How many pictures do you need to pass to the next generation? Will your children, grandchildren, and so on really want two hundred vacation pictures of beaches and other scenery that contain no image of a human? Will they really need fifty snapshots taken of a birthday party for a one-year old opening every gift? Saving that one picture you have of your great-grandmother is one thing. Saving the three hundred negatives of pictures taken at a family barbeque may be something else. Saving the digital scans of those family barbeque pictures may be more manageable. When you have a handful of images for a person, the decision to save is not difficult. When you have one photo of a great-great-grandparent, there is no decision: save. But when […]
When using foreign language records, make certain you know the gender of names with which you are unfamiliar. Ask someone who knows. Don’t just guess.
The envelope from the drug store where my Mom had her photographs developed listed her with her maiden name. This was twenty-seven years after she was married and her last name was no longer Neill. The drug store clerk apparently realized the error and corrected the name, but did not change the initial under which the order was filed. I already know that Mom’s maiden name is Ufkes from other records and the lifelong interaction I had with members of her family of origin. This drug store photograph receipt really does not prove anything and I certainly have a large quantity of items providing her maiden name that are of much higher evidentiary quality. The item does not purport to give her maiden name. It was intended to […]
Ran across a picture of this clock while scanning my negatives. Reminded me of the importance of photographing your own family items and writing up their history. You cannot give one item to everyone, but you can share the stories and pictures of these items with everyone. Family tradition has it that this clock was owned by my second great-grandparents. My Mom was fairly certain she remembered my great-grandma Tjode (Goldenstein) Habben having this clock in their house for some time before Tjode passed away in 1954. What I know (because it took place in my lifetime) is that my great-grandma’s sister Altje had the clock and gave it to my grandmother before Altje died. Before my grandmother moved to Florida after my grandfather’s death, she gave the […]
I’ve been using my new slide and negative scanner to scan my parents’ photographic negatives. None of them have any identification on them. although some of them are still in the envelopes which contained the photographic prints and returned negatives. Most of those envelopes at least have a year on them which has been helpful in dating them. Fortunately most of the negatives are from pictures taken during my life time. The problem is that in some cases, an individual strip of negatives has ended up in an envelope of pictures taken at another point in time. Sometimes I notice this and other times I do not–depends on the pictures. I located a negative strip that had pictures of my mother’s grade school class. It was in an […]
If you’ve already gotten a copy of an old, out-of-print book, why would you want to look at a digital copy? Isn’t having your own copy the perfect way to go? It’s ideal, but it is worth noting that other copies of that same book you have may have had notations added by the person who originally owned the book–perhaps about your relatives. Your copy of the book may be missing pages that the copy used for digitization was not missing. You may have your parent’s 1940 high school year book, but perhaps they wrote something to the person who originally had the copy of that yearbook that ended up being digitized. If you discover that there’s a digitized copy of something you already have or have already […]
Write up every piece of information you know about your “lost” ancestor. Every piece. Include a source citation for every piece of information you know about your ancestor–if it came from an interview of a relative, so state. If it was on a piece of paper or a digital image of that paper, cite it. Make certain you have transcribed the information completely and accurately from that source. If you don’t have a source for a piece of information–indicate that. That doesn’t mean the information is wrong, just that you don’t have a source for it. Are there any relatives of the “lost person” who have not been fully researched? And if you think they are fully researched, have you really confirmed that? Are there any words or […]
Genealogists lament women being named as “Mrs. Husbandfirst Husbandlast” in records without their first name being used. Complaining about newspaper practices from 100 years ago will not change how those items appear in the original newspaper. Researchers simply need to work around the challenges. One problem with these references is that the genealogist needs to make certain to which Mrs. the reference is being made. Cecil Wetzel of Hancock County, Illinois, had two wives. The second was my aunt. The first was an individual to whom I am not related. I need to keep their marriage date in mind when searching for newspapers so I know to which woman “Mrs. Cecil Wetzel” is referring. Don’t assume that “Mrs. Hisname Hisothername” is always referencing the same woman. It may […]
