An ancestor of mine has children who were born in Canada, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. He and his family got around. Never assume that your ancestor did not move. Just because he was in a specific location in 1850 and 1860 does not mean that he was there in 1855. One of my wife’s ancestral families was in Illinois in every census after 1860, but spent two years in Pennsylvania and a year in England after that. Both of these residences took place in off census years and the family was “back” in Illinois for the next enumeration. Some city and town dwellers who rented their home may have moved frequently as well. They may have stayed in the same general neighborhood or maybe not. The […]
It is best to capture as much information as possible when you can. That’s what has been done with the reverse of this 1950s-era photograph used to illustrate this post. Not long after I started my genealogy research, I went through some of my grandma’s photographs with her and wrote on the back of many of them. The identification was not done by me, but it was my handwriting that appears on the back. I need to track how the identification was made–so someone later who may see the photo knows. How much credence we give to someone identifying people in a photograph hinges on who the identifier is and their perceived knowledge of the information. My grandmother was the sister, sister-in-law, or aunt of all the adults […]
In any record where you find an ancestor, look at adjacent records and see who appears in those records. Are there any clues in those names or records that could help you learn more about your ancestor? If it’s a death record, did they die of the same disease? If it’s a marriage record, were other family members (or friends) getting married on the same day? If it’s a naturalization petition, did other immigrants from the same area naturalize at the same time? Who filed land claims on the same day as your ancestor? Who appears next to your ancestor on a list of names that signed a petition? Did someone file three land records on the same date and they are recorded together in the records book? […]
Newspapers often published lists of unclaimed letters in the local post office. Think about what appearing on that list means about your ancestor: Your ancestor could also have been dead by the time his name was published in the paper on the list of unclaimed letters. Appearing on the list is not hard evidence that he was alive on the publication date Your ancestor probably did live in that location when the letter was sent. But, if their name on that list is inconsistent with other known information, there could be a very plausible explanation.
Whenever you are writing or talking about a person be specific. First names are rarely specific enough, particularly in some families. First and last names are best, perhaps combined with a date of birth or date of death. My mother has three Aunt Ruths. It usually took more than just “Aunt Ruth” to know to whom someone was referring. Sometimes it was clear from context, but not always. Don’t create additional confusion in the records you leave behind. Be specific.
If you are using English-language records, is it possible that the writer slipped in a non-English word or a word in a non-English script? A native German speaker may have written in English only to occasionally slip in a German word out of habit? Or did a native Swede write a last name in his native script? That confusing word may be confusing because it’s not in English language or not in the English script.
The person who submits a photo of your ancestor to FindAGrave, FamilySearch, or any other site may potentially know absolutely nothing about your ancestor. It is very possible they found the photo while browsing the internet (often obituary pages, but not necessarily), saved it (with no citation), and uploaded it. Consider a reverse image search at Google to see if you can find other locations where the image is posted–perhaps by someone with more knowledge about your ancestor or perhaps where the image was posted originally.
If you have searched local land records (usually kept at the county or town level in the United States), have you determined where later surveys or plats are kept? These items may be filed in with the deed books or filed in a separate series of volumes, ledgers, or other format. After John Habben died in 1939, his sons had a survey conducted to clearly establish who had what pieces of property. The survey is filed in the recorder’s office in the same location as the land records, but in a separate series of documents. The survey simply establishes the boundaries, acreages, and ownership of each piece of property. It does not document how the men acquired the property. One would have to search land and other local […]
Never assume that your ancestor wouldn’t have attended “that church” because it was the “wrong” denomination. It is possible that your knowledge of your ancestor’s religion is not as accurate as you think it is or that the lack of a preacher of the right denomination caused someone to be married by a preacher who was “close enough.” In frontier times, people sometimes had to attend services of whatever what close–as long as the beliefs were relatively similar.
Have you written about how genealogy has impacted you, what it has taught you, and perhaps even how it has changed you? I’m not talking about the few words you learned in a foreign language, how you learned to make research logs, or what you know about the FAN method. Those are helpful things in your genealogy research, but I’m thinking about more impactful things. I used to joke that what I learned about my ggg-grandfather dying in 1855 was not to load your shotgun while drunk and think it was smart to hit a cow with the butt of said shotgun. Then I got a little more sophisticated and thought about what it meant for his widow and two small girls (both 5 and under) to be […]
Need a genealogy-related activity? Compile a list of your ancestors who lived in the United States and when they were first able to vote in a federal election. It was a fun little activity for me since quite a few of my ancestors were immigrants. It even reminded me that not all of my immigrant ancestors naturalized and I rediscovered one who claimed he was naturalized but no record of his naturalization can be found.
I may never find the US passenger list entries for Wilhelmine (Trautvetter) Zenf and her children, but it will not be for lack of trying. It will also not be because I did not keep track of the entries that were eliminated from consideration. To keep myself from looking at the same entry over and over (easy to do if one is using several different websites to search passenger lists), I’ve made a chart that summarizes the entry and why I eliminated it as being Wilhelmine or her children. The reason is important. That way if I discover what I “know” about the family is wrong, I can easily review my previous conclusions and look again at those entries that may now match what I know. Additional columns […]
The 1895 will of Tamme Tammen in Pike County, Illinois, refers to his wife as “Elka B. Franklen Tammen.” Franklen (actually most likely Franken given where the Tammens were from) could have been Elka’s maiden name, middle name, or married name with a previous husband. I should include in my notes on Elka that she is referred to as “Elka B. Franklen Tammen” in her husband’s 1895 will. I should not enter that as her maiden name. Using it for a clue to other relatives when searching is advised. But there’s not really good evidence in this will that it’s her maiden name. There are other possibilities.
Upon occasion, one hears fellow genealogists being slightly judgmental about a specific ancestor. Instead of getting bogged down in that line of thinking (which doesn’t help your research any), think “why?” Putting yourself in your ancestor’s shoes gives you a different perspective. If you were twenty-six years old, widowed, the mother of two small children, unable to speak English and living where you had no relatives, what might you do? You might marry the first German speaking single male around–one who would not have been your choice if you were twenty years old and still living at home with no children to support. If your great-grandfather “disappeared” consider where he might have gone and what he might have done in an attempt to find him. Was there a […]
There’s always value in reviewing court cases in which your ancestor was involved. That’s true even if the cases involve mundane, seemingly trivial matters, and contain no direct genealogical information. Remember that every court case can not involve an inheritance and contain significant documentation of family relationships. Those mundane cases can help as well and it’s worth remembering that the mundane must have been important to your ancestor (or someone else) for it to have gotten to court. Who provided testimony? Their relationships may not be stated, but those individuals could have been related by blood or marriage to your ancestor. The fact that your ancestor was involved in a lawsuit means that he was of legal age and (probably) a citizen at the time of the action. […]
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