My online bank statement changed their interface recently with “new information.” It indicated that “spendable balance” in my checking account was negative. What? I wasn’t in arrears and I was not overdrawn. The “spendable balance” was a projected balance including disbursements scheduled for the next seven days–including two payments set to come out a week from when I viewed the statement. The “spendable balance” did not take into account a regular deposit that would arrive in the next few days. Once I understood the “spendable balance,” I understood it and there was no cause for concern. When you see a statement or a piece of information, think about it before you react to it. Where does that statement come from? Are there words in the statement you do […]
There is a reason why some of us do not work in sales. We hate calling or contacting someone out of the blue and asking them something. Genealogists have to do that. It can be the only way you find things out. It can be the only way you get those family pictures or other family items. If you are the only one who knows about your interest in family history, it makes it more difficult to find family history items than it already is. Let others know of your interest in family history. It’s not necessary to tell them repeatedly, but some reminders help. Reach out to relatives that you do not see regularly–or maybe have never seen at all. Reach out to relatives by marriage who, […]
People tend to marry and reproduce with others who share their culture and life experiences. While there are exceptions to this practice, it is not hard to see why people gravitate towards others with whom they have things in common. It’s human nature. Some cultures encourage this in a subtle fashion. Some cultures and groups are more stringent in their requirement that members of the group marry others within the group. That practice is referred to as endogamy. An endogamous group is one where individuals marry within the group. My maternal ancestors who came to the United States in the late 19th century from Ostfriesland were somewhat endogamous. All of my maternal ancestors (until my mother married in 1967) married others in the same ethnic community. This was […]
Your relative might have had interests or hobbies that were unrelated to his “real” occupation–the one that is always listed in census records, death certificates, etc. But those non-occupational interests or hobbies might have caused your relative to appear in certain records–most often newspapers. A relative who was a semi-professional musician may have been mentioned in the newspaper in a write-up related to a concert, an athlete may have been mentioned in the local sports pages due to a notable performance in a game, a local actor may have been mentioned as appearing in a local play, etc. Document these activities that your relative was involved in. It will help you when searching for newspapers and other items where activities of this type may be mentioned.
Terms and phrases can change their meaning over time. Any word needs to be interpreted in the context of the document in which it was written and the cultural, historical, and sociological context. “Waiting on the groom” is a phrase used to refer to a man’s presence at an 1817 wedding in Maryland. The phrase likely indicated that the man was serving as what today would be referred to as the “best man” at the wedding–or at least the 1817 equivalent. The “waiter on the groom” later was testifying to the date of the marriage and his capacity at the wedding was apparently mentioned to give credence to his knowledge of the date. Probably.
When was the last time you looked up in a reliable source the definition of a genealogy word whose meaning you think you know reasonably well? Did you learn something? Were you really correct? If you thought the definition was wrong, did you do more work to determine if the definition really was incorrect? Did it turn out that you were wrong? Occasionally I look up the definition for words that I think I know. I always look up ones that I don’t–especially if they are words used in any record I’m analyzing for my genealogy. I may not necessarily be able to recall every definition precisely later, but I will have learned something. And the more I know about terminology, the less likely I am to interpret […]
Don’t press a family member who cannot remember a specific detail you would just love to know. Getting in someone’s face when their memory is rusty does nothing to cause them to remember the information more accurately. It only serves to frustrate the other person, to increase the chance they remember fewer pieces of information, and to tell you to leave and not come back. Your goal when asking questions is to elicit as many memories from the person as you can, record those memories, and engage the individual in a way to encourage them to remember more. Many times, talking about something else will cause the person to remember more about that event they “couldn’t quite recall” a few minutes before. It’s not really important if they […]
If your relative died of any sort of contagious disease, check local newspapers for any mention of an outbreak. The death certificate should list the cause of death, but it won’t indicate whether it was an isolated incident or if there were others. The outbreak may be mentioned in the local newspaper–even if your ancestor is not named specifically. Newspapers can be a great way to learn about your relative even if her name is not specifically mentioned. The Warsaw, Illinois, newspaper referenced a case of Smallpox in Stillwell, Illinois, in 1902.