Going through the expenses listed in your relative’s probate may give insight into their life and may also suggest additional places to look for information. This list of 1924 expenses for the late Heipke Dirks of Coatsburg, Illinois, mentions a newspaper subscription, a “church subscription,” a publishing company, the “Good Shepherd Home,” and the pastor who gave her funeral. Searching for more information on these people and organizations may prove fruitful. GoogleBooks (books.google.com) and other sites of digitized print materials may provide some additional information on some of the items or people mentioned, particularly if county or local histories are included. Local newspapers would also be a good place to look for more information as well. Heipke’s subscription to the Ostfriesische Nachrichten also suggests that her obituary may […]
I needed to add a little bit more to my provenance and identification of this thank you note I found in my parents’ collection of congratulatory cards received at their wedding–particularly information on the lady who wrote the card. At the very least, her complete name and year of death and birth should have been included–Effie (Tripp) Trautvetter Wetzel [1885-1968]. That should be sufficient. The formatting of the text is not something one should be overly concerned about. Focus should be on content. This thank you note and the wedding card included along with it only have my parents’ names written on it. If it was mailed in another envelope that has not been retained. Spend some time putting documentation on items you scan or photograph. You will […]
I’ve been working on the husband of my aunt as he moved across three states and went through four marriages in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I have been fortunate to find many records. What I have not done is to track my reasoning of why I think I have the same person in different locations. That needs to be done as I research. I am saving the documents I find in a separate folder on my digital media. I need to create a text file tracking what I have found, what my process was, and how I know I have the same person. This needs to be done as I research. It will save time later and decrease the chance I merge different people together […]
My aunt and her husband married in Hancock County, Illinois, in the early 1880s and by the mid-1880s they settled in the same Nebraska county where her brother and his family settled at about the same time. My aunt and her husband remained in that Nebraska county until their death. Virtually all of their children lived and died in that same Nebraska county. Except for their first daughter who was born in Nebraska. For some reason she returned to Hancock County, Illinois, where she married in 1910 and where she spent virtually the remainder of her life. I’m not certain precisely what caused her to move back, it’s possible she went to visit relatives who remained in the area and met her future husband there and stayed. Even […]
The wedding card to my parents is signed “your cousin.” The writer was my dad’s cousin, but not his first, second, or third cousin. She was his first cousin twice removed–meaning that she was his grandfather’s first cousin. Well actually she was his grandfather’s half-first cousin making her my Dad’s half-first cousin twice removed. Someone who says they are a cousin may be biologically related, but do not assume that they are first cousins. It is also possible that someone calls someone cousin when they is no biological relationship.
Reading the entire newspaper article in which your relative’s name appears should be done because at the very least it provides context. Sometimes it provides much more. Sophia Dirks was easy to find in this March 1896 entry in the Camp Point [Illinois] Journal because her name was spelled correctly and the legible print made it easy to read. The article documented her employment at the Adams County Poor Farm as a “matron assistant.” There was another name in the article as well: John Diesback. In April of 1896, Sophia Dirks and John Diesbach–actually John Driesbach–were married in Coatsburg, Adams, Illinois, where Sophia was from. I had wondered how Sophia and John met. This newspaper article referencing their employment at the local poor farm explained how they met. […]
I’ve been going through and scanning my grandparents’ slides and identifying the individuals in them. This needs to be done carefully and not hastily. I saw a picture of my Mom talking to a cousin of my grandmother and made the identification after his name popped into my head. It turned out that the name was wrong. I was right about the family the guy was from but it was not the person I originally thought it was–it was his brother. Comparing it to another picture I have of this man–around the same time fortunately–confirmed who it was. Slightly longer reflection caused me to remember that my grandparents saw the “correct name” cousin more than the cousin whose name initially came to mind. Take a minute before you […]
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