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Next Entries »Deciphering The First, Middle and Nicknames of our Ancestors
Thursday, April 24th, 2008A Rose by any other name might be called Polly, Molly or Maude. And John can be known as Jack, Archibald as Balt and Christopher as Chris, Christy or Christian. I even have an Uncle Cecil who was known as Peiko. Where did that come from? That’s right, it’s not just surnames we have to worry about when searching for our ancestors. (See my post on April 20th, Hooked on Phonetics . . . The Many Misspellings of our Ancestors’ Names.) A man may have been known by his middle name until he reached maturity, and then switched to his first name. Some men and women used nicknames instead of their first names even for legal documents—but not every time. This makes them difficult to research.
Hooked on Phonetics . . . The Many Misspellings of our Ancestors’ Names
Sunday, April 20th, 2008From the moment the first European ship hit American soil, our ancestors’ surnames have been cruelly treated by the people inscribing them on parchment, paper and in printer’s ink. The reason is simple. Many people didn’t know how to spell them: not the person owning the name, the person writing it or the person setting the type. The way this problem was dealt with was Phonetics. If a man didn’t know how to spell a name, he spelled it as it sounded, and every man responsible for recording those names had a different idea how to spell what he heard. To complicate the matter, many of the people speaking the names and those writing them spoke different languages.
Free Civil War Website Available - But For a Limited Time, So Hurry!
Thursday, April 17th, 2008It’s free, it’s great, and it’s for a limited time. Best of all, it’s everything a genealogist wants to know about the Civil War; who the soldiers were, what battles their regiments fought in, what songs were the men singing as they marched to battle and who was writing diaries about the whole affair. The Alexander Street Press is a database that has lots of great information–but it’s usually only accessible at libraries, colleges and universities that subscribe to their website. That is until now, and I mean right now.
Tax Records, A Treasure Chest of Facts About Your Ancestors
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008Personal Property Taxes are a great place to find facts about your ancestors and to track their lives through the years. They’re just as useful as the Federal Census, plus taxes are collected every year instead of only every ten years. And they go back a lot further. The Federal Census began in 1790 while taxes were usually collected as soon as a county was formed. See my post on “Courthouse Records, A Vital Step in Researching Your Family History” on Feb 3 to learn how to find county Tax Records.
The LDS Library, A Great Place To Research Your Family History
Friday, February 15th, 2008The LDS Library in Utah is filled with every piece of genealogy information the Latter Day Saints can find and they allow anyone to use it. If you can’t go to Salt Lake City, Utah to get up close and personal with their library, you can order copies of all the records they’ve copied onto microfilm or fiche and use them in the LDS Family History Centers located in their churches all across America.
Genealogy.com . . . Another Place to Research Your Family History
Friday, February 8th, 2008Genealogy.com is another popular subscription database, which I’ve also used. There are reasons I recommend it and reasons I’m no longer a member. It was the first database I subscribed to and my favorite thing about it was the history books they had online, which Ancestry didn’t have at the time. They also have a nice variety of subscription offerings that gave me access to the historical information I wanted without having to pay for sections I didn’t need.
Ancestry.com . . . An Online Subscription Library for Genealogy
Monday, February 4th, 2008I discovered many of my family history facts on Ancestry.com. That’s right. I pay for genealogy information. It’s not a crime, as a lot of people believe. Genealogists rent microfilm from the LDS library, local or state libraries. Some people buy compact discs to find their genealogy information. All this costs money. What’s wrong with paying for the ability to access a genealogy database—which is really an online library—that delivers first-rate genealogical information directly to my home computer? Ancestry.com saves me time, gives me great facts from verifiable sources, and I love sitting at home doing research anytime I want.
County Courthouse Records . . . A Vital Step In Researching Your Family History
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008In my post on Jan. 26th, I said that vital statistics such as birth, death and marriage records were only required to be reported beginning in the early 1900’s in most states. Prior to that time, there were counties that collected this information about their citizens. I love those folks! Unfortunately, during the Revolutionary and Civil War some Courthouse records were destroyed. This makes genealogists’ work harder, but not impossible. We can reconstruct the information we need from census records, wills, tax lists, deeds, church records and estate sales—see my post about Estate Sales on Jan 21. I’ll be discussing the other methods in future posts. Now we’ll talk about County Records.
Using Google to Find Your Ancestors
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008One 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, 2008The 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!
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