text:
Genealogy

Third Edition

George G. Morgan

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How to Do Everything™: Genealogy, Third Edition

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_To the memory of my favorite aunt, Mary Allen Morgan, who taught me my love of family, despite the hardships she endured. She changed and enriched my life beyond measure._

_And to the memories of my Revolutionary War ancestors, John McKnitt Alexander and Major John Davidson of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and John Swords of Upstate South Carolina; and to the memory of my favorite ancestor, Green Berry Holder, born in Lawrenceville, Gwinnett County, Georgia, on 23 December 1843 and died in Rome, Floyd County, Georgia, on 18 June 1914. Each of these people, their spouses, children, descendants, and collateral families has brought history, geography, and genealogical research to life for me. Each and all of them changed my life, and this book will always be a product of the research for them._
About the Author

**George G. Morgan** is an internationally recognized genealogical expert, lecturer, and consultant. He is president of Aha! Seminars, Inc., a Florida-based company providing continuing education to librarians in the United States and genealogical presentations to societies in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. He also has led genealogy tours to the United Kingdom and has spoken on several genealogy cruises. He presents face-to-face at conferences and seminars and delivers live webinars via GoToMeeting® and Skype®.

He is the author of ten books, including the first and second editions of _The Official Guide to Ancestry.com_ (Ancestry Publishing), and the first, second, and third editions of this book. He has written literally hundreds of magazine, journal, and online articles on the subject of genealogy. His articles have appeared in every major genealogical magazine in North America, including _Family Chronicle_ , _Internet Genealogy_ , _Ancestry Magazine_ , _the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly_ , the Federation of Genealogy Societies' _FORUM_ , and others. His online articles available on the Internet number in the thousands. His published interviews have appeared on the Internet, in _Reader's Digest_ and _Woman's Day_ magazines, and in other media.

George is the co-host, with his partner Drew Smith, of _The Genealogy Guys Podcast_ , the longest-running genealogy podcast in the world, published at **<http://genealogyguys.com>**. The two also have appeared in genealogical videos and in numerous online podcast interviews.

He is currently the vice president of Membership for the Federation of Genealogical Societies. He is the past president of the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors (ISFHWE), a former director of the Genealogical Speakers Guild, is past public relations/publicity director of the Florida State Genealogical Society, and past director of the Florida Genealogical Society (Tampa). He belongs to a number of other genealogical societies in the United States and the United Kingdom.

George has won a number of awards, including the Genealogy Outstanding Achievement Award and the President's Citation from the Florida State Genealogical Society, the Award of Merit and the Certificate of Merit from the Federation of Genealogical Societies, the Excellence in Writing Award from ISFHWE, and a certificate of appreciation from the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of Florida, among others.

Morgan's _How to Do Everything™: Genealogy_ is a best seller in the McGraw-Hill catalog and has consistently won critical acclaim from reviewers and readers alike as the best genealogy "how-to" book published in the past 25 years.

George lives in Citrus Park, Florida, a suburb of Tampa.

About the Technical Editor

**Drew Smith** , MLS, is an academic librarian with the University of South Florida in Tampa, and a nationally known genealogy writer and speaker. He is the author of the landmark book, _Social Networking for Genealogists_ (Genealogical Publishing Company, 2009). Since it began in September 2005, he has co-hosted _The Genealogy Guys Podcast_ with George G. Morgan. He is a Director of the Federation of Genealogical Societies, the President of the Florida Genealogical Society of Tampa, Secretary for the Association of Professional Genealogists, and Parliamentarian for the Florida State Genealogical Society. He is the founder and long-time administrator of the GENEALIB mailing list, a preeminent communication tool among genealogical librarians and archivists in the United States and abroad since 1996. He has written numerous articles for popular genealogical magazines, including _NGS Magazine_ , _Digital Genealogist,_ and _Genealogical Computing_ , and is the editor of the Federation of Genealogical Societies' _Voice_ newsletter and a contributor to its blog.
Contents at a Glance

PART I |

Begin Your Family History Odyssey

**1** Why Explore Your Genealogy?

**2** Analyze and Organize Your Family Information

**3** Balance Traditional and Electronic Research

**4** Place Your Ancestors into Context and Locate Vital Records

**5** Use Census Schedules and Records to Locate Your Ancestors

---|---
PART II |

Expand Your Research

**6** Extend Your Research with Advanced Record Types

**7** Use the Many Types of Military Service Records

**8** Understand and Use Land and Property Records

**9** Locate and Use Immigration and Naturalization Records

**10** Discover Where to Locate Evidence About Your Family

PART III |

Learn Research Methods and Strategies

**11** Learn How to Successfully Research Your Ancestors on the Internet

**12** Research and Verify Your Ancestors Using Genetic Genealogy (DNA)

**13** Use Alternative Research Strategies to Locate Difficult Records

**14** Use the Latest Online Resources and Social Networking in Your Genealogy Research

 Case Study

 Index
Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

**PART I Begin Your Family History Odyssey**

**CHAPTER 1 Why Explore Your Genealogy?**

Start at the Beginning: Yourself and Your Family

Discover Sources of Information in Your Own Home

Vital and Civil Records

Religious Records

Personal or Family Bible

Photograph Albums

Scrapbooks

Letters

Diaries and Journals

Family Histories

Local Histories

Baby Books

Marriage Books

Funeral Books and Memorial Cards

Identification Documents

Immigration Papers

Naturalization Papers

Land Records

Military Records

Directories

Religious Publications

School Records

Employment Records

Search for the Less-Than-Obvious Items

Interview _All_ Your Relatives

Consider Several Types of Interview

Schedule Interviews for Best Results

Ask the Right Questions

Use the Right Equipment for Your Interviews

Set the Tone of the Interview

Don't Forget the "Thank You"

Begin to Organize What You Find

Get Started

**CHAPTER 2 Analyze and Organize Your Family Information**

Evaluate Primary vs. Secondary Information

Birth Certificates

Marriage Certificates

Death Certificates

Obituaries

Cemetery Markers

Bible Entries

Recognize and Evaluate Original vs. Derivative Sources

Understand Types of Derivative Sources

Avoid Errors in Derivative Sources

Apply Critical Thinking Skills to Your Genealogical Research

Place Your Ancestors into Context

Format Names, Dates, and Locations Correctly

Record Names

Record Dates

Record Locations

Work with Pedigree Charts

Work with Family Group Sheets

Record Multiple Family Units with a Common Spouse .

How to Handle Nontraditional Family Units

How to Handle Adopted Children

Create Source Citations for Your Data

Select a Family Tree Format

**CHAPTER 3 Balance Traditional and Electronic Research**

Be a Modern Genealogical Researcher

Understand Traditional Research

Discover Documentary Evidence and Where It Is Found

Books and Periodicals

Manuscripts

Maps

Indexes

Histories

Biographies

Newspapers

Documents from Many Traditional Locations and Sources

Understand Electronic Research Materials

Email and Mailing Lists

Message Boards

Web Pages

Compilations and Indexes

Search Engines

Subscription Internet Sites for Genealogy

Blogs

Podcasts and Videocasts

Webinars

Live Online Radio

Integrate Traditional and Electronic Research Findings

**CHAPTER 4 Place Your Ancestors into Context and Locate Vital Records**

Place Your Ancestors into Context

Become a Student of History

Family Histories

County and Local Histories

State and Provincial Histories

National and World History

Use Maps to Locate the _Right_ Place to Research

Avoid Wasted Time and Energy

Use Maps for Multiple Purposes

Use a Methodology That Works

Maps Can Equal Success

Locate Birth, Marriage, and Death Records

Locate Birth Certificates

Find Marriage Licenses and Certificates

Research Divorce Records

Locate Death Certificates

**CHAPTER 5 Use Census Schedules and Records to Locate Your Ancestors**

Understand and Work with United States Census Records

Understand Originals vs. Copies of Census Documents

Use Strategies to Work with Population Schedules

Don't Overlook the 1885 Census

Use Substitutes for the 1890 Census

Use the 1940 Census

Use More than Just Population Schedules

Use Census Finding Aids to Locate Your Ancestors

Use Soundex and Miracode Index Resources

Use Excellent U.S. Census Reference Books

Access the Census Images on Microfilm and in Online Databases

Don't Forget to Search State Censuses

Understand and Work with British and Irish Census Records

Work with England's and Wales' Census Records

Learn the Status of Irish Census Records

Use Quality Reference Materials When Working with British Census Records

Access the Census Records for the British Isles

Understand and Work with Canadian Census Records

Explore the Depth of the 1871 Census for Canada

Locate Additional Information on the Censuses

**PART II Expand Your Research**

**CHAPTER 6 Extend Your Research with Advanced Record Types**

Use Religious Records

Locate the Right Institution

Determine What Records the Institution Might Have Created

Locate the Records Today

Gain Access to the Records

Interpret, Evaluate, and Place the Records into Perspective

Consider a Variety of Religious Records

Obtain and Analyze Mortuary and Funeral Home Records

Read Between the Lines in Obituaries

Locate and Delve into Cemetery Records

Search for Other Death-Related Documents

Get Inside Your Ancestor's Mind Using Wills and Probate Records

Understand the Meaning of a Will and Testament

Understand the Probate Process

Learn What a Will Can Tell You—Literally and by Implication

Examine the Contents of a Probate Packet

Watch for Clues and Pointers in the Probate Packet

Learn Why You Really Want to Examine Documents Yourself

Locate and Obtain Copies of Wills and Probate Documents

Obtain Information from the Social Security Administration and Railroad Retirement Board

Use Historical Newspapers to Learn About Your Ancestor's Life Events

Consider Other Institutional Record Types

**CHAPTER 7 Use the Many Types of Military Service Records**

Expand Your Knowledge of the Military Services

Investigate Military History for the Appropriate Time Period

Identify Possible Sources for Military Records

Locate Military Records in the United States

Locate Canadian Military Records

Locate Military Records in the United Kingdom

Locate Australian Military Records

Examine Samples of Military Records

Locate Enlistment and Draft Registration Records

Military Muster Rolls and Pay Records

Seek Out Educational and Training Records

Look for Military Station and Duty Assignment Orders

Promotions and Commissions

Locate Military Discharge and Separation Records

Death and Burial Records

Locate Other Military-Related Records

**CHAPTER 8 Understand and Use Land and Property Records**

Locate and Use Land and Property Records in the United States

Learn About the Organization of State and Public Lands

Locate Land and Property Records

Learn About Types of Records

Learn About Land and Property Records in Canada

Land Measurement in Canada

Land Systems Used in Canada

Taxation and Duty Records

Locate the Land Records

Learn About Land and Property Records in the United Kingdom

How Many Manors Were There?

Manorial Records

Locate Land and Property Records Online

Place Your Ancestors into Context with Property Records

**CHAPTER 9 Locate and Use Immigration and Naturalization Records**

Understand Why People Migrate

Locate and Use U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Records

Learn About How Our Ancestors Traveled

Learn About the History of Ships' Passenger Lists

Locate and Access Canadian Immigration Records

Consult the Library and Archives Canada

Locate and Access Australian Immigration Records

Learn About Australian History

Use Strategies for Determining Your Ancestor's Migration Path

Start with What You Know

Refer to Vital Documents and Ecclesiastical Records

Don't Overlook Voter Registration Records

Look for Passport Records

Locate and Use the U.S. Federal Census Population Schedules .

Study Published Histories

Look for Books About Early Settlers

Search for Shipping News

Use Other Strategies for Determining Your Ancestor's Place of Origin

Use Photographic Images

Look at Home for Letters Written in Another Language

Consider Family Customs

Find Clues in Culinary Styles

Pay Attention to Family Physical Traits

Use Alternative Record Types to Identify Clues

Use the Resources at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Website

Understand the Naturalization Process

Locate Repositories Where Naturalization and Related Documents Are Housed

Work Immigration, Naturalization, and Census Records in Tandem

**CHAPTER 10 Discover Where to Locate Evidence About Your Family**

Determine Where to Look for Different Document Types

Use Indexes, Compilations, and Other Finding Aids

Use Indexes

Use Compilations

Use Other Finding Aids

Use Libraries and Archives

Learn How to Use the Library Catalog

Start with What Has Already Been Done

Use the Library of Congress Online Catalog

Use the FamilySearch Catalog and the LDS Family History Centers

Consult Reference Books and Other Resources

Locate the Repository on the Internet

Contact the Repository

Seek Help from a State, Provincial, or National Library or Archive

Contact Genealogical and Historical Societies at All Levels

Engage a Professional Researcher

Deal with Closed or Limited Access to Materials

Be Prepared to Provide Proof of Your Relationship

Offer to Pay All the Expenses

Provide Letters of Authorization or Permission to Access

Invoke the Use of the Freedom of Information Act

Obtain a Court Order

Order Document Copies by Postal Mail and Email

Keep Track of Your Correspondence

Use a Research Log

**PART III Learn Research Methods and Strategies**

**CHAPTER 11 Learn How to Successfully Research Your Ancestors on the Internet**

Categorize the Major Types of Internet Resources

Categorize the Major Types of Genealogical Web Page Resources

Compilation Sites

"How-to," Educational, and Reference Sites

Genealogy Charts and Forms

Online Databases

Genealogical Societies

Structure Effective Searches to Locate Information

Define the Difference Between Search Engines and Directories

Use a Search Engine to Get Great Results

Use Mailing Lists and Message Boards to Share Information and Collaborate with Others

What Is a Mailing List?

What Is a Message Board?

Write Effective Messages and Postings That Get Results

Locate and Use Additional Resources in Your Research

Online Map Resources

Dictionaries

Language Translation

Historical and Biographical Resources

Calendars

People Finders and Telephone Directories

**CHAPTER 12 Research and Verify Your Ancestors Using Genetic Genealogy (DNA)**

Learn About DNA and Its Place in Genealogical Research

Discover the Difference Between Paternal and Maternal Testing and the Results

Learn About Genetic Testing Services

Join a DNA Surname Project on the Internet

Learn More About Genetic Genealogy

**CHAPTER 13 Use Alternative Research Strategies to Locate Difficult Records**

Recognize When You Have Hit a "Brick Wall"

Take a Fresh Look at Your Evidence

Reevaluate the Quality of Your Sources

Dissect Obituaries

Widen the Scope of Your Search to Include New and Different Sources

Use Photographs in Your Family Research

Learn About the Types of Photographs

Date Photographs Using Clothing and Hair Fashions

Switch to Another Family Member to Bypass Your Roadblock

Seek Help from Libraries, Archives, Museums, and Societies

Engage the Help of a Professional Researcher

Locate a Qualified Professional Genealogical Researcher

Define the Scope of the Work to Be Performed

Establish Guidelines, Goals, and Milestones

Document the Relationship

Conclude the Relationship

**CHAPTER 14 Use the Latest Online Resources and Social Networking in Your Genealogy Research**

Locate and Use Blogs

Use Wikis and Collaborate with Others

Enjoy Podcasts and Online Radio Broadcasts

Learn More About Genealogical Research with Internet Videos

Attend Live Webinars and Access Recorded Webinars

Learn About and Use the Latest Social Media Resources

Facebook

Genealogy Wise

Google+

Twitter

Summary

**Case Study**

**Index**
Acknowledgments

Creating a book is no easy task. It takes dedicated people with talent and specific skills to bring a written work to fruition. I'd like to mention a few of the people who have made this book all that it is.

