Genealogy Tip of the Day

 On one of my wife's families, I  didn't bother to get the will of the ancestor. In fact, I never looked for it. The records weren...

Genealogy Tip of the Day is sponsored by my weekly newsletter, Casefile Clues . More indepth than the tips, Casefile Clues focuses on the r...

When viewing anyone's military pension, regardless of the war, look at the act under which he was applying. Look at what types of servic...

Ever wonder how fast the mail was one hundred years ago? There was a slight clue in an old pension file: Letter dated 3 May 1907, Washingto...

Descendants of James Rampley (1803-1884) insisted he was the only member of his family who came west to Illinois from Ohio. "No other f...

Having trouble finding that 100 year old cemetery? If it is in a town/city that published city directories, see if the directory had a list ...

Witnesses on a document do not have to be related to the person signing the document. It a "genealogy legend" that they are. For w...

If you are a regular user of Genealogy Tip of the Day and have not already taken our survey, please do so here . Thanks. The survey will clo...

If a deed of transfer for a piece of property or other item indicates that the only consideration is "love and affection," there i...

If your immigrant ancestor was a member of a denomination that practiced infant baptism and you have not determined who the sponsors were fo...

In modern society for a variety of reasons, we are concerned about how our name gets spelled. Our ancestors were not so concerned. They didn...

If you've located your ancestor in census records that provide ages and places of birth, consider making a chart or somehow listing each...

When using original records, make certain that there are not more than one series of page numbers being used. United States census records a...

Is there a brick wall problem where you have an abstract of a record instead of the complete record? Is it possible the abstract includes a ...

I've started a new blog to complement Genealogy Tip of the Day. It's called Search Tip of the Day. The new site will focus on websit...

Look at information you have compiled or located. Look at it closely. If to make the story fit, you have to violate laws of biology (dead pe...

If you think you've lost that female ancestor after her husband's death, consider the fact that she might have married again. The st...

In frontier areas, when livestock roamed without fences, farmers often had their own peculiar notch they used to identify their hogs or catt...

If your male ancestor died with even a small amount of real estate (lot in town or more) or enough personal property, there might be a guard...

When a husband sells property and is married, there should be an acknowledgment by the wife that she knows about the sale and releases her d...

In some counties, the court records office may hold records of several different courts. Make certain you have accessed the records of each ...

Sometimes called the record copy, this is the official recorded copy of a document, usually made in the local records office. This copy may ...

In some places during some time periods, it was common to "re-use" names of children who were deceased. You may find a family with...

Before you track someone across the pond, make certain they (and their children) have been researched exhaustively in the area where they se...

Email to Tip of Day subscribers did not go out, so this will run through 2 PM on Monday 11 April. Year 1 issues -- see list  of topics- di...

If your ancestor signs a deed, find out how old he had to be to execute that document. If an ancestor is on a tax list, does it mean he owne...

Some records we use were not filled out by our ancestors--someone else, perhaps with less knowledge answered the questions. My big break on ...

If you get stuck on an ancestor, read a county or local history of the area. It probably won't mention your ancestor, but reading and le...

The word "coparcener" generally speaking, means joint heirs. Siblings, whose father dies without a will, may be referred to as ...

Always look in the margins of courthouse record books. You may find comments written there, or in the case of mortgages, you may find an ack...

The widow dies and three daughters inherit 12 acres in the 1850s. One daughter apparently pre-deceased her mother. The two surviving daughte...

In most areas of the United States, a section is 640 acres, a quartersection is 160 acres, and a Congressional Township is 6 miles on a side...

Remember that just because your ancestor signs their "mark" on a document it doesn't mean they were illiterate. In some cases,...

As a short reminder, I'm leading a group research trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake this May. Going  with a group can be a...

For those times when locating information seems easy, stop and take time to analyze what you have already located. This is particularly good...