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Archive for January, 2008

In the Beginning . . . How to Start Your Family Research

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Want to know how to Start Your Family Research? start with yourself. Your name, birth date, where you were born. Now you have your first person in your family file. That was pretty easy. Next step, your parents and grandparents. Maybe you don’t know your grandparents’ names. Don’t be embarrassed. I thought I knew my grandmother’s name until the day I was hunting through a birth register in a courthouse in WV and came across her birth record. She had a different first name!

Using Google to Find Your Ancestors

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

One place to find facts about your ancestors is on Google. That’s right. They may have been dead for a few hundred years but that doesn’t mean they can’t be Googled. You may have to be a little crafty as to what you put in the search window, however. Add the state he/she lived in or the name of the county or town where they resided to cut down on the number of hits. If you’re doing a search on “John Jones,” there’s little hope. But “Cornelius Slecht” is easy. Just sit back and see what washes up on the internet’s productive shores.

Finding Genealogy Facts in Estate Sale Records

Monday, January 21st, 2008

The most outlandish place I’ve ever found a female ancestor’s name was on an Estate Sale record, known as a Sale Bill. When someone died in the olden, moldy days, all the property not assigned in a will was inventoried, values attached, and then it was all sold to the public. Today that’s called an Estate Sale. In old records, you’ll see it called a Sale Bill. At the sale each item would be listed on the Sale Bill with the amount of money received and the name of the buyer. This list was presented at court and recorded. Oh happy day for genealogists!