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Unusual Places to Look for Genealogy
By Kathy Jones-Kristof | July 5, 2008
We all do it. We search and beg and pound the keyboard mercilessly, desperate to find someplace to glean just one little bit of information that will break down that unassailable brick wall that keeps us from the Holy Grail of Genealogy—The Unfindable Ancestor. I’ve destroyed my share of keyboards and still have a brick wall so unscalable that I truly believe my Unfindable Ancestor was beamed up by aliens, which may explain my siblings’ love of science fiction books, my crush on Chewbacca and my obsession with the genealogy program Reunion for Mac, which includes a person status for Alien Abductee.
During my many years of Maalox-assisted genealogy research, I’ve accumulated a list of unusual places to look for genealogy, which I’ll share with you here. Some of the links are provided only as examples.
Antique Stores and Flea Markets
Look for these in the area where your ancestor lived. See Bookstores below for the types of Books to look for, plus search for; Personal Papers, Photos, Photo Albums, Bibles, Postcards (sent to your ancestor), Account Books, Journals, Letters, Signed Quilts and any Personal Property that can be definitively traced to your family. Don’t be taken in by unscrupulous dealers when buying Personal Property. Require evidence. Ask for receipts, interview neighbors to see who bought your family’s possessions and check court records for estate sale lists.
Atlases
Old Atlases may reference renamed towns, old trails or streams that will help you locate where your ancestor lived.
Bookstores
Look for New and Used Bookstores in the area where your ancestor lived. Search for published and self-produced Family Histories, Family Bibles, Regional Histories, old Maps and Atlases, Local Place Names (See Place Names below) and Regional Traveling Preacher or Doctor Memoirs that may reference your ancestor. Also check Online Bookstores for these same books.
Churches
Research old Churches in the area where your ancestor lived. They may have records that include your ancestor.
Company Records
If you know where your ancestor worked, see if the Company’s records still exist. The Federal Census sometimes includes an employer’s name.
Coroner’s Reports
Doctor’s Records
Encylopedias
Try Wikipedia online and regular Encyclopedias. Look for your ancestor’s name and the town or region where she/he lived.
These are the same thing, but referred to differently depending on the era and region. Don’t look just for your ancestor’s Estate Sale record, but also look for other peoples’ sales during the time your ancestor lived. You may find your ancestor buying items from a neighbor’s Estate Sale, thereby proving that your ancestor lived in that region.
Family Reunions
Check online for Regional Reunions and Family Name Reunions. These are great places to learn about your family’s history and to find lost family members. If you can’t attend, contact the organizer and see if there are other ways to interact.
History Books
Our ancestors made History. Read Regional Histories to see what happened where your family lived and if your ancestor was involved.
Hospital and Asylum Records
These are usually very hard to find.
Insurance Records
Look for Fire, Flood and Life policies.
Journals
Look not only for personal Journals for your ancestors, but also for Journals written in the same region your ancestor lived during her/his lifetime. Perhaps your ancestor is mentioned.
Juries
Men were called to serve on Juries if they were property owners. Their names will be listed in court records, thereby proving they lived in an area during a certain time period.
Land Records
Don’t just look for your own ancestor’s Land Records. Search other deeds in the same area and time period to see if your ancestor is mentioned as a neighboring landowner, thereby proving she/he lived in an area during a certain time period.
Lawsuits
People sued each other frequently throughout America’s history. A search of court records may reveal your ancestor involved in a legal brawl, thereby proving she/he lived in an area during a certain time period.
Lodges
Was your ancestor a Mason or other Lodge member? See if the lodge still has records that may include your ancestor. Check your ancestor’s tombstone to see if a Lodge affiliation is carved on it.
Maiden Names
A woman’s Maiden or Family Name can be difficult to discover if a marriage record can’t be found. Look for the surname of close neighbors, then see if one of your ancestor’s sons has the same first name. This method of naming was used to honor the wife’s family name. I’ve even found a Maiden Name used for a daughter—Grizzell.
Check the wills of people in the area to see if anyone left property to your female ancestor. If she is listed as a daughter, you’ll then know her Family Name. However, if the will is for your ancestor’s mother and she remarried following the death of your ancestor’s father, the mother’s name on the will would then be in the name of her second husband and not your ancestor’s Family Name. Also, men leaving land to “sons” in their wills who aren’t actually their sons. This term was frequently used for a son-in-law in legal matters.