First, let me extend my most sincere thanks to Megg Morin, my acquisitions editor at McGraw-Hill. We have had the pleasure of working on all three editions of this book to date, and Megg's enthusiasm, humor, and professionalism made the hard work worth every minute. We have become friends and colleagues, and I can never thank her enough for her faith and support.

The team at McGraw-Hill always epitomize the meaning of "professional." Special thanks go out to Janet Walden, Joya Anthony, Jean Bodeaux, Bill McManus, Susie Elkind, and Karin Arrigoni. And many thanks also to Anupriya Tyagi at Cenveo Publisher Services.

Thanks to Drew Smith, the technical editor for this book and my partner in life and in so many genealogical ventures, including _The Genealogy Guys Podcast_ at **<http://genealogyguys.com>.**

Finally, my everlasting thanks go to all of my ancestors and their families. Their stories are a rich tapestry that inspires me to be more than I ever thought I could be. They are my greatest heroes!
Introduction

Family is forever! That is a lesson I learned as a small child, almost ten years old, when my aunt and grandmother exposed me with pride to our family history. Their stories and enthusiasm sparked an interest in me to explore and learn more on my own. From that day forward, history and geography were no longer just names, dates, and places. They became the world stage on which my ancestors and family members actively participated or observed, and by which they were affected. That perspective has served me well over time because it encouraged me to always try to place my family into context with the places, periods, and events of their lives and to view them as real people.

Times have changed substantially, and genealogical research is nothing like it was when I began. At that time we wrote letters to courthouses, libraries, archives, and all the common repositories that were typical in order to locate and obtain copies of documents. The letters usually required four paths. We wrote to request the documents we sought from the repositories where we believed the documents resided. If we hit the jackpot, the repository advised us that they had the records and advised us of the copy costs. We then sent a check or money order. And finally the document copies arrived. This process took weeks, if not months, and our research languished unless we were working on multiple lines and documents simultaneously. It still was arduous—and expensive—work.

The first edition of this book was one of the proudest accomplishments in my life, and also one of the most difficult. It was a complex undertaking to summarize more than 40 years of genealogical research experience into a single book. McGraw-Hill's "How to Do Everything™" series is one of the most respected catalogs of how-to books available. My first reaction to being asked to write a genealogy book for the series was, "No one book can teach _everything._ In fact," I said, "volume one of such a work could easily be 15,000 pages long." No one laughed. Those of us who have been working on our genealogy for a while, however, know that the amount of information and resources available to us is nearly incomprehensible and that a work covering literally "everything" would probably occupy an entire bookcase. Still, I believe that you will find in these pages a well-balanced foundation for your family history investigations.

As researchers, we must become methodical detectives who investigate every clue and carefully weigh the evidence we uncover. There are logical processes we can follow and strategies we can employ to help achieve success, even getting past many of the inevitable "brick walls" we encounter. It is not unlike being a crime scene investigator such as those we see on television. I have included scores of illustrations to help you visualize the documents discussed in the text. Many of these are actual documents from my own research collection, while others have been loaned or supplied to me for use in the book. There also are screen shots of web pages that will help you visualize what the providers have to offer.

Things have certainly changed between the publication of the first edition of this book in 2004 and the third edition in 2012! This new, third edition of the book will certainly provide you with a comprehensive foundation for beginning and continuing your family history research. It covers the major record types available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, and provides research strategies for successfully locating and evaluating them. The fact that all these geographies are addressed makes this book unique.

However, this edition also addresses the new technologies and resources that have become a part of the modern genealogist's toolkit. The use of DNA testing and genetic genealogy in our research has become an important topic. The addition of autosomal DNA testing since the last edition is a major breakthrough for genealogists.

New genealogical databases and the Mocavo search engine (at **www.mocavo.com** ) are quickly changing the research environment.

The emergence and expansion of the many social networks have provided a growing environment that fosters the sharing of information and greater research collaboration. Facebook, Genealogy Wise, Google +, and Twitter have changed the communication and collaboration options available to genealogical researchers.

Thousands of brilliant new database collections, many of which contain digitized images of original historical documents and newspapers, present research opportunities we never imagined a decade ago. New websites and updated addresses for other websites are included to illustrate the best of the Internet resources.

You will find that the book is reorganized in such a way as to build a strong foundation for you and then expanded to help _you_ extend your own genealogical research. Regardless of your level of experience and expertise, I know that you will find something helpful at every turn. You will learn the basic rules of genealogical evidence and how to use your "critical thinking skills" in evaluating the source materials you find. Your knowledge of basic _and_ advanced record types will be expanded. Along the way, you will learn successful research methods and strategies, including tips and techniques for effectively using the fastest-growing segment of genealogical research tools on the Internet. In addition, an often overlooked or poorly utilized facility, the online catalog of libraries and archives, is discussed in detail and should substantially help your research. The document images, photographs, screen shots, and tables will provide you with visual references to help you understand the material discussed in the text. Genetic genealogy will be explained in easy-to-understand terms. In addition, the range of new Internet research tools _and_ social networking facilities will be introduced and described. All of these resources will help you combine the "traditional" _and_ "electronic" resources into your personal genealogical research.

I've included a case study about the search for my great-grandmother's siblings, parents, and ancestors. It tells the story of how I located and evaluated different types of records and worked between them to find important answers to break down my "brick wall."

You are embarking on a fascinating genealogical research odyssey that may last your lifetime. Along the way, you will meet many wonderful people and will come to know your ancestors and their families as real people— _and_ as close personal friends. It is my fervent hope that your research will be successful and that your family tree will prove to be a fruitful source of information to help you better understand your family origins. I know from almost 50 years of personal experience that you will have an exciting and gratifying journey. I learn something new each and every day, and you will too!

Happy hunting!
 _George G. Morgan_
PART I

Begin Your Family History Odyssey
1

Why Explore Your Genealogy?

HOW TO...

  * Start at the beginning with yourself and work backward in time through your ancestors
  * Discover sources of information in your own home
  * Understand what types of records and materials can help you learn more
  * Interview _all_ your relatives
  * Begin to organize what you find

We live in fast-paced times and are inundated by information of all types. Our jobs and other influences often take us far away from where we were born and where our families may still live. Since geographic distances can impose communication breaks between us and other family members, it is therefore normal for us to sometimes feel the need to know more about _ourselves_ and to reconnect with the history of the people in our families and with the simpler times, places, and events in which they lived.

Genealogy is fast becoming one of the most popular hobbies in the English-speaking world. This is becoming more evident with the huge audience responses to recent television series such as _Who Do You Think You Are_? in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, and _Faces of America_ in the United States. Baby Boomers, as they reach retirement age, are finally finding the time to trace their family history and are becoming immersed in their research.

The terms _genealogy_ and _family history_ are often used interchangeably. While they may seem similar, there actually is a distinction between them:

  * Genealogy is the scholarly study of a family's line of descent from its ancestors, during which one develops an understanding of the family's historical context and documents its history and traditions.
  * Family history is the study of a family's history and traditions over an extended period of time and may involve documenting some or all of the facts.

A family historian may seek to trace and document specific family members or a branch of the family, and to perhaps write a family history. A genealogist, on the other hand, typically has a much broader view of the family. He or she traces an entire or extended family structure, including brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins. This includes both their ancestors (the persons from whom they are descended) and their own descendants. The genealogist actively seeks documentary evidence of many types to prove and verify facts about the family. In addition, the genealogist seeks to place family members and ancestors into geographical, historical, and social context in order to better understand their lives. The genealogist also documents the sources of all the evidence he or she finds, using standard source citations.

We _are_ the product of our ancestry in many different ways. Certainly genetics play a critical part in our physical makeup, determining our physical characteristics and potential susceptibility to medical conditions, both physical and mental. However, the circumstances of place, time, education, economics, experiences, family group dynamics, and interactions with the personalities of our family members and friends also distinctly influence our development. They all contribute to the overall person that we become. The family stories and traditions that we have observed and that have been passed from generation to generation contribute to our sense of kinship and belonging. It is no wonder that we want to explore, maintain, document, and preserve these stories and traditions. Documentary evidence is still the most significant resource used in genealogical research, but genetic genealogy has rapidly become another component in the genealogist's toolkit.

There are many motivations for genealogical research. Some people trace their family to help understand their place in it. Others study and document a family's direct line of descent in order to link to some famous personage. Often this is done in order to join one or more of the lineage or heritage societies, such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, or the First Fleet Fellowship. Still others may research their family's history for reasons such as to discover the family's medical history, try to locate their natural parents, document a family's or community's history, or help locate heirs. Whatever _your_ reasons for tracing and investigating your own family's history, your search will lead you on a fascinating and exciting journey of discovery. Don't be surprised if your quest lasts a lifetime.

Start at the Beginning: Yourself and Your Family

My genealogical research began on a cold, snowy January day in my North Carolina hometown when I was ten years old. While snowfall was not unusual, a six-inch accumulation was rare indeed. There was no school scheduled for several days, and I spent the days at the home of my aunt, Mary Allen Morgan, and my Grandmother Morgan while my parents worked. Both women had a strong sense of family and history, especially my grandmother. She was the daughter and granddaughter of prominent physicians, as well as the great-great-granddaughter of two North Carolina Revolutionary War patriots. One of these was John McKnitt Alexander, the secretary of the group of citizens in Mecklenburg County who formed the provincial committee that crafted and signed the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence on 20 May 1775. The other was Major John Davidson, a Revolutionary War military leader after whose family Davidson College was named.

On that snowy day, the three of us gathered at a handmade drop-leaf table dating back to the 1740s and these ladies proceeded to educate me about our family history. Using a roll of brown parcel paper, a ruler, and pencils, we began drawing a family tree. Fortunately for me, my grandmother was a packrat and had saved generations' worth of materials. We used family Bibles, one of which dated to 1692 in Edinburgh, Scotland; family letters, postcards, and Christmas cards dating back to the late 1930s; a group of old deeds and wills; and _The History of Mecklenburg County from 1740 to 1900_ by J. B. Alexander, published in 1902, to construct our family tree. During the process, my 90-year-old grandmother related family stories and anecdotal information dating back to her own childhood in the 1870s. Needless to say, I became hooked, and subsequent visits entailed my appeal to my aunt and my grandmother to "Tell me about when you were a little girl." I have since spent nearly five decades in my own quest for more and more information about all branches of my family's origins and history.

You will want to start your own genealogical odyssey with yourself and what you know, and then work your way backward in time. Along the way you will want to collect documentation to verify every fact _and_ keep track of where and when you obtained every piece of this evidence. (We will discuss types of evidentiary documents throughout the book and the process of documentation in more detail in Chapter 2.)

Start with yourself and work backward in time to connect yourself to previous generations. You are less likely to make a wrong turn and end up researching the wrong ancestors.

A typical research path for you to follow would begin with the following information:

  * **Yourself** Obtain a copy of your own birth certificate. This document provides you with the date, time, and location of your birth, and often information about your physical characteristics at birth, such as weight, length, and hair and eye color. It also indicates the names of your parents, their race or nationality, their ages at the time of the event, the name of the physician attending the birth, and possibly additional details. The content of a birth certificate will vary depending on when and where the document was created. Later certificates may contain more information.
    * Birth certificates can be obtained in the United States from county health departments, state bureaus of statistics, or other governmental agencies.
    * In England and Wales, general registration of births, marriages, and deaths began in 1837, and the General Register Office (GRO), a part of the Home Office Identity and Passport Service, holds a copy of all registrations centrally. The GRO website is located at **www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/default.asp**. You can order copies of certificates there. A central index is held at The National Archives (TNA) in Kew, in South West London. Local offices hold copies of their records registered since 1837. The indexes to the civil registrations of births, marriages, and deaths are also available at Ancestry.com in the UK at **www.ancestry.co.uk** and FreeBMD at **www.freebmd.org.uk**.
    * The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) is located in Edinburgh and is the contact point for birth, marriage, and death certificates. You may check their website at **www.gro-scotland.gov.uk** for more information. (Note: The General Register Office for Scotland merged with the National Archives of Scotland on April 1, 2011 to become the National Records of Scotland (NRS). This website will remain active until it is replaced in due course by a new website for NRS.)
    * The General Register Office of Ireland in Dublin is the depository for many birth, marriage, and death records and other documents. You will want to visit their website at **www.groireland.ie** and click the link labeled Research.
    * The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland is the repository for many different record types, including some that have been digitized. The website is located at **www.proni.gov.uk.** Birth, adoption, marriage, civil partnership, and death certificates can be ordered for various time periods at the indirect government services website at **www.nidirect.gov.uk/gro.**
    * In Canada, the responsibility for the civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths lies with the province or territory. The Library and Archives Canada website at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca** provides links to a vast collection of Canadian genealogical resources grouped into categories, including links to provincial and territorial archives, libraries, and other repositories.
    * Like Canada, responsibility for civil registration in Australia lies with the state or territory. The Society of Australian Genealogists has produced an excellent web page concerning Australian civil registration at **www.sag.org.au.**
    * If you are researching vital records or civil registration in other countries, you may want to use your favorite Internet search engine and enter the type of document and the name of the country. As an example, I entered the phrase **"death certificate" + singapore** and was rewarded with a link to the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) and its web page at **www.ica.gov.sg** , at which I located under eServices & Forms a link to "Online Birth and Death Extracts Application System (eXtracts Online)." The eXtracts Online system allows you to submit online applications to search for and obtain birth and death extract applications. (See **www.ica.gov.sg/e_services.aspx?pageid=313**.)
  * **Your parents** Learn as much about your parents as possible. Obtain copies of their birth certificates, their marriage license, and any other documents possible. Your mother's maiden name will appear on birth and marriage documents, school records, and sometimes others, and will be an essential part of your research. Please note that her maiden name may not appear on a marriage document for a second or subsequent marriage. Ask questions to learn where your parents grew up, where they went to school, where they lived at every point in their lives, what religious affiliation they have had and the names and addresses of the religious institutions they attended, what jobs they may have had, what their hobbies and interests are, and anything else you can learn. Take copious notes along the way because this may be the only opportunity you have to gather these important family details. Obtain a copy of the death certificate if a parent is deceased, and seek to obtain copies of any obituaries and funeral notices.
  * **Siblings** Obtain a copy of the birth certificate for each of your brothers and sisters. In addition, obtain any other documents that may have been created for them. Your lives are inextricably linked, and the information you learn about them may reveal other research paths for you.
  * **Aunts and uncles** Your research will extend to your parents' siblings as well. You will want to learn as much about their family groups as you can. After all, the family structure and dynamics can be important in learning more about the factors that influenced your life. In addition, other family records may have passed to those families rather than to yours.
  * **Cousins** Regardless of the family relationship with your cousins, close or distant, try to learn as much about them as possible. They are tangible extensions of your family's line too.
  * **Grandparents** Obtain copies of documents for your parents' parents too. You are also tracing your line of descent from these people and want to know as much as possible about them.

