It never hurts to go back and review those families that you have not worked on in some time. An ancestor was used as an example in a seminar I gave over the weekend and while reviewing my notes, I realized that it had been some time since I had made a serious attempt to document the children and grandchildren of her second oldest daughter. It’s time. In doing so, I may learn more about the ancestor we share, but there’s more than that. I might: discover relatives who have information or family ephemera that I do not; get names to help me sort my DNA matches that are “unknown.” connect to a new relative who is interested in genealogy. Time to get back to work on Aunt […]
Genealogists are often told to research the siblings of an ancestor and it was the topic of a presentation I recently gave. I used Riley the dog as a welcome illustration and realized that it was an appropriate picture because he reminded me that in genealogical research the “siblings” are not just individuals who share two sets of parents and that researching all those individuals can be just as helpful and important. Those siblings can include: half-siblings; step-siblings; adopted siblings; foster siblings; other raised in the household. Unlike the dog, the “siblings” are usually of the same species, but it’s important to think of those who might have been effective siblings of your ancestor. Records on any of those individuals could provide answers to questions on your direct […]
You are “stuck” on your ancestor in a certain time and a certain place? Do you have a good idea what: The most common occupations were at the time? How close were your ancestor’s neighbors? Where the nearest political lines were? Where was the nearest church? Where was the nearest cemetery? What was the most common denomination? Who the ruler of the area was? What sort of government was in place? Was there a war going on? What daily life was often like? etc.
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When reviewing a document, have you used every number in the document as a clue? Specific dates and ages can be used to help determine a chronology or calculate approximately when an event happened. Acreages can be helpful in using land records, house numbers can be useful in determining addresses. Make certain you’ve analyzed every number for any clue it may contain.
Documents often contain multiple pieces of information potentially given by multiple informants. Even one informant can be knowledgeable about some things and not about others. Just because one piece of information on a document is wrong does not mean they all are incorrect. Just because they got the first nine pieces of information correct (that you’ve checked) does not automatically mean the tenth piece of information is correct. There’s always shades in terms of how much is accurate and one has to look at each piece of information separately based upon who the likely informant was and how likely they were to know it. I’ve been reminded of this while working on a Civil War veteran who gave two significantly different sets of family information in his pension […]
Ultimo means “previous” (usually month). Instant means “this” or “current” (usually month). When the Bureau of Pensions wrote on 4 January and said “Your letter of 15th ultimo,” they were referring to a letter of 15 December. When they wrote on 10 December and said “Your letter of the 4th instant,” they meant the 4th of December.
Late does not necessarily mean that the individual was deceased. The word can mean “formerly” or “used to be.” In these cases, it can mean that a person used to live in a certain area (think: former resident) or used to have a certain title, job, or occupation. The man in the illustration, Adam Rodgers “Late Captain of Company B,” used to be the captain of that unit but was no longer. If something indicates your ancestor, Jim Burialman was a “late undertaker of Coshocton County, Ohio,” it would mean that he used to be an undertaker in Coshocton County, Ohio. He could still be an undertaker working somewhere else or he could be living in Coshocton County and no longer working as an undertaker. Whether he would be, […]
If you find a relative in a court record, do you know how to search for transcripts of testimony, petitions of plaintiff, responses of defendant, and other original court documents? Entries in journals and ledgers may only be part of the record and are a great place to start, but there may be more. The difficulty is that in some cases these records were never kept in the first place or they are no longer extant. But it is worth your while to find out. The local courthouse that houses the court record you’ve found is the first place to look. Local historical/genealogical societies may be able to give some guidance in addition to locals familiar with the records. Older records may have been transferred to the appropriate […]
It can be frustrating when a gossip column in a small-town newspaper mentions a relative and doesn’t provide clues about their life that we’d like to know. There are two things to keep in mind: Newspapers were supposed to print “news.” Information that all the locals knew (but those of us 130 years later don’t) wasn’t “news” to individuals who actually received the newspaper when it was printed. Those gossip columns served as the Facebook posts of their day. Do all your posts on social media include all those details about you or your family members that someone may want to know in 100 years?
Do you include an image of the back of a photo where someone has written the names of the individuals? This preserves any information contained in the writing that you may have overlooked, lets others see if you transcribed the names correctly, and (if you identify the handwriter) gives others samples of handwriting that they may find useful as well. There’s information about the provenance of the picture as well (at least as much of it as I have). It didn’t dawn on me until I looked at this image that my great-grandmother had put the names on the back in the way the children were positioned in the picture. I just listed the names when typing them out because the exact identification had been included.
If the time period is right, newspapers can supplement what is in a marriage record. The 1916 civil marriage record for this couple gives the name of the officiant and the date of the marriage, but does not provide the specific location of the marriage. The church record of the marriage does not make clear whether the marriage was at the church, the parsonage, or somewhere else where the minister presided. The newspaper account does give that location. In this case it also provides the time. Of course when stating the fact that the couple were married in the parsonage, the newspaper item would be used as that is where that detail was located. There’s additional information about the couple in this newspaper account and there’s other information […]
Military pensions can be a great source of information. Sometimes the clues are blunt and obvious. Sometimes they are a little more subtle. One set of clues that can be helpful is how long witnesses have known the person they are providing information on. In a high proportion of pension applications, the witnesses indicate how long they have known the veteran or the widow. Assuming that information is correct, it can be used to help track the veteran’s or widow’s movements. The start of the association could be because either the witness or the person they are talking about moved in proximity to the other one. Look at the time frame of the association and see if it precedes before the veteran was known to be in the […]
DNA analysis can be complicated when one doesn’t know too much about their tree. Those of us who have ancestors who for generations lived in a rural area or a small tight-knit community have at least two additional issues that can compound the analysis of our matches: the number of people to we are related in more than one way–with relationships close enough that it can impact autosomal DNA results; the number of people where I and Bob are both related to A–but in different ways. Bob, A, and I don’t share any common ancestors. When there are gaps in your tree, these issues can make people appear to be related in ways they are not when analyzing DNA matches. For a little more read my longer post […]
There’s several ways to organize your research process. Different ones work for different people. Some of us use a modified version of Polya’s 4-step problem-solving process: Understand Plan Execute Evaluate Problems need to be stated clearly and succinctly (usually involving one person and one key event in their life). Understanding involves knowing all relevant terms, how to access all records in all jurisdictions, etc. That’s not always an easy task, but it’s key to the entire process. Planning what to do comes next, Executing the plan (and tracking it) follows before the evaluation. And then you go back to understanding–because either you solved the problem or you have more problems to solve. Those with an interest in Polya (he was a mathematician) can read his book “How to […]
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