Posts from all four of my blogs are sent daily to those who are subscribed. The daily updates are free and can be received by entering your email using the subscribe/unsubscribe links on the top of every page. If you’d like to receive a weekly summary update instead, you can subscribe to the weekly update for a nominal fee of $5. The weekly update is sent out once a week and includes some additional content that is not included in our blog posts. We’ve added this service for those who don’t want the daily emails but would still like to receive our content. You can see one of our recent weekly updates where there is a subscribe link as well. The nominal charge helps to cover our email distribution […]
A colleague asked me about something that happened at work nearly twenty-five years ago. It was something that at the time would have personally impacted me. My answer to him: I can’t remember. Take the time to write your own personal stories before you forget.
One never knows what a file will contain until one looks at it. The Civil War pension file for William Lake of Chariton County, Missouri, contains the names and dates of birth for all his children. Many files either don’t contain this list or the pensioner said “don’t know” or “records burned.” Lake’s file also contains the names of his parents and siblings–and a transcription of their 1860 census enumeration. Those items are not typical You never know until you look. The reason behind this paperwork is discussed in a recent Rootdig post.
Variant spellings where one letter has been changed or added are easy to understand, recognize, and locate. Other variants are a little more difficult to see immediately. One way to discover more creative variants is to say the name or location to someone unfamiliar with the area and the family. Try saying in with an accent as well. That’s probably how in one record Mercer County, Kentucky, became Marshall County, Kentucky.
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.
Recent Comments