You’ve got a DNA match that will not communicate with you and has a tree that names only their parents. You’ve been able to, using obituaries and other online sources get the tree back a few generations where you start using census and other online images of records. But in the more recent generations, you don’t have a large number of birth records, marriage records, etc. You’ve got a handful of obituaries and newspaper items to “prove” the lineage in the 20th century part of the tree you have compiled for this match. What’s the chance those items don’t distinguish between step-children and children? Is it possible, if you’ve only got a few references on each relationship that what you think are the biological relatives are actually step-relatives? […]
This is a previous tip we’re using again as a reminder. The “provenance” of a family heirloom, picture, etc. is “how you know it is what it is and how you came to have it.” Think about the provenance of every item you have. A relative pointed out to me that I have quite a few pictures from my Ufkes family. They came from my maternal grandparents. Then it dawned on me. The family home burned in 1924 and most of the pictures are from before that year. Did the family get the pictures out? Did other relatives share pictures with them or give them pictures? I’ll never know, but just thinking about who else might have had the pictures in 1924 got me to thinking about various family […]
Sometimes we overlook an easy solution because we get stuck in one way to solve a problem. For me it was staring at a word that I could not read. Years ago I was trying to read the village of residence for one of the sponsors on a baptism in a Catholic church in the 1780s. The name of the Belgian village could only be partially read. Then it dawned on me. The village where the sponsor lived had to be near the village where the child was baptized. The child was only a few days old and the reality was that the sponsor lived close to the village where the ceremony took place. Sure enough, armed with names of nearby villages I was able to interpret the […]
If you have an original copy of a document or photograph, do not do anything do that paper or photograph that cannot be undone. Particularly do not do anything that could potentially cause damage. If you are going to “clean” an item, make certain that the way in which you are cleaning it does no harm. Find this out from an expert who actually knows what they are talking about and is someone with a reputation you can verify. This does not include random people online who you had never heard of before you read their post. Putting an item in a frame or an envelope (usually) is one thing. Taping it in a book is another. Taking a digital picture of an item is usually harmless–especially if […]
Genealogists use maps of political and geographical features for many reasons, including to see where records might have been maintained and where an ancestor might have easily traveled to find a spouse or a job. But maps of human relationships, biological, legal, and social may help as well. A family tree extending for ten generations may be nice to display, but is is helpful to your research when you are stuck on a specific person? A smaller chart, showing the relatives they may have interacted with may be more helpful. Don’t neglect to include “step” relatives and “in-laws” as those are people your ancestor may have interacted with as well. Another chart showing people the “problem” ancestor interacted with may be helpful also–just be certain the nature of […]
If you’re looking for “something” genealogical to do, are there statements in your files for which you have no sources? Probably all of us have information we obtained early in our research that we never “sourced.” So if you “need” something to do, chances are there’s a statement you could source. And sometimes when I clean up my sources, I discover mistakes I made years ago or encounter new information. Help support Genealogy Tip of the Day by visiting any of the following sites: Try a GenealogyBank Genealogy Search to see what you find. Newspapers.com AncestryDNA offers. Books on Michael’s Genealogy Shelf
I have been doing some thinking about my genealogical priorities at this stage of my life. Here’s my personal list: Preserve any photos or other paper ephemera that has not already been preserved. Identify people in photos as much as possible. Document stories I have about any personal family history items (furniture, jewelry, books, recipes, etc.). Write down my own stories and personal memories Write up “solutions” I have to ancestral problems that have not been written up. Preserve those. Notice that more research is not on this list. Your list may vary. But consider making a list and working towards accomplishing those tasks. Help support Genealogy Tip of the Day by visiting any of the following sites: Try a GenealogyBank Genealogy Search to see what you find. Newspapers.com AncestryDNA offers. Books on Michael’s […]
It’s worth getting every possible obituary of your ancestor for additional clues about their life and family. Other obituaries of Heipke Dirks did not mention the fact that she and her husband bought a farm jointly with two other families in the 1850s near Coatsburg, Illinois. The statement needs to be verified by local land records. It is possible that the joint purchase referenced in the obituary is not completely correct. Whether it is or not, the names of fellow settlers need to be added to the list of friend, associates, and neighbors of Heipke and her husband. That “last” obituary may include a detail you’ve not found elsewhere. Help support Genealogy Tip of the Day by visiting any of the following sites: Try a GenealogyBank Genealogy Search to see what you […]
That reference to a family vacation in an old newspaper could be a clue to where missing relatives of the vacationer were living. In this 1951 newspaper reference, the Rampleys had left Illinois to vacation in Minnesota and Kansas. No additional details of their visit are given in the newspaper reference. It is known that two of Rampley’s sisters were living in Minnesota in 1951. While we may wish they had added a simple “to visit his sisters” to the article, that does not always happen. It’s not known why the Rampleys were going to Kansas. Many vacations were taken partially to see relatives. Whether everyone considers visiting relatives an actual vacation is another matter entirely.
