Variations in how your ancestor’s name was spelled can be endlessly frustrating. However, it’s worth remembering that a variation of how your ancestor’s name appears in an index can arise from a variety of situations: Your ancestor did not know how to spell his name Your ancestor could not read Your ancestor did not speak clearly Your ancestor had an accent with which the writer of his name was unfamiliar The clerk didn’t care The clerk had bad writing The transcriber could not read the name The transcriber did not care The transcriber made a typographical error The document has faded over time and is difficult to read Or something else Keep in mind that one of more of these could explain why James Rampley ends up indexed […]
Names will not be spelled the same. Sometimes a name can be spelled multiple ways in one document. What the researcher should look for is whether the spelling of the names are consistent with how the name probably sounds when spoken. That concept of relative consistency applies to more than just spelling. Age, place of birth, occupation, and other characteristics of your ancestor should also be relatively consistent from one document to another. Nothing will be 100% consistent. Do not expect it. Humans make mistakes. But records should provide information that is in general agreement with other information known about the person. Unless they are outright lying. But that’s another problem.
If possible, obtain as many official records as possible that reference that place of birth, maiden name of mother, parental relationship, etc. One reference can be incorrect–either because the informant was unaware of the actual information, was intending to deceive for one reason or another, or something in between. It can be tempting to go with the piece of information given in one record, but that one record and one piece of information can easily be incorrect. Obtaining as many records as possible allows you to evaluate information given by individuals over their entire lifetime and by other members of the same family. For one reason or another those details may not be entirely consistent and obtaining all those records and clues gives you the best chance of […]
Before using that digital camera (or phone) to take images of tombstones, books, relative’s photographs, or records on a trip, make certain that you know how to: Organize the photographs. Take the photographs in a way that helps track where you “got the information” (entry to cemetery, book cover, title page, etc.) Back up the images so they are not lost. Also include your notes or comments (pictures of anything you write down is on easy idea). If you have any concerns, practice these activities at home. That is the place to get the bugs worked out, get help if necessary, and make certain what you are doing actually works.
When an index or manual searching takes you to an ancestral entry in a census, tax or other list entry take times to look at the neighboring names. Are the names in rough alphabetical order? If so neighborhood clues can’t be inferred from the proximity of names. That is unless all the “B” surnames lived in the same part of the county.
If certain details of your ancestor’s wife change, but the first name remains unchanged, have you considered that he had two wives with the same first name? Maybe Thomas married Mary One and after her death married Mary Two.
Digital images should be organized as they are taken. While it may be tempting to put off sorting those images of tombstones, census records, family photographs, doing so will result in a large sorting task later. That task may be so insurmountable that it never gets gone. Or all those images may still be sorted when your phone or camera is not the only thing that is dead.
Over 100,000 items from the Allen County Public Library’s genealogy collection have been digitized and placed on Archive.org. That collection can be searched on Archive.org at https://archive.org/details/allen_county
Normally an ancestor has to be dead to have an estate settlement, has to be born to have a birth certificate, etc. Think about what really HAS to be true about your ancestor or relative when you researching them. He didn’t have to get married to reproduce. He didn’t have to name his oldest son after his father. She didn’t have to get married near where her first child was born. He didn’t have to have a relative witness every document he signed. There are few “have tos” in genealogy. Make certain you aren’t using “have tos” to make brick walls for yourself. When this tip appeared originally, I used the phrase “when your ancestor wrote his will.” Of course not every ancestor was male and females had […]
In some states during some time periods, a person could marry immediately after a divorce. State statute may have dictated a specific amount of time as a waiting period before a divorced person could marry again. There also may be residency requirements before a divorce is filed, so a your ancestor could not have moved to a new state and immediately filed for a divorce.
An estate settlement for Michael Trautvetter indicated that his deceased sister Mrs. Ernestine Hess had three children, Wilhelmina Smith (her husband’s last name), Valentine Hess and William Hess. Just because Wilhelmina, Valentine Hess, and William Hess were children of Ernestine does mean they shared the same father. Valentine and William probably did, but it is very possible that Wilhelmina had a different father. Saying they are Ernestine’s children does not mean they all share the same father. Don’t read into documents what is not there.
Many name changes before the early 20th Century were not done by any sort of court order. The person could simply have chosen to use a different name. Sometimes these name changes presented later problems, particularly for individuals who later wanted to obtain a military pension. Probate and estate settlement records may also indicate a person’s former names, as may divorce records if the individual later divorced. Naturalization records may also document name changes as may passport applications.
If you cannot find your 1850 ancestor in the 1840 census–and you are certain he’s heading his own household–consider searching for his 1850 neighbors in 1840. Then look at their neighbors in 1840. There is a chance your ancestor is near at least one of his 1850 neighbors in 1840. A chance–not a guarantee.
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Grave markers, tombstones, and other memorials erected in cemeteries can be a great source of genealogical information. The problem is that not everyone buried in a cemetery necessarily has a physical marker for their grave. Some stones fall down and, like the remains of the person they memorialized, end up buried where they cannot be seen. Other stones disintegrate, break, or eventually weather away–perhaps even being destroyed by someone when they are viewed as being beyond repair. Other individuals never had a marker. There might not have been the money to pay for anything besides a burial and the grave remained unmarked. If the deceased individual left behind no local family members, a stone may never have been erected or maintained adequately. The genealogist is more likely to […]
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