[Genealogy] Children in Quotes, My Person, and More
Michael John Neill
mjnrootdig at gmail.com
Tue May 19 10:58:27 CDT 2026
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Genealogy Update 19 May 2026
** Children in Quotes
** AI for Genealogy
** Is It My Person?
** 2026 Brick Wall Busters
** Keep Getting the Update
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Children in Quotes
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I’ve tried to be very careful in my blog posts on the family of Benjamin
Butler to put the word “children” in quotes
<https://rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com/?p=6386>. It would probably be
best to refer to these individuals as members of Benjamin’s household,
particularly those who are not enumerated in his 1880 household.
My work on these individuals is incomplete and at this point I’m not
certain which children are his and which ones may be children of one of his
wives by a previous marriage. Even for his children, I’m not certain for
all of them which ones were born from which marriage. Benjamin is known to
have had two wives, Margaret Stevens and Nancy Jane Wolfe. Benjamin married
Nancy Jane in Nebraska in 1854. He may have had a wife between Margaret and
Nancy.
Entering any relationships in a computer database is premature at this
point as well.
I’ll stick to charts to list the children as we’ve shown in blog posts and
maintaining the individuals as separate people in any genealogical
databases that include relationships.
But to be honest, I’m sticking to doing my work in Microsoft Word.
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Is It My Person?
----------------------------------------------------
A few thoughts on whether I have the same person or not.
1. *Sounds matter more than spelling*. Consider a name as potentially
being a match to your person of interest if the name sounds the name, even
if the spelling is different.
2. *Ages should be reasonably consistent*. If the document gives an age
it should be relatively consistent with the known age for the person. Often
we do not know who provided the age in the record and it’s also possible
that the age you have for a person is incorrect, particularly if you know
little about the person of interest.
3. *Does it fit the chronology for the person of interest?* People are
not buying land or paying taxes (usually) before they reach the age of
majority. Eighty-year old women are not having children. Sixty-five year
old men are not usually signing up for active military service.
4. *Does it fit the lifestyle of the person of interest?* Does the new
document indicate the person attended a denomination significantly
different from what is suggested in other records? Does the new document
suggest a significant change in financial status? Is the residence of the
person of interest consistent with what is suggested by the new document?
Does the person’s religious beliefs or church membership suggest they would
not actively serve in the military on a volunteer basis? Is the occupation
listed consisted with the known person.
5. *Place of birth should be reasonably consistent*. Records on the
known person may give inconsistent places of birth, but these hopefully are
either in close geographic proximity or tied to other events in their life
(eg. the family of origin moved and places of birth as given include these
different places). If all information on the known ancestor suggests they
were born in Kentucky or Virginia, a record you think is on them that
indicates they were born in New Hampshire would be suspect.
6. *Any other item that looks “off.”* This last piece of advice
summarizes the first five points and is intended to cover anything we
overlooked. If the new record suggests something significantly different
from what’s known about the known ancestor, there’s a good chance you have
the wrong person in that new record.
The less you know about a person of interest, the more difficult it can be
to make these judgement calls about whether you have the same person in a
record or not. In those cases, more research is warranted before
determining if it’s the same person.
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Michael John Neill
Genealogy Tip of the Day
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