[Genealogy] Unnamed Daughters and Accurate In-laws, DNA Usernames, Release of AI as a Consultant
Michael John Neill
mjnrootdig at gmail.com
Fri Oct 2 21:39:18 CDT 2026
Genealogy Update 2 October 2026
**Unnamed Daughters and Accurate In-laws
** Using AI as a Genealogy Consultant Released--intro price!
** BLM, Newspapers, and Females
** DNA Usernames Can Contain Clues
** More Land Platting with AI and Getting the Most From the Census
** Recorded Webinars
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Unnamed Daughters and Accurate In-laws
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The obituary of Martha Jane Luft from the *Warsaw Bulletin* in March of
1923 mentions her daughter Maria twice–never by name. Martha’s son-in-law,
George Kunz, is mentioned twice as well. The failure to mention the
daughter by her first name is indicative of the time. Maria’s date of death
is listed in her mother Martha’s obituary and all of Maria’s apparent
children are listed as Martha’s grandchildren in the obituary.
[image: image.png]
Based upon the obituary, it is reasonable to conclude that the
grandchildren named for Martha are children of Maria as it’s clearly stated
in the obituary that Martha and her husband, John Luft, only had one
daughter. It also seems probable that Martha’s son-in-law, George Kunz,
provided the information for the obituary given that Martha died in his
home and that he had been married to Martha’s daughter. But his function as
the obituary informant is speculative. A better way to get an idea of who
might have provided information for the obituary would be to look at the
death certificate for Martha. Hopefully since she died at the home of a
relative, a family member provided information for the death certificate.
It is important to remember that when Martha died she had no spouse or
living children who could have provided information for the obituary or
death certificate. While it is not stated in the obituary, Martha was the
last child of her parents to pass away–thus the pool of potential people
“in the know” was reduced even more.
The obituary of John Luft from 24 June 1921’s *Warsaw Bulletin* does not
mention their daughter by name either, but does state:
In 1863 he was united in marriage to Martha Jane Rampley, daughter of Mr.
and Mrs. James Rampley, and to them one daughter was born, who became the
wife of George Kunz. She preceded her father in death three years.
Interesting that Martha’s obituary does not provide any names for her
parents but her husband John’s obituary does. In a way this is actually a
good thing if I contemplate the likely informant for a minute.
As his widow, Martha likely provided the information for her husband’s
obituary. The information in Martha’s obituary was likely provided by a
son-in-law or grandchild. For this reason, I’m inclined to give a little
credence to the names of Martha’s parents as being accurate simply for this
reason.
In this case, there are plenty of other records that provide information on
Martha’s parents–but this was a nice little thought exercise to keep the
mind thinking when the records are not available.
And fortunately I already had the daughter’s name. It’s frustrating when
people are not named explicitly as Maria is not in this case. But it’s
worth remembering:
everyone who was familiar with the family knew Maria’s name–it wasn’t news
to them.
And aren’t newspapers about news?
Using AI as a Genealogy Consultant--released for viewing
Our approach is to always use AI responsibly and practically as your own
genealogy consultant.
Maybe you can’t afford a consultant for your own research or you have too
many genealogy problems to hire help with every one. AI can serve as your
own genealogy research consultant.
As with a human consultant, you’ll need to do the initial work on your
ancestor, gather what you have, and familiarize yourself with basic sources
in the area. There is no guarantee that AI will solve your problem.
But using AI as your personal research consultant can help. Not by doing
the research for you, or inventing ancestors that never existed, but by
doing what a good consultant actually does: looking at what you have,
summarizing it, discussing it, and giving you ideas on where to look next
or to help you see things in a different way. It may even tell you where
you need to go to improve your research skills.
After using AI, you still may decide to use a human consultant. The work
you did with AI will help you prepare to get the most from that advice from
a real person and to make the best use of your time and money should that
be necessary. We acknowledge in this presentation and approach that AI does
not know everything, is not perfect, and cannot solve every problem. It’s
just another tool.
You'll see how to frame a research problem so AI gives you something useful
instead of something vague. You'll learn to recognize when it's guessing,
because it will, and how to catch hallucinations and how to use AI in a
discerning fashion.
The goal isn't to replace your judgment. It's to give you a thinking
partner available at two in the morning when you finally realize you need
to get outside your own mind on a certain ancestral problem.
Order now for immediate download-$20
<https://michael-john-neill.dpdcart.com/cart/add?product_id=251529&method_id=274685>--regular
price is $26.99. Save $6.99 by ordering now.
Includes the full presentation, a detailed handout, and a ready-to-use set
of prompts you can adapt to your own research problems.
*==============*
Announcement
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Tract Books and the 2026 BLM Land Patent
Search site update
This presentation will discuss what the BLM tract books are (they keep
track of complete and incomplete federal land transactions), how to search
them on FamilySearch–there are multiple ways (focusing on manual searches
for when the indexed do not work), what clues can be gathered from these
records, accessing additional records suggested in the tract books,
documenting your searches of these books. Also included will be a
discussion of the current iteration of the Bureau of Land Management
Federal Land Patent search site.
Presentation to be released on 18 October–$17.99
<https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=UQKGYQSX63Z3Y>
Researching Female Ancestors
This presentation discusses approaches and techniques for determining an
ancestor’s maiden name and locating “missing” females. Geared towards the
advanced beginner or intermediate researcher, it focuses on American
records and sources before World War I. The content is not specific to any
one time period and many of the approaches can be refined for different
locations or types of records. Concepts discussed will include:
-
overview of women’s legal rights;
-
property ownership;
-
inheritance;
-
citizenship;
-
and strategies for making the most from what you can find.