Continue expanding outward as far as you can to learn about other family members, their spouses, their parents, and their children. Don't worry if you can't locate information or obtain all the documents on everyone. This is an ongoing process and, as you progress through this book, you will learn more about how to extend your research reach and locate more and more information. Part of what we do, as genealogists, is fill in gaps in the informational puzzle in order to create a larger picture.

Discover Sources of Information in Your Own Home

Your quest for family information should begin in familiar territory. Start with what you know and work backward in time. It is probable that you have in your own home or in the homes of your parents, grandparents, and other family members any number of resources that can help you document the family. Take time to consider the following home source materials that you might find around your home and what information they may provide.

Vital and Civil Records

Vital records are those documents that record milestone life events. They include birth certificates, marriage licenses and certificates, divorce decrees, and death certificates issued by governmental agencies. Examples of a birth certificate and a death certificate are shown in Figures 1-1 and 1-2.

**FIGURE 1-1** Birth certificates provide essential clues for date and location of birth, names of parents, and other facts.

**FIGURE 1-2** A death certificate provides detailed information about a person's death.

The vital records documents issued by governmental entities may or may not contain completely accurate information. A death certificate, for example, will provide the details of an individual's death, such as name, gender, date, cause of death, and the location where the death occurred. This data may or may not be 100 percent correct; however, it is considered to be the official record of the death. Likewise, a coroner's report or the report of an inquest will provide what is deemed the official report on the death.

Other information found on a death certificate, such as the individual's date of birth, parents' names, occupation, and other personal data unrelated to the death, may or may not be correct. A family member or some other person familiar with the deceased typically provides this information to the official completing the form, and that informant may or may not have had accurate details. In addition, the person completing the form may have made errors in recording or transcribing the information provided. As a result, the details unrelated to the individual's death should be viewed with some skepticism until you have verified them with other independently created sources that were created at or near the time the event, such as a birth, occurred. We will discuss this in greater detail in Chapter 2.

Religious Records

Ecclesiastical records are often found in the home. Certificates of baptism, christening, and confirmation or records of a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah may be found among family papers. Documents of marriage issued by the church, as opposed to a government-issued marriage license or certificate, may be among the family's treasured documents. Look also for church programs or bulletins issued at the time of and/or commemorating the occasion, because these may contain names of relatives and other information. These events also may be recorded in the religious organization's files or archives, along with more detailed accounts of the events and participants. Other congregation publications might include a commemorative congregational history, photographs, newsletters, and other periodicals.

Personal or Family Bible

Pages containing birth, marriage, death, christening, confirmation, baptism, and other events are commonly included in Bibles. Your ancestors or family members may have entered detailed information themselves. You also may find other materials tucked inside a Bible, such as letters, postcards, greeting cards, newspaper clippings, photographs, obituaries, funeral cards, bookmarks, and other items considered special or important to the owner. These may provide invaluable clues to other locations where family information may be found. In one family Bible, I found a page listing the wedding guests at my grandmother's first wedding on 2 February 1898. (See Figure 1-3.) Another page revealed a listing of the bridegroom's death just five months later from "that dreaded disease typhoid fever." (See Figure 1-4.)

**FIGURE 1-3** A personal Bible may include interesting details, such as this example in which the guests at the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Murphy are listed.

**FIGURE 1-4** Jeter Earnest Murphy, the bridegroom at the marriage documented in Figure 1-3, died of typhoid fever just five months and one week after the wedding. The Bible entry is one of only two references to the cause of his death.

Photograph Albums

Family albums may contain photographs and other family memorabilia. If you are very fortunate, photos will be labeled with the name(s) of the subject(s), the location, and the date. If not, be prepared to spend time with other family members and try to identify and label the pictures. This can be an enjoyable experience for everyone and especially rewarding for you as a genealogist. Photographs are keys to understanding your family's history and can be used to help place them in geographical, social, and historical context.

Scrapbooks

A scrapbook often presents a chronicle of life events for an individual or for an entire family group. Newspaper clippings can point you to additional sources for more information and documents. Programs of recitals, plays, sports events, and other occasions may reveal a family member's talents or interests. Obituaries, such as the one shown in Figure 1-5, are full of family history pointers and are often included in scrapbooks or memory books. While an obituary may be undated and the newspaper in which it was published might not be known, the value of the clues found in the obituary can be enormous.

**FIGURE 1-5** Obituaries, such as this one, are often found in scrapbooks. This one provided important details of the employment, cause of death, and place of interment.

Letters

Family correspondence is an important chronicle of life events. Letters may provide first-hand accounts of births, graduations, weddings, funerals, and other family occasions. You may uncover details about a person's everyday life, trips they made, their problems and concerns, and news about other family members. Here you may learn more about personal characteristics and family relationships than anywhere else. A return address in the body of a letter, such as in the example shown in Figure 1-6, on the original envelope, or on a postcard may provide an invaluable clue to locating other records about these family members at the time the communiqué was mailed.

**FIGURE 1-6** A return address on a letter or postcard from a family member may point to the geographical area where they lived and to where other documents are to be found.

Diaries and Journals

Everyday life events and often an individual's innermost thoughts are to be found in diaries and journals. Our ancestors often spent more time recording the details of their lives than we do today, and these cherished volumes can be real treasure troves for the family historian.

Accounting journals for a family farm or business may paint a detailed picture of the lifestyle of the family at the time, the crops and livestock they raised, the costs of supplies and clothing, and weather patterns, to name a few. During the time of slavery in the United States and elsewhere, the names of slaves may have been listed, along with information about their births, marriages, deaths, and other events.

Family Histories

An ancestor or another member of the family may already have prepared an historical account of a portion of the family's history. That doesn't mean that the work is already done for you. It merely means that you have a ready-made path to follow and to re-prove the facts and hypotheses already set forth by the other researcher. Your predecessor researcher may have made errors or drawn the wrong conclusions. It is therefore important that you recheck the information by _personally_ examining the evidence, evaluating the facts, and developing your own hypotheses.

Local Histories

Don't overlook books, manuscripts, pamphlets, and other materials that focus on the area where your ancestors and family members have lived. These may be in the family collection because of the area and also because information about the family may be included. In J.B. Alexander's _The History of Mecklenburg County from 1740 to 1900,_ published in Charlotte, North Carolina, I was rewarded not only with a biographical sketch of my great-great-grandfather, Isaac Wilson, M.D., but also with probably the only surviving photographic image of the man. Figure 1-7 shows two facing pages from that book.

**FIGURE 1-7** Local histories may provide ancestors' biographical details found nowhere else.

Baby Books

The joy of the arrival of a child is recorded in baby books in great detail by parents, guardians, grandparents, and others. You may find that photographs such as the one shown in Figure 1-8, copies of birth documents, and clues to other materials and their location are included in these little books.

**FIGURE 1-8** Baby books contain photographs such as this one, and may include names and other important details.

Marriage Books

A wedding provides an ideal occasion for the gathering of families and for the creation of often vivid records. Matrimonial registers signed by attendees, photograph albums, wedding gift lists, and other records may provide excellent resources for your further research. You also may find copies of a marriage license or certificate, and copies of documents from the couple's religious institution(s) to help document the event. These can often lead you to religious membership rolls, and these can sometimes be used to trace family movements from place to place.

Funeral Books and Memorial Cards

Mortuaries and funeral homes have long provided families of the deceased with a funeral or memory book. These can be rich in untapped detail. The name of the deceased and the dates of birth and death are included, as well as the date and place of any services, and the place of interment. Copies of obituaries may be included. The register of persons who attended the visitation or wake will include family members' names and signatures, confirming their presence at the time. An examination of the register may help you reveal the married names of female relatives. In addition, the list of active and honorary pallbearers, as shown in Figure 1-9, should be studied to determine if family members were tapped to participate.

**FIGURE 1-9** A page from a funeral book showing names of pallbearers

Cards such as the one shown in Figure 1-10 are often distributed at funerals and memorial services. They may commemorate the vital dates of the deceased and/or provide the text for a prayer to be read in unison by participants in the service.

**FIGURE 1-10** A memorial or prayer card

Identification Documents

You might find a number of identification documents that you can use as evidence in your research. A driver's license or passport confirms date of birth, age, physical characteristics, and residence. A Social Security card in the United States can provide an account number that can then be used to obtain a copy of the person's SS-5 form, the application for a Social Security number. Health service cards, insurance cards, alien registration cards, and other identity papers from a variety of sources can provide leads to their issuers for other potentially informative data.

Immigration Papers

On admission to a new country, an immigrant is typically issued some piece of documentation to prove his or her identity. Depending on the country and the historical time period, this may have been as simple as a letter or as formal as a visa, passport, alien registration card, or another document. In addition, vaccination records may also be located among immigration papers that point to the place of vaccination in the previous country of residence.

Naturalization Papers

Many immigrants took the necessary steps to renounce their original citizenship to become citizens of their new country. Some countries have required multiple documents to facilitate the process. In the United States, for example, an immigrant would swear an oath renouncing any allegiance to any foreign "power, sovereign, or potentate" and then sign a Declaration of Intention document. This was done at a courthouse and was the first step in the process to indicate his or her plan to seek citizenship. After a five-year waiting period, the person would file a Petition for Naturalization to initiate the paperwork to verify his or her good residency and employment record, and to formally request to become a naturalized citizen. While the process and the names of the documents vary in different countries, the process is similar.

The applicant or petitioner usually maintains copies of each document associated with their naturalization process and, finally, of the citizenship document. Figure 1-11 shows a United States Certificate of Naturalization. Not only are these treasured documents, they also provide evidence of citizenship that entitles the person to citizenship privileges such as the right to vote in elections.

**FIGURE 1-11** The completed Petition for Naturalization for Edward Manrara, dated 8 June 1899, in Hillsborough County, Florida, made him a U.S. citizen. (Courtesy of the University of South Florida Digital and Special Collections.)

Land Records

Land and property records provide evidence of land ownership and residence. These are among the most numerous and yet the least used documents available for genealogical research. They include land grants, deeds, mortgages, agreements of sale, leases, mortgages, abstracts of title, land contracts, bonds, tax notices, tax bills, homestead documents, liens, legal judgments, dower releases, easements and releases, surveys, and other documents.

Military Records

These documents come in a wide range of record types and formats. Military service statements, disability certificates, discharge papers, separation papers, and pension records are common. Commendations, medals, ribbons, decorations, uniforms, swords, firearms, and other weapons are more tangible evidence of military service. Military regimental histories may also be in the family possession, as may be correspondence between the service person and his or her military branch and with other friends from service.

Directories

City directories, telephone directories, professional directories, alumni lists, personal telephone and address books, and similar items may be found in the home. These may include names, addresses, birthdates, ages, and other details about family members.

Religious Publications

Newsletters, church bulletins, and other religious publications present a detailed chronology of the congregation's activities. You may find your ancestor or family member's life events announced there, as well as news of their involvement in congregational activities. However, the presence of family members' names in these publications suggests that there are probably membership records available in the congregation's offices.

School Records

Enrollment forms, homework papers/reports/projects, report cards, transcripts, diplomas, honor rolls, fraternity and sorority documents and jewelry, yearbooks and annuals, school photographic portraits, awards, and other materials may be found at home. (See Figure 1-12.) They represent information about family members from a specific period of time. Don't overlook these great resources and the insights they may provide. In addition, alumni directories and other correspondence may provide names and addresses of administrative offices that you may potentially contact for additional information.

**FIGURE 1-12** A college yearbook, such as Peace Institute's 1925 _Lotus_ , may yield important biographical information about your ancestor's participation in school activities.

Employment Records

Employers may be reluctant to release records concerning their employees. However, around the home you may locate materials such as résumés, apprentice agreements, indentures of servitude, pay vouchers, paycheck stubs, union documents, life and health insurance policies, severance papers, retirement or pension documents, a Social Security (or Railroad Retirement Board) card, a medical care or prescription benefit card, a National Health Service identification card, or other employment-related materials.

Search for the Less-Than-Obvious Items

In addition to all of the items listed in the preceding sections, don't overlook household items that may contain important clues. Engraved jewelry and silverware may speak volumes to you. For example, an 18-karat gold locket holding tiny photographs of an elderly couple and engraved with the dates "1856–1906" provided the clue I needed to identify them as one set of my great-grandparents. These are the only known surviving pictures of these ancestors. Embroidered samplers, needlework, and quilts often include names and dates. Plaques, coats of arms, and personalized souvenirs offer other information. And don't overlook heirloom furniture and pictures, because you never know what may be incorporated into the design or concealed inside or underneath them.

It is important to investigate _all_ the materials at home that may provide information or clues to your family's history. Search through books, letters, papers, trunks, suitcases, boxes, drawers, chests, attics, basements, garages, and everywhere else you can imagine. As you discover each new piece of evidence, keep track of where and when you located it. While that may seem unimportant now, it is definitely a worthwhile part of your documentation. Consider placing each document in an archival-quality envelope or polypropylene sheet protector sleeve along with a note concerning the name(s) of the person(s) about whom the item concerns, the date you located it, and where you located it. (We will discuss the importance of documenting your source materials in more detail in Chapter 2.)

Interview _All_ Your Relatives

You never know where you will find that next piece of information. It could be as close as the family member sitting right beside you or it could be a distant cousin with whom you've never spoken. Your job is to learn as much as you can— _now_! Many a genealogist or family historian has lamented having waited too late to talk with parents and grandparents. However, it is never too late to make contacts with uncles and aunts, cousins, and family friends to learn as much as you can. You also may find that the "missing" family Bible isn't really lost; it may be in the possession of another relative after all.

Genealogy is a lot like journalism. You are seeking information from a variety of sources, asking questions, gathering facts and speculation alike, researching your sources, evaluating what you find, and producing hypotheses. If you do your job in a scholarly manner, you may be rewarded with factual proof as well as a better understanding of your family's story.

A good researcher learns how to ask questions, both of himself or herself and of others. Good interviewing skills are an essential part of your research, and it takes time to become an expert. There is an art to successfully conducting an interview with another family member but, with a little advance preparation and organization, you can become a pro in no time.

