May 17, 2009
Tracing Our Roots
IS YOUR ANCESTOR PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK?
Brenda Kellow
Last week’s article was a story about two
separate findings and the methods used for achieving it. This story is also a
lesson in family research. It is about a reader thumbing through an article in a
journal and having her ancestor’s surname jump out at her. How often does that
happen to us?
At the bottom of the page was a
certificate, a property certificate to be precise. Surprised, her eye had caught
her ancestor’s surname. Looking closer she could barely see the initial for his
first name.
Looking more closely, she determined the
date as December 1, 1858. In addition, it had the name 'St. Charles Town
Company' on it, one of the businesses that her ancestor helped form.
It took some time but after contacting the editor, curator and the research librarian, the researcher was able to uncover some valuable information. The historical certificate was part of the library’s manuscript collection 190, Cherry Creek Settlement file folder 292. The curator said it had been in the files for a long time and they found it during a search for historical documents to display for Denver’s 150th anniversary. He said she probably would not have found it because of the way it was cataloged. You see, she had always looked for family names when researching there. She made a promise to herself to “look under all possibilities for anything that might connect to your ancestor.”
Finding information on your family in an
unfamiliar place or location is not a rarity. Some of the things found are
attention grabbing—good and bad. While hunting for information in Georgia court
minutes to link my direct bloodline ancestor to the other family in the area
with the same surname, I found him mentioned. It did not connect him to the
other families. However, his $5 fine for fornication was attention grabbing!
Another time I was hunting through
newspaper microfilm files for some interesting filler for the family history
book when I spied the gossip column. I thought this ought to give me something
fun to add to the book if I could just find my family mentioned. What I found
was that my Martha had gone to her sister’s home in Gainesville for a quilting
bee. It gave her sister’s married name. This was exciting because I had given up
trying to find that woman many years ago. I did not know for sure if she died,
married somewhere else, or moved out of the area. Thanks to that article in the
gossip section, I was able to document her last name and continue searching for
her in Cooke County records. Not attention grabbing but the find was relevant to
my family history search.
Another time I wrote a letter to the editor
in Pennsylvania where I am searching. Unbelievably, in time a relative read it
and contacted me. Information may be in anything, anywhere. My advice is to
search journals, newspapers, local writings, post offices, Masonic lodges, store
ledger books, etc.
Use whatever tool you think of or have
access to. Those ancestors cannot stay hidden forever.
ONLINE CITATION HELP: If you take your laptop with you, eventually you will
need to cite a record properly, any kind of record. Several Internet sites can
help you with this. My most used sites are: The Chicago Manual of Style; EasyBib
Free Bibliography; and Modern Language Association (MLA) Citation Generator;
Others are, ProGenealogy
Internet Citation Guide for Genealogists; Purdue Formatting and Style Guide;
Citation Help; Duke University,
Assembling a List of Works Cited in Your Paper. I just found one called Think
Genealogy, Better Online Citations. It has a short YouTube video clip. Indexes
are alphabetical or have a drop-down list for choosing what you want to site.
Make use of these online facilities by accessing them through Google and then
bookmarking them. Sometimes the books on the subject are not as handy as the
Internet sources.
FAMILY SEARCH just finished
indexing and putting online the Arkansas County Marriages 1837-1957, Cook
County Illinois Births 1916-1922, and the 1920 census for Minnesota, Montana,
and Nebraska, the 1925 state census for Rhode Island. The latest international
projects added is the 1930 census for Yucatan, Mexico, Avila, Spain Parish
Registers, and British Columbia Canadian Marriages. Additionally, Australia, New
South Wales Newspaper Clippings, 1861-1987.
Brenda Kellow has a bachelor's degree in history, teaches, and lectures on genealogy. Before retiring to publish her family’s histories in 2007, Brenda held certification as a Certified Genealogist and as a Certified Genealogical Instructor. Send reunions announcements, books to review, and genealogy queries to: TraceRts@verizon.net.
