Analyzing those Ages

Think about all the different documents that list an age for your relative. Can you use those to reach any consensus about when the person was born?

It is not easy, but can be done. Here is a link to several ages for an ancestor of mine and a chart I made to analyze his ages. Not the most professionally done chart, but it serves the purpose.

http://www.rootdig.com/pensions/rileyrampley/rileysage.html

We'll be devoting a whole issue of Casefile Clues in the future to working with ages, but this should be enough to get "Tip of the Day" readers started.

2010 Salt Lake Research Trip Approaching

2010 is finally here and that means it won't be all that long before we are in Salt Lake City at our 5th annual Family History Library Research Trip. Our trip is in May-June of 2010 and with millions of records at our disposal it will be a fun and exciting research time.

The early bird registration deadline has passed, but we are still accepting registrations and payment can be made through our secure link here. Those who would like other registration options can email me at mjnrootdig@gmail.com.

Details on the trip can be viewed on our site-when you register, please download the registration materials and either email or US mail them to me. Thanks!

Secondary isn't all bad

Just remember a secondary source isn't necessarily wrong. In 1907 a widow testified as to who the siblings of her husband were. Did she know they were her husband's siblings because she had first hand knowledge of their parentage? No. She had been told. Did she have reason to doubt it? Probably not. Was she wrong? Not likely in this case. She was suing her husband's family and they stood to inherit some property. If she had provided an incomplete list of heirs, someone would have noticed. It's not 100% proof she was right, but any source needs to be kept in context. Secondary just means that she didn't have first hand knowledge of who her husband's siblings were.

Search idea at Google Books

There are many ways to search for things at http://books.google.com in an attempt to locate genealogical information.
One approach is to try the names of an ancestral couple, either complete names or first and last names, using the maiden name for the wife.

For example:

Ufkes Grass
Johann Ufkes Noentje Grass


Tinsley Dunaway
Enoch Tinsley Nancy Dunaway

Might be worth a shot.

View all those matches at Google Books

When viewing matches at http://books.google.com make certain to scroll down the hits and few a few pages as well. I found two different scans of a 1907 county book of biographies. One only had snippet views and the other had the complete book. Remember that it is always possible that Google has multiple scans of the same thing.

Searches at Google Books

Try a search for the name of your ancestor and their spouse on Google Books http://books.google.com. You might be surprised at what you find.

Search on the Land Warrants Name Fields at BLM

Don't forget when at the Bureau of Land Management site http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/PatentSearch/ to search for land warrants issued in your ancestor's name as well. Keep in mind that these warrants may have been issued as patents in state where you ancestor never lived, if he assigned them to someone else.

Don't search for warrants in the state where your ancestor lived. I just located two "new" War of 1812 ancestors who had warrants issued in states where they never lived.

And if you don't know what warrants and patents are, read the FAQ section of the BLM site.

A Life Estate

At the risk of oversimplifying, a "life estate" in property (generally a widow) is the right to use the property and receive income from the property during the person's lifetime. They do not have the right to bequeath the property to someone or to sell it. Oftentimes a widow is given a "life estate" in a piece of property from her husband and in so doing, he specifies to whom it is to pass after her death.

From Whom was the First Purchase Made?

If your ancestor was a landowning farmer and migrated from Point A to Point B, see from whom he purchased that first piece of property when he arrived in Point B. It might have been a relative or former associate, neighbor, etc. The owner of that property in Point B might have been looking to sell it and heard that his relative or former neighbor was thinking of moving. Worth a shot when you are stuck.

Change Jurisdictions

If records at the county level have not brought about success, consider town/village level records or township or federal records.

Cite As You Go

As you make copies of records, either on paper or in digital form, track the source. If you don't do it as you go, the chance you do it goes down......

All Names Spelled the Same?

Are all the records you have for your ancestor showing him with his name spelled the exact same way? I have very few ancestors where their name is spelled the same way on each document or source. Chances are if your ancestor's names are spelled the same way on everything you have that you have not researched as many documents as you should have.

Fill Out as You Go

Fill out as much of your research log as you can while you are preparing to do you research. Doing this will help you to prepare and a partially completed research log (with titles, etc. already filled in) will increase the chance you work on your log as you research.

25% Discount on May 2010 Family History Library Research Trip

As a special to the readers of Genealogy Tip of the Day (website and newsletter), I am offering a special discount on my May 2010 research trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The trip runs 27 May-3 June 2010. We spend one week at the Family History Library, with morning presentations by me, research assistance in the library (both consultations and "drop by" help), and help with pre-trip planning via a password-protected website. For more information on the trip, visit http://www.rootdig.com/slctrip.htmlFor a limited time (until Sunday 1 November at 10:00 p.m. central), you can register for a total of $150 (this is a $50 discount from the regular price). You must use one of these links below in order to get the discount page (Paypal processes the credit card payments, but a Paypal account is NOT necessary):

• $50 deposit--with balance due by 15 December--refundable if your plans change.
• $150 complete total balance--refundable up to 1 March 2010 if your plans change.

Registrants are responsible for travel to Salt Lake and accomodations while in Salt Lake. We have a discounted rate with the Salt Lake Plaza hotel--RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the Family History Libary. Very convenient for when you've forgotten something or you need a little rest.

Switch first and last names

If you can't find your relative in a database, consider switching the first and last names. These kinds of errors are not all that unusual, particularly with individuals with non-English names.

Trip to Salt Lake City's Family History Library

Every May I take a group to Salt Lake City's Family History Library on a week-long research trip. We research, learn, and have a little fun in the process. Information on the trip is available at www.rootdig.com/slctrip.html. Questions can be sent to me at mjnrootdig@gmail.com.