An interview need not be an "interrogation" so much as a friendly discussion. You will ask open-ended questions that require more elaboration than just a "yes" or "no" response. You want to get your relative to share knowledge and experiences in a friendly, non-threatening environment. A two-way conversation can be a mutually satisfying experience, blazing a trail for a stronger relationship—and more information—in the future.

Examples of some open-ended questions might include

  * Where and when were you born?
  * What was it like growing up during the Great Depression?
  * What did you do on your first date?
  * What kind of trips did you take when you were younger, and which was your favorite?
  * What can you tell me about your aunts and uncles?

It is important to realize that there may be sensitive issues in the family that people are uncomfortable about and prefer not to discuss. Scandals, shame, secrets, lies, embarrassment, humiliation, and disgrace are all reasons for reluctance or refusal to discuss a person, place, time, or event. The two most powerful emotions are perhaps pride and the desire to protect the family reputation. Let me give you four examples involving refusals of family members to talk about the past:

  * Both of my grandmothers were concerned that no one be aware of their ages. One refused to tell anyone the year of her birth and left instructions in her will that only her date of death be inscribed on her gravestone. The other shaved years from her age at each census until, in 1930, she had "lost" 16 years.
  * A woman of Native American descent refused to discuss her parents. She was ashamed that she was an Indian, and she inherited from her mother the desire to mask her origin.
  * One woman was shocked to learn that she had been born out of wedlock and that the woman she thought was her older sister was, in fact, her mother. When asked about this by the family genealogist, she not only refused to discuss the matter but also made the genealogist swear never to repeat the scandalous information to anyone else in the family. She wanted to protect her own children and other family members from the scandal of illegitimacy.
  * Imagine the surprise of the genealogist who discovered that her grandmother had made the family fortune in a most unusual way. Granny always said she didn't want to talk about her husband, and that he was a worthless man who left her before her daughter was born. The genealogist located Granny in the 1910 United States census in Chicago listed as a boarder in the home of two sisters, Minna and Ada Everleigh. Further research revealed that the Everleigh sisters were the proprietors of one of the most famous bordellos in Chicago and that Granny had been an "employee" there.

As you can see, there may be many reasons why family members are reluctant to discuss the past and other family members. However, don't leap to any conclusions. Some people are just not the talkative type.

Interviewing all of your relatives can provide you with invaluable information and clues to other resources. You may also obtain copies of original documentary evidence to verify or refute information.

Consider Several Types of Interview

Most people think of an interview as a face-to-face encounter between two or more individuals. An interview, however, can take one of several forms. In fact, some of the best interviews I've ever conducted with relatives have been done by telephone, and in multiple sessions. Consider the following types of interviews as possibilities for obtaining information from your family members:

  * **Face-to-face interview** This technique involves setting a time and place that is convenient to everyone involved.
  * **Family gatherings** A family reunion, a holiday dinner, a graduation, a wedding or funeral, or just a simple visit with other relatives can stimulate informal conversations from which stories and important family details can be learned.
  * **Telephone conversations** The telephone can be used to schedule and conduct either a casual interview or a more formal, in-depth interview. Use a "phone visit" as an occasion to ask one or two questions at a time. By establishing ongoing telephone communications with a relative, you not only build and strengthen the relationship between you and the relative, but also can continue asking questions about details over time as you proceed with your research.
  * **Virtual interviews** Use Skype ( **www.skype.com** ) or another Internet-based facility to conduct audio or video interviews with your relatives.
  * **Written questionnaires** Use postal mail or email to gather family information. Some researchers prepare open-ended questions in document form and send these to relatives. Beware of sending a lengthy questionnaire, though. Few people are willing to spend a lot of time responding to dozens of questions. A few shorter sets of questions posed over an extended period of time often yield a better response rate. If you choose to use postal mail for your survey, be sure to enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) to encourage replies.
  * **Requests for corrections** Two effective tools used by genealogists to gather information are the family tree chart, commonly referred to as a pedigree chart, and the family group sheet. We will discuss these in more detail in Chapter 2. However, these are the documents that genealogists prepare to organize their family data and present it in report format. You may choose to send a copy of the documents to relatives, along with a SASE. Request that they add to and/or make corrections to the information you have compiled. Be sure to ask for photocopies of any documents they may have that corroborate the facts they provide, and always offer to reimburse them for the cost of their copying, postage, and mileage. Be sure to follow up by sending them a thank-you note and an updated copy of the forms.

When preparing your list of questions, leave plenty of space in between them for responses. You will appreciate this when you are conducting an oral interview, and it encourages mail and email respondents to fill in the blank space with their commentary.

You may be surprised at the information gleaned during the oral interview process. I've located family Bibles, marriage certificates, deeds, letters, journals, and a host of other documents this way. Most important, however, has been the wealth of stories I've heard. These tales help bring the family members and their experiences to life. A first cousin related to me a story that her mother told her about two of our retired great-aunts and a train trip they made to Savannah, Georgia, to buy fresh crabs. They made the trip by day, purchased a bucket of live crabs, and then returned to the train station to take a sleeper train back home, booking an upper and a lower berth. During the night, one aunt awoke to use the bathroom. When she returned to her berth, she decided to reach up and pinch her sister's behind. Her sister burst from her berth yelling, "Good heavens! The crabs are loose!" Other passengers were awakened by the racket and peered out of their berths, only to see a woman race to the end of the train car and pull the emergency brake to stop the train. Not only is this a hilarious story, but it also provides some insight for me into the relationship of the two sisters and one's love of practical jokes.

Schedule Interviews for Best Results

It is important to respect your relative's time. It is inconsiderate and rude to show up unannounced to ask a lot of questions for which your relative is unprepared, especially if he or she has another commitment. Your best course of action, regardless of whether you would like to conduct a face-to-face, telephone, or virtual interview, is to make contact in advance and schedule a mutually convenient time for your session. Be prepared for the question, "Well, what is it you want to know?" Before you even make the appointment, you should have decided what information you hope to learn and have an idea of the questions you want to use to elicit the information.

By knowing the areas about which you want to know and letting the family member know in advance, he or she can mentally prepare for your interview. The person also might like to gather together photographs, Bibles, papers, and other items to show you. By contacting an elderly first cousin in advance and telling her I was interested in her parents and grandparents, I was rewarded with an opportunity to see my great-grandparents' Bible, letters they had written during their courtship, and pieces of heirloom furniture I had not known existed.

If you would like to record the interview, be sure to ask permission in advance. Remember that recording devices can be intimidating and distracting, and can make your subject self-conscious and nervous. If you detect any reluctance on the part of your subject, either in advance or at the time of the interview, don't record. Be prepared instead to take notes of the conversation.

Ask the Right Questions

Know something about the person you plan to interview _before_ you make the appointment and _before_ you arrive or call to conduct the interview. The last thing you want to do is waste anyone's time, and you want to make the most of the time you have together. That means understanding the person's place in the family structure, where they were geographically located, what other family members he or she would likely have known, and what materials might have come into their possession. Your primary goal should be to learn about the people and their lives. If there are materials that might document their life events, it is a bonus to be able to see them. It is most important, however, to learn _about_ the people and their lives so that you can place them into geographical, historical, and sociological context. This will help you anticipate what records might exist to document their lives, where they were created, and where they may be found today.

Your family's origins and background certainly will determine the questions that you will ask. There are many, many places on the Internet where suggested lists of interview questions have been published. The following are a few links from the wealth of free articles at Ancestry.com's Article Archives at **<http://learn.ancestry.com/LearnMore/LearnMoreLnd.aspx>** :

  * "Interview Questions" by Juliana Smith
 **www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=3425**
  * "Asking the Right Question" by George G. Morgan
 **www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=7041**
  * "Sparking Family Memories" by Juliana Smith
 **www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=2935**
  * "Interviewing Grandma" by Michael John Neill
 **www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=7206**

Use the Right Equipment for Your Interviews

You should be properly prepared to capture the information you are about to receive. Here are some basic pieces of equipment you will want to take with you to the interview:

  * Paper and pencils or pens
  * Audio/voice recorder or video recorder
  * Conventional or digital camera
  * Extra film
  * Extra batteries
  * Portable scanner

If you obtained permission in advance to record the interview, you will want to have checked the operation of the recorder in advance. The smaller the recording device, the less intrusive it will be. Be sure you know how to use it and that it is in good working condition before you leave home. When you arrive for the interview, ask again if it is okay to record. If it is not, pack up and move the recorder out of the interview area so that it is not a distraction. If your relative agreed to recording, though, you should be prepared to quickly and efficiently set up the equipment. Perform a sound check on the recording volume before you start, and place the microphone closer to your subject than to yourself. You want a clear recording of the responses and, even though you may not be able to hear all your questions and comments, you should be able to easily relate your subject's responses to your original questions.

Take one or two family items with you to help encourage conversation. I often use an old family photograph as a prop. I ask questions such as, "Can you tell me where and when this picture was taken, and can you help me identify the people in it?" This single question may be the icebreaker you need and the catalyst to open the floodgates of recollection. It literally can be worth the proverbial thousand words.

If you own or can borrow a laptop computer and a portable scanner, consider taking them with you as well. Family members may have Bibles, documents, photographs, and other items that can be copied on site. You will find that most of your relatives, regardless of how close they feel to you, are reluctant to let the family treasures out of their possession for any period of time. Some items can be photographed clearly enough using a digital camera with a higher megapixel resolution so as to provide a clear and legible image. However, a scanner always provides the best quality image for your records.

I personally use a Flip-Pal 100C mobile scanner. It is battery operated and has a 4" × 6" flatbed. It scans images onto an SD card, which you can then insert directly into your computer's SD slot _or_ insert into an included USB adapter which you can then insert into your computer's USB slot. That means you don't need to take a computer with you. You can scan large photographs, documents, book pages, or newspaper sheets by removing the scanner lid and positioning the flatbed over the item. A glass bottom allows you to place the scanner over the desired area. Software that comes with the scanner (and is available at the Flip-Pal website, **<http://flip-pal.com>** ) for PC or Macintosh allows simple "stitching" of images together.

The book _How to Do Everything: Digital Photography_ by Jason R. Rich (McGraw-Hill Professional, 2011) offers excellent training for maximizing the use of your camera in capturing images of documents and artifacts.

Set the Tone of the Interview

It is important in a face-to-face interview especially, but also in a telephone interview, to establish a comfort level for your relative and for yourself. Make sure that there is plenty of time available and that it is a pleasant environment. Interruptions should be kept to a minimum if possible. A third person sitting in on an interview can be a distraction and may prevent the person you are interviewing from opening up to you. Your interviewee may feel uncomfortable or reluctant to discuss people, events, and personal topics with another person present.

Start the interview with a few minutes of lighthearted conversation to set the tone of your time together. Share something with your relative about your life, news of the family, or some other item that might be of mutual interest. It helps break the ice and make your subject feel more at ease. When you begin the actual interview, however, make a tangible transition to that part of the session. In a face-to-face interview, you can do this by straightening yourself in your chair, opening your notebook, setting up a voice recorder (if your subject has already agreed to being recorded), or some other visible transition. If conducting a telephone interview, make the shift with a comment such as, "Well, I don't want to take up a lot of your time, so why don't we get started?" Use your common sense and tact about what is the right method of transitioning with each relative.

Think of yourself as a friendly, non-threatening journalist. Ask open-ended questions that require a response. "Where were you born and when?" is a good starter. You want to learn names, places, and dates, but you also want to know about the people in your relative's life: parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, friends, teachers, ministers, librarians, and anyone else who may have influenced his or her family and life.

There may be topics that are sensitive and uncomfortable to discuss. Don't press the issue. Move on to the next question. The answer to the question may come up in another way, at another time, and perhaps from another relative but, for the present, let the subject drop. Being pushy and insistent can raise barriers between you and your relative that may interfere with the remainder of the interview and with the relationship between you as well.

Keep the interview short, no longer than one to two hours. Be alert to signs of fatigue. If you notice that your subject is beginning to tire, especially older relatives, be considerate and suggest that you continue later. A break may be sufficient but scheduling another session may be a better option. In the interim, both you and your relative will have time to digest what you have already discussed. You may revise your list of questions as a result, and your relative will have time to regroup and perhaps locate photographs and other materials he or she feels will be of interest to you.

Don't Forget the "Thank You"

After the interview, be sure to thank your relative for the time together and for sharing so much wonderful family history with you. Make another appointment, if appropriate, to meet again and talk. After you return home, consider sending a thank-you note expressing your appreciation. Building these personal relationships in small ways like this is important. The connections you make are personally gratifying for both of you, and you never know what genealogical dividends they will pay in the future.

Begin to Organize What You Find

As you collect originals or copies of documents, photographs, family artifacts, and the exciting information gleaned from interviewing your relatives, you soon may feel overwhelmed at the volume of materials you are compiling. You're probably wondering what you're going to actually do with all this "stuff."

It is important to keep track of where and when you actually obtained the information and materials, and that will become part of the documentation process we'll explore in Chapter 3. It also is a good idea to develop a filing system early in your research process. Consider creating a large file folder or three-ring binder for each family surname (last name) you identify. Start with your own surname, moving on to your father's surname if it differs from yours, and then your mother's maiden surname. Continue on to the surnames of each of your four grandparents, your twelve great-grandparents, and so on. You may also be interested in setting up files for the spouses of your brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, and on and on. I use binders for my filing system, and I file all the records for a surname (such as Morgan) in one binder. Within that binder, I file documents by given name (first name or forename) and then middle name(s) of each person, and then I file the documents for each of these individuals in chronological sequence. I also file each document in an archival-safe, polypropylene sheet protector. These protective sleeves are available at every office supply store and will help preserve the condition of the documents you obtain.

This is a starting point in your organization process, and your own filing system can be customized to your own research and reference needs. We will discuss organization and preservation in extensive detail elsewhere in the book. In the meantime, you can get started so that the job won't seem so overwhelming later.

Get Started

The starting point for your genealogical research begins with yourself and moves backward to your parents and beyond, as well as to your siblings and their families. Start with what you know and then move on to the unknown territory, actively seeking information and documentation along the way. The more data you obtain and the better you get to know about your family members' lives, the better prepared you are to venture further and learn more. Step by step, you will work your way further back in time and learn more about your ancestry. Placing your ancestors into context with the places and time periods in which they lived, and understanding the social and historical factors that influenced them, will bring these people to life for you. You are, after all, a direct product of these people, their genetic makeup, their circumstances, and the life decisions they made. As you learn more, you will become more self-aware of why you are the person you are, and you'll find yourself wanting to learn even more. Few things are more thrilling than touching a marriage certificate signed by your ancestors 150 years ago or holding an old Bible that was lovingly used by an ancestor. It won't be long before you have joined the tens of millions of other family historians around the world who are involved in the thrill of the research chase and the excitement of discovery.
2

Analyze and Organize Your Family Information

**HOW TO...**

  * Evaluate primary vs. secondary information
  * Recognize and evaluate original vs. derivative sources
  * Avoid errors in derivative sources
  * Apply critical thinking skills to your genealogical research
  * Place your ancestors into context
  * Format names, dates, and locations correctly
  * Work with pedigree charts
  * Work with family group sheets
  * Create source citations for your data
  * Select a family tree format

Gathering your family information is fun and exciting. Your research will lead you to many adventures. You will learn a great deal about your family members' origins and their activities. Placing them in geographical, historical, and social context will also pique your interest in maps, histories, and many other topics. I enjoy "the thrill of the chase" because I always learn something new and I meet such interesting and generous people along the way.