For those with rural ancestors, one way to potentially gather a few additional clues about relatives is to search through the probate records of their neighbors. Your ancestor may have owed their neighbor money, borrowed money from their neighbor, inventoried the estate, purchased items from the estate, or interacted in other ways with the settlement. Those references may not be earth shattering clues. Or they might be–it all depends on what you don’t know about the ancestor and what information is in the probate. If nothing else, it can be interesting to discover your relative purchased something at the estate sale and how much they paid for it.
When viewing an original document (or a microfilm or digital copy), do you try and determine if the same person wrote out the entire record? Or does it look like perhaps more than one person wrote on the document? If that’s the case there may have been multiple informants on the record or someone may have written in additional information years later. All of which impacts how reliable we perceive the information to be. Help support Genealogy Tip of the Day by visiting any of the following sites: Try a GenealogyBank Genealogy Search to see what you find. Newspapers.com AncestryDNA offers Books on Michael’s Genealogy Shelf
How much of your “genealogy time” do you spend on social media? Is it helping your research or hindering it. Do you make effective use of social media for your research during your “genealogy time” or are you scrolling through posts and updates that are highly distracting? For me, the one drawback of being online for research tasks, database use, etc. is that other aspects of the online world are also available. Those aspects can waste time. I find it helpful to turn certain apps, programs, and notifications off. Closing out certain windows can help as well. It’s great to reach out online for help in understanding and interpreting records, but give a thought to whether the amount of time you are “on” social media is actually beneficial […]
The recording date of a document is the date that a copy of the document is filed for record. The execution date is the date the document is signed or actually executed. If you’ve got an extensive series of documents on an individual, order them by execution date–not by recording date. The items may not have been recorded in the order in which they were executed. Help support Genealogy Tip of the Day by visiting any of the following sites: Try a GenealogyBank Genealogy Search to see what you find. Newspapers.com AncestryDNA offers Books on Michael’s Genealogy Shelf
In his early 19th century will, a Maryland ancestor appears to disinherit a daughter when he leaves everything to her two children and appoints a guardian for them. The man writing the will might have not so much been disinheriting the daughter as he was avoiding a son-in-law. In the very early 1800s, when this will was written, a man would be able to exercise control over real property that his wife inherited. By leaving the real estate to his daughter’s children, and appointing a guardian, the testator was providing for the children while circumventing the son-in-law. And you thought that only people today who had to use creative ways to get around things. Help support Genealogy Tip of the Day by visiting any of the following sites: Try a GenealogyBank Genealogy […]
While supplies last, we are offering copies of Genealogy Tip of the Day the book at $17.00. The 286-page book contains an edited version of our earlier tips. We’ve removed repetitive content, promotional items, and “news” that’s no longer news. There’s more information on the book on our website–that page does not have a link to this offer. This link is the only one that contains an order at this price. The book’s price ordered directly is $25. The Amazon price is slightly less than that for Prime members. You can learn more about the book on our website, but this link is the only one that has the discount price.
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