From our Facebook page… Planning is fine, but there comes a point and you have to do. What was the last genealogy thing you preserved or shared? I’m not talking about sharing a “find” that was already preserved, but something you shared that wasn’t preserved…like a memory, a picture, or an image of a family heirloom. It’s great to share a census entry you’ve found with a relative. But those are already preserved in a variety of places. That picture you have of great-grandma weeding in the garden? That memory of great-uncle Herman driving the car through the back wall of the garage and crashing through to the neighbor’s kitchen? Those items might not be anywhere else but your box in the closet and the deeper recesses of […]
Today we’re told to store our files in the cloud as a means of backing up information in remote locations so that we always have a copy of it. Did newspapers function in the same way once upon a time? In some places, newspapers published summaries of land deeds…is it possible that the courthouse burned but there’s copies of those newspapers somewhere else? Was the birth of a child mentioned in the newspaper, but later adopted and those adoption records are now closed? Were the local court records destroyed but were some court details published in the local newspaper? Local gossip columns also seem to be a forerunner of social media.
Two babies one the award for “most recent baby” at the 1941 reunion of the fourth annual Trautvetter-Schlidmann reunion held in Hamilton, Illinois: Wayne Wells and Buddy Neil. Wayne Wells was determined to have been a Schildmann descendant. I already suspected who Buddy Neil was, but avoided jumping to conclusions. The only “Neil” family listed in the entire listing of attendees as “Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Neil[sic] and family.” Mrs. Neill was a Trautvetter descendant. It was consistent with the other double prizes that were apparently awarded one to a member of each family. Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Neill–actually Cecil Neill and the former Ida Trautvetter–did have a baby in April of 1941: Keith Neill. Keith is my father. I have never heard of him referred to as […]
This 1940-era picture of my father and a dog contains some items in a tree. I’m not exactly certain what they are or why they were in the tree. Just a reminder to look at the whole picture and not just the people or animals. Sometimes the items are clues as to when or where the picture was taken and sometimes they are just confusing.
Unless you are the only descendant of your great-great-grandparents, they are not just your set of ancestors. Most of our ancestors have other descendants besides us. We can’t stop others from publishing incorrect things about our relatives. While books and articles we may write about a relative can be protected from unauthorized distribution by others, facts that we discover or public records that we locate and then share can be distributed without our consent or permission. Ethics aside, it needs to be remembered that no matter how much emotional investment we have in an ancestor or a relative that they usually have other relatives who are related to them as closely as we are. We may feel that our ancestors are special to us, but it’s important to […]
A witness to a document typically is only indicating that they know who signed the document in question. A witness has to be of legal age and sound mind, but does not have to have any relationship to the person actually making out the document. Don’t draw too many conclusions about a person who only witnesses one of your ancestor’s documents. The witness just might have been another warm body in the office the same time as your ancestor. If there’s someone who regularly appears as a witness on your ancestor’s documents, that’s more suggestive of a potential relationship and someone you should take a closer look at.
I recently discovered a cousin who has an interest in family history. As we shared images of photographs, I was reminded of a few things when making digital images of photographs: scan/photograph the front and back of each photograph–even if they are blank (be consistent in doing this so that you always know you did it) identify any individuals whose identity you personally know–as soon as possible (you may forget) start work on identifying unknown individuals as soon as you can organize photographs as soon as possible back up the images you made–and not just on a flash drive–remote storage is key The important thing is not to just digitize and quit.
The 1870 US census asks for the month of marriage for individuals married within the last year and the month of birth for individuals born within the last year. It’s not the same as a vital record, but better than nothing–especially in places that did not record vital records during this time period.
It never hurts to be reminded that genealogists should not assume anything. A researcher assumed that the last name of a relative’s husband was spelled incorrectly in an obituary and “corrected” in their transcription and in their online postings regarding the family. The problem was that, in this case, the obituary was correct. Had the researcher looked for information other than the obituary, he would have seen numerous references to the husband (and the wife) with the last name written as it was in the obituary. There’s actually three reminders here: don’t assume, obituaries are not always wrong, and avoid relying on just one source.
It may seem tedious to go through all those entries for a relative in small-town newspaper. A weekly newspaper may regularly mention your relative or family members attending various functions. But sometimes all those references can help. A cousin of my grandmother’s was married several times. The difficulty was finding the actual first name of her last husband–who she married in the 1950s. He was listed only by his initials in her obituary and a marriage in the local area could not be located. So I started going through the social columns in the local weekly newspaper. After much looking, I found a mention of the cousin–with her husband’s first name–in a 1957 writeup of an anniversary celebration of an older family member. But it took a little […]
Genealogists often look for “free” genealogy sites–those with no membership fees and all sorts of data. There’s one place to get genealogy information at little or no charge that often doesn’t require membership and can give you information not available anywhere else: your relatives. Make certain you’ve asked them questions and gone back later when discoveries have you with more questions. Aside from travel, contacting relatives is low-cost and many times family stories are not located elsewhere.
We always want to see that record with our relative’s name and usually are not interested in other documents in the same series of records that contains the names of “other people.” We should be. Sometimes those documents on other people can help us to read, interpret, and understand the document we have on our ancestor. Recently I obtained copies of land evaluations of confiscated British property in Maryland during the American Revolution. Fortunately for me I needed copies of three separate records. The first one had some verbiage that was difficult to read and just as difficult to understand in the bottom left corner of the document. When I looked at the other two documents, it appeared that these documents were similar in form and structure. On […]
If your family had annual reunions, the local newspaper may have published more than just a list of who attended. Sometimes vital events within the family are also listed. A 1944 writeup of my Trautvetter’s annual reunion included names and dates of births, marriages, and deaths within the family. Given that World War II was still being waged, the reunion also noted which relatives were in the armed forces, their branch of service, and where they were stationed. It pays to search for every reunion announcement.
A relative’s 1944 death certificate indicated she was buried in Missouri. An obituary in her hometown newspaper–apparently written after her funeral–indicated she was buried in her hometown. The obituary is dated several days after the death certificate. I have not been to the cemetery to see if there is a stone and, as of this writing, funeral home records and cemetery records have not been accessed. FindAGrave has a memorial page for her in the hometown cemetery, but there’s no picture of her stone, no mention of a plot location. Because there’s no evidence or supporting documentation, I am not using the FindAGrave reference. Until further research is done, I will transcribe each document as written. If I’m unable to locate a stone or other records, I’m inclined […]
Never assume that once you’ve figured out one relationship between two individuals that there could not be another. A man named Rolf married the sister of my ancestor and that was the first relationship I learned about. Later I discovered that years before he married the ancestor’s sister, he had been married to that same ancestor’s aunt. So he was originally my ancestor’s uncle by marriage and then his brother-in-law. Sometimes there is more than one connection.
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