You will certainly acquire original documents, photocopies of original documents, and digitized versions of original documents as you conduct your research. These allow you to personally examine and analyze the information they contain.

It can be frustrating to remember what you thought you had seen on a document and not be able to find that document when you want to examine it again. It therefore is important to organize and file the materials you find in your genealogical quest so that you can find them quickly when you need them. These documents will provide the evidence you need to analyze an ancestor's life and to better understand his or her life.

Later in the book, we'll discuss how to go about selecting the genealogy database software program that best suits your needs. Using one of these specialized programs is invaluable for storing your data and generating reports. Before you make that decision, though, there are some essential concepts that form the foundation for all the research and analysis you do. In this chapter, you will learn about the indispensable methodologies for identifying and properly analyzing the evidence you discover, whether that be documents, books, periodicals, manuscripts, photographs, microfilm, cemetery markers, or oral stories. My goal is to help you understand these points and to prepare you to maximize your effectiveness throughout your investigative research process.

Evaluate Primary vs. Secondary Information

One of the most important considerations in your research is adhering to the basic rules of genealogical evidence. You will quickly learn that not every source of information is equal and that some materials are more reliable than others. That means that you will personally evaluate every piece of evidence, regardless of the source, and analyze its strength and value.

In many cases, a piece of documentary evidence is generated as the result of some event: birth, marriage, death, sale of property, voting, taxation, court action, probate process, or some other occasion. Sometimes, though, a record is created before the fact and the event never takes place, as in the case of marriage bonds or marriage licenses issued where the marriage never occurred, tombstones created for an individual who was never buried in the plot, and agreements of sale that were never executed. Are these valid pieces of evidence too? Of course they are, because they were created to represent intent. Even if the intended action never occurred, the piece of evidence places the person(s) involved in a certain place at a specific point in time and tells you something about his or her life. It may lead you to another clue or another piece of evidence.

When evaluating the records of your ancestors' lives, you must always consider the source of the information. Why was it created? When was it created? Who created it? Is it correct? Information from source materials can be grouped into two categories: _primary_ and _secondary information_. There are very distinct differences.

Primary information was created at or very near the actual event being recorded and is therefore more likely to be accurate. Secondary information was typically created after the fact and, because of the lapse of time and memory, tends to be less reliable than primary information. Some source materials contain both primary _and_ secondary information. Let's explore some of the most common types of documentary evidence and evaluate the quality of the information.

Birth Certificates

An example of a source of primary information is an original, photocopy, or scanned image of a birth certificate. The information on this document is typically provided at or just after the time of birth and was completed for the purpose of recording the event. The details about the child's birth date and time are primary information; the age of the parents, however, is considered secondary information because their births occurred years before.

An amended birth certificate, such as one issued later that changes the information recorded at the time of the birth, may have been intended to provide more accurate or complete information than that which was entered on the original document. Amended birth certificates are also issued for adopted children. There may indeed be other, less correct information placed on those documents just because they were created later.

A delayed birth certificate, which is one issued some time after the event—probably for someone born before birth certificates were issued, born at home with the benefit of a midwife, or whose records were destroyed in a courthouse or other repository—is always a source of secondary information. That is because all of the proof of the date of birth is acquired later and usually from secondary materials.

Many documents contain a combination of primary _and_ secondary information. It is therefore important to recognize the differences and to differentiate between primary and secondary information. You'll then be able to determine the weight of the facts more effectively.

Marriage Certificates

Another example of a source of primary information is a marriage certificate. Prior to a marriage, a couple usually must have obtained a license to marry, and a government office typically issued the license. When the marriage was performed, the person officiating at the ceremony signed and dated the license to indicate that the marriage had been completed according to law. The signed license was then returned to the government office for issuance of the official marriage certificate. The signed license is commonly referred to as a "marriage return," and the information contained in the document was transcribed into a marriage book by a clerk. As the marriage book was filled, it was typically alphabetically indexed in two sequences: by the groom's name and by the bride's name. A marriage document transcribed into a marriage book in a courthouse, such as the one shown in Figure 2-1, would be considered a derivative source even though the information was copied into the book shortly after the event. That is because it has been transcribed, or copied by hand, and there is the possibility that the clerk made a transcription error. The entry of an incorrect maiden name on my great-grandparents' marriage record caused me to spend years searching for the possibility that my great-grandmother had been married before.

**FIGURE 2-1** A marriage license can be a strong source of information. The upper portion of this document is the license; the bottom portion is the "return," which was completed by the official performing the marriage. The document was then returned to the clerk for registration.

Death Certificates

Some documents can emphatically be a source of _both_ primary _and_ secondary information. A death certificate is considered a source of primary information for details concerning a person's death, such as the date, time, and location, the name of the mortuary or funeral home that handled the funeral arrangements, and the intended place of interment or disposition of the remains. However, the death certificate is a source of secondary information for all other details, such as the date of birth of the decedent, his or her birthplace, the names of the parents and spouse, the decedent's occupation, and other information. A government official or coroner completed the information on the death certificate in order to certify the death. That information was provided to the government official or coroner by someone else, such as a relative or friend, and he or she may not have had adequate knowledge of these details or accurate facts. That person is referred to as the "informant." The death certificate shown in Figure 2-2 contains a great deal of information. The maiden surname of the decedent's mother, however, was misspelled. It should have been "Whitfield" but the informant apparently did not know the correct spelling. Sometimes you may even see a death certificate on which some data fields are left blank or are marked "unknown."

**FIGURE 2-2** A death certificate can contain both primary and secondary information. Data about the death is primary, but other details may be secondary, less reliable information.

Every piece of information that does not directly relate to the event for which the source document was prepared should be considered secondary information. You certainly can use secondary information as a clue or pointer to other primary information that verifies or refutes what is on that death certificate.

Let's examine three examples of sources of secondary information that might contain errors.

Obituaries

An obituary is a written notice of the death of an individual. It typically includes the name of the person, where they lived, the date of death, and information about any planned funeral or memorial service. An obituary may also include biographical information, as well as the names of surviving family members and/or people who preceded the individual in death. There are a number of places where errors may be introduced in an obituary, starting with the informant who provided the information to the writer of the notice. He or she may provide incorrect information. The person taking down the information, such as a funeral home employee or a newspaper copy desk clerk, may omit a word, alter a fact, or introduce spelling or punctuation errors. A newspaper publisher may create errors in the typesetting process, or an editor may either miss catching an error or introduce a mistake. Each person handling the information may potentially contribute to the possibility of errors. The result might be a severe error that leads you on a wild-goose chase. Obituaries published on the Internet are no exception. The example shown in Figure 2-3 contains extensive biographical details, including Mr. Murphy's age, the street on which he resided, and his place of employment. Important clues to his recent marriage information, the cemetery in which he was buried, and the acronym of a fraternal organization to which he belonged point to other possible documentary evidence.

**FIGURE 2-3** An obituary can contain important biographical information and other clues.

Cemetery Markers

Tombstones such as the one shown in Figure 2-4, grave markers, and memorial plaques placed in cemeteries, mausoleums, and elsewhere may provide clues to sources of primary and/or secondary information. They should always be considered a secondary source. Some are simple and others are more elaborate and may contain great quantities of information. The name and dates on a marker can lead you to search for documents such as birth and death certificates, church or religious records, military records, obituaries, land and property records, wills and probate documents, and other materials.

**FIGURE 2-4** Cemetery markers can provide birth and death information.

Some markers may even be adorned with medallions commemorating military rank or membership in some organization. This information may lead you to other records.

More elaborate markers, like the one shown in Figure 2-5, may provide more information. This stone indicates that Harry was the youngest son of "Benj. & Isabella Green." His date of death is shown as "Oct. 10, A.D. 1871" and his age as "8 years and 6 months." This detailed information provides a link to the parents' information and would encourage you to seek details concerning the child's date of birth and the cause of his death.

**FIGURE 2-5** Elaborate marker for Harry Green at Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah, Georgia

Like obituaries, though, gravestones and memorial plaques are created based on information provided to the creator of the marker and may contain erroneous information. It is not unknown for a stone carver to make a mistake. For example, the surname on one gravestone in an old cemetery in downtown Tampa, Florida, is misspelled. Instead of replacing the stone, however, someone returned to carve a slash mark through the incorrect letter and inscribe the corrected letter above. A marker in the historic cemetery in St. Marys, Georgia, was incorrectly carved, and the stonecutter used a stone cement to fill the incorrect letter and then re-carved it. The error is still visible on the stone. Remember that the stone carver is only inscribing what was provided and that he or she, too, can introduce errors.

Another problem with tombstones is that, unless you were involved with the purchase or placement of a marker on a grave, you may have no idea when the stone was created or installed. Families could not always afford to install a marker for a grave. As a result, it may have been years or decades before a stone was ordered and installed. (The cemetery office may have a record of when the marker was set in place.) While the information you see is "set in stone," always seek corroboration elsewhere of the facts engraved there. I wrote an article for Ancestry.com that will provide you with additional information on this subject. It is titled "Tombstones Are Secondary Sources" and can be found at **www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=2840**.

Bible Entries

It is a natural assumption for us to make that what is entered in the family Bible is correct, but these entries can be misleading as well. Remember that birth, marriage, death, and other information could have been made at any time. There are several items to look for when examining entries made in a Bible that may indicate that they are not primary information:

  * _Always check the publication date of the Bible._ If the date of any entry predates the publication date, you know that it was added later and is therefore secondary information.
  * _Examine the handwriting carefully._ The fact that the handwriting is identical doesn't mean much, especially if this was a personal or family Bible. One person may have been the family scribe. However, if you can identify the owner of the handwriting for the entries and can determine that entries were made prior to that person's birth _or_ for a logical period when he or she could not have made the entry, you may conclude that the information is secondary in nature.
  * _Examine the ink used in the entries._ If all the entries appear to have been made with the same pen and ink, it is possible that someone added a group of entries at one time and not as they occurred. Another tip-off is if any entries for events with dates that precede 1945 are made using a ballpoint pen—they are definitely secondary information. Why? Because the ballpoint pen was not invented until 1938, was introduced during World War II for military use, and was not sold commercially until 1945.

Recognize and Evaluate Original vs. Derivative Sources

Another important consideration in your research is whether the evidence you find is an _original_ or _derivative_ source. By that, I mean that the material is either an original document _or_ has been taken (derived) from some other source. Derivative source material might include such things as word-of-mouth accounts, information transcribed from other materials, information extracted or abstracted from the original sources, or anything else that is not the genuine, original source.

The original sources you use are indeed the actual documents or other materials created for the purpose of recording something. A marriage certificate would certainly be an original source document, but a marriage entry in the courthouse register would not. An exact photocopy, a microfilm image, a photograph, or a scanned document image can be considered identical to the original source.

Derivative sources are a different story. As we've already discussed, anytime someone copies or transcribes something, there is a possibility that an error may be introduced. In the course of your genealogical research, you will work with many different materials. Sometimes it is impossible to obtain a photocopy or an exact image of the material. As a result, you will spend time copying information by hand. What you are doing is "deriving" information from the original source, regardless of whether it is a document, a tombstone, an engraved piece of jewelry, or another original source item.

Understand Types of Derivative Sources

Genealogists know that there are three basic types of derivative sources: a transcription, an extract, and an abstract. Let's discuss the attributes of each of these materials.

Transcription

A transcription is an exact written copy of an original source material. The operative word here is "exact." That means that you are working from the original and are copying its content exactly, word for word, and preserving the spelling and punctuation precisely as it appears in the source document. Since it is possible for you to make transcription errors, it is important that you carefully check your work to ensure that you don't omit or introduce any additional words or characters, and that you don't make any alteration to the content or intent. If you find that you must make a personal notation in the transcription for clarity, enclose it in square brackets and precede your text with the Latin word _sic_. For example, if you encounter a name spelled as Lizzy and you know that it was spelled differently, you might notate it as follows: [ _sic_ , Elizabeth].

Consider the situation in which a will for a certain man included a list of his six children. The list included "John, Paul, Edward, Polly, Ann, and Elizabeth." If you transcribed these names and omitted the comma between John and Paul, you or a subsequent researcher might read your transcription and conclude that there were only five children instead of six. A conclusion might be drawn that the first name was "John Paul" rather than the two names, John _and_ Paul. This could be confusing for you and for any other researchers reading your supposedly accurate transcription.

Extract

In the case of a lengthy document, you might decide to copy only portions of the original that pertain specifically to an individual you are researching. An extract is similar to a transcription except that, instead of copying the entire document, you excerpt and copy only portions of the original. You still copy the content of the section(s) in which you are interested, word for word, and preserve the spelling and punctuation as it appears in the source document. However, you omit portions that you feel are unimportant to your research.

Extracting from original source materials is a common practice. It also is a source of many errors. An index of names and other information created from original documents can really be an extract or an abstract. People sometimes, in their haste to gather information, make transcription errors or omit important details, which may adversely impact their work and that of other researchers who access and use it. You can protect the integrity of your own research by using extracts, such as indexes, to direct you to the original source material. It is always good to obtain a copy of the entire source document, if at all possible. You can evaluate its contents yourself, and you may find at a later date that you would like to refer to the original to reconfirm your work, provide a copy to another researcher, or look for additional details that may have seemed irrelevant to your earlier research.

Published extracts can be especially problematic in some cases. Remember that, when an extract is prepared, much material can be left behind. The loss of details, language, spelling, and punctuation can adversely impact your or someone else's research. In the case of African-American research, for example, an extract of a slaveholder's will may ignore the names of slaves bequeathed, sold, or freed under the terms of the will. Those details may be unimportant to one of the slaveholder's descendants. However, descendants of the slaves would be very interested in the existence of their antecedents' names in the will. As a result, the extract would be useless to the African-American researcher unless he or she traced the genealogy of the slaveholder and personally examined the original of the will.

It is important to indicate in your work that what you have copied is, in fact, an extract from the original document. This will communicate to you or to other researchers reviewing your work later that there is, in fact, more content in the original document.

