Places change over time. While I am not necessarily an advocate of saving every landscape picture a genealogist has, there are times where saving the picture preserves an image of buildings and other improvements that may not be around in fifty or one hundred years. But when images of places are preserved, record information about precisely where the item was taken–at least with as much detail as you have. Include at least: date of photo–or approximation address of location at time photograph was taken if known and if there was even an address GPS coordinates if known direction facing when photograph was taken Also include how that information was obtained, who provided it, and when. This image is one I discovered while using my new slide and negative […]
Local tax lists, both of personal and real property, could provide some information to assist in your genealogical search. Local tax records in the United States are most often county or town records, although there are exceptions. Many tax records, particularly those in the United States before the Civil War have been microfilmed and eventually digitized. Tax records are generally organized geographically, but there can be variation from one location to another and from one time period to another. It is important to understand who was subject to taxes during the time period and what property was taxed during that time period. One advantage to tax records is that they are available in non-census years and fewer people tend to be overlooked. The disadvantage is that they only […]
There is a picture of my Dad in his early 70s with a hog in the back of his livestock trailer. My Dad farmed his entire life so pictures with livestock are not uncommon. One might be tempted to think, based upon the picture, that my Dad raised hogs on his farm at that point in his life. The picture would seem to potentially suggest that. That was not the case. My Dad had not raised hogs in over twenty-five years when the photo was taken of him with a hog in his livestock trailer. He had won the hog by guessing its weight in a contest sponsored by a local business and was picking the pig up after the contest was over. When analyzing a piece of […]
Did the census taker reverse the first and last names? It can happen with anyone, but the possibility increases if the individual’s name is in a foreign language and they are a recently arrived immigrant. This man’s name was Focke Meyer, but he was listed as last name Focke and first name Myer.
Join me on one or two research trips this summer. More details are on our announcement pages: Salt Lake City’s FamilySearch Library The Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Collection in Ft. Wayne, Indiana
From a few years back… Children were not always named immediately. While modern practice is to name children at birth (if not before), this was not always the case for one reason or another. It is not uncommon to see “unnamed” or “baby” as the first name on a birth certificate. A couple may have waited until they could arrange for a christening to name the baby, because they could not decide, or other reasons. This post on our sister site looks at possible unnamed children in the 1880 United States census.
Because of naming patterns and patronymics, four generations of one of my family contains numerous male family members whose first names are either Lubbe, Habbe, or Pabe and whose last names are either Lubben, Habben, or Paben. It can be extremely confusing and they are easy to either mix up or merge into one wrong compilation. Church records for the area of Germany where this family is from are fairly extant. For this reason, I have avoided using online trees and compilations unless I have personal knowledge of the researcher’s ability to be thorough and meticulous. Even then anyone can make a mistake. Using the church records myself is an excellent way to go although it is tedious and time consuming. I’ve made a chart listing the family […]
How many pictures do you need to pass to the next generation? Will your children, grandchildren, and so on really want two hundred vacation pictures of beaches and other scenery that contain no image of a human? Will they really need fifty snapshots taken of a birthday party for a one-year old opening every gift? Saving that one picture you have of your great-grandmother is one thing. Saving the three hundred negatives of pictures taken at a family barbeque may be something else. Saving the digital scans of those family barbeque pictures may be more manageable. When you have a handful of images for a person, the decision to save is not difficult. When you have one photo of a great-great-grandparent, there is no decision: save. But when […]
When using foreign language records, make certain you know the gender of names with which you are unfamiliar. Ask someone who knows. Don’t just guess.
The envelope from the drug store where my Mom had her photographs developed listed her with her maiden name. This was twenty-seven years after she was married and her last name was no longer Neill. The drug store clerk apparently realized the error and corrected the name, but did not change the initial under which the order was filed. I already know that Mom’s maiden name is Ufkes from other records and the lifelong interaction I had with members of her family of origin. This drug store photograph receipt really does not prove anything and I certainly have a large quantity of items providing her maiden name that are of much higher evidentiary quality. The item does not purport to give her maiden name. It was intended to […]
Ran across a picture of this clock while scanning my negatives. Reminded me of the importance of photographing your own family items and writing up their history. You cannot give one item to everyone, but you can share the stories and pictures of these items with everyone. Family tradition has it that this clock was owned by my second great-grandparents. My Mom was fairly certain she remembered my great-grandma Tjode (Goldenstein) Habben having this clock in their house for some time before Tjode passed away in 1954. What I know (because it took place in my lifetime) is that my great-grandma’s sister Altje had the clock and gave it to my grandmother before Altje died. Before my grandmother moved to Florida after my grandfather’s death, she gave the […]
I’ve been using my new slide and negative scanner to scan my parents’ photographic negatives. None of them have any identification on them. although some of them are still in the envelopes which contained the photographic prints and returned negatives. Most of those envelopes at least have a year on them which has been helpful in dating them. Fortunately most of the negatives are from pictures taken during my life time. The problem is that in some cases, an individual strip of negatives has ended up in an envelope of pictures taken at another point in time. Sometimes I notice this and other times I do not–depends on the pictures. I located a negative strip that had pictures of my mother’s grade school class. It was in an […]
If you’ve already gotten a copy of an old, out-of-print book, why would you want to look at a digital copy? Isn’t having your own copy the perfect way to go? It’s ideal, but it is worth noting that other copies of that same book you have may have had notations added by the person who originally owned the book–perhaps about your relatives. Your copy of the book may be missing pages that the copy used for digitization was not missing. You may have your parent’s 1940 high school year book, but perhaps they wrote something to the person who originally had the copy of that yearbook that ended up being digitized. If you discover that there’s a digitized copy of something you already have or have already […]
Write up every piece of information you know about your “lost” ancestor. Every piece. Include a source citation for every piece of information you know about your ancestor–if it came from an interview of a relative, so state. If it was on a piece of paper or a digital image of that paper, cite it. Make certain you have transcribed the information completely and accurately from that source. If you don’t have a source for a piece of information–indicate that. That doesn’t mean the information is wrong, just that you don’t have a source for it. Are there any relatives of the “lost person” who have not been fully researched? And if you think they are fully researched, have you really confirmed that? Are there any words or […]
Genealogists lament women being named as “Mrs. Husbandfirst Husbandlast” in records without their first name being used. Complaining about newspaper practices from 100 years ago will not change how those items appear in the original newspaper. Researchers simply need to work around the challenges. One problem with these references is that the genealogist needs to make certain to which Mrs. the reference is being made. Cecil Wetzel of Hancock County, Illinois, had two wives. The second was my aunt. The first was an individual to whom I am not related. I need to keep their marriage date in mind when searching for newspapers so I know to which woman “Mrs. Cecil Wetzel” is referring. Don’t assume that “Mrs. Hisname Hisothername” is always referencing the same woman. It may […]
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