A stint in prison can explain why your ancestor is not enumerated with his family in the census. Court records or newspapers may contain additional details about why your ancestor landed in prison. State prisons (or the state archives) may have additional records. And, it is also possible your relative ended up divorced over his incarceration–resulting in more records.
Genealogists often require help (in large and small amounts) from other genealogists. Sometimes it is a quick lookup in a record and sometimes it is a more extensive “look” at a problem in order to get some advice. Remember that the sharing goes both ways. Offer to help someone with a research problem, to take a picture of a tombstone, or to make a copy from a book that you have. Getting away from your own research problems and looking at someone else’s often gives you insight into your own.
If you can’t find a deed of sale for your ancestor’s real property, consider the fact that he didn’t sell it. If your ancestors taxes became sufficiently delinquent, his property would be sold to pay those taxes. In the United States these sales are usually indexed under “Sheriff” and not the name of your ancestor. Unless your ancestor was the sheriff.
The United States has been in wars besides the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War and the two World Wars. Is it possible that your ancestor served in one of the Indian wars, the Spanish-American War, or the Philippine-American War? Involvement in any of those actions would have generated service and possibly pension records.
If your genealogy “problem” is during a period when railroads were in operation, do you know where the nearest train station was for your ancestor? Do you know nearby stops along the way? People could hop a train to elope, look for work, or simply leave home and never come back.
If there is a period of time where you are not certain where your ancestor was living or what he was doing, then you have an opportunity. Short gaps where a person is “missing” could mean military service, an out-of-state job, a short-lived marriage, a trip in search of gold, etc. Or it could simply mean they never moved and simply didn’t leave any records for a three year time period. But if you never look one thing is certain–you’ll never know.
When analyzing a record or set of materials that does not make sense, get away from what you “want to prove” and try to think “what do these documents really say?” You may find that they do not say what you think they do. And not every record says what we want or expect it to say. Sometimes our preconceived notions are what is getting in the way
If you think you are stuck on all your lines, work on someone else’s family for a while. The different names and locations will be a good change of pace. Learning about research in a new area may give you insight into “old ones” where you’ve worked so long that assumptions that are incorrect may have taken deep root. It may be that when you return to your own families, you have a new perspective on them.
For your “brick wall” ancestor, do you know (or have any idea) how far they lived from: the county seat? the nearest church of their denomination? the nearest place they could get supplies or transact necessary business? their nearest neighbor? the cemetery? The list here is not exclusive. If you’ve got no idea of the answers to these questions, determining those answers may help you solve your problem.
The ideal time to write up your genealogical conclusions, enter your information into your database, or write up and transcribe documents is as you locate them. Or reasonably close after. The information is fresh in your mind and fewer details are apt to be forgotten. While it may be fun to keep gathering, you probably will notice more about what you’ve just found if you record and analyze it relatively close to when you located it.
Think about the materials you would like to access to learn more about your family’s history. Don’t just prioritize based upon how much information something could potentially provide. Also consider the fragility of the source. Some sources, particularly the minds of relatives, photographs, and tombstones are more fragile than other records. Prioritize.
Think about the materials you would like to access to learn more about your family’s history. Don’t just prioritize based upon how much information something could potentially provide. Also consider the fragility of the source. Some sources, particularly the minds of relatives, photographs, and tombstones are more fragile than other records. Prioritize.
If you can’t “find” your ancestor for a few years, have you considered the possibility that they fell on hard times and spent a while in the local poor farm or almshouse? Records of the county poor farm may be at the local county courthouse, county seat library, a county historical society, or elsewhere.
When your ancestor died at what stage in life were his children? Were they toddlers, teenagers, or grown children with their own families? Was your recently deceased ancestor a farmer whose oldest son was in his early twenties and possibly able to manage the farm himself–perhaps arguing with his mother? And perhaps even old enough to start a partition suit if he so desired? Or were his children under the age of ten and, while able to help, were not really able to bring any type of legal action? Or did the death of one aged spouse mean that the surviving spouse was no longer really able to live by herself or himself? In most families what’s going on at the “family level” when something happens is just […]
When relatives have the same first and last name it is easy to get them confused. It is even worse when the name gets spelled or written in various ways. In a recent blog post, I referred to Anne and Annie Murphy–sisters-in-law. To make matters worse, Anne signed her name as “Ann” in a document and I transcribed the document exactly as it was written. To clarify in my discussion what I should have done was either used their maiden name Annie (Murphy) Neill and Anne (Brice) Neill or their husband’s name, Annie Neill (wife of Samuel) or Anne Neill (wife of Joseph) to distinguish them.
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