I really think my daughter bears a strong resemblance to my paternal grandmother, Ida (Trautvetter) Neill (1910-1994). Others may not agree and I’m not the only person who has a picture of an ancestor that they thinks look like another relative or one of their children. You may not see the similarities that a relative sees between two pictures. Sometimes if we have a strong emotional connection to the people in the two pictures, seeing a resemblance between them may partially be due to our connection to the individuals and our desire to connect them. That’s ok and, because of the similarities that I see between these two pictures, I completely understand it. That does not mean that we rely on “that old picture of that woman kinda […]
Never just google a word or abbreviation you don’t know and assume the first definition applies to the document or record that you are trying to understand. Words, abbreviations, and phrases are used in context. What was the time period? What type of record are you looking at? Why was the record created? There’s always the possibility that a records clerk created their own abbreviations as well and sometimes google searches just do not work on those words at all. There are many words and abbreviations that one can encounter–we’re not going to even try and list them all in this post. We’ll mention my favorite as a reminder: infant When used in common conversation, it means someone small enough to wear diapers. When used in a legal […]
A newspaper account indicated that a relative may have been involved in a 1880-era labor squabble at the Lyon Mountain mine in upstate New York. I’ve got some work to do in order to determine if the person named in the incident is actually the relative of interest. The name is not super common, but he lived about thirty miles from the mine at the time. I can’t assume it’s the same guy. Part of my learning process is to find out more about the mine, the miners, and the labor issues that arose. I found two books on the mine from the North Country Store in Utica, New York. Even if they don’t answer my specific questions, the background will no doubt be helpful. It never hurts […]
Some will bemoan the fact that people don’t cite their sources, research too quickly, and give nary a thought as to accurate and sound methodology. I understand that, but I also understand that many people just don’t want to read lengthy diatribes of that nature. I am a firm believer in all that I and I don’t want to read those diatribes either. Examples make it easier to see why one has to be careful when researching. Hancock County, Illinois brothers Riley Rampley (1835-1893) and James Rampley (1844-1913) married first cousins who were both named Nancy Newman. Scott County, Iowa, first cousins George A. Freund (1858-1928) and George K. Freund (1854-1941) married women named Katharine Cawiezell and Catherine Schilling, respectively. Can you imagine how easy it is to […]
It can be difficult to truly “start over” in a genealogical search. It’s often impractical to re-obtain copies of records one has already taken time and money to acquire. What can be a better approach to is to make certain that one has adequate citations for all the records and sources one has used on an ancestor or ancestral family. Then one can “start over” the way many math students are told to start over on math problems. They are not told to relearn and re-discover every mathematical fact they’ve encountered. Putting away the old analysis, the old “work,” and the old attempts and starting that over is a good approach–students who can’t find their mistake by reviewing their work often are stuck because they can’t see the […]
An earlier tip was about determining how your relative fit into a larger path of migration and how the group they were a part of could have moved repeatedly over time. It’s important to determine that group as there may be other clues discovered during that process. James Beidler, author of Family Tree Historical Atlas of Germany,made a light-hearted comment that his family all migrated from Germany in the 1700s and stayed put in one Pennsylvania County–so he didn’t need to worry about such things. He was kidding, but his comment reminded me that we often need to get outside our research comfort zone and learn skills and become aware of behaviors that we think might not help our research. Working on a totally different family or helping […]
It can be tempting to rely on one website for all our genealogical information. That is a mistake. While it’s not financially expedient to subscribe to all the various fee-based sites, there are a variety of free sites that can be used for genealogical information. Don’t focus on just one site. There are others. And don’t believe any fee-based site that tells you the information it has isn’t available elsewhere. It usually is. You may need to ask around and get advice from others in order to find where the information is located, but your research will benefit from you having made the effort.
