We’re offering sessions on: Details on our announcement page.
Your relative may not have had a middle name. My uncle Chris Ehmen indicated that on his draft registration card–where it is indicated that he had no middle name. While middle names were common by the time Ehmen was born in 1902 not every one had one. It’s possible your relative did not as well.
We are offering a section of this class starting next week. Details on our announcement page.
Some census takers were plain lazy, some couldn’t spell, and some didn’t care. After you have exhausted all the variations on your ancestor’s first and middle names, consider that they might have been enumerated with just their initials. Or perhaps their first initial and their middle name spelled out. I have seen entire townships where no one apparently had a first name and everyone was named with their initials. I have seen locations where census takers used initials for non-English names instead of trying to spell them correctly. Your ancestor may have been listed in any record with his initials. Don’t assume that because he usually appeared with his first name that some clerk, writer, or editor didn’t refer to him with his initials. Maybe your ancestor was […]
Perplexity.ai (really a cool AI site that’s different from other chats), Fold3, and the Bureau of Land Management websites will be the focus of three new webinars. Check out details on our announcement page.
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, […]
We’ve released our “More DeedMapper” webinar. Details on our announcement page.
A March 1960 issue of the Mt. Sterling Democrat published a list of burials in the Becam Cemetery in Brown County, Illinois. It included references to Henrich and Geske Miller, along with their dates of birth and death. If I’m using this as my source for their burial information and their dates of birth and death, then all my citations should be to this newspaper article–not to the tombstone or records of the cemetery. That’s because when we create genealogy citations we site what we use and in this case I used the newspaper. I do not want to indicate I saw the tombstone when I did not. I won’t know what is on the stone exactly until I see it. Note: It turns out the stone indicates […]
In July of 1945 an heir searcher was in Adams County, Illinois, looking for heirs of a Harm Jelden. This does not appear to be one of those estate scams that were popular in the late 19th and early 20th century. There really was a man named Harm Jelden who had the parents and brother listed. I’m working on finding the estate records. There’s a number of genealogy reminders in this item though. Newspaper articles may leave out key details. This article does not mention where Harm Jelden died and one may think he died in Missouri because the searcher was from there. That would be an incorrect assumption. This article has the maiden name of Harm’s mother wrong–it was Behrens, not Burns. People can appear in newspaper […]
Fortunately I only have one set of negatives where some of the images have been cut into individual pieces. I’m not certain why, but at least they were all in the same envelope. The cut apart negatives served to remind me not to jump to conclusions. There could have been a picture that someone didn’t want anyone else to see. There could have been a negative or two that someone wanted to give to someone else. Maybe the photos that didn’t turn out were removed. Maybe one or two strips of photos were cut apart for some reason but all the photos were retained. Note: I’m still digitizing negatives and am using this Kodak scanner for making digital scans of my negatives.
Issue 5-16 of Casefile Clues went out to those on our subscriber list. If you are a subscriber and did not get yours, please email me at mjnrootdig@gmail.com. If you are not a subscriber, learn more on our website.
There were actually three registrations for the World War I draft in the United States. The cards were different. The cards for the first and second registrations had a corner that was to be cut off if the registrant was of African descent. The second card asked for the place of birth of the registrant’s father. The third did not ask for marital status. There are other differences between them as well. World War I First Draft Registration Card World War I Second Draft Registration Card World War I 3rd Draft Registration Card
“You’re still looking for that?” Those who are not involved in genealogy don’t understand the urge to keep looking. However there does come a time when one has to realize that you might not find that for which you are looking. The question is when do you realize that you need to stop looking? The key to a reasonably exhaustive genealogy search is to look through materials that might reasonably contain information that addresses the issue you are trying to resolve. In the case of finding an original picture of the stuffed toy Curious George I have from my childhood, that required me going through all the print photos and the negatives I have from my parents. Both need to be searched because I don’t have every print […]
I’m going through another set of photographic negatives I found in my parents’ things. There’s no date on any of the strips of negatives. Sometimes I know approximately when pictures were taken by being able to date one photo on the negative strip. Other times I am not so lucky. Occasionally there is a receipt tucked in with the negatives. There’s always the chance the receipt was accidentally tucked in the wrong envelope. Despite the potential for error, I still need to keep an image of the receipt as it can help to age the negatives. Of course, the date shipped is more closely tied to the development date and may not even be close to the date the pictures were taken. But it is better than nothing. […]
You can’t just grab any George and assume he’s your George. I almost did that for a quick minute with the George in the picture on the left. The Curious George I had as a kid my Mom kept and it was among her things when we cleaned out the house. I have quite a few things from my parents and when I’m going through pictures I’m always on the look out for something I still have in a picture from years ago. It was not to be with George. There’s a genealogy reminder here about jumping to conclusions. A little reminder about what can change over time. The eyes on the George on the right fell off decades ago and Mom replaced them with buttons. The eyes […]
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