Estate settlements of relatives (particularly siblings of ancestors) who died with no living descendants can contain significant genealogical clues. The distribution of assets may mention siblings of the deceased, nieces, nephews, and other relatives–depending upon the family structure. The records may provide relationship details and information on where the heirs lived. Estate settlements of relatives who were only children and who died with no descendants can be even more informative as the relationships of the heirs will be more distant. Review your files–do you have a relative whose estate settlement could name missing family members? People who “leave” tend to “reappear” when money is involved. Genealogy Tip of the Day is sponsored by GenealogyBank. Check out their current offer for new subscribers.
[this was posted to our Facebook Fan Page a few days ago, but I thought it was worth posting here as well for those who might not have seen it.] Some tips are location or time period specific. We’ve got people from all across the globe who are fans here. A tip unrelated to your place/time of interest may generate a question about a different time/period–go ahead and ask. Keep in mind that different places/time periods have different records–and different research challenges. But sometimes working in one place/time can help us in other time periods, just in broader ways. Researching my low-German immigrants in the 1860s is different from my Virginia families in the late 1600s and they are both different from my New England families in the 1700s. […]
Beliefs about the ethnic origins of non-immigrant ancestors are easy to come by. They are more difficult to prove. The best way to determine if a person has a certain heritage in their background is to research that person as completely as you can. Then do the same thing for their parents, grandparents, etc. Stories about where a person’s family came from are a dime a dozen. They are also difficult to prove the ethnicity is what you start with instead of the specific person. I may think my relative was Native American and it may turn out that they are. But the best approach is to research that relative in as many records as I can find and see what those records say. And go from there. […]
Sometimes it can be easy to overlook those relatives who left no descendants of their own. They also have their stories to tell and those stories are just as important as those of relatives who left families of their own. A 1908 horse accident left Mary Trautvetter with her legs broken in three places, a broken arm, and other injuries. Her sister, Anna, was injured as well–but not as severely. It’s possible that the injuries from the accident impacted Mary for the rest of her life. Mary never married. Her sister Anna (Trautvetter) McMahon died in the 1920s and Mary raised Anna’s daughter who was left orphaned by the death of both her parents. Mary died in 1962 and is buried in the Lutheran Cemetery in Warsaw, Hancock […]
Many genealogists receive emails, Facebook posts, and other digital communication in such a way that the headline and a sentence or two is what shows on the screen. Keep in mind there’s often more than just the headline and the introductory sentence or two. The headline is intended to catch your attention and the first few sentences should summarize the content. But there should be details in the rest of the article or post that expand on the headline and make the point or points summarized in the first two sentences. If the headline and the first few sentences strikes your interest–read the rest of the item before commenting or asking a question. The author may have addressed your concern, answered your question, or provided an additional reference, […]
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In the days before indexes, manual searches of census records were necessary. Sometimes that’s still true today. One approach when the names had been totally butchered was to not read the names and look at the place of birth as well–if that was unique enough to make it practical. That’s how these entries were located. I read the places of birth for residents of the township where the family was supposed to live and stopped at every family of Germans. Every one. And then I looked at the names more closely to see if they fit the family I needed. That was a more efficient filtering approach than reading every name in every household. Could the census taker have indicated my Germans were born in Kentucky or elsewhere […]
You will not remember what names and variants you query in what database. Keep track of the website or database you are using and the names that you have searched for at that website or in that database. A table or spreadsheet will allow you to track the searches. The columns can be those search terms you actually used–not necessarily every search box on the site. Tracking searches is especially important if you cannot find the name easily in a quick search. I will be honest: I don’t make a chart for every person I search for–but I do make one when I cannot easily find a person. Failing to do so is asking to go in circles. Without tracking what you have done, you cannot effectively determine what […]
I wish I had transcribed these stones when I was actually in the cemetery taking the pictures. I took dozens of pictures in cemetery run in May of 2016. Most of the stones were legible and reading them was not an issue. This is one that was difficult to read. I wish I had made a transcription of the stone while I was at the cemetery. Not for every stone, but for those that were difficult to read. Sometimes pictures of stones are easier to read. Occasionally they are not. I could have easily handwritten a transcription on a piece of paper and taken a picture of that transcription so I had an image of it along with the picture of the stone. Next time I’ll transcribe any stone […]
I’ve seen hundreds of these affidavits in US homestead records. This is one of time when there was a clue. It indicated the homesteader on this 1888 document was a widower. That’s a clue. The homestead records don’t indicate that he married her a few years earlier in Illinois and that she and an infant child died shortly over a year later. I’m a big fan of looking at and actually reading everything. Clues can be anywhere and sometimes something that someone else will not think is a clue will be a clue to you–it all depends upon what is already known. Genealogy Tip of the Day is sponsored by GenealogyBank. Check out their current offer for new subscribers.
Relatives will not tell you everything. Face this and accept it. Generally there are two main reasons that people don’t tell you something: they really didn’t know about it they hope you don’t find out about it There are a variety of reasons people tell you things that are incorrect, but generally those fall into two broad categories: they were told something incorrect they hope a wrong story will lead you astray so that you don’t find discover something Try and avoid ruining a relationship with a living family member just “to get an answer.” My one grandmother told me she never knew her uncle committed suicide. She also told me a man who I thought was her mother’s first cousin was not related to her mother. It […]
While it can be difficult to start a research problem completely from scratch, give it a try. Sometimes we get “something in our head” for which we have no evidence, transcribe a document erroneously, interpret something incorrectly, or a make a leap of faith not supported by facts or physics. When my math students are “stuck” and can’t figure out where they went wrong, one approach is to have them rework the problem from scratch and compare both sets of work to see the difference. Sometimes genealogists need to do that too. Genealogy Tip of the Day is sponsored by GenealogyBank. Check out their current offer for subscribers.
The funeral home in my hometown recently had a death notice for someone whose last name suggested they might be a relative. They weren’t but two of their father’s siblings had married first cousins of my great-grandmother. I would have saved an inordinate amount of time if I had sketched out a chart to use while trying to determine the relationships. Without a chart, I kept getting confused and went in circles–especially as several names were repeated through different generations of the family. Having the approximate years of birth along with an outline of the relationships would have helped immensely. Failing to do so wasted more time than it saved. Genealogy Tip of the Day is sponsored by GenealogyBank. Check out their current offer for subscribers.
I was stuck on a certain relative who apparently left the area where she grew up sometime after she was enumerated in the 1910 census in Hancock County, Illinois. She seemed to evaporate and appears in no later records. In 1915, in the church she attended as a child, she and her husband have two of their children baptized. The baptism records list the maiden name of the mother. While I’m not yet 100% certain it is her, it’s a very good lead. One child has her maiden name as it’s middle name and the other child has her mother’s maiden name as it’s middle name–another good clue. Did you relatives bring the kids “back home” to be baptized?
When an index or manual searching takes you to an ancestral entry in a census, tax or other list entry take times to look at the neighboring names. Are the names in rough alphabetical order? If so neighborhood clues can’t be inferred from the proximity of names. That is unless all the “B” surnames lived in the same part of the county.
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