Chances are that I’m not going to patent what I jokingly referred to as a “grass height detector” on my Facebook page. But there is a chance that your relative developed an actual invention and received a patent for it. If the product didn’t make your relative’s life, there may have been no mention of it to later family members. US patent applications can be searched on Google Patents. Older applications may give your ancestor’s state and county of residence and indicate whether or not the applicant was a United States citizen. There may be grass height detectors listed, but none of them are mine.
A relative deserted his Union infantry unit in the US Civil War. He petitioned his desertion charge approximately fifteen years later and his petition was denied. In reviewing adjutant general records, I discovered that there were three other men who were listed as deserting on the same day as my relative. So I requested the compiled military service records of these fellow deserters of my relative in addition to any information that may have been in their record regarding an appeal of the desertion charge–just in case there was a mention of the group as a whole. Another relative was involved in a crime on the Mississippi River in the 1780s. Several of his compatriots were named as well. Further research on them indicated one was his brother-in-law […]
Genealogists need to have a working knowledge of major historical events in the geographic and political areas in which their relatives lived and should not be afraid to look up dates if they can’t remember them. It’s fine if your memory of dates falters–just use a reference to keep yourself straight. Regional or local events are just as important to your research and may have actually had more immediate impact on your ancestor. There was a mine in upstate New York State that had labor unrest in the 1880s and 1890s. That matters if my relative worked in the mine. Another county where relatives lived built a new courthouse around the turn of the 20th century. An uncle was strongly opposed based upon newspaper accounts. It took some […]
Even if your relative did not change denominations, consider the possibility that they attended several different churches. A relative’s second wife attended three different Lutheran churches in the city of Chicago over a fifteen year period. The records of each church were helpful in locating more information on her as the membership rosters provided different details each time. The churches may have been different branches of Lutheranism at the time but that is no longer the case. It could be the family moved for a short time and one church was closer. It could be that a relative attended one of the other churches for a time. It could also be that she had a falling out with the members of the Ladies’ Aid or the pastor as […]
Remember when reading any foreign language material that is handwritten, that not only are the words in a different language–the script may not be what you are used to either. What appears to be an English “L” could be a different letter entirely. Those who are challenged with German handwriting may find Tips and Tricks of Deciphering German Handwriting: A Translator’s Tricks of the Trade for Transcribing German Genealogy Documents by Katherine Schober helpful.
Genealogy is like house dusting. When you think you’ve got it done, it seems like there is more or something that you missed. Or a new spot of dust appears and it’s just begging to be wiped away (or researched to stretch the metaphor). If completing the 5-generation genealogy book of your ancestor’s descendants is too much, start smaller. Work on just the grandchildren of the couple and try and document those individuals. If that project seems too large, work on writing up the ancestral couple as much as you can. Write up what you have. Cite your documents or sources as you go. Try and research the couple as much as you can, but writing (even if just for yourself) can cause you to notice gaps or […]
There are a couple of quick lessons from this 1941 high school year book picture of my aunt sitting at her classroom desk at Gridley High School in Gridley, Illinois. Yearbooks are not just for students. Teachers, administrators, and other staff members may have their pictures or other information included in them. OCR reading of text may not interpret names correctly. In this case, the automatic reading of the text thought her last name was “Habben-Homemaking.” It was just Habben. We could add “keep your desk clean” as another tip, but for many of us that’s a lost cause. There’s still time to join me in my upcoming webinar on using GedMatch.com and DNAPainter. Join us!
I’m not overly knowledgeable about cars and passed the mechanic’s detailed discussion of my vehicle issues to a friend with more smarts about vehicles than me. Did my friend get a complete and accurate description of the problem from me? Probably not. I wasn’t the best conduit for the information. The same applies to family stories that have been passed down. There could have been details that did not make complete sense to the hearer/reteller of the story and their retelling of that story may have been impacted by that lack of knowledge. Incorrect details can be unintentional on the part of the teller and may not change the essence of the story. But they can cause our research to go astray if we are unwilling to admit […]
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