My collateral ancestor Mintie was called by her middle name Lucinda in almost every record during her lifetime *except* the bible record above and one census: Nicknames, middle names and initials will get you every time in genealogical research. They still get me every now and then and it kinda drives me just a little […]
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Category: Vital Records
Finding That Maiden Name
Finding the maiden names of wives is a problem all researchers will face sooner or later. When marriage records are missing there are several strategies we can use to uncover these names. Death Certificates We can use the records of a couple’s children to uncover information about that couple. I have used this in every […]
Analyzing a Death Certificate
Have you maximized your understanding of the most common sources in genealogy? Your ability to solve problems in your research will grow as you learn to scour each source for every clue it imparts. This image is from one of my lectures. There are twenty-two pieces of genealogical information on this death certificate. Would you […]
Murder in the Family
Violence is certainly not something our generation invented. Murder is not new. There have been many surprises for me over the years of my genealogy research. One is how many instances I discovered that involved murder. Strange, odd and sad, but true. I’m going to try my best not to read anything too deep into […]
Fooled Again: The Green Barnes Family
The family of my ancestor Green Barnes recently proved to me again that we all need to be diligent when trying to reconstruct our families. It also illustrates how original sources, assumptions and human nature sometimes conspire to confuse us. This recent odyssey started when I was reviewing the obituary for a collateral ancestor, Cora […]
When Original Sources Are Wrong
Frank Gowen married Matilda Davis on 17 August 1916 in Duval County, Florida. Seems pretty straightforward, right? This is an original source, after all. Except it isn’t accurate. Matilda married Frank GARVIN. And a seemingly small detail like that can throw your research off into all kinds of wrong directions. The Beginning of Trouble When […]
Beware the Death Certificate
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
The Application for a Marriage License
This summer I discussed the little known record called Petition for Letters. This record often names all known heirs of a deceased individual. A similarly useful record is the Application for a Marriage License. We all seek out marriage records for our ancestors, but here’s one we may have missed. I have previously discussed the kinds […]