If Uncle Herman (or Aunt Hermina) disappears after they reach young adulthood, consider the fact that they might not really have disappeared? In some families if a child was “not right,” they might have been institutionalized and never mentioned again. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Look at the ages of your ancestors when they had their “first” marriage. Was their age at that “first” marriage old enough that there might have been a marriage before the marriage you think was their “first?” ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If you’re confused in reading a mortgage, remember that the mortgagor is usually the one who signs the document and is the one who is borrowing the money. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Sign up for GenealogyBank today and save 25% on an annual subscription. 95% of their content is unique to their site and more digital images of newspapers are added on a regular basis. Genealogy Tip of the Day is sponsored by GenealogyBank, ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
We’ve mentioned this tip before, but it bears repeating. Is there some document, picture, or record where the only copy in existence is in your possession? Have you scanned, copied, or otherwise reproduced/shared the item in an attempt to preserve it? What would happen if your only copy was destroyed without being reproduced? ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Learning to read another style of handwriting can be difficult, particularly the words written in it are in a foreign language. One way to get better at recognizing individual letters is to practice them yourself. After all, how did you learn to write in the first place? ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If you are fortunate enough to find an ancestor’s biography in an old county history, bear in mind that information submitted for these biographies was not fact checked. Usually the person paid to have their biography published in this late 19th and early 20th century books. If your ancestor’s payment was good, so was his biography. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Some families name children according to naming patterns and other families do not. Names being repeated in a family can be clues to connections, but they should be used as clues and not as facts. And just because other families named the oldest son for the paternal grandfather does not mean that your family did. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
In any form of testimony where someone indicates they have known your ancestor for a specific number of years, determine when your ancestor and this “someone” met. Did they know each other when they lived in a different location? If you can’t find your ancestor in their previous area of residence, search for the “someone.” Then maybe you will find the ancestor. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Depending on their family and work situation, there is a chance that an ancestor is enumerated more than once in a census. The census was not necessarily always taken “on just one day,” so individuals who moved around the time of the census may have been listed by two enumerators. Individuals who were living in one household and working as domestic help in another may show up in twice–once in each household. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
The death notice, obituary, death certificate, and tombstone all have the same date of birth for great-grandma. This probably does not mean that you four totally separate pieces of information provided by four separate and independent sources. What you most likely have is one person who gave the same information four times. Remember that before you think that just because four sources “agree” that they are correct. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
While most couples who took out a marriage license did marry, it is always possible that they did not. If there is a record that a couple got a license, indicate in your records that it is a license date, not a marriage date. Even if they did marry, there’s no guarantee that they married on the same date as the license. And clearly indicating that the date is a license date tells others (and yourself) that the marriage record has not been located. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Derivative citizenship is citizenship that is “derived” from someone else’s citizenship status. If your alien ancestor was under the age of consent when his father naturalized, then your under the age of consent ancestor had a citizenship that was “derived” from that of his father. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Do you keep track of what databases you use and what people you try and find in those databases? Or do you just keep entering in names, hoping to find something eventually? Knowing what you have already looked for in a database helps you to formulate new searches and strategies. Research logs are not just for manual searches of unindexed books and local records. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
When was the last time you read some local history for the area adjacent to where you are doing research? A little more background information never hurts. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
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