If you’ve been entrusted with a family item, what have you done to preserve it? Have you digitized the item? Identified it? Thought of ways to share it and reproduce it? The original may be special to you, but digital or paper copies may be special to others and a good way to maximize the chance that future generations can enjoy the item as well
Our recent Rootdig posting on search results from the South Dakota Birth Certificate Index is essentially three tips: Babies aren’t always immediately named First names can be spelled a variety of ways People can live somewhere a short time A couple can be related in more than one way Reminder: Genealogy Tip of the Day is sponsored by GenealogyBank. In December, they are offering an annual subscription for a monthly rate equivalent to less than $5 a month!
There is still room in my December 2015 session of “US Land Records.” More details are on our announcement page–join us!
Transcriptions of documents are great and make reading the entire item and searching for specific text easy. But if your relative signed documents, there are times when those signatures need to be compared. Do you keep track of whether or not you have a known ancestor’s signature and do you try and collect as many digital images of those signatures as possible? In tracking the movement of one relative, I finally realized that I had a “known signature” of him when he signed a son’s marriage bond and a signed document from a record that I thought was him in a location a hundred miles away. If I had “flagged” him as someone for whom I had a signature, the comparison would not have taken so long.
When transcribing old documents make certain that what is in the margin of the document as an annotation does not become part of the text of the document itself. This 1742 deed from Massachusetts has several annotations–these are made for the clerks and others using the records. They are not a part of the actual document. A transcription of these items should indicate that they were in the margin of the document. Including them right in the text may create confusion.
A reference to a woman as the “late widow” does not mean that she is deceased. There’s a good chance that the reference indicated she had remarried and was no longer single. The word “deceased” is frequently used to mean “dead.” “Late” in this sense probably means that she was “formerly” a widow. Her being referred to as the “late widow of Samuel Sargent” does not mean that her deceased husband had returned from the dead.
There is still room in my December 2015 session of “US Land Records.” More details are on our announcement page–join us!
If you have encountered the phrase “old tenor” in a document and wondered what it was, this posting on my Rootdig site has more information. [I normally don’t repost, but thought this one was worth sharing with Tip of the Day readers.]
Try to avoid inferring more from a document than what it actually says. A quick reading of a 1742 deed from Massachusetts suggested the wife was dead. However a slower, more careful reading of the deed, indicated that the deed clearly stated only the husband was dead. It was never actually stated the wife was dead. Always read a document more than once. And think about what it says. And more importantly: what it does not.
Don’t write on your only copy of a document in an attempt to make it more legible. Transcribe it, make annotations on another copy (in the margin), etc. But do not write right on the copy itself. You may be wrong in your initial interpretation.
Genealogy Tip of the Day is written by genealogist Michael John Neill. Michal has actively researched his own genealogy for over thirty years in a variety of locations and time periods. He also leads research trips to the Family History Library and the Allen County Library in addition to giving seminars and workshops. “Tip of the Day” tips are meant to cover a wide range of time periods and geographic areas. While our concentration is on the United States, many of our suggestions apply to other areas. Not all tips will apply equally to all locations and time periods–sometimes they are just meant to get you thinking. Tips are not copied and pasted from anywhere. They are usually written while Michael is researching or writing. Sometimes they will be similar […]
The 1920 census lists New York native Mary Verikios as an alien. She lost her citizenship upon her marriage to unnaturalized Greek immigrant Peter Verikios. I’d forgotten about this until I stumbled upon a reference to A Nationality of Her Own which addresses the citizenship of US women before the 1922 passage of the Cable Act which separated a woman’s citizenship status from that of her husband. When Mary and Peter married his citizenship status became hers. That’s not true today.
When labeling pictures, writing family stories, or performing any type of research analysis, constantly remind yourself that what is obvious to you may not be obvious to someone else. We’ve all encountered the hundred year old newspaper article that omitted details we would love to know today were probably “obvious and well-known” at the time. What’s obviously obvious to one may not be so obviously obvious to another. And the line between being obviously obvious and being an incorrect assumption is a very fine one.
Are you including labels on your digital images of photographs? Include the “how” you know as well as what you know.
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