Abstract

Another type of derivative work is the abstract. Unlike the transcription or extraction, an abstract does not seek to preserve the content of the original source. Instead, an abstract merely describes the content of the original source. It contains far less detail than even an extract and may only list what the researcher feels is pertinent to his or her research. An abstract represents the researcher's interpretation of the original material. It may enclose in quotation marks exact text to indicate verbatim material copied from the original document. An abstract of a slaveholder's will might consist of only the family and heirs of the slaveholder, and might altogether omit any mention of the slaves.

Depending on the knowledge, insight, and skill of the researcher, the information derived from the original and documented in the abstract may contain errors. His or her interpretation, hypothesis, and/or conclusion may be correct but, then again, it may be flawed as a result of taking information out of its original documentary context.

Avoid Errors in Derivative Sources

As you can see, there potentially are problems with each of these forms of derivative sources. If errors are introduced at any point by the researcher, these often are disseminated to other researchers. As a result, an error may be perpetuated and, because it appears again and again in many researchers' work, the error may come to be considered "fact." You therefore want to use extreme caution when you encounter other people's transcription, extraction, and abstraction work. Always try to obtain a copy of the original source so that you can examine it yourself. Your hypotheses and conclusions may differ from those of another researcher. By personally reviewing and analyzing the original document, you can apply your own knowledge and insight into your own ancestry in arriving at your own conclusions.

You will certainly do your own share of derivative work, and fortunately there are some excellent forms available on the Internet. Among the best are those at Ancestry.com at **www.ancestry.com/trees/charts/researchext.aspx**. Here you will find a Research Extract form, as well as census forms for the U.S. federal census population schedules, 1790–1930; UK censuses, 1841–1901; and various Canadian censuses. Genealogy.com also offers an excellent selection of U.S. federal census forms at **www.genealogy.com/00000061.html**. You can also find any number of forms for extracting and abstracting wills, deeds, property descriptions, and other documents by searching on the Internet. The forms are especially helpful as guides to help ensure that you capture information.

Apply Critical Thinking Skills to Your Genealogical Research

As you have seen, the examination of source materials can tell you a great deal. Personal analysis is a key activity in determining the strength of the evidence you discover. You are acting like an investigative journalist or a crime scene investigator, investigating the scene, the events, the people, and the story. You should always ask questions about the _who, when, where, what, how,_ and _why_ of your ancestor's life events. In addition to merely reporting the story, you will analyze information and evidence, and develop realistic hypotheses. Like a journalist, you have the equipment, knowledge, skills, and a structured methodology to apply to your investigation. Your job is to bring all of these factors together for the purpose of identifying, classifying, and analyzing the evidence you find.

One thing you will do in your genealogical research is to employ your critical thinking skills to the evaluation of the evidence you find. This is an imperative in your work because you have to determine what information you have and the quality or reliability of the sources. There are five basic evaluation criteria you will use, and these should be applied to everything you evaluate, from printed resources to electronic and Internet materials to physical objects and heirlooms.

A component of your critical thinking skills is what you have learned throughout your life, coupled with a healthy dose of common sense. Another piece is the knowledge you will acquire as you continue encountering and working with new and different types of genealogical source materials. You cannot take anything for granted, but should instead measure the evidence by the five criteria listed here:

  * **Origin** Always question where the material originated, when it was created, who created it, and why. Determine if you are working with an original piece of evidence or an exact facsimile, such as a photocopy, microfilm, or scanned image. If you have a piece of derivative source material, you must determine whether it is a transcription, an extract, or an abstract of the original.
  * **Quality and accuracy** The origin of the source material goes a long way toward determining the accuracy of the material. However, recognize that mistakes can be made even in original materials. For example, a census taker could misspell a name on the form he or she is completing. Determine whether the information can be verified (or refuted) by other evidence and, if so, by what other types of evidence and how good (or bad) that material might be.
  * **Authority** Is the creator or author of the material an authority or expert? How do you know? Have you checked his or her credentials or reputation? Is the information hearsay or is it fact? Is the information you are examining a hypothesis or a proven truth? Again, it is important to consider whether the material being analyzed is an original or derivative source and whether it is primary or secondary information.
  * **Bias** Is there any possibility that what you are evaluating is influenced by any bias? Does the creator or author have another agenda? It is possible that you are dealing with partial truth in some instances, especially where individuals' accounts of events are concerned. There may be a reason to lie or to mask the truth. Examples might include a child born out of wedlock; a person misrepresenting his or her age due to vanity or a desire to legally marry, or to qualify for or avoid military service; or a concern about the perception of being descended from a particular ethnic or religious group. How do you know that you have not discovered purposely bogus information?
  * **Sources** Evaluate the sources from which you have obtained the information. This relates back to origin, quality and accuracy, authority, and bias. However, if you obtain information from another researcher, carefully examine the sources he or she cites, and be prepared to verify absolutely everything that person has cited.

With all of this in mind, you should maintain a healthy skepticism in your investigation. Be wary of information that seems too good to be true. You can expect to encounter some brick walls in your research. This book will teach you ways of approaching apparent dead ends and circumventing brick walls in your research, and how to use alternative research strategies and substitute record types in the process.

Place Your Ancestors into Context

English poet John Donne is famous for his _Meditation XVII,_ in which he states, "No man is an island, entire of itself." He asserts that all of mankind is interconnected, and all a part of one another's history and activities. This is as true in our genealogical research of the past generations as it is of today. Our ancestors lived in specific places and time periods, and they witnessed and participated in events and activities as surely as we ourselves do.

It is essential during your research process to learn as much about your ancestors' lives and times as possible so that you can better understand them. That means learning about the geography of the places where they lived, including where the jurisdictional boundaries of their state, province, country, or territories were drawn. You also must become a student of the history of the places and times in which your ancestors lived. This will help you understand what their lives were like and perhaps the motivations for some of their actions. Major cataclysms as well as ordinary events shaped the lives of our ancestors. Consider, for example, the Potato Famine in Ireland in the 1840s, which, according to some sources, caused more than 1.5 million starving Irish citizens to migrate to North America. Or perhaps the rule of _primogeniture,_ under which the oldest son inherited the land of his father and may have forced one or more younger sons to leave home to make his own way in the world. Your investigation of the place, history, culture, and climate where your ancestors lived and where they may have migrated will serve you well in understanding their lives, what records may have been created by and about them, and where these materials may now be located.

Format Names, Dates, and Locations Correctly

Gathering information about your family is one thing; recording it in a format that can be understood and used by others is quite another. Genealogists use a number of standardized forms for this purpose, and genealogy database software programs can produce printed versions of these forms as a result of data entered into and stored in their programs. Let it suffice to say that genealogists have standards for the entry of data. Let's discuss each type of data and the standards that are universally used. Figure 2-6 demonstrates how information should be properly formatted.

**FIGURE 2-6** A pedigree or ancestor chart showing formatted names, dates, and locations

Record Names

People's names are entered using their first name (also referred to as a given name or forename), full middle name(s), and surname (last name). A woman's name is always recorded with her first name, her middle name, and her maiden surname. While it is not mandatory to do so, a great many genealogists capitalize the entire surname, as in the following examples:

Green Berry HOLDER

Laura Augusta WILSON

Capitalization of surnames is sometimes done in written correspondence, such as letters, emails, online message boards, mail list postings, and other communiqués, because it causes the surnames to be easily seen. Genealogy software programs also offer the option when creating reports and charts to capitalize surnames. If someone is scanning a written document, the capitalized surname jumps out at him or her.

Record Dates

The United States uses a format for dates that is different from the format used in most parts of the world. Whereas most Americans usually write a date in the format June 14, 1905, in their documents and correspondence, much of the rest of the world writes it as 14 June 1905. From a consistency standpoint, you always want to use the DD MONTH YYYY format for all of your genealogical work. You will find that using this standard makes communicating with other genealogists worldwide easier.

Record Locations

When conducting your research, you will find that boundaries, place names, and political/governmental jurisdictions have changed throughout time, sometimes more than once. It is important for you to seek records in the correct place. That means learning what governmental or other official entity had jurisdiction over a place at the time your ancestor lived there and at the time a specific record was created. It also means working with both contemporary and historical maps. For example, some of my early Morgan ancestors settled in the mid-1750s in what was then Orange County, Province of North Carolina, in the American colonies. Today, the exact area in which they settled is divided into Caswell and Person Counties.

The way in which you record locations in your research should reflect the name of the place, the county, parish, or other geopolitical area in which it was located, and the state, province, and country. Yes, country jurisdictions changed too. In those cases, it is important to also include the country name. Here are some examples:

**Location** | **Record It As**
---|---
Madison, North Carolina | Madison, Rockingham County, North Carolina, USA or Madison (Rockingham) North Carolina
Rome, Georgia | Rome, Floyd County, Georgia, USA or Rome (Floyd) Georgia
Montreal, Canada | Montreal, Québec, Canada
Barkham in Berkshire, England | Barkham, Berkshire, England

Certainly be careful to record the correct geopolitical entity for the location _at the time the event occurred_. This is essential because that is the place where the records were recorded and where they are probably still archived. For example, if I wanted to record the marriage of one ancestor in that area in Yanceyville, North Carolina, in 1761, I would record the birth location in the following manner:

Reuben MORGAN 24 August 1761 Yanceyville (Orange) North Carolina

The marriage date of his son, which occurred in the same community after the formation of Caswell County in 1777, would be recorded as follows:

William MORGAN 22 December 1783 Yanceyville (Caswell) NC USA

The difference in the county name distinguishes the fact that the event occurred under a different governmental jurisdiction. Therefore, if I want to obtain a copy of Reuben's marriage record, I would contact or visit the Orange County courthouse in Hillsborough, North Carolina, whereas I would visit the Caswell County courthouse in Yanceyville, North Carolina, for William's marriage record. It is acceptable to abbreviate a state, province, or country as long as you use an acknowledged abbreviation. You will note in the first example above that I did not list the country as USA but did so in the second example. That is because there was no official United States of America until the Declaration of Independence was signed on 4 July 1776.

Suffice it to say that it is vitally important to properly identify the right location _and_ to record it as part of your records. If you are researching your ancestry in Germany, you will want to study history of the states, duchies, kingdoms, and states and their periods to help determine where to search for specific records when your ancestor lived there. If you are researching Polish ancestors, you will need to study Poland's history. It has been an independent country but it also has been partitioned and absorbed over the centuries by Russia, Germany, and Austria. Record the correct location for each piece of evidence you find as it existed at the time the information or source was created.

Work with Pedigree Charts

Now that you know how to collect, evaluate, and analyze evidence, and know how data is to be formatted, it's time to learn about the forms that genealogists use to enter their data.

One of these forms is known as a _pedigree chart_ , and is sometimes known by other names, such as "ancestral chart" or "family tree chart." These forms come in a variety of styles and typically represent three or more generations. Let's begin our discussion by looking at some examples. Ancestry.com provides their Ancestral Chart at **<http://c.ancestry.com/pdf/trees/charts/anchart.pdf>** (see Figure 2-7).

**FIGURE 2-7** Ancestry.com's Ancestral Chart

Pedigree charts are used to represent multiple generations of direct ancestry. The downloadable chart shown in Figure 2-7 can be used to represent four generations. Others you might locate through retail stores or on the Internet may represent three or more generations. Some versions may be used to represent as many as 10, 12, 16, or more generations. These latter specimens are usually intended for showy displays, but some genealogists will use the larger format as a working document in order to have their direct family lineage shown on a single sheet.

Let's use your own family as an example and use the Ancestry.com Ancestral Chart form as a worksheet. Remember I said you should start with yourself? That's what you do here. Enter as much information as you have and enter it in pencil so you can change it later as needed. Fill in _your name_ on the line in the center of the left side of the page. Enter your surname in all capital letters (uppercase). If you are married, you may fill in his or her name on the line below. Remember that you should enter a woman's maiden name using her surname. Under your name on line 1, enter your date of birth (in the format of DD MONTH YYYY such as 24 August 1985), the place of your birth (in the format of City (County) State Country or appropriate format), the date of your marriage to the person listed below you, if appropriate, and the place of the marriage. We will assume that you are not yet deceased, of course, so you can leave the areas for date of death and location blank.

The next pair of lines to the right represent your father (at the top) and your mother (below your father's entry). Enter his birth, marriage, and (if applicable) death dates and locations for each person. Please note that marriage information is always listed on pedigree charts under the male, assuming the parents were married. Enter your mother's name using her first, middle, and maiden name, and enter her maiden name in capital letters. Enter her birth and, if applicable, death dates and locations. You may not yet have all the names or other information. That's the purpose of genealogical research.

The next column consists of lines to represent your grandparents—your father's father and mother and your mother's father and mother. Fill in these people's names and any vital information you know.

The next column contains lines to represent your great-grandparents. Fill in as many names, dates, and locations as you can.

You have probably discovered already that you have gaps in your family knowledge. You may also be unsure about some of the information you entered. That's okay, though. That's why we typically enter the data in pencil, so that we can change or correct it as we locate evidence of the facts.

Next, you will notice that there are places for chart numbers to be entered. This provides a way for you to organize and cross-reference charts. For example, you may have obtained information on your great-grandparents' parents and beyond. Since you don't have enough room on this chart to represent them, you will need a new pedigree chart for those persons. Let's say you start a new chart for your great-grandfather. On the new chart, his name will be listed on the line on the left, just as your name was listed on the first chart. His spouse will be entered below, and his parents' (your great-great-grandparents) names will be entered on the lines in the next column, and so on. You may label this as **Chart 2**. Label the first chart you completed **Chart 1**. Now, cross-reference them as follows:

  * Under your great-grandfather's name on Chart 1, on the line labeled "CONT. ON CHART ____," enter the number **2** (for Chart 2).
  * In the upper-left corner of Chart 2, where it is labeled "No. 1 on this chart is the same person as No. _____ on Chart No. _____."

You have now cross-referenced the charts for easy navigation back and forth. You will want to create a binder to hold your pedigree charts. File your own generation on top, followed by other generations in sequence.

Work with Family Group Sheets

While the pedigree or ancestral chart represents a single thread of descent, a _family group sheet_ (or _family group record_ ) is a representation of a complete family unit: father, mother, and all children. You potentially will prepare a family group sheet for every family unit you document. An example of Ancestry.com's Family Group Record document is shown in Figure 2-8, and a free downloadable version is available at Ancestry.com at **www.ancestry.com/trees/charts/familysheet.aspx**. Some family group sheets include spaces for recording the sources of the information that you have found. The Source Summary for Family Information from Ancestry.com at **www.ancestry.com/trees/charts/sourcesum.aspx** can be used in conjunction with their Family Group Record document to keep track of the origin of the evidence you use to document the facts. Please take a few minutes to download and print copies of these sheets now.

**FIGURE 2-8** Ancestry.com's Family Group Record

The family group sheet begins by asking for the name of the preparer and his or her address. In the event you share a copy of this form with another person, he or she will be able to contact you with questions or to share their research with you. You also have a place at the top of the form to cross-reference this sheet to a pedigree chart.

