I wanted to locate children of a relative in census records after her death. The names were somewhat common and I didn’t have too many details about them. Maybe I had better wait until I get the obituaries and estate records of the parents. Those may provide me with enough clues to find the children in census records and make certain I have the correct ones. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
For those who did not know, the 1925 Iowa State Census asked for names of father and mother. Ancestry has included those as search terms.Might be worth a try if you had extended family in Iowa in 1925. They asked where the parents were married too! ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Remember that the census we use today was not the one on which the census taker took his “original” enumeration. The census copy that was microfilmed, and eventually digitized, was the “clean” copy that was written by the census taker after he finished taking the census. He used his field notes to make the good copy that we use today. Any chance there was something in his field notes he couldn’t read? And what was the chance that he went down and asked for clarification on an age or place of birth? ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Keep in mind that your ancestor may have moved back and forth. Not everyone followed a general path in just one direction. I’m working on a person now who was in Iowa in 1856, Missouri in 1860, Iowa in 1870-1895, Missouri in 1900, Wyoming in 1910 and in Missouri in 1912. Oh, and she was born in either New York state or Canada. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
My latest “Casefile Clues” column was posted Sunday. It discussed a preemption claim in Missouri in the 1850s. Readers who aren’t subscribers can subscribe and get this issue sent to them upon subscription even though their subscription will start on 23 August. Just mention when you subscribe that you are a Genealogy Tip of the Day reader. More tips are coming. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
This free online index is just to some Missouri newspapers, but it might help those with ancestors in the “Show-Me” state.http://shs.umsystem.edu/newspaperindex/ Copies can be ordered for $1.50 a page. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Have you searched for EVERY appropriate person in the SSDI? Are there people in your database who might be in there and for whom you have not searched? Might be worth your while to check it out. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
When was the last time you visited the USGenWeb pages for your counties of interest? It has been at least several years since I visited the page for Chariton County, Missouri, where my wife has ancestors. Upon visiting it today, I realized they had quite a bit of new information from the last time I looked. Point your browser to http://www.usgenweb.org and take a look at your states and counties today. There may be something new there. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Do you know the Soundex codes for your last names?Visit http://resources.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/soundexconverter to get the codes. Knowing which variant spellings are soundex equivalents will save you search time. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Sometimes the brick wall is created when an ancestor’s mother marries after the death of her husband. The problem is that if you do not know the names of the parents, it can be difficult to locate a marriage record. If you do know the names and a family disappears, consider the possibility that the father died and the mother remarried and the family is “hidden” under this new last name–whether or not the father adopted the children officially. Many didn’t. I have several families in my own research where the remarriage of the mother complicated the research. Some will be featured in upcoming columns of “Casefile Clues.“ ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
A poster to a list indicated that her European ancestor’s first name was changed from Andreas to Andrew when he immigrated to the United States. Two things come to mind. His name really wasn’t “changed.” It was translated. Andreas is Latin and Andrew is English. The second is that if his name changed, it likely was when he naturalized, not when he landed. Changings at landings were rare–your paperwork had to match or there could be issues, especially in the mid-19th century and after. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
My second “Casefile Clues” column went out to subscribers this weekend. It discusses a passport application that was located on Ancestry.com (Footnote also has it as does the National Archives). The images can be seen on our site.If “Tip of the Day Readers” subscribe in the next 24 hours, I’ll send this past weekend’s article to them. Simply mention that you are a “tip of the day reader” when you subscribe or mention it in an email to me. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
We don’t normally include websites at “Genealogy tip of the Day,” but this one is free and really too good for the genealogist to pass up. The American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress (http://memory.loc.gov) has scans of maps, religious petitions, early eighteenth century books on immigration, and much much more. Take a look for yourself. And if you didn’t see any railroad maps on the site, there are here: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/rrhome.html ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
My grandma Neill told me she remembered her baptism. I was skeptical as the denomination of which her parents were members practiced infant baptism. Grandma had to be wrong. Actually she was correct. For reasons that are not clear, Grandma was baptized at the age of five along with several of her siblings. Sure enough she was right. I’ll think twice before assuming (without evidence) that she was wrong. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
Does that ancestral signature on a document match the handwriting of the document itself? Don’t conclude your ancestor wrote the record. Most likely what you are looking at is a transcription of the record made by the clerk. The clerk likely copied your ancestor’s signature as well. ———————————— Check out GenealogyBank’s Offer for Tip of the Day Fans!
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