Soon after a daughter’s marriage, a father may make a “gift of deed” to his new son-in-law. Check for these in land records to provide a Maiden Name for a woman. Other land deeds might help provide a wife’s family name, so pay attention to land purchases with or sales between close families.
Museums
Small city and county museums frequently have historical records of local people. See if these include your ancestor.
Newspapers
Check indexes for your ancestor’s name. Contact your local libraries—public, college, university and the LDS Family History Center—to order microfilm of all newspapers published where and when your ancestor lived.
Obituaries
For recent Obituaries, contact all living people listed to see what family information they may have. If they’ve died, search for their surviving family.
Old People in your Ancestor’s Neighborhood
Elderly people can be a goldmine of information. They may remember your ancestor, have photos of your family, own things that once belonged to your family, know where your family’s cemetery is located back in the woods and even be able to identify people in those old family photographs you have.
Online Auction Sites
Search for articles with your Family Name, then look for individual items with your ancestor’s name, such as a Family Bible. Also look for items such as those listed in Antique Stores and Bookstores, as listed above.
Parks
National, State, County and City Parks may have historical information that could include your ancestor.
Phone Book
That’s right. If you’re missing a relative, try looking them up in the Phone Book. Maybe Uncle Oliver forgot to tell you thirty years ago that he moved to the suburbs.
Don’t think only of the Photos that you own. Go through your relatives’ collections. My first question to the new relatives I meet online is, “Do you have any photographs of our ancestors?” There are also city, state, museum, college and university archives with Photo collections. Do a Google search for Family Photographs for your surname. Also see Antique Stores, Online Auction Sites and Parks from above for other places to look. I found a photo of one my gr-gr-grandfathers in a book about coal miners in a State Park gift-shop in West Virginia. I discovered they had a collection of miner’s photographs from which they selected to produce that book.
Many Place Names are derived from people who founded towns, discovered mountains, rivers or streams, and people who owned mills or factories. If anything where your ancestor lived has the same name as your ancestor, trace the origin of the Place Name to see to whom the honor belongs. (The link for Place Names only works for large cities.)
Police Reports
Many early roads in America were built by requiring manual labor as payment for a man’s property taxes. Some of these Road Order lists still exist, but will not be included with tax records. Search for Road Orders online or in state and county archives, where they are frequently housed in the Department of Transportation.
Town Historians
If there’s no Town Historian, check with the Town Council office to see if they have information about their town’s history. Some places print history pamphlets for visitors that reference their most famous founders.
Travel Books
In America’s early history, there were adventurous people who traveled widely and wrote about their experiences. Check these travel books for ones that cover the area where your ancestor lived to see if she/he is mentioned.
Trial Witness
In addition to Juries and Lawsuits, this is a frequently overlooked Court Record that can be used to prove your ancestor lived in an area during a certain time period.
We’ve all seen news reports of how a guy looked on his state’s website for Unclaimed Property and found $80,000 that he put in a bank account twenty years ago and forgot about (idiot!). Why not check to see if your lost relatives are on one of those state lists? Okay, you’re saying if the state can’t find your relatives to give them that money, how are you supposed to find them? Because the state is trying to give away money, not collect taxes. If your relative owed the state $80,000 in back taxes, they wouldn’t be listing her/his name on some list on the Internet. They’d be out there with dogs and cops and bazookas blowing up any obstacle in their way looking for your lost relative. So you pretend that your lost relative has the only clue to unlock all the secrets to your biggest genealogical puzzle, get out your own Bazooka (bubblegum) and go get ‘em!
I also covered two other unusual places to research in my posts Using Google to Find Your Ancestors and Tax Records.
I’m working on a new post about an unusual and rewarding technique to use for ancestor research right now, so check back soon. And if you know of any Unusual Places to look for Genealogy, let me know. I’d love to hear from you!
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Topics: All Levels of Genealogists |
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:27 am
Your blog is terrific!
Here is the url for the blog from the Archives of the Sandusky Library,
if you would like to take a look:
http://sanduskyhistory.blogspot.com/
September 24th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
favorited this one, bro
September 28th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
thats it, brother