[Genealogy] Air People, Landless Farmers, and More

Tue Jan 20 09:40:57 CST 2026

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20 January 2026
Genealogy Update

** Air People
** Farmers Without Their Own Land Webinar
** Full Text Searching Webinar
** Common Names Webinar

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Air People
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It is difficult when one knows little about a couple other than their
names. Sometimes it feels like they literally appeared out of thin air.
Depending upon how much one knows about the couple’s children, it can seem
as if they never really existed at all.

It can be equally frustrating when locating something on a couple is not as
easy as typing names into a search box. No one else has probably researched
them either so they don’t appear in other databases of compiled record. Or
these people are “loose ends” in someone else’s genealogy and that person
has failed to find them and also feels like these people simply evaporated.

That’s the problem with Frederick and Maria Barbara [—] Siefert.

What I know is minimal:

They had a daughter named Barbara who was born abound 1825 in Germany,
possibly in or near Darmstadt. That daughter first appears on an actual
record when she married Peter Bieger in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1849. Other
children are unknown. Whether the Sieferts immigrated or remained in
Germany is also unknown. The only reference to their names is on an
1880-era marriage license for daughter Barbara.

Barbara and her family with Peter Bieger have been exhaustively researched
in Hancock County, Illinois, where they settled in November of 1850. That’s
when Peter Bieger purchased a lot and house in Warsaw, Illinois. Exactly
what or who brought the Biegers to Warsaw from Cincinnati is unknown.
Extensive research was conducted because Peter origins are just as elusive
as those of his wife.

It’s really hard to pinpoint when the Sieferts were born–Maria Barbara was
most likely between the age of approximately sixteen and her early forties
when Barbara was born. Barbara’s father Frederick could have easily been
older than that. Not knowing where Barbara fits into the list of her
parents’ children broadens my time frame for them.

Brainstorming here is not a bad idea and I’m going to stick to that word. I
won’t use the words “hypothesis” or “theory” as those concepts (at least in
my lexicon) require a few more details on which they can be hinged.
Brainstorming frees me from most details. I should also be clear to anyone
with whom I communicate my brainstormed ideas that they are 90% conjecture,
9% evidence-based, and 1% dreaming.

My brainstorm should be realistic. Either Barbara immigrated with her
parents, immigrated with another family member, or immigrated to where she
had a family connection. While there are other more unusual situations,
those three possibilities cover the most likely scenarios. I need to start
with realism.

All of these brainstorms suggest that I perform more research in
Cincinnati, where she married in 1849. While I should track Barbara after
1849, it’s always possible that actions she undertook after that time were
based upon where her husband had relatives. Relatives of Peter Bieger (her
first husband) could have brought her to Illinois. After his death,
relatives of her later husband Conrad Haase could have caused been the
connection for a move or a migration. And the longer she lived in Illinois,
the longer she is to form new ties and associations with people who have no
connection to her parents at all. Associate research is great, but one
needs to be aware of the fact that associates can be added to a person’s
circle at any point in their life and those associates added later in life
may have no bearing on the early history of the person we are researching.

That does not mean that we should not research associates acquired later in
a person’s life. We should. It is just that what they tell us about the
person of interest may not stretch as far back into their life as we might
like.

As for Frederick and Maria Barbara, my plan of attack is two-fold:

   - research a Philip Pipher who is enumerated with Barbara and her family
   in their 1860 census enumeration in Walker Township, Hancock County,
   Illinois.
   - review my materials on Barbara to determine if there are any
   references to individuals that have not been followed.

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Farmers Without Their Own Land
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Those who worked in American agriculture but did not own their own farm are
more difficult to research than those who owned real estate. In this
presentation, we focus on farmers and farm families, but concentrate on
those who did not own farms of their own.

Tenant farmers and farm laborers comprise a significant proportion of those
involved in American agriculture. The challenge is that they tended to
leave fewer records than did landowning farmers. In this presentation we
will look at specific challenges involving these families and what records,
sources, and methods should be utilized in order to research them as
completely and effectively as possible. While there are never any
guarantees in genealogy research, there are ways that we can maximize the
chance we find as much about our non-landowning farm ancestors as possible.

The presentation will be given with the premise that the person being
researched did not own any real estate.

Concepts covered include:

   - Determining the residence as precisely as possible.
   - Documenting others with whom the ancestor interacted.
   - Documenting moves and migrations where possible.
   - Determining if the same person has been located.
   - Strategies to locate as many references to the ancestral name as
   possible.

This is not a live presentation although those who purchase the
presentation before its release are encouraged to submit questions for
possible inclusion in the presentation. This presentation focuses on
research in the United States.

Purchase includes video of presentation and handout. Immediate download for
$24
<https://michael-john-neill.dpdcart.com/cart/add?product_id=247703&method_id=270569>
.

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January 2026 Full-Text Search at FamilySearch Webinar

Intro price ENDING--regularly $37.50--save $30

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We’re excited to offer this revised presentation on the full-text searching
at *FamilySearch*--reflecting changes made to the site since this was
recorded in August 2025. We’ve redesigned our presentation as this
functionality continues to change. And…we have an extensive handout
complete with forms to help you find more people.

If you have purchased an earlier version of this presentation--email me at
mjnrootdig at gmail.com for the code to order this revision for $10.
Fully Utilizing Full-Text Search: Revised for January 2026

Your purchase includes:

   - *A 90 minute (or more presentation)* you can view as often as you want.
   - *Detailed handout* with charts and forms to help organize your
   searches. Charts and forms sent as separate files you can edit and
   customize and not as a locked PDF you have to re-create yourself as a new
   document.

We’ll be including and discussing:

*Determining what is in Full-Text Search—*what you can access at home and
what you will have to be in a FamilySearch facility or affiliate to access.

*Seeing How AI Transcriptions are different*—they aren’t like the
transcriptions made by humans. That can change your approach.

*Remembering that Full-Text means every word*—approaches need to differ as
we aren’t looking up a name in an index any more.

*Asking Who* is in the record? We aren’t just searching for the main person
like we did with traditional indexes. We’ll discuss how to determine who
could be mentioned in a record.

*Determining How to search?* There are a variety of ways to search and
filter results. We’ll see how each one works to help determine the best
strategy.

*Creating search strategies*—how full-text search changes your approach and
why just dumping terms in search boxes is not always effective.

*Determining what you found* The interface does not always make this clear.
We will show you how to get beyond the confusion and help you get enough
detail for a citation.

*Creating effective problem-solving approaches*—what to do when you cannot
find something you want.

*Demonstrating practical examples*—completely new people and families from
our previous presentations.

Available for immediate download for $30
<https://michael-john-neill.dpdcart.com/cart/add?product_id=246272&method_id=268990>.
Complete handout included and additional forms.

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Common Names When Using Full-Text Search?

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Having difficulties with common names when using the full-text search at
FamilySearch? Take a look at our presentation on this very topic.

Common Name webinar:

https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/2025/11/04/common-names-at-familysearch-full-text-webinar/

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--  ------------------------------------
Michael John Neill
Genealogy Tip of the Day
http://www.genealogytipoftheday.com
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------------------------------------
Michael John Neill
Genealogy Tip of the Day
http://www.genealogytipoftheday.com
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