If you are stymied on your female ancestors–and half your ancestors are
female–this presentation may give you the insight you need.
-
Order for immediate download. $19.99
<https://michael-john-neill.dpdcart.com/cart/add?product_id=32846&method_id=32794>--after
29 Sept price is $24.
Researching US Newspapers
This presentation will discuss finding copies of newspapers (digital and
microfilm), searching newspapers (digital and manual searches), saving
images, organizing images and your search process, and creating citations.
-
Order for immediate download–$18
<https://michael-john-neill.dpdcart.com/cart/add?product_id=243621&method_id=266115>--after
29 Sept price is $22.
Michael John Neill has over forty years of genealogical research experience
and has utilized records in a variety of states in the Midwest, New
England, and the Southern United States.
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DNA Usernames Can Contain Clues
--------------------------------------
DNA matches that have no trees or whose submitters fail to respond can be a
challenge to those working through their genealogy DNA matches. Sometimes
there’s a clue in that username that may help you to determine who that
match likely is.
These approaches are best done after you’ve worked on matches that you can
determine. That work usually allows a researcher to have an idea of what
general part of your tree a match is from. Two treeless matches with
submitters who did not respond were likely determined using their username.
Unfortunately those usernames did not appear to be the actual name of the
submitter.
In both cases, the shared matches that I had with the match in question
allowed me to know which portion of DNA testee’s tree the match was related
through. That helped.
*The MySpacer*
This match was known to connect to the test kit submitter through the
submitter’s maternal grandmother. The connection to the kit submitter was
in the second-third cousin range and not someone who could easily be
identified as closer matches were. This match had no tree and did not
respond to a couple of contact attempts. A Google search was conducted for
their username that was used for their DNA results. It turned out an old
MySpace account had the same user name. Looking at the public information
on that page (including their actual name) provided enough identifying
information that the match’s identity and relationship to the DNA kit I
managed could be determined.
*Named for my parents*
This match was known to connect to my DNA results through one of my
paternal great-grandfathers George Trautvetter. The username, which I have
changed, was of the form “bobandesmerelda.” There was no attached tree and
no response to communication. In reviewing all the descendants of George
Trautvetter’s grandfather (also a George Trautvetter), I located a deceased
great-granddaughter named Esmerelda who I had not researched any further.
Information on her indicated her husband was named Robert. While I’m not
certain exactly who the match is, it seems possible that the submitter
named the account for their parents–Bob and Esmerelda. The genealogical
cousinship I have with Esmerelda is consistent with the predicted
relationship range based upon the shared DNA. Not 100% proof, but
suggestive enough for me to classify the match as determined.
In both cases, my analysis is in my DNA match notes so that I remember
later exactly how these matches were determined and can re-evaluate later
if necessary.
--------------------------------------
------------------------------------
More Land Platting with AI
-----------------------------------
This session will expand on the “Metes and Bounds with AI” presentation. It
will include additional and more convoluted examples of metes and bounds
properties, discuss platting out properties in federal land states
involving sections and townships, and include an example of a metes and
bounds description in a federal land state. This session presupposes that
the listener has a basic understanding of land record terminology and knows
how to locate land deed records as those topics are not a part of this
presentation.
Release date: 15 October 2025.
Early order price: $18.99
<https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=C4JG43VE263BW>
Order includes audiovisual file and handout.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Getting the Most from US Census Records
----------------------------------------------------------
This session will help you to get the most from United States census
records–covering from 1790 through 1950. We will start with what you should
do when you find any census enumeration–which is not to transcribe it. We
will highlight the questions asked, talk about using enumerator
instructions, see how to get as much from a census enumeration as possible,
determine when a census suggests other records be searched, and more.
We will cover typical errors and how those arose, concerns about
reliability of the informant (did they just guess at information?), reasons
why people lie, and more.
We will talk about research strategies for people who are difficult to
find, ways names get written and transcribed and how to formulate a census
search plan those individuals who are difficult to locate.
The presentation will last approximately ninety minutes. Purchase includes
media file and handout.
Pre-release order price is $15.99.
<https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=H4MQXGKGGXM9U>
Release date: 16 October 2026.
--------------------
Webinars
--------------------
Ready-to-Go Webinars from Michael–download immediate:
-
Creating Children’s Stories from Genealogy Events
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/creating-childrens-stories-from-genealogy-information/>
-
Creating Families from pre-1850 Census Records
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/creating-families-from-pre-1850-census-records/>
-
DeedMapper webinars
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/deedmapper-intro-and-more-deedmapper-webinars/>
-
FamilySearch Catalog
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/2026/02/19/using-the-familysearch-catalog-webinar/>
-
Farming Ancestor webinars–landowner and non-landowner versions
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/rooting-around-for-farmers-and-tenants-and-laborers/>
-
Full-Text Search at FamilySearch
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/2026/08/05/updated-familysearch-full-text-search-webinar/>
-
Full-Text Search at FamilySearch with Common Names
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/2025/11/04/common-names-at-familysearch-full-text-webinar/>
-
How Errors Get in Records
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/how-errors-get-in-records-webinar/>
-
Illinois Genealogy Research
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/2026/03/10/genealogy-research-in-illinois-webinar/>
-
Metes and Bounds With AI–platting and analysis
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/using-ai-for-metes-and-bounds-deed-analysis/>
-
Unburying Funeral Home Records
<https://genealogytipoftheday.com/index.php/unburying-funeral-home-records/>
----------------------------------------
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Michael John Neill
Genealogy Tip of the Day
PO Box 17
Henderson, IL 61439
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