Is it possible that your person of interest had a short-term marriage, perhaps after a longer one that resulted from the death of a spouse. A relative, shortly after his wife of twenty years died, married a local woman in the 1870s only to divorce her within a year. His family never mentioned her as if it never happened. The divorce records were quite informative and would not have been located had I not just decided to look “just in case.”
Newspaper writeups of funerals may give additional clues as to survivors. Pallbearers may be more distant family members who are not named in the obituary. Most of the men listed in the 1962 example were nephews of the deceased–there’s just one that I have to figure out who he is. Genealogy Tip of the Day is sponsored by GenealogyBank –give them a try today.
When you transcribe a document, do you make a notation if some of the handwriting appears significantly different from the rest of it? Different handwriting indicates a different person did the writing–at least most of the time. Multiple “authors” could have written on a document at different points in time, had varying levels of knowledge regarding the document’s content, or served different positions in the agency that created or maintained the record. Sometimes that really matters.
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When genealogists are challenged by their ancestors, they are often told to research the associates of the ancestors–including ancestral friends and neighbors. If you are stuck on a person and have tried this approach, how thoroughly have you researched these associates. An hour or two online probably isn’t sufficient. If your problem ancestor is in a place and time that’s difficult to research in general, it may take some time to really research those associates thoroughly enough to locate all potential clues.
Always indicate when a date, name, or a relationship is conjecture. Make it crystal clear to anyone reading the information later that the information was a hunch. Be careful making hunches. Be careful sharing hunches. Have a reason for your hunch. Include that reason with your hunch. Cite your reason if you have a document. Think one more time about the reasonableness of your hunch. Once someone spreads them as fact it can be impossible to prevent the spread. =
Who attends an estate sale? Generally speaking (with some exceptions), it tends to be relatives and neighbors. Looking at the list of buyers can provide some insight into your deceased relative’s family, social connections, and neighbors. This is an incomplete chart of the purchasers of property from the estate of Thomas Rampley in Coshocton County, Ohio, in 1823. There’s no guarantee that a chart will answer your specific questions about an ancestor, but doing some initial work on the purchasers may make something stick out that was not noticeable before. Purchaser Known Relationship 1820 Census 1830 Census comments Randles, Abraham Miller, John H. Gilliam, Samuel Huffman, James Tuscarawas, Coshocton Jackson, Coshocton Thomas’s son John married a Huffman Rampley, James Son Courtright, Jacob Son-in-law Jackson, Coshocton Barkhurst, William Markley, […]
Mary Puffer, widow of Ephraim Puffer is referred to as Mary Puffer many times in the estate record of her husband from the 1700s. However there is one signed document where she is referred to as the widow and signed as Mary Brown. Subsequent marriages of the widow can be indirectly mentioned in an estate file. Make certain to look through all the documents–even the boring ones.
A few quick reminders from this recent Ebay purchase: Sometimes things are not titled based upon the name you have for something. This was “Lincoln School” to me. It was Grade School on the postcard. Have you tried to locate pictures of places of employment for your relatives? Pictures of schools, work sites, etc. can be great ways to get someone’s memories to start flowing. Genealogy Tip of the Day is sponsored by GenealogyBank –give them a try today.
This 1920 census enumeration contains significant errors. The husband and wife were not married and he was not the father of her children. The “wife” was not divorced from the father of these children until 1921 and she did not marry the man shown here until 1922.
The best way to get new insight into a problem is to get away from it. Put that “brick wall” away and do something totally unrelated to your genealogy for a while. Sometimes the mind simply needs to let things stew for a while. If you just can’t put your brick wall away, then work on another problem. Personally I have the best breakthroughs when I walk the dog and discuss my problem with him. He never interrupts or criticizes and it gives me time to really think. Sometimes criticism is good, but one needs time to organize your thoughts and put them in order. Constantly researching non-stop does not allow that to happen. Riley is one of the best brick wall breakers I have.
In 1858 a patron of my relative’s bar was killed in an altercation with a tenant who lived in an apartment next door. For years, I referred to the incident as a “murder.” The reference to the incident was inaccurate. I should have referred to it as a “killing,” a “shooting,” or something similar. Are you using the right word when referring to something? Are you using a word that may be conveying a message that’s not entirely accurate? And I actually need to review what charges were brought up against the shooter. Just because a newspaper called it murder does not mean that a court did.
A relative is married in 1843 in St. Louis, Missouri. He is married again in Illinois in 1848. The most likely scenario is that she died. It is possible that the couple actually divorced or separated and never bothered to divorce. The divorce would have generated a court record. A separation that never resulted in divorce may not have generated any records at all. But I should not assume the first wife died unless there is some additional evidence other than simply the subsequent marriage.
Do you only look for relatives in college yearbooks when you know they graduated? Is it possible they attended but were unable to graduate? Finances or “real life” may have prevented your relative from graduating college, but they may still appear in college yearbooks as my aunt does in the 1934 yearbook for what is now known as Western Illinois University. Genealogy Tip of the Day book is here. Learn more about it..
I’ve been working on the ancestry of a Mary Dingman, born in Canada (probably Ontario) in the early 1810s. There are online trees taking her family back generations. The only problem is that there’s not really anything solid on her connection to her parents. That needs to be solved before I put all those earlier ancestors in my file. Since information on Mary herself is coming up short (she died in the 1850s in Illinois), I could trace her purported parents and siblings (and maybe even purported grandparents and cousins) in hopes of something turning up on her, but I need to wait to put them in her actual tree until I have a more solid connection. Genealogy Tip of the Day is proudly sponsored by GenealogyBank. Try their […]
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