[Genealogy] Hidden Taxes, Who Raised Ida, Self-Consultations, More Land Platting, and Getting Most from Census
Michael John Neill
mjnrootdig at gmail.com
Sun Sep 27 14:37:32 CDT 2026
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Genealogy Update 27 Sept 2026
** Are You Paying Hidden Taxes on Your Assumptions?
** Intro Price on Using AI as a Genealogy Consultant--Consult Yourself
** Who Helped Raise Ida Sargent?
** More Land Platting with AI and Getting the Most From the Census
** Recorded Webinars
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Are You Paying Hidden Taxes on Your Assumptions?
----------------------------
[image: image.png]
We don’t always know which of our assumptions are false until we see
something that outright contradicts them. Even then we might not realize
that we are staring at something that flies in the face of something we
believed without any knowledge, first hand or otherwise. I always just
figured my landowning ancestors always went to the county courthouse to pay
their taxes (or mailed a payment in). That was my recollection of what
people did.
My research was never hindered because of assumptions I made about the
physical act of paying taxes and my own life was certainly never impacted
by my incorrect assumption. It’s one of those things that you can function
quite well in genealogyland without knowing.
I never really thought about how my landowning ancestors actually went
through the process of paying their property taxes. While there are
genealogy questions that keep me awake at all hours of the night, this was
not one of those problems.
And then I came across this item in the 1909 *Warsa**w Bulletin* from
Warsaw, Illinois. It indicated when the township collectors would be
available to receive tax payments locally.
- Live in Warsaw and need to pay your 1908 taxes? Go to the Hotel Grant
on Saturday.
- Live in Hamilton and need to pay your 1908 taxes? See James Shoman in
Hamilton on Thursday (I guess everyone knows where he lives or has his
office).
- Live near Elderville and need to pay your 1908 taxes? See James Shoman
in Elderville on Tuesday (Elderville is small. If you can’t find James in
Elderville, you probably shouldn’t be handling your own affairs any longer).
- Live in Wilcox Township and need to pay your 1908 taxes? See Robt. E.
McMahon at the store of Henry Dross in Warsaw on Wednesdays or Saturdays.
The notice reminded me: how many things do we “know” because we just
assumed them to be true? How many things do we think are true because we
just assume that because it’s done that way today, it has always been done
that way (aside from some technological changes)? How many things do we
think are true across the board and in all families because “after all,
that’s how my family does it and no one could be different from us.”
Some historical practices are difficult to find out, even with Google. It
is easy to search the internet (or an online database) to find the date of
a specific event, when a border changed, or where the courthouse records
for a certain county are located. It can be a little more difficult to find
out how often a rural family may have attended church, was it common to
wait two months to christen a child, etc. And remember…just because some
anonymous online person said that rural families attended church monthly
or that two months to christen was really weird does not make it true.
Does not make it true.
Reading old newspapers, state statute books, well-written genealogical
studies, more records in a series than just the one on your ancestor,
historical studies by experts in their field, etc. can go a long way to
finding some of these things out. And even then sometimes you won’t find
the answer.
An unwritten, unstated, unrealized assumption could be hindering your
research.
You might not even have to drive all the way to the county seat to find it.
Using AI as a Genealogy Consultant--revised release date
*Our approach is to always use AI responsibly and practically a**s 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.
Pre-order the presentation now.
<https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=3SJCPREXK5EUC>
Release date: 28 September-revised
Price: $15.99
Includes the full presentation, a detailed handout, and a ready-to-use set
of prompts you can adapt to your own research problems.
--------------------------------------
Who Helped Raise Ida Sargent?
--------------------------------------
When people are only able to remember part of the story it can be difficult
to locate additional information. That’s how it was with Grandma’s memory
of the people “who took her mother in.”
[image: image.png]
All Grandma could tell me was that her mother, Ida (Sargent) Trautvetter
Miller (1874-1939) was “raised by the Mulches.” There was never much detail
given about why Ida’s parents could not raise her or take care of her and
Grandma’s memory of the Mulches only consisted of “they were strangers and
were meaner than the people who raised her sister.” I took the “strangers”
portion of Grandma’s description to mean that they were not related to her.
Never did I expect Ida to appear in the social columns of the *Warsaw*
[Illinois]
*Bulletin*, but there she was in 1891. Apparently listed with her foster
father W. C. F. Mulch, she is referenced as spending a Sunday afternoon in
August of 1891 with Theo. and Annie Trautvetter.
Theo. Trautvetter had no connection to the Mulch family. It is not known if
his wife did or not. It’s always possible the connection was purely social
and not based on biology or marriage.
The time period is part of why locating the foster parents was so
difficult. There are no guardianship or adoption records for Ida. No
guardianship records because her father was not dead and there was not
really money to worry about. No adoption records are available because she
was not formally adopted by the Mulches and, even if she had been, many
adoptions during this time period were informal.
And the lack of an 1890 census compounds the problem. In 1880 Ida is with
her parents. In 1900 she is with her husband.
But at least now, thanks to the newspaper, I have lead on who raised her.
------------------------------------
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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