If Amazon’s too slow, we still have copies of the Genealogy Tip of the Daybook that can be sent directly to you via USPS. It can be a great way to refresh yourself on things you forgot, learn new things, or view research from a different perspective. It can be read in one setting, browsed at random, or used to generate ideas for your own research. It’s easy to read, informative, and geared towards helping you with your research and not seeing how much labored prose and ten-syllable words can be used in one sentence. If you’re “stuck at home” (or even if you are not), get your copy today! There’s more information on the book on our website.
There’s a small town in the county where I grew up that had a newspaper from the 1850s through the latter part of the 20th century. It’s a good fifteen miles from the town where my grandmother grew up and even further from where my grandmother raised her family after her marriage. My grandmother never lived in the town herself although her mother did for approximately fifteen years. Grandma’s sister lived there for approximately twenty years as well. There are numerous references to my grandmother and her family in the gossip columns of that newspaper. Some of those are in connection to her mother, some to her sister, and some because Grandma attended family events “within shoutin’ distance” of the town where the newspaper was published. Get our […]
I make “zoomed in” images of records all the time, particularly if I am taking pictures of a record that I can only access in paper format. Images of this type can facilitate analysis and interpretation. They can also facilitate confusion if they are not identified and organized. The illustration for this post was from an 1845 state census record for the state of Michigan. Somehow it became separated from the other pictures I took of the same record. Make certain as you make images that they are organized and identifiable. The time to do that is when you create the images, not afterwards. And always get an overall picture of the image–even if you can’t read it all that well. Perspective matters.
Around 1902, widow Nancy Rampley hired a young neighbor man to help with the farm work during the busy time of the year. According to her widow’s pension application, she also provided him with board in addition to a monthly. In 1903 the hired man was her son-in-law. Several of my immigrant families in the 1880 census have a “hired man” who, upon further research, was discovered to be a relative of the wife or husband in the family. The relationship was not stated in the census. Some immigrants, if their financial situation warranted, would have hired help, someone unrelated who was from their same area of origin who they wanted to help after they “crossed the pond.” Sometimes the hired help was simply an unrelated neighbor who […]
In the 1910 census a relative and his wife are a recently married couple with an infant child. By 1920 that same relative is living in another state with another wife. The short version of the story is that the couple divorced and each had married other individuals by 1920. The 1910 child (a boy) was raised by the mother and her second husband as their child used that second husband’s name throughout his life. DNA matches confirmed the relationship as descendants of that 1910 child have done DNA tests and they match me at a level consistent with the relationship. Is it possible that your relative had a short term relationship that resulted in a child or two and after the relationship ended it was never talked […]
It’s hard to think of something new every day, so for today we’ll mention a few things that are worth always keeping handy in your genealogy toolkit: Do not jump to conclusions. Look at all the information–not just what excites you or agrees with your “hoped for” conclusion. Research to find what you can–not to prove what you think you already know. Most tall tales have a grain of truth to them. Do not research based on memory–double check the facts that “came from your head.” Everyone makes mistakes. Don’t be afraid to revise an incorrect conclusion. Kickstart your genealogy research!Get your own copy of our book: Genealogy Tip of the Day
As soon as I saw the reference in the naturalization record from the early 20th century I knew it was not spelled correctly. The name of the town in northern Germany was probably not Fresse. I didn’t start to research the European ancestors of this relative born in “Fresse,” until I had done significantly more work on him in the area of the United States where he settled. This was done to potentially learn more about him here and to get other spellings for that place of birth–the mysterious “Fresse.” It was actually Wrisse. It would take some research to finally prove it. An unproven hunch is still an unproven hunch. Unproven hunches can lead to research ideas and to records that may eventually lead to hunches that […]
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