Interacting with other online genealogists is great, but face to face interaction can be good as well. Consider joining and becoming involved in your local genealogical society, even if you have no ancestors where you live. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Don’t assume that your ancestor always was a member of the same denomination or that they were the same denomination as their parents. People do change churches and denominations. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Have you considered writing your own biography? It would be deeply ironic to have all that genealogy information on all those dead people with little about yourself. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
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Many soldiers recorded a copy of their discharge papers in the county in which they were living when they enlisted or where they lived right after their discharge. If you can’t find military information on your ancestor, see if they recorded a copy of their discharge papers at their local county recorder’s office. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Be careful using relationships from obituaries as your sole source of information for your database. Modern obituaries especially may: not mention all children may not distinguish children from step-children may not indicate which spouse was the parents of which children Any of these things can confuse later genealogists if you assume an obituary was entirely correct. Best bet is to transcribe it (or scan it) and look for other materials to back it up. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Are you looking in other records besides census records for occupational clues on your ancestor? Estate inventories are good places to get an idea of what occupation your ancestor might have had. Those with city-dwellers in their family tree should use city directories for clues of this type. And don’t forget some European church records use occupations to distinguish men of the same names from each other. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Are there any living relatives you haven’t talked to yet with your family history questions? Remember that cousins, near and distant, may have family items or memories that you don’t. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Have you tried to determine if the state archives where your ancestor lived might hold records that could be helpful in your search? Remember that state archives could hold records created at the state level or county records that have been transferred to their control. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Sometimes all of us need to admit that we’ve reached the end of our research on a particular person or a particular lineage. Maybe records have been destroyed or were not even created during the time period we need. Maybe your ancestor changed his name and the original simply will never be known. There are situations where, unless new records are discovered or finding aids are created, research will reach a standstill. Sometimes it’s good to know when there’s just no more you can do. The problem is that sometimes we reach that conclusion before we should. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
When looking for that relative’s obituary, look in more than one location. Try where they were living where they died, where they were born, where they lived the bulk of their life, where their children were living at the time of their death. You might be surprised where an obituary pops up. Of course, there may be no obituary at all. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
[the earlier version of this that went out was a “draft” that accidentally went live instead of this version] Remember that the month of Xber is actually October. Tip of the day readers familiar with their calendar history will know that X is the Roman number for ten and that the prefix “oct” means 8. That’s because before the calendar change of 1752, March was the first month of the year, making October the eighth month and not the tenth month. Chances are after the calendar change of 1752, Xber refers to December and that before the calendar change of 1752 it referred to October. Best advice: Record the month EXACTLY as written. If your software program doesn’t “like “Xber” then personally, I would leave the date blank […]
This post has been deleted in favor of the corrected one here. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
If you are looking for a specific piece of information–ask yourself “where could that be written?” Don’t focus initially on locating a birth record, instead think where could information about the birth be written? This might be a birth certificate, newspaper announcement, family bible, etc. Then try to access those sources. It might be that when you locate one of the items it provides a clue to help you actually locate the birth certificate. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
There are several places where you could locate signatures of your ancestor. Two good places are packets of estate papers (for receipts, etc.) and actual pension or bounty land applications. Estate papers would be (usually) a county level record and pension/bounty land applications are typically a federal record (except for Confederate pensions given by states). ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
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