We are offering a May 2016 session of my popular land records class. Details are on our other site. Please join us.
New webinar! 25 Brick Wall Strategies Date/Time: 20 April 2016 at 7:00 pm central time If you’ve enjoyed our “Brick Wall” series, this one will revisit some of our more popular approaches along with new examples and a few new tricks thrown in the mix. Sometimes it never hurts to hear something again, if only for the reminder. This presentation will include a handout with the concepts discussed and brief examples demonstrating the approach. If you can’t attend live, registrants receive complimentary download of presentation and handouts afterwards. Register for this presentation.
According to the “Instructions to the Enumerators” for the 1880 census posted on the website for the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota, there is a difference between someone who is shown to be a housekeeper and someone who is said to be keeping house in the 1880 census. A housekeeper receives wages or salary for their service. A woman who is keeping house for themselves or their families (without other gainful occupation) is said to be “keeping house.” This could easily apply to other enumerations as well.
Adoptions were not necessarily the result of some type of legal proceeding. Many adoptions were informal and the child was taken in by relatives or neighbors. The child in this illustration was living in the county poor farm with her mother when she was adopted in the 1870s. There was no court action and no record of her adoption. Researchers should see if there was some local court record of the adoption, but before the 20th century, most adoptions were informal. Later adoptions that were the result of court proceedings may have records that are closed or sealed. ——– Genealogy Tip of the Day is proudly sponsored by GenealogyBank.
Your ancestor’s middle name could be: a maiden name of a mother or grandmother a first name of another relative a first name of a neighbor or family friend a name from a contemporary famous figure totally arbitrary and random The fifth situation does not happen often, but it does happen. ——– Genealogy Tip of the Day is proudly sponsored by GenealogyBank.
I’m excited about my 2016 trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. There’s still time to join me for a week of research at a time when the library is not crammed with other people or there is a conference going on. Some of us plan quite a bit what we are going to do and others do not. I have a short list of things of my own I need to look up. It is important to remember that there are things at the library that are not online. There are more details on our site. Our trip is informal and laid back. The only “scheduled” activities are a short meeting the first evening and (optional) morning sessions. Attendees are encouraged to plan […]
Don’t just search a newspaper for an obituary of your ancestor. Local, weekly newspapers mention relatives of your ancestor coming from a distance for the funeral–including the town where they currently lived. There may be mention of your ancestor’s final illness as well as relatives who came to visit. ——– Genealogy Tip of the Day is proudly sponsored by GenealogyBank.
Some city directories have reverse directories that list residents by their address, not their names. This portion of the directory can be a great way to find names of neighbors, especially in off census years. This portion of a city directory is best used along with a contemporary map to assist in visualization.
There’s a potential gray area here. Information is considered to be primary is the informant reasonably had first hand knowledge of the information. It is worth noting that all memory can be fallible. I know my precise date of birth not because I remember the actual day. I remember my birthday because I’ve been told it numerous times and it’s on my birth certificate. I cannot provide primary information regarding my date of birth because I do not have personal memory of being born on that day. This does not mean the date is wrong–just that I cannot provide that primary information myself. Can I provide primary information on my approximate age? Sure. If I stop and think, I can remember being in the third grade during the US presidential […]
Genealogy Tip of the Day is proudly sponsored by GenealogyBank. They are currently offering a special for Tip of the Day fans, followers, etc. GenealogyBank‘s collection focuses on newspapers, but there are additional materials in their collection as well. Their April offer equates to an annual rate of $4.67 a month–and a free “Getting Started” guide. We appreciate the support of GenealogyBank.
Have you sketched out the migration of your ancestor on a map? To help sift out two men with a similar name, I put all their pre-1850 census enumerations on a map of New York, marking the locations. Sometimes a picture helps. I was recently helping a friend with a genealogy problem and all our discussion appeared in a chat window in Facebook. I kept thinking to myself that I would have been less confused if I could have had the information in some sort of chart or chronology and another sheet with locations mapped out. Unorganized text can make it difficult to notice things.
Do you have data in your files that you obtained early in your research when perhaps you really weren’t aware of what you were doing? Sometimes that data gets “grandfathered” in our files and databases after we’ve refined our research approach. I discovered such a date in my files that probably got grandfathered in from research nearly thirty years ago.
For years, I had been unable to track down what happened to a first cousin of my great-grandmother. This was a man born in the 1870s in Illinois. While I had not extensively researched his siblings, I had located their obituaries and places of burial. I wanted the same thing for the missing man–or at least to know where he died.. When I finally began researching the family more extensively in local records, the answer (such as it was) was in the probate file of the missing cousin’s brother. That brother had died without children and his probate provided details on when the missing brother was last seen and what searches were conducted. The missing brother had an ex-wife and children who had tried to find him. The missing […]
Before searching that “new” database, make certain you know: how complete the database is if it indexes just “main names” if it indexes every name how searches actually work Practice searching the database for names you know are there–this is always a good technique when first performing searches or if you can’t find a “Frequently Asked Page” or “More About” page that actually tells you something.
Court case files stored in a courthouse’s metal boxes may be in no particular order within a box and have likely been rummaged through repeatedly over the decades. There may be separate sets of boxes for different courts within the same office or records vault. Make certain you are looking in the right set of boxes for the records you need. And always make certain you ask the courthouse staff what methods of “records reproduction” are permissible. I prefer to make digital images with a camera or phone, but not all facilities allow researchers to do that. Find out first.
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