The information on a death certificate is a rich terrain for genealogists, but a tricky one. We cannot take all of its information as accurate without examining more information from other sources. Only the date and cause of death on a death certificate, usually verified by the attending medical professional, has a high probability of […]
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Category: Evaluating Evidence
Prove Identity: Don’t Just Match Names
Identity is a critical concept to understand in genealogy. Too often we assume that a person with the same name living in the same place must be our ancestor. That is a mistake. You’ll hear the phrase “The Names the Same” for this concept. I addressed this topic in 2009 but thought it worthy of repeating. The […]
Never Rely On Just the Census
Ah, the census. The glorious census. It’s such an important document in genealogy, I would venture to say even a foundational document. But its flaws are many. Those who rely on only the census to reconstruct their ancestral families do so at the risk of recreating a family inaccurately. Take for example the case of my ancestor […]
Verify Your Oral History
One of the first things we’re instructed when we begin our genealogy journey is to interview our elders. This is by far one of the most important things for us do. Our family members can provide information we may never find in documents. It has always been ironic to me that the time when most […]
Follow the Witness: They May Have the An...
Many of our artificial brick walls are caused by our inability to extract every clue from each source. One of my favorite suggestions is to tell people to Follow the Witness. Many of the most common sources we use, such as deed records, probate records and marriage records, are legal documents that in many cases needed […]
Are Your Assumptions Leading You Astray?
It’s fine to make assumptions during your genealogical research. In fact, we all do it whether we think we do or not. However, as we review our sources and uncover evidence, we have to remember our assumptions. We must be willing to let them go in light of new information. We need to follow where the evidence […]
Extracting Every Clue From the Census
Census records can rightfully be called the foundation upon which much of our research builds upon. That begs a question. Have you learned to sift through each census record to extract every little clue about your ancestors and their communities? Many people haven’t. I’m still learning new ways to do this. We know that census […]
Tips on Using World War Draft Registrati...
World War Draft Registrations (World War I and World War II) are some of the most valuable records in genealogy research. These records are especially helpful for researching men born in the late 1870s or 1880s. The lack of a 1890 census record makes that 20-year-gap hard to cross. Read the Details It’s important to […]
Sorting Same-Named People
I had an enslaved ancestor named Rezin Prather. I thought, “What an odd name. I’ll easily be able to find him in the records.” Guess what? It was a very popular name in Montgomery County, Maryland during the 19th century. There were numerous African-American “Rezin Prathers” floating around the county and in nearby Washington, D.C. […]
What is Genealogy “Methodology”?
Thanks to everyone who commented on my previous post about slavery and slaveowners. If anything, it kicked off some great discussions and dialogue about the country’s worst and most contentious period of history. I’ll leave that topic with one quote from one of our greatest slavery historians, Ira Berlin: No understanding of slavery can avoid these themes: […]