This form contains space for substantially more information than the pedigree chart, but the sources and types of information are pretty self-explanatory. You will note, though, two interesting columns for the children. The first is one with an asterisk (*) at the top, representing whether or not the father and mother are direct ancestors. Remember, some children in a family unit may be from another marriage and may have been adopted by the new spouse. The other column is for Computer ID. You may decide to cross-reference this chart with entries in a computer program, and this column can facilitate that effort.

What if you have the name of one person and not the name of his or her spouse? What if you only know a wife's first name and not her maiden name? What if you know there was a child but you don't know his or her name? Leave the information blank, or add a question mark, backslashes (//), or some other notation to indicate missing data. You can always return to enter it when you locate it.

Take a few minutes to complete a family group sheet for your parents' family unit, and include information about your siblings and yourself. Any facts you don't know can be left blank for now. You can come back to complete them later when you have located documentation of the facts.

You have a good idea now about recording information on a pedigree chart and a family group sheet. However, there are always exceptions in families that need to be recorded. Let's examine three such circumstances that you may encounter.

Record Multiple Family Units with a Common Spouse

What do you do when a spouse died or a couple divorced and a spouse remarried? How do you represent that? The answer is that you create a new family group sheet for the new family couple and for their family unit. Children produced from this union are included on this separate sheet.

How to Handle Nontraditional Family Units

There have always been family units operating without the benefit of marriage. With an increasing number of same-sex marriages or civil unions taking place in many places worldwide, there now is a need to record those family units and relationships. Whatever the arrangement and whoever the people are, it is important to record the family unit "as is." Therefore, when you record two individuals in a relationship, portray it on a family group sheet. If there was no marriage, indicate it as **NONE**. Most genealogy database programs today now allow you to represent a relationship status with such codes as "friends," "married," "partners," "single," "private," "other," or "unknown." You should be honest about relationships where known unless the publication of such knowledge would be detrimental or hurtful in some way. If there are children produced from a nontraditional pairing, show them as you normally would, as issue from the union.

How to Handle Adopted Children

A common question is how to handle adopted children on a family group sheet. Should you include them? The answer is, of course, an emphatic yes. Adopted children are part of the family unit, regardless of the identities of their birth parents. The adopted child's birth parents, if known, can be recorded in the notes section of your family group sheet or in the notes area of a genealogy database program. However, the adoption formalizes the legal relationship between the child and his or her adoptive parents and should become the primary family relationship represented in your records.

Most genealogy database software programs now allow for the identification of a child's relationship to its parents. The Family Tree Maker program (produced by Ancestry.com), for example, provides values of Natural, Adopted, Step, Foster, Related, Guardian, Sealed, Private, and Unknown.

Remember that adoption may be a sensitive topic for the adoptee, his or her parents, or some other family members. You will therefore want to be considerate about publishing the information outside the family circle. That does not mean you shouldn't record it in your records. However, many of the genealogy database programs allow for the omission of the parent-child relationship information when reports are produced or data files are created.

Create Source Citations for Your Data

When you were in school and preparing term papers, you were probably required to prepare a bibliography of your source materials. You may also have used footnotes and endnotes for individual fact or quotation references. This is the scholarly way to document research because it provides details for the reader or subsequent researcher to retrace your work.

As you collect information, evidence, documents, and other materials for your family history research, it is essential to record where you found them. You want to provide a record for yourself and any other genealogical researcher so that he or she can retrace your steps, locate the material you used, and personally examine it. Your interpretation of data may be different from someone else's. The fact that you may actually be looking for different information may influence what you search for, what you believe is important, and the way you interpret it in your family's application. One seemingly insignificant name to you in an ancestor's will may be just the "missing link" that another researcher has been seeking for years.

Your source citations will generally follow standard bibliographic citation standards for books, magazines, journals, and other printed sources. Students and researchers know that there are several citation formats, but typically the style used by genealogists resembles the standards of the Modern Language Association (MLA) or _The Chicago Manual of Style_. The structure of your source citations should contain all essential information that will help another researcher identify and locate the source material you used. However, the citation format may not necessarily adhere precisely to either of these styles. The following are examples of some of the more common source materials.

Book

Mills, Elizabeth Shown. _Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace_. 2nd ed. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2009.

Magazine Article

Morgan, George G. "Magical Minutes Make Memorable Meetings." _Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly_ , March 2011.

Newspaper Article

Pilarczyk, Jamie. "Learning History's Lessons." _Tampa Tribune_ , 10 September 2008. B3.

Newspaper Article on the Internet

Pilarczyk, Jamie. "Learning History's Lessons." _Tampa Tribune_ , 10 September 2008. <<http://centraltampa2.tbo.com/content/2008/sep/10/st-learning-history-lessons/>>. Accessed 17 September 2008.

Family Bible (One-of-a-Kind)

Family data, Morgan Family Bible, _The Holy Bible_ , new edition (New York, NY: Christian Book Publishers, Inc., 1921); original owned in 2011 by George G. Morgan (229 N. Dalton Street, Anytown, FL 33333).

Print materials make up a sizeable portion of reference material for genealogists. However, we work with an amazing array of materials, including letters, postcards, journals, diaries, deeds, census records, birth certificates, marriage licenses, christening and baptismal records, bar and bat mitzvah records, wills, probate packets, obituaries, ships' passenger lists, naturalization records, medical records, tombstones, engraved jewelry, furniture, embroidered samplers, and much, much more. We work with all types of media as well: paper, microfilm, microfiche, CD-ROMs, computer files, databases, photographs and slides, PDF files, scanned images, records found on the Internet or exchanged electronically in such media as email and data files, blogs, wikis, podcasts, webinars, and in other online virtual environments.

As you can imagine, few citation style guides can anticipate every possible source used by genealogical researchers. The MLA standard provides an appropriate general framework for genealogical source citations. The essential components of every citation are the name of the author or creator, a title or description of the source, where the source was published and who published it, and the date of creation or publication. In addition, if the source is a rare or one-of-a-kind item, it is important to include the place where it resides and/or where you accessed it. Here are examples of just a few sources unique to genealogical research and appropriate citation formats for them.

Cemetery Marker (Large Cemetery)

Green Berry Holder tombstone; section New Front Addition, Terrace 1, Lot #1, Myrtle Hill. Cemetery, Rome, Floyd County, Georgia, USA; transcribed by the writer on 14 July 1998.

Cemetery Marker (Small Rural Cemetery)

Caroline Alice Whitefield Morgan Carter tombstone, Cooper Cemetery, Caswell County, North Carolina (Ridgeville township, Latitude 36° 17' 15" North, Longitude 79° 12' 02" West), photographed by George G. Morgan on 24 August 2011.

Microfilm of U.S. Federal Census

Green B. Holder household, 1870 U.S. census, Subdivision 141, Floyd County, Georgia, page 102, line 22; National Archives micropublication M593, roll 149.

Email Message

Mary A. Morgan, "Your Great-grandmother Patterson," email message from <mam@auntmary190505.com> (106 E. Hunter Street, Madison, NC 27025) to author, 14 June 2011.

Blog

Danko, Stephen. "Steve's Genealogy Blog," online <<http://stephendanko.com/blog/13731>>. "The Birth and Baptism of Ambrozy Goła'ś 1859," downloaded 3 May 2011.

The amount of information included varies with the type of source material you use, what it provides, and in some cases where it is physically located. You will want to learn all about citing your sources so that you do a scholarly job. The very best genealogical source citation reference book on the market today is Elizabeth Shown Mills' definitive book _Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace_ , published by Genealogical Publishing Company. (You'll note that I used this work above as a representative source citation example for a book.) It is an excellent resource for the serious genealogist, and I heartily recommend it as a part of your core personal reference library.

The more information you locate, the more important it is to have clearly documented the sources. You will soon learn from personal experience that it is often impossible to recall the origin of a particular piece of information. Source citations are invaluable when retracing your own research and are essential as documentation for other researchers' use in trying to retrace and verify your work.

You will always want to perform effective and scholarly research on your family history. That means identifying and using the best possible source materials you can locate, analyzing them carefully, weighing the evidence, formulating reasonable hypotheses, and drawing realistic conclusions. It combines all the skills discussed so far in this chapter, and these comprise the basic rules of genealogical evidence.

Select a Family Tree Format

Throughout this chapter, I've discussed the mechanics of collecting, analyzing, recording, and citing sources for your family history data. Now is the time to start considering just how to record and display your data.

As you read the header of this section, you probably are thinking, "How can there be more than _one_ format of a family tree?" Actually, there are a number of different ways to view family data, and each one can help you analyze what you have discovered in perhaps a different way. Genealogists also have their own preferences about which display format they use. For example, you should know that there are two major family tree display formats: the _standard chart_ format and the _fan chart_ format. The standard format shown in Figure 2-9 presents a vertical, linear view of two generations. The double, parallel lines linking individuals indicates their marriage or union.

**FIGURE 2-9** A standard, two-generation family tree chart. (Generated from the author's copy of the RootsMagic genealogy database program.)

The same data can be displayed in a fan format, as shown in Figure 2-10, starting with the focus individual and his or her spouse, and additional generations' information extending in semicircular bands by generation.

**FIGURE 2-10** Sample of descendants chart in fan format. (Generated from the author's copy of the Reunion genealogy database program for the Mac.)

As you are working with your family genealogy, you will find it useful to be able to create both ancestor and descendant tree views. An _ancestor chart_ starts with one individual as its focal point and presents a picture of that person's ancestors. A _descendant chart_ starts with an individual and shows his or her descendants. The number of generations represented on any chart is your option. In the examples shown in Figures 2-9 and 2-10, only two generations are represented. You also can choose to include as much or as little information as you like. At the very minimum, however, you should include each individual's name, date of birth, date of marriage (if any), and date of death (if deceased). The location of each of these events is important, and you may want to include that data as well.

In addition to the standard and fan formats of the ancestor and descendant chart formats, there are some other formats as well. An _hourglass tree_ combines the features of both the ancestor and descendant tree views. In Figure 2-11, my great-grandfather, Rainey B. Morgan is the focal individual, with his wife, Caroline A. Whitfield, shown at his side and their union being indicated with the double lines linking them. Rainey's parents, Goodloe W. Morgan and Mary L. Woods, and his two sets of grandparents, Reuben Morgan and Mary Merritt, and William Woods and Mary Farley, are shown above him as his ancestors. Rainey's three sons, Samuel G. Morgan, William R. Morgan, Sr., and John A. Morgan, are shown as descendants, and their respective wives are shown beside them, again with the unions represented by double lines.

**FIGURE 2-11** An hourglass family tree chart. (Generated from the author's copy of the RootsMagic genealogy database program.)

All of the tree formats discussed above really are just that: tree formats. They are called trees because they begin somewhere with a root individual and branch out from there. The format that you will encounter most for representing lineal family relationships is the pedigree chart that we discussed earlier in the chapter. It is an ancestral tree representation, but is by far the most commonly used representation in day-to-day genealogy work.

Blank pedigree charts, as you have seen, can be downloaded from the Internet. They also can be purchased in many formats and range from as few as 3 generations to as many as 12 or even more. These can be completed manually. Genealogy database software programs can also produce pedigree charts whose contents and formats you can customize.

You will want to experiment with the various formats to determine which one you like best and/or which one best represents your family data. Although it is time-consuming to complete a family tree chart by hand, many people do just that. Sometimes they create a display-quality tree using graphics, photographs, and calligraphic text. These can be framed and displayed as family heirlooms.

On the other hand, you will find that there are a number of genealogy database software programs available. You enter your data and source citations, even photographs, and can produce a variety of customized, computer-generated reports. Those reports include pedigree charts, family group sheets, and family trees in the standard, fan, hourglass, and other formats. Some of these databases also facilitate writing and publishing a quality family history, while others can produce HTML files containing your family data for web pages.

With all this foundation work under your belt now, let's proceed into the wealth of record types and what they can tell us. Let's move on to Chapter 3.
3

Balance Traditional and Electronic Research

**HOW TO...**

  * Be a modern genealogical researcher
  * Understand traditional research
  * Discover documentary evidence and where it is found
  * Understand electronic research materials
  * Learn about different types of electronic resources
  * Integrate traditional and electronic research findings

This is the best of times for genealogy research. It hasn't been that many years ago that genealogy and family history research was essentially a print-based process. Researchers visited libraries and archives to check books, periodicals, and other holdings to determine what evidence might be located in other places, and then they would write letters to request look-ups and copies. They would travel to courthouses and other repositories to locate, access, and view original documents. They might also have visited a nearby Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) Family History Center (FHC) to consult the catalog of the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah, and identify potentially helpful records that had been microfilmed. They would ask the volunteers at the FHC to order the microfilm or microfiche from Salt Lake City, pay a rental fee, and then use the microform materials at the FHC. The other alternative was to physically travel to facilities where records were held or where evidence might be found. In addition, a researcher might have sent a written query to a genealogical publication, such as _Everton's Genealogical Helper_ , to broadcast his or her interest in locating information about a specific individual. This kind of research was time consuming and potentially very expensive. The wait for responses to letters and inquiries and the arrival of microform materials seemed interminable. As a result, the pace of the genealogical research progress was very slow.

The term "microform" refers to microfilm, microfiche, and sometimes other formats. It is an archive and storage medium that uses photographic images of documents and other media in a reduced format. The images are reduced about 25 times and stored on a high-resolution photographic film stock. Microfilm consists of images stored on reels of film; microfiche consists of many images stored on film sheets; and ultrafiche is an exceptionally compact form of microfiche or microfilm. Special machines are used to read, and sometimes print, the images from the film. Digital reader/printer machines are available to capture digital images of microform images. Microcards are an obsolete form of microfilming in which images were stored on cardboard cards and read using a magnifying reader.

Be a Modern Genealogical Researcher

The availability of personal computers slowly improved the process of conducting genealogical research. The early Bulletin Board Services (BBSs) in the late 1970s and 1980s facilitated some electronic communication between genealogists. Time passed and online services such as CompuServe, Delphi, GEnie, Prodigy, and America Online were introduced, and each of these services hosted a genealogy area to provide an online meeting place and reference resources to subscribers. Online lectures and chats were conducted using real-time typed exchanges of dialog and comments.

The LDS Church released one of the first genealogy database software programs, Personal Ancestral File (PAF), as a tool for documenting and organizing data. Users, particularly LDS Church members, were encouraged to use PAF and to submit data files to the LDS Church for inclusion in a large database. Over the years, many other genealogical database programs and utilities have been published.

The introduction of email and the World Wide Web ("the Web") to the public further accelerated the communications technology and promoted the online information explosion. Soon, most commercial companies had a presence on the Web. Further, the introduction of browser software and the inclusion of graphics in web pages made the Internet the most important source of information available.

