When I learned that my uncle’s great-grandfather was in the Battle of Waterloo, I assumed it was his great-grandfather Trautvetter and began searching for men with that last name. The problem is that my uncle had four great-grandfathers –I only know the name of one. I can’t assume it was his great-grandfather Trautvetter who was in the battle. And the information in the county history could be incorrect as well.
There’s been some additions to the search interface at GenealogyBank. GenealogyBank, our sponsor, has added some search functionality to their site. Now users can save specific articles and specific searches. The site also automatically tracks recent searches. These added features make the site easier to use. Before these added features users simply had to remember where they were searching if they were interrupted. Articles can be saved by clicking on a save button when viewing the actual document image. Searches can be saved in the same way while browsing through the results list. There’s still no way to mark something as having been seen before, but this is a significant improvement in the usability of the site. Visit GenealogyBank to search and see these new features.
In trying to determine where my aunt taught school in the 1930s and 1940s, I’m relying on digital versions of newspapers and yearbooks as I have no record of where she taught. Her name, Margaret Habben, is relatively uncommon which makes it easier. However, if the name had been more common, adding what she taught as a search term would have helped to narrow the results. Yearbooks were an obvious item to search and newspapers were used as her employment by the local school board was often mentioned as was the occasional field trip with students.
Never consider a biography in a county history complete. A variety of details can be left out for a variety of reasons. The 1907 biography shown here omits the first marriage of the subject’s mother, his two half-sisters, and his parents’ divorce and remarriage, and second divorce. And there’s always the potential that some of the published details could be slightly incorrect. Use these as clues to further your research, not as established facts. A big thanks to GenealogyBank for being our sponsor! Please check out their August offer for Tip of the Day readers, fans, and followers.
Definitions matter. When reading a document, make certain you know the definition of the word for the setting in which the document was created–a legal document, a letter written by a relative, etc. When using words yourself in your own writing, make certain you are aware of the word’s meaning and are using it in the right context and not implying something that you do not mean to. After all, genealogists don’t want to create more confusion than there sometimes already is. ———————- A big thanks to GenealogyBank for being our sponsor! Please check out their August offer for Tip of the Day readers, fans, and followers.
Even documents that are not supposed to provide parental information could. This World War I draft card indicated that the registrant was working as a farmer for his father, naming the father. One never knows when a document will provide extra information that’s not really required. It pays to look. A big thanks to GenealogyBank for being our sponsor! Please check out their August offer for Tip of the Day readers, fans, and followers.
Political boundaries are often arbitrary lines drawn by politicians and diplomats. The laws, procedures, and records created on one side may not apply on the other. Cultural lines are often less precise, but just as important genealogical research. And one country may have several different cultural regions contained within it.
In some cultures, it was common to reuse the name of the child that had died. Don’t assume two children with the same name and different years of birth are actually just the same child. It could be two separate children with the same name.
Another site with thousands of scanned out-of-copyright books is Hathitrust.org. The items can be full-text searched as well and includes county histories, town histories, genealogies, and more. Visit https://www.hathitrust.org/
If your ancestor left the US military before his Civil War term was up, he likely was charged with desertion. Some deserters later appealed this charge, particularly as pension laws became more liberal and would qualify him for a pension–if he had not deserted. Even if their appeal to change their discharge was denied, information contained in the file may provide additional details about your ancestor and his life during the Civil War and after. These records are at the National Archives. A big thanks to GenealogyBank for being our sponsor! Please check out their August offer for Tip of the Day readers, fans, and followers.
For those who were not aware, GoogleBooks has digital scans of thousands of out-of-copyright books on their site. Many of the out-of-copyright books can be downloaded in their entirety, but some cannot. They are full text searchable and one can make unexpected discoveries in these items. Scanned items include: county histories family genealogies city, town, and occupational directories state statutes reports of court cases heard by appellate courts and more The direct link is http://books.google.com A big thanks to GenealogyBank for being our sponsor! Please check out their August offer for Tip of the Day readers, fans, and followers.
Occupational journals may provide a variety of unexpected details on an ancestor. This entry from a 1900 edition of the Moulder’s Journal includes a “Black Record” of union men who members may wish to refrain from employing or doing business with. Many of these journals have been digitized and are available on GoogleBooks. The people mentioned in these books do sometimes include common men–not just “movers and shakers.”
Some indexes and finding aids do not indicate how many times a given name appears on a page. Always read the entire page in case there are multiple references to the same person. Don’t just take the first reference and quit. Those additional references may tell you more than the first one did.
The death of a spouse shortly after marriage, the death of a young child, or a host of other events can be emotionally difficult for those left behind. In some families the response is simply to “not talk about it.” Sometimes that unwillingness to talk eventually leads others to conclude that there’s some “scandal” or “big story” connected to the event. That’s not necessarily true. Scandals are not the only things that people may be reluctant to talk about.
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