Try and avoid as much as possible, interpreting your ancestor’s actions in twenty-first century terms. Remember that your ancestor lived in a different time than you and probably in a different location. Laws might have been different, commonly accepted behaviors might have been different, educational levels might have been different, religious beliefs might have been different, etc. Interpreting events in your ancestors’ lives as if you were the one living through them might be your problem. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Just because something is handwritten does not always mean that it is the original. Many older courthouse records are handwritten transcriptions of the original documents-commonly referred to as the record copy. This is especially true with deeds before other reproductive techniques were developed. Some wills were copied by transcriptionists into record books as well. It is not bad that something is a handwritten copy, but bear in mind that you could be looking at a handwritten reproduction of the original document. And some handwritten documents are the original document. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Are there boarders, hired hands, hired girls, etc. living with your family in a 1850-1940 census? Do you know who they are? Try looking for them in earlier or later census records–you may find there is a connection to your family. Or you may not. But you will never know if you don’t look. Never ignore a name that could be connected to your family of interest. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
It took me awhile to find this marriage record in Ancestry.com’s database of Missouri marriages. The reason was that Harrison M. Kilgore became Harrison M. McKilgore. I’m not certain why they used the “M” twice–but it is easy to see how a fancy “M” as a middle initial, written closely to the last name, can be interpreted as a “Mc.” ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If you need to copy and paste text from one program into another, consider pasting into a basic text editor (such as Notepad) as an intermediate step. That will strip formatting and make it easier to paste “clean” text into the document on which you are really working. I’ve also used this trick to clean up text in Word that somehow got formatted incorrectly. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
In some locations and time periods, it may be impossible to determine the precise date when someone was born. Records may only allow you to ascertain the year or even just a narrow range of years. Don’t expect to always have a precise date and never claim a date is precise when it actually is an estimate. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If you’re just getting started with a new software package or consider trying features of your current program that you’ve never used before, considering doing the experimentation on a “dummy” database. Then if things do not work correctly or you mess things up entirely, you still have the original. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
For some of us, paragraph after paragraph of names and relationships can be confusing. To help yourself and others with whom you are sharing information, make charts or “trees” showing the relationships. The chart can contain a few key details (place of birth or death) on each individual, but leave the details somewhere else. Sometimes when researching keeping the relationships straight is difficult–but crucial. A chart or “tree” can help you to do that. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
We’ve said it before, but it is worth repeating: “Do not rely only on online sources or printed material. The solution to many problems rests in material that has never been transcribed, copied, microfilmed, or digitized and exists only in its original format.” ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Those of us looking for rural ancestors sometimes ignore the census information regarding addresses that’s contained in the far left hand side of more recent census records (1930 and 1940 for example). That would be a mistake. I located an uncle in the 1940 census for Lima Township in Adams County, Illinois. The “address” indicates he was living on the Adams-Hancock County line road. That was a good clue which told me that he lived along the extreme northern edge of Lima Township. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Are you gathering information without any specific goal or question in mind? Having a specific goal or question in mind allows you to focus on that goal or question instead of gathering whatever “comes your way.” Setting a research goal or having a specific question lets you think about the sources that might answer that question–some of which are probably not online. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If your ancestors are enumerated in a census that gives places of birth and they are not living in the state of which they are a native–look at the places of birth for their neighbors. Are many neighbors born in the same location? If there are not many, those neighbors who were born in the same place and are living near your ancestor may have some connection to him. Of course, this approach will not work for your Illinois born ancestor who is still living in Illinois at the time of the census! ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If a library, researcher, or someone else goes out of their way to help with your research, or makes copies at no charge, etc., do you remember to thank them? First of all, it’s just nice to do it. It also helps “pave the way” for the researcher to help others. And sometimes it even helps you as well. That person may run across something else on your family (particularly if it’s someone who researches a lot in local records) and if you’ve thanked them, they are more inclined to send you something else and more inclined to remember the names on which you were working. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
The next time you have a chunk of time to devote to your genealogy research, spend it organizing and analyzing what you already have. Do not perform Google searches, do not use FamilySearch, or any other website, database, etc. For that block of time for yourself to organize and analyze what you already have. The discoveries you make could surprise you. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Information for any record can be provided under less than ideal circumstances. Death certificates contain information than can easily be given at a time when the informant is tired, distracted, and even slightly confused about who their mother-in-law’s mother was or where the deceased’s father was born. Keep this in mind if the informant gave “unknown” or a location that is really off. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
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