Remember that in any court case, the court is only interested in details that are necessary to render a fair and just verdict in the case being heard. There might be details that a genealogist would like to know, but the court is not concerned with leaving behind detailed genealogical information. That said, court cases where genealogical information is typically included are important, those involving inheritances and property rights of heirs, are of paramount use to the family history researcher
If it had gotten mixed up with my other “old papers,” I might never have known who “Mother” was. Fortunately this card was in a stack of other 40th anniversary cards my grandparents received in 1981. Because of that context I knew exactly who mother was. Grandma’s mother was deceased by 1981 and Granddad’s mother lived until 1986. It had to be my great-grandmother Tena Ufkes who signed the card. It helped that the writing was somewhat familiar to me as I’d seen other snippets of her writing. But if the card had not been with the others from my grandparents, identifying it would have been difficult. That’s the way genealogical records need to be analyzed: in context. My image of this card includes my provenance (how I […]
Be careful assuming a document is consistent and that every difference means something. Sometimes differences don’t mean as much as they usually do. In many newspapers, particularly in the 1950s and before, married women were listed as “Mrs. HusbandFirstname Husbandlastname.” Women listed as “Mrs. Femalefirstname Lastname” were often widowed or divorced. But there can always be inconsistencies as in this obituary from the 1930s. These three daughters of the deceased were married, their husbands were alive, and they were living with them at the time the obituary was written. Yet one is listed as “Mrs.” and the others are not. One might be tempted to think Mrs. Luella Barnett was divorced or widowed. She was not.
A marriage record may indicate the bride was “Miss” or “Mrs.” There is also the possibility that the title is missing. A missing title only indicates the title is missing and the bride may or may not have had a previous husband. And always make sure you read the “Miss” or “Mrs.” correctly. For some writers the two words look alike–and genealogists know there’s a big difference.
Did you relative get the wrong name in their head? I wrote a complete blog post about a man named Joseph Watson, only to refer to him as James Watson almost every time I used his name. Is it possible that your ancestor simply referred to the wrong person when giving information? And proofread what you write–more than once. It’s possible that you made a mistake as well–and those accidental, “got it in my head wrong” mistakes sometimes come back to haunt you.
It can be easy to lose a female ancestor after her husband dies. Sometimes she’s right there where she always was and sometimes she’s not. Failing to research the widow after her husband’s death can cause the researcher to overlook additional information and possible clues about her origins and parents. Sometimes additional children are overlooked. If you’ve lost your widowed ancestress, consider: searching marriage records to see if she remarried; looking for deeds drawn up after the husband’s death or (more likely) settlement deeds drawn up after the widow died; whether she moved in with one of her children who had left the area; looking to see if she’s buried near any of her children in cemeteries other than where the husband is buried; seeing if she applied […]
I first worked on my children’s Belgian ancestors years ago. When using the vital records from the 19th century, I used them the way I had other European records from the same time span. I looked in the “book” for and read through the entries for the years I thought included the person’s birth date. Then, if I had the correct person and had the names of the parents, I scanned the years before and after the birth to locate siblings. Imagine my surprise when I found indexes interspersed in the records. I had never encountered those before. While indexes are not perfect, they would have saved me a great deal of time. Moral-the first time you use any “new” record, familiarize yourself with the whole thing first, don’t […]
Always go through your relative’s old books. You never know where something may have gotten tucked away for safekeeping.
Tax sales of real property get recorded with other land deeds in the appropriate local office (usually the county recorder, but not always). However using the grantor and grantee indexes to land records will not locate these deeds. That’s because the grantor on the tax deed usually is not the owner who failed to pay their taxes. It’s often the county sheriff or another county official. The person who did not pay taxes and had the property taken from him because of that is not the owner. That’s why they are not the grantor on the property–they don’t have the title to transfer. The deed will be in the grantee index under the name of the purchaser of the property. That’s another name the researcher probably does not […]
Foreign language records present difficulties for researchers. That difficulty is compounded when the records are written in ledger format and there are not columns to guide in the reading and interpretation of the record. This baptismal record from 1798 was different (at least to me) than others I had recently used in other locations. The name of the father was underlined and was the “focus” of the entry–not the name of the child. If I had not really read the entries and concluded that the underlined name was the name of the child, I might have missed this entry. Just because other entries in other records I used highlighted the name of the child does not mean every location does. It’s good not to make assumptions about records […]
It is great to make discoveries and locate new details about your relatives. But make notes as you go along. Transcribe as you go along. Record things as you go along. You won’t remember where you found what. You won’t remember what you found. You’ll do the same thing more than once and have duplicate copies of the exact same record. And you’ll waste time.
In some locations, when a child for whom a guardian had been appointed reached a certain age, they could choose their own guardian. That age was often fourteen. The guardianship papers don’t need to say the relationship, but they sometimes do. This fourteen year old, Abigail Daby chose her brother (Joseph Clark–with relationship stated) to be her guardian in 1746/1747 in Middlesex County, Massachusetts.
Laws regarding probate and inheritance generally are a state responsibility. Consequently what’s true about inheritance and the probate process can vary from one state to another and over time. Contemporary state statute may help in interpreting some probate records and documents.
I’m trying to find a man enumerated in an 1860 census as Philip Pipher. He may be the brother of Barbara Haase who is enumerated in Hancock County, Illinois, with her husband Conrad. Philip’s last name may actually be Siefert or some rendition of it as that was Barbara’s maiden name. The places of birth for these individuals in this 1860 enumeration are to be taken with a grain of salt. The children 12 and under all are known to have been born in Illinois, so it’s possible that other places of birth are incorrect as well. My attempts to find him needs to include an eliminated list of individuals who are named Philip Pipher/Siefert (or reasonable variants) and can’t be him. Creating this list requires me to […]
I spent some time looking for an immigrant relative who came to the United States in the 1880s after her husband died. Several things combined to make her difficult to find, including: She changed her first name. Many from her area of origin anglicized their name by directly translating it or by using a name with the same first letter. Not her. She picked something seemingly random and totally different. She married again in the new area where she settled. The problem was that I didn’t know where this was or that she changed her first name. She immigrated under her maiden name. Took me a while to find that. She really didn’t “break any rules.” She either did things in a slightly unusual fashion or acted in […]
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