A close relative dies. There is an obituary on the funeral home website that contains information on the date and place of death. Several relatives communicate with you to let you know the family member has passed away as well. You learn of the funeral date and time. You know who this person’s parents are and where they were born. There’s little doubt of when and where they died. Do you need their death certificate? Probably not. There are other good sources to document the date and place of death. The only reason you would likely need the death certificate of a recently deceased person is if you were involved with the settlement of their estate. Of relatives who have passed away during the last fifteen years, there […]
Copies of my “Getting Ready for the 1950 Census” webinar are still available for sale. Our post has more details.
I’ve been searching local newspapers in Hancock County, Illinois, where I grew up and where most of my family has lived for generations–using telephone numbers to find classified ads placed by my parents and grandparents. I found the typical fare: eggs for sale, straw for sale (on the rack and bale your own), bulls for sale, etc. But I found several references to my parents phone number that I knew were errors including one for a Kiwanis breakfast and for inquiries on a home for sale. The references to my parents’ phone numbers in these cases were simply errors where likely two digits were switched (a transposition error) or a digit was keyed incorrectly. Before I get suggestions that these were actually references to my parents and that […]
Keep in mind that you can never be one hundred percent certain that any one record is one hundred percent correct. This is particularly true if you were not an eyewitness to every statement made in the record. There is always the chance of an error. Never “fix” what appears to be an obvious error either. Transcribe exactly as written and put your commentary elsewhere.
When a record is located, try and compare it to other records of the same type or in the same series. How is the record for your relative different from other records? How is it similar? Some differences, such as name, date, etc. identify the record as being for your ancestor as opposed to someone else. But make certain the “boilerplate” of the document is the same as others in the series. Differences, such as a phrase or word that does not appear in other documents may indicate a clue. Analyzing a record in comparison to others is especially helpful when looking at church records which often are kept in loose paragraph format before standard forms were used.
If the amount of “consideration,” or what was given for the real estate (often cash) is a token amount, determine if there was a relationship among the people involved. Transfers of significant pieces of real estate for token amounts are often done to clear up title among relatives. Not always, but frequently. Check out the relationships among those who transfer land for little to no cash.
Do you really know how your ancestors said their last name? I always thought I knew how my grandmother’s maiden name was said, until I saw it in an 1870 census with a “new” spelling. I asked on an German research list how the last name was likely said by a low-German speaker and was given a pronunciation slightly different from what I had always used. Then the alternate spelling made perfect sense. Do you know your ancestor’s name was said? It can make all the difference.
If your ancestor had a first, middle, and last name, keep in mind that it is possible that those names could be in the wrong order in a record. If the names are in the wrong order on the record, then the ancestor will appear in the index under the wrong “last name.” If the index does not include the last name of interest, consider searching for that relative with their first or middle name as their last name. And always keep the possibility in mind that you really don’t “know” your ancestor’s name as well as you think you do.
When using a record set with which you are not familiar, think about how someone gets into the record, how the information in the record is obtained, how the record is organized, and how the original record got from its original state to you. All if these issues get to how we use and analyze the information contained in the record.
Is it possible that two individuals who were first cousins were actually cousins on another side of the family as well? It happens. Keep in mind that individuals may be related in more than one way. Or that individuals who are related by blood may have additional relationships too, either by marriage, employment, etc. Sometimes the connections are not entirely crystal clear and may be multi-layered.
Abbreviations should be used in your records and transcriptions very very rarely. Will anyone else know what they mean? Will you remember them in five or ten years?
You’ve got a DNA match that will not communicate with you and has a tree that names only their parents. You’ve been able to, using obituaries and other online sources get the tree back a few generations where you start using census and other online images of records. But in the more recent generations, you don’t have a large number of birth records, marriage records, etc. You’ve got a handful of obituaries and newspaper items to “prove” the lineage in the 20th century part of the tree you have compiled for this match. What’s the chance those items don’t distinguish between step-children and children? Is it possible, if you’ve only got a few references on each relationship that what you think are the biological relatives are actually step-relatives? […]
This is a previous tip we’re using again as a reminder. The “provenance” of a family heirloom, picture, etc. is “how you know it is what it is and how you came to have it.” Think about the provenance of every item you have. A relative pointed out to me that I have quite a few pictures from my Ufkes family. They came from my maternal grandparents. Then it dawned on me. The family home burned in 1924 and most of the pictures are from before that year. Did the family get the pictures out? Did other relatives share pictures with them or give them pictures? I’ll never know, but just thinking about who else might have had the pictures in 1924 got me to thinking about various family […]
Sometimes we overlook an easy solution because we get stuck in one way to solve a problem. For me it was staring at a word that I could not read. Years ago I was trying to read the village of residence for one of the sponsors on a baptism in a Catholic church in the 1780s. The name of the Belgian village could only be partially read. Then it dawned on me. The village where the sponsor lived had to be near the village where the child was baptized. The child was only a few days old and the reality was that the sponsor lived close to the village where the ceremony took place. Sure enough, armed with names of nearby villages I was able to interpret the […]
If you have an original copy of a document or photograph, do not do anything do that paper or photograph that cannot be undone. Particularly do not do anything that could potentially cause damage. If you are going to “clean” an item, make certain that the way in which you are cleaning it does no harm. Find this out from an expert who actually knows what they are talking about and is someone with a reputation you can verify. This does not include random people online who you had never heard of before you read their post. Putting an item in a frame or an envelope (usually) is one thing. Taping it in a book is another. Taking a digital picture of an item is usually harmless–especially if […]
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