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 […]
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 […]
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