While browsing through my tree, I rediscovered that two younger half-siblings to my great-great-grandmother (last name: Haase) had spouses who were siblings (last name Baker). I added the relationship to my list of “double relationships” that I keep. This double-relationship they have with each other probably does not impact my DNA match analysis. Probably. If a close cousin of the Baker siblings (who are not related to me biologically) married a close cousin of one of my great-grandparents (very reasonable in my ancestral neck of the woods), then descendants of that marriage could be DNA matches to me. They could also be DNA matches for descendants of either of the Haase-Baker marriages. So the descendant of a Baker-cousin to my g-grandparent marriage could be a shared match I […]
Remember that if the civil record of a marriage indicates your ancestor was married by a minister, there may be a church record of the marriage as well. That record may provide additional information besides what is on the civil (government) record of the marriage.
This post includes thoughts…without necessarily answers. If my daughter tells someone her date of birth, she is a secondary source of that date. She has no first hand knowledge of her date of birth. It doesn’t mean that she gives someone the wrong date of birth, just that her knowledge of it comes (most likely) from her parents or from her certified copy of her birth certificate. If I tell someone that today is my daughter’s 21st birthday (which it isn’t, but pretend that it is), is that secondary? I was present at the birth, but if I say it or write it down 21 years later is that record primary or secondary? If I write it down with a month of her birth, that probably would be […]
Obituaries and estate notices usually appear in newspapers shortly after someone dies. There are other times a person may be mentioned years or decades after their death or departure from the area. Some small-town newspapers published snippets of items from the past as a way to engage readers and generate subscriptions. These items from ten, twenty, twenty-five, or fifty years ago were usually abbreviated versions of the original article. Given that earlier newspapers are sometimes harder for computerized algorithms to read, a digital search may find the more recent reference easier. Don’t always set your years of search to the person’s lifespan. The most interesting references may have been published some time after they were dead. And always go back and read the original reference for additional information. […]
from a while back… ‘ Joseph Daby had four deeds recorded in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in 1738–some of which had been executed nearly ten years earlier. Not everyone always had their land record recorded immediately. Some people just waited and others waited until they had more than one to record. For these reasons, always look for land records after you “think they should be recorded” and for multiple deeds to the same person recorded at the same time. Joseph Daby may have dabbled getting his deeds recorded but he was not the only one.
Don’t forget on 1840 census enumerations to look at both the left hand page and the right hand page. The right hand page includes numbers of enslaved individuals, information on individuals engaged in various types of employment (categories only, no names), and names of Revolutionary War pensioners. There might be a big clue hiding on the right hand page of that census–don’t forget to look, grandpa might be living with the family.
There are many reasons to go back and take another look at research you last worked on years ago. An email from a relative and an overseas visit by a friend caused me to go back and review a potential parentage in Maryland in the mid-18th century and a “missing family” from early 19th century Germany. New indexes and finding aids come online constantly. Our research skills get better or the “away time” from the problem gives us a new perspective. What family have you not looked at in years that may be worthy of a second look?
Technically speaking, your second cousin is one with whom you share a set of great-grandparents. Another way of looking at is that if two individuals are first cousins then their children are second cousins. Often people just think that their second cousin is simply their relationship to the child of their first cousin. That’s technically a first cousin once removed. A chart on the National Genealogical Society website explains the relationships. Personally instead of saying “Susan and I are second cousins” it is more clear to say that “my Grandma Ufkes and her Grandma Habben were sisters,” perhaps naming the grandmas as well. People are more concerned how you are related than what that relationship is called and explaining it is certainly more clear than only saying what […]
This is your periodic reminder to work on photo identification and preservation–particularly of those items of which your original copy is the only one. The 1860 census will be there in a week. Life happens. You uncopied, unpreserved, undigitized, unshared copy of that photograph of great-grandma may not.
In census records where every member of the household is enumerated, it may be easier to find the family by looking for one of the younger children instead of the parents. One family I am trying to find in 1860 includes a father and a mother who used one of two first names–apparently depending on the whim of the census taker or the weather (I’m not certain which). Their place of birth varies as well and their last name (not easily understood by ears trained in English) also creates additional challenges. They had two children who would have been under 10 in the desired census year (who survived beyond that enumeration) and whose names are English names–more difficult for a census taker to get wrong. Sometimes it is […]
If your relative died under suspicious circumstances, there may have been an inquest into their death. These records, in the United States, typically start in the late 19th century, but there are exceptions. Generally they are local (city or county) records and they may or may not be available online. Testimony of witnesses and doctors may be included. That testimony may give additional insight not only into the death, but also the life, of your relative.
Your relative may not have written the “Great American Novel” or otherwise noteworthy fiction, but it’s possible he or she wrote something else that was published. Old newspapers may have contained a letter from your ancestor (either as a letter to the editor or as a “local correspondent). Trade publications may have contained a “how to” or career-based article written by your ancestor or about your ancestor. Publications of social or fraternal organizations may have also contained some of your ancestor’s writings. Digital images of newspapers are available on a variety of online sites, both free and fee-based. Other publications may be available digitally at Google Books, Archive.org, or other archives of digital images of out-of-copyright publications.
Be open to the possibility that more members of a family immigrated than you think. Family tradition was that an ancestral couple married in Switzerland and then migrated to the United States in the early 1850s where others of his family had settled as adults. Seemed like a very reasonable story. Turns out that the wife immigrated as a child with her parents and that her future husband immigrated as an adult from a nearby village with members of his own family. She was not the only one from her family to immigrate as the family tradition seemed to suggest.
The person who submits a photo of your ancestor to FindAGrave, FamilySearch, or any other site may potentially know absolutely nothing about your ancestor. It is very possible they found the photo while browsing the internet (often obituary pages, but not necessarily), saved it (with no citation), and uploaded it. Consider a reverse image search at Google to see if you can find other locations where the image is posted–perhaps by someone with more knowledge about your ancestor or perhaps where the image was posted originally.
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