there are aspects of genealogical research that are the same across time periods, certain things are different. Different time periods and locations require different approaches despite what some “experts” may think. Researching a European immigrant ancestor to an urban area in the late 1800s is different from researching an immigrant to upstate New York in the early 1700s. If you are approaching both problems the same way, that might be adding to the confusion. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Discuss your genealogical problem with someone else with an interest in genealogy. They might have a different idea, see a hole in your research, or know of someone else who might be able to help. And sometimes just discussing something makes new ideas and errors easier to see than they were before. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If you don’t know when someone died, have you gone through every document on them in order to determine the last date they were listed as alive? It might be when they witnessed a document, appeared in a biography, wrote their will, signed a bond, etc. Any one of a number of records might tell you “how late you can go?” ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
When someone gives you advice, make certain it is applicable to where you are actually researching and the time period in which you need. Recently a poster to a mailing list made generalizations about a certain type of record. What he said is true about New England, but it’s not true about points west of the Northwest Territory. Consequently if I were researching in Kansas and used his approach, I would be confused. The problem is that some people don’t know their knowledge only applies in certain places or are unwilling to admit that they don’t know everything. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Widows of the War of 1812 were allowed to apply for bounty land in the 1850s, but not a pension until much later. If your veteran survived until the 1870s, he might have applied for a pension. Two bounty land acts in the 1850s gave most veterans a total of 160 acres and their widows during that era, if they were married long enough. I’ve been working on a bounty land application for a Kentucky widow in the 1850s whose husband served. The actual property was patented in Iowa and Illinois by men who purchased the warrant from the widow after it had been issued. Casefile Clues subscribers will see the bounty application in issue 51. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
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