Back Up Back Up

One question: Is all your data backed up?

or "Have you backed up all your data?" for those of you who don't like to end things with a preposition.

Either way, make sure you "git 'er done," if you haven't.

Check the Middle Name

Is your ancestor listed in a record with his (or her) middle name listed as his last name?

Trace the StepChildren

In an upcoming column for Casefile Clues, one of the key methods to locating certain people was to trace the stepchildren of their father. Finding them lead me to information on the people for whom I was actually looking.

Make a Chart

Is there anyway that information you are trying to analyze can be put into chart format? Think about how you could make headings and what items you should extract from each record or source to create a table.

Sometimes just organizing things in a different way makes things stand out that you didn't notice before.

Spelling Names of Places Incorrectly

I may be a little bit too picky, but when reviewing a GEDCOM file if I see names of places spelled incorrectly (especially names of counties in the United States when the database is compiled by an American researcher), I get a little skeptical of the rest of the file.



Of course, the occasional typo is one thing (which can easily be avoided in most programs by the way), but if the database I find has some of these spellings:

• Hartford County, Maryland


• Amhurst County, Virginia


• Schuler County, Illinois

then I am a little worried about the rest of the data. Call me persnickity, but genealogy is about details. If place names that are established and standard (as these are) are not spelled correctly, how certain can I be that names, dates, and relationships are entered in the way they should be?

I'm not talking about someone trying to read the name of a German town on a nearly illegible death certificate--that's something different altogether.

Google Searches FamilySearch

Occasionally when I search on Google for an ancestor's name one of my hits is the search results page for that name on www.familysearch.org, the website of the LDS Family History Library. Very interesting.

There are few absolutes in genealogy

Normally an ancestor has to be dead to have an estate settlement, has to be born to have a birth certificate, etc.

Think about what really HAS to be when you research your ancestor. He didn't have to get married to reproduce. He didn't have to name his oldest son after his father. He didn't have to get married near where his first child was born. He didn't have to have a relative witness every document wrote. There are few "have tos" in genealogy. Make certain you aren't using "have tos" to make brick walls for yourself.

Does it Sound the Same?

If the name as written on a document sounds like the name you are looking for, consider it the same name.

Your real work is to make certain you have the same person. That's the problem.

Removed the formatting

For the longest time, there have been html tags surrounding posts made to Tip of the Day. Hopefully I have removed them. I guess I'll know when this post runs live.

Look it Up

If there is a word in a document that you do not know the meaning of, look it up. And even if you think you know what the word means, you still might want to look it up.

Just in case. Misinterpretations can create brick walls where none existed.

Land Patents at the Bureau of Land Management Site

The website with land patents from the Bureau of Land Management site is wonderful, but there are a few suggestions and warnings:

• the site is incomplete for several western states
• patents represent federal land records only--the local courthouse has subsequent transactions which likely contain more information
• cash file entries contain minimal information unless there is something unusual about the transaction--the claimant died during the process, was actually filing a pre-emption claim etc.

And if you don't know your township from your section, read their FAQ first. The website is at http://www.glorecords.blm.gov

Online Databases Should be Used as Clues

What you find in someone's online genealogy compilation should be used as a clue. There's one tree on Ancestry.com (with over 20,000 names) that shows my great-grandparents with a child they never had.

Some days I even wonder if it's worth my time to contact someone whose database contains more than several thousand names.

I've gotten some clues from the online trees, but do not use what you see there as anything other than a hint of a suggestion.

Learn About the Records

Have you really learned about the records in that "new" area in which you are researching? Don't assume that records in one location are the same as in another. When I started my late 1700 research in Virginia in never dawned on me to ask for a marriage bond. I had never used them in the upper Midwest, so I never thought to ask for them.

Had I read a basic Virginia guidebook or research outline, I would have been aware of them. Now familiarizing myself with the basic sources in a new area is one of the first things that I do.

Are You Missing the Obvious?

Is it possible that the answer is staring you right in the face? Sometimes re-analyzing a document will bring the "obvious" out of the dark. Sometimes typing it will. Sometimes reading something outloud will. Sometimes having someone else look at it will make a difference. It just depends. Sometimes we jump to the wrong conclusion and never really get that out of our heads.

Civil versus church record of a marriage

Remember that if the civil record of a marriage indicates your ancestor was married by a minister, there may be a church record of the marriage as well. That record may provide additional information besides what is on the civil (government) record of the marriage.

is that "p" really a double s?

In older documents, many times a double "s" would be written in a way that looked like a "p" or perhaps and "f" to the unsuspecting eye.

Consequently my DeMoss ancestors occasionally appear in records as "Demop.

Casefile Clues Back Issues and Subscribing

Starting today, we are offering back issues of Casefile Clues in sets. First set will be issues 1-10 and we will continue in that fashion so that subscribers can get the ones they missed easily. Those who want set 1-10 can purchase it through https://www.paypal.com/cg...i-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=8934803 or can email me directly for information.Those who wish to subscribe to Casefile Clues can do so here.

Tomorrow we'll be back offering one tip a day--so stay tuned or become a fan on Facebook.

Need Township/Range Maps of Kansas?

If you need nice, fairly recent maps of Kansas counties with the civil and congressional townships shown (including sections), consider using these from the Kansas Department of Transportation.

http://www.ksdot.org/burtransplan/maps/HistoricCountyTWP.asp

Really neat stuff here.

Sample Copies of Casefile Clues

If any tip of the day readers would like a copy of my weekly how-to newsletter, Casefile Clues, please send an email to samples@casefileclues.com and one will be sent to you as a PDF file.