Genealogists quickly adopted the Internet and began using email mailing lists and online message boards to publish queries about all things genealogical. Websites were created that were devoted to genealogical research. Among the earliest of these were RootsWeb ( **www.rootsweb.ancestry.com** ) and the all-volunteer USGenWeb Project ( **www.usgenweb.org** ) and WorldGenWeb Project ( **www.worldgenweb.org** ). These sites provide free how-to information and access to data transcribed from original sources by volunteers. The LDS Church established a website, FamilySearch ( **www.familysearch.org** ), to make indexed information available, as well as access to an electronic catalog of its holdings and downloadable PAF software.

Online genealogical subscription services have proliferated on the Internet. These include Ancestry.com ( **www.ancestry.com** ; see Figure 3-1), Fold3.com ( **www.fold3.com** ; see Figure 3-2), WorldVitalRecords.com ( **www.worldvitalrecords.com** ), findmypast ( **www.findmypast.co.uk** ), and many others around the world.

**FIGURE 3-1** The Search page at Ancestry.com

**FIGURE 3-2** The main page at Fold3.com

Libraries and archives have kept pace with Internet technology. Almost every library or archive has a website that provides access to their electronic catalog, descriptions of holdings, policies, and other information. LibrarySpot.com ( **www.libraryspot.com** ) provides a place to begin locating libraries' and archives' websites around the world. OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center, hosts WorldCat ( **www.worldcat.org** ), another excellent tool for locating specific books and other items in libraries.

Some libraries have digitized materials in their collections that are accessible through their website. The Library and Archives Canada website ( **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca** ) has digitized Canadian census records, and has produced an impressively informative set of how-to and reference resources in its Genealogy and Family History area at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/index-e.html** (see Figure 3-3). The diversity of digitized records that are accessible through libraries' websites is phenomenal.

**FIGURE 3-3** The Genealogy and Family History page at the Library and Archives Canada

In addition to the websites maintained by libraries and archives, these institutions frequently subscribe to important database services. Some of these may be genealogy-specific while others, such as historical newspapers and obituary databases, may be fully searchable and provide access to invaluable information to help further your research. Many of these are typically accessible from your remote computer with the use of your library card number. Other databases may be accessible by visiting a university library.

Your favorite web browser software provides you with access to resources worldwide: digitized documents and photographs, newspapers, digitized historical map collections, cemetery information and transcriptions, online newsletters and magazines, and much, much more. We'll explore these further later in this chapter and elsewhere in the book.

Understand Traditional Research

Traditional research was and still is the central form of genealogical investigation, and it is essential for acquiring documentary evidence. In Chapter 2, we discussed the concepts of primary vs. secondary information and original vs. derivative sources. The most reliable evidence of a fact is an original document created at or very near to the time an event occurred. It is not something transcribed or taken from a word-of-mouth account, because the details may have inconsistencies or may be incorrect. You saw examples of each of these types of sources in Chapter 2.

Traditional research entails looking for clues that direct you to concrete evidence. If you have watched any of the several _CSI: Crime Scene Investigation_ series on television, you know that building a reliable case means searching for original evidence, studying it, evaluating it in relation to other facts or evidence, developing a hypothesis (or more than one), and substantiating the hypothesis with a strong body of original evidentiary proof. Does that sound complicated? Well, it is and it isn't. Yes, your research should be done in a scholarly manner and must incorporate strong original evidence. However, this will quickly become second nature to you and soon you will be enjoying every aspect of "the thrill of the chase."

Discover Documentary Evidence and Where It Is Found

Traditional research will always involve working with a wide variety of materials. These include

  * Books and periodicals
  * Manuscripts
  * Maps
  * Indexes
  * Histories
  * Biographies
  * Newspapers
  * Documents from many traditional locations and sources

Books and Periodicals

Printed books will always be an important source of genealogical information in your research. You will find books that contain everything from how-to information, such as this book, to transcribed records, to published images of original records. Magazines and journals published by genealogical and historical societies, as well as commercial magazines, may provide details and/or case studies containing information about your ancestor or some facet of his or her life.

Some older historical books are being electronically scanned and indexed, and these are appearing at a number of online sites such as Ancestry.com ( **www.ancestry.com** ), HeritageQuest Online (available through many libraries), WorldVitalRecords.com ( **www.worldvitalrecords.com** ), the Family History Archives ( **<http://lib.byu.edu/fhc>** ; see Figure 3-4) of FamilySearch, the Hathi Trust ( **www.hathitrust.org** ), Google Books ( **<http://books.google.com>** ), and other websites. They are every-word searchable and can provide you with access to resources otherwise available only at a remote library or archive.

**FIGURE 3-4** The Family History Archives page from FamilySearch provides access to digitized and indexed family histories.

You will always want to invest time in researching the collections found in libraries, archives, and genealogical societies. Many of these organizations have also digitized and indexed materials and placed them online. These facilities can provide clues to guide you to the original evidentiary records that you want to examine in your research.

Manuscripts

Original, one-of-a-kind manuscripts and typescripts are seldom found anywhere but inside a library or archive. You can often find these cataloged by the library or archive in which they are held. An unpublished family history may contain a wealth of information and clues that can lead you to genealogical treasure. However, don't expect a manuscript to have been microfilmed or digitized. While some have been digitized and others may be digitized in the future, you will more than likely need to travel to the repository where the manuscript is stored in order to access it.

Maps

Geography is an integral part of genealogical research. It is essential to understand the location where your ancestor lived, where the geopolitical boundaries were, how the boundaries may have changed during and since your ancestor's residency there, and what governmental body had jurisdiction of the area at a specific time. While many historical maps have been digitized and are on the Internet, most exist only in library collections, archives, university special collections, or the holdings of individuals or organizations (such as the Library of Congress, whose collection includes the map shown in Figure 3-5).

**FIGURE 3-5** Map showing Col. John Singleton Mosby's route through Virginia and North Carolina during the U.S. Civil War. (From the Library of Congress collection.)

Indexes

There are thousands of published indexes to original records of genealogical importance. P. William Filby's epic and ongoing publication, _Passenger and Immigration Lists Index_ , remains the most important reference for identifying information about immigrants to the American colonies and the United States. _Germans to America_ is another important reference. However, there are indexes to original documents worldwide. The Civil Registration registers of births, marriages, and deaths for England and Wales, for instance, cover the period from July 1837 to 2005, and more recent registrations are accessible up to 18 months prior to the current date. Indexes to names in censuses, bride and groom marriage indexes, land and property indexes, military service records and awards, and hundreds of other record types have been published. These indexes provide guidance to direct you to the original records, and you can then order copies and examine the exact content for yourself.

Local histories may contain mentions about your own family. A local history may actually provide the only evidence of your ancestor's presence and activities in an area. If your family is not specifically mentioned, references to their ethnic or religious group may be included. At a minimum, these histories can convey to you what life was like in the area where and during the times when your ancestors lived there.

Histories

History books and other historical accounts, such as diaries and journals, may only exist in printed form or as a manuscript. Histories provide you with the context of a place and time in which your ancestor lived. In some cases, a local history may provide the only evidence of your ancestor's presence and activities in an area. You can learn about the activities in which your ancestor may have participated and about events that may have affected your ancestor's life.

Biographies

Biographies and autobiographies of individuals are important sources of information and provide clues to original materials. Typically found in library collections, you can use these publications as you would a history book. A biography or autobiography provides the historical context for a time period and describes people, places, locations, and events. For example, while your ancestor's name may never be mentioned, a biography of a military leader under whom your ancestor served will likely provide a chronological account of military engagements and details about the living conditions. This information is helpful in understanding that portion of your ancestor's life and the events that influenced him or her and other people.

Newspapers

A newspaper is a chronicle of a community, incorporating news and events about people from all walks of life. Original newspapers are not frequently retained in storage, for a number of reasons. They are certainly a fire hazard, but their physical content produces fumes and other by-products that can be harmful to your health. Finally, newsprint from the late 19th century forward is highly acidic in content, and the acid and lignin can contaminate other materials, causing them to discolor and deteriorate.

Many newspapers have been microfilmed before the originals were destroyed. This is excellent news for researchers. However, unless the newspaper has been indexed in some way, your research will depend on knowing dates or date ranges of issues; otherwise, you may have to comb through image after image on many rolls of microfilm or many sheets of microfiche. These microform records are often found in the library or in an historical archive in or near the place of publication. Copies may also be held in a regional, state, provincial, or national library or archive. You will need to visit that repository to access these records.

More recently, many newspapers are being digitized and indexed using optical character recognition (OCR), making them searchable. Tens of millions of newspaper pages are being scanned each year. Online subscription sites such as NewspaperARCHIVE.com ( **www.newspaperarchive.com** ; see Figure 3-6) and GenealogyBank ( **www.genealogybank.com** ) and digitized newspaper collections available through libraries and archives can provide access to indexed, digitized newspapers that can expand your genealogical research.

**FIGURE 3-6** NewspaperARCHIVE.com provides access to many newspapers in the United States and some areas in Europe.

A number of the larger newspapers in various countries have been digitized and every word indexed for complete searchability. _The Times_ of London, for example, has been completely digitized. Others from across the United States have been scanned and made available at subscription sites such as Ancestry.com (see Figure 3-7). However, because of the varying quality of the microforms from which the digitized images were taken, and the limitations of the OCR scanning capability, there may be unavoidable indexing errors.

**FIGURE 3-7** Section of the front page of the _Ironwood Daily Globe_ in Ironwood, Michigan, on 23 November 1963, from the digitized newspaper database collection at Ancestry.com

Documents from Many Traditional Locations and Sources

Your research for original documents or exact copies will take you to many places. This book will help lead you to specific repositories in various locations in order to access those documents. Among them are government offices, health departments, police records repositories, coroners' offices, land and property offices, civil, criminal, and probate courts, churches and religious offices, military records storage repositories, cemeteries and cemetery offices, manuscript collections, libraries, archives at all levels, schools and universities, genealogical and historical societies, and many more. The documents will be unique unto themselves. You will learn more about many types of documents and working with them throughout this book.

Understand Electronic Research Materials

You will find that there are many different types of electronic research resources, and it is sometimes difficult to keep them straight. If you understand the difference between them and what they can provide, it will become easier to decide which resource(s) will be your best tool(s) to use for specific types of research. Let's explore the major kinds of electronic resources you will use. We'll cover all of these in more detail later in the book.

Email and Mailing Lists

Perhaps the most ubiquitous electronic tool in use today is email. It provides a rapid and inexpensive way to communicate with one or lots of people at once. Email allows you to send and receive textual communiqués and to attach files, such as word processing documents, spreadsheets, digital photos, audio files, videos, and data files, from many software applications.

Electronic mailing lists are a commonly used resource, allowing many people to subscribe and to send and receive messages sent by other subscribers. There are thousands of genealogy-related mailing lists, each with a specific topical purpose. There are surname lists, lists for specific geographical areas, lists concerning locating and working with specific record types, ethnic and religious lists, and lists on a wide variety of other topics.

Message Boards

Electronic message boards are similar to mailing lists, providing a means for exchanging information with others (see Figure 3-8). A message board, however, resides on the Internet, and you must proactively read it and/or post messages to it. The best genealogy message boards are those at Ancestry.com ( **<http://boards.ancestry.com>** ) and GenForum ( **<http://genforum.com>** ). (Some message boards also may be set up to notify you via email when there is a new message. However, email doesn't play a role in posting to and working with message boards.)

**FIGURE 3-8** A message board posting concerning the Pattersons of Londonderry, NH; Ireland, and Scotland

Web Pages

Web pages on the Internet contain a wealth of information, and there are literally billions of web pages accessible by visiting web addresses known to you or that you read about. These may include personal websites, free websites, and subscription websites, as well as blogs, wikis, and other resources. (We will discuss blogs, wikis, and other social media and electronic resources at the end of this chapter and later in the book.) However, your favorite web browser allows you to connect with Internet search engines and to seek out web pages using site names, keywords and phrases, and other criteria.

Compilations and Indexes

There are many websites that have compiled various types of materials for your reference. RootsWeb ( **www.rootsweb.ancestry.com** ) provides how-to materials, access to mailing list resources, family trees submitted by other researchers, and a variety of online tools. Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet ( **www.cyndislist.com** ) is a compilation of more than 300,000 categorized links to genealogical sites on the Internet. It is _the_ starting point for locating all types of research resources. Linkpendium ( **www.linkpendium.com** ) provides well over 9 million links to location and surname materials on the Internet. The USGenWeb Project ( **www.usgenweb.org** ) and the WorldGenWeb Project ( **www.worldgenweb.org** ) are two all-volunteer collections for United States and international genealogical information and resources, respectively. Find A Grave ( **www.findagrave.com** ) is a massive collection of more than 70 million records of cemetery and interment information from around the world that have been transcribed by individuals and entered into a free online database.

Search Engines

The compilations and indexes provide excellent information when you know what you are looking for, but the use of a search engine can exponentially expand your research. Experienced users of the Internet often have one or more favorite search engines such as Google ( **www.google.com** ) or Bing ( **www.bing.com** ). Fortunately there are genealogy-specific search resources. Mocavo ( **www.mocavo.com** ; see Figure 3-9) is the world's largest free genealogy search engine. Mocavo provides genealogists access to the best free genealogy content on the Web, including billions of names, dates, and places worldwide. Mocavo seeks to index and make searchable all of the world's free genealogy information. This includes message boards, blogs, and other free data on websites across the Internet. Ancestor Hunt ( **www.ancestorhunt.com** ) provides search engines for specific types of records used by genealogists.

**FIGURE 3-9** Mocavo is a search engine that searches for free genealogy-specific information.

Subscription Internet Sites for Genealogy

There are many subscription genealogy sites on the Internet, all of which combined provide access to literally tens of thousands of databases. These databases include indexes to records, digitized and indexed original document images, scanned and searchable books and newspapers, and a host of other great resources. Leaders in this area are Ancestry.com ( **www.ancestry.com** ), Fold3.com ( **www.fold3.com** ), findmypast ( **www.findmypast.co.uk** ), and WorldVitalRecords.com ( **www.worldvitalrecords.com** ), among others.

Blogs

Blogs are journals published online about many topics. Two great places to locate genealogy-specific blogs that might be of interest to you are GeneaBloggers ( **www.geneabloggers.com** ; see Figure 3-10) and Chris Dunham's Genealogy Blog Finder ( **<http://blogfinder.genealogue.com>** ). There are blogs about national and ethnic origins, religious information, genetic genealogy, software programs, news and events, and many more topics.

**FIGURE 3-10** The GeneaBloggers website is a great place to find blogs for all areas of your genealogy research.

Podcasts and Videocasts

Podcasts are audio programs that are recorded and published on the Internet. You can listen to them at their website