We’re excited to offer this completely new presentation on the full-text searching at FamilySearch. We’ve redesigned our presentation as this functionality continues to change. And…we’re adding an extensive handout complete with forms to help you find more people. Fully Utilizing Full-Text Search: A New Approach Your purchase includes: We’ll be including and discussing: Determining what is in Full-Text Search—what you can access at home and what you will have to be in a FamilySearch facility or affiliate to access. Seeing How AI Transcriptions are different—they aren’t like the transcriptions made by humans. That can change your approach. Remembering that Full-Text means every word—approaches need to differ as we aren’t looking up a name in an index any more. Asking Who is in the record? We aren’t just searching […]
A messuage is generally referring to a residential property, including the main house, nearby structures and outbuildings, and the surrounding land associated with the household.
Genealogy Tip of the Day is meant to be short and sweet–just enough to remind you of something or make you aware of it and send you on your way. Casefile Clues is not short and sweet. It’s more in-depth and focuses on analysis and understanding of records and the research process. It’s not written in an academic, stuffy tone. We don’t overwhelm you with jargon or citations. Our intent is to help you analyze and get the most out of the records you find so that you can do as much of your own research as possible. A subscription to Casefile Clues includes 24 issues delivered as a PDF file directly to your email. It’s just slightly over $1 per issue. Casefile Clues has no advertising and […]
A little bit of opinion… Genealogy has not only informed me about my family. Genealogy has also made me aware that quite a few things we thought were true about our personal past are not necessarily true. Our ancestors were not mythological creatures who were perfect. They were humans who were subject to human failings that we all are subject to. So when we “fail” (whatever that means), it’s not the end of the world. They went on. So should we. Take hope from those who learned from their mistakes and made a serious effort to do better and try to avoid repeating those mistakes like a few of our forebears did. We have an obligation to learn from their stories…their real stories. Not just to repeat the […]
When taking photographs of tombstones at several cemeteries, have a photograph to mark where the photos from each cemetery end and the photographs from the next one begin. That’s what I should have done in the set of photos shown in this image. I ran them all together and should have taken a “break” picture to indicate where the next cemetery’s photos started. The best thing to do is take a picture of the entrance, church, or something near the cemetery or its entrance. If nothing else, write the name of the cemetery on a piece of paper and take a picture of that. But do something. Otherwise you might not remember what stones were taken where. Our 50% off webinar sale is extended through 11:59 pm Pacific […]
If you are manipulating digital images of photographs to improve or enhance them, remember to keep the original as it was scanned initially. Save modified digital images with separate file names. That way, if you ever need to back and start over, you still have the original scan. This is always a good idea, but even moreso with photos where you do not have the original negative or print from which a digital scan was made.
From a while back… Even if you think divorce “never happened in ‘our’ family,” check for one anyway. It’s possible the couple divorced and no one in the family mentioned it. It is possible a divorce case was initiated and not completed. It’s possible that there was a court case for “separate maintenance” (where there’s no “divorce,” but the couple lives apart). In all three cases, the testimony and details in the court packets may be similar (particularly in terms of possibly providing a date and place of marriage). Children may or not be mentioned in these cases, particularly if they are of legal age. And it’s possible that there was no court action of any type, but the couple maintained separate households. My great aunt and uncle […]
When research in the United States gets back beyond a certain point, records are fewer and less likely to make direct statements. This is why it is crucial to research the person/family of interest as thoroughly and completely as possible. I prefer to think of an “obsessively, relentless find anything on anyone remotely connected to my person” approach instead of an exhuastive search. It is important to remember that any conclusion reached when the records are not clear may need to be revised if new information comes to light. That’s why it’s important to find as much as you can before reaching any conclusion and especially important to wait until publicizing any conclusions. Even then, something new may be located and your conclusion will need to be rewritten. […]
A tree compiler indicated that a relative of mine was born in a specific small town in Illinois in the 1860s. I won’t repeat the name of the town or the relative in this public forum. But I was intrigued because the location was a significant distance from the general area where several of us conjecture he was born. I was more intrigued because there are no local birth records in Illinois in the 1860s. Their source, which could very well be reliable, was something I was interested in. Their tree had three sources for the specific village–the 1870, 1880 and 1900 census record. I had seen the census enumeration for this person, but doublechecked it just in case. All it said was Illinois as the place of […]
A stint in prison can explain why your ancestor is not enumerated with his family in the census. Court records or newspapers may contain additional details about why your ancestor landed in prison. State prisons (or the state archives) may have additional records. And, it is also possible your relative ended up divorced over his incarceration–resulting in more records.
A researcher had an ancestor who died young, leaving behind a wife and a child. The wife married again and had another child with her second husband. The researcher wanted to learn more about the ancestor who died young. Totally understandable. They had refused to search the wife’s second husband and knew little about her life after her first husband died. While there’s no guarantee that records on the wife after her second marriage will provide clues about her first husband, it is a possibility. While there’s no guarantee that a record on the second husband will provide a direct or indirect clue about the first husband, it’s a possibilty. Witnesses on those records, details on property owned, or other references created well after the husband of interest […]
While the ability of full-text search at FamilySearch allows researchers to easily find things they may never have found before, it is not perfect. Full-text search: Manual searches are still necessary. Use of original and other indexes are still necessary. Use of full-text search is not, in this researcher’s opinion, an exhaustive genealogy search. It’s a start but other methods must still be used. Join Michael at the Midwest Genealogy Center this October!
In August of 1823, Enoch Tinsley purchased several items at the estate sale of Spencer Reeves in Fleming County, Kentucky. While it’s interesting to see what Enoch purchased and it offers some insight into his day-to-day life, there are a few other genealogy clues it gives us: Just how significant of a genealogical clue those items are depends upon what I know about Enoch. But as a caveat, if there were more than one Enoch, it may be difficult to tell just from this reference to which Enoch this purchaser list is referring. Join me for an AI or US Probate Records Class.
Knowing who provided information on a record helps us to determine the perceived reliability fo that information. But determining who the informant really was can sometimes be difficult. Aside from the 1940 US census, no informant is listed on any US census record. Did the head of household provide the information? Did their spouse? Did an older child provide it? Was it all provided by the same person? It can be impossible to tell. Even if an informant is listed on a death certiticate, they may not have provided each detail themselves and some death certificates have multiple informants (the doctor, the mortician, and a relative/friend/neighbor/etc.). Early death certificates may only list the doctor as the informant and one has to surmise who really provided the non-death information […]
Join me next week for 4-week classes on AI and US probate records. Details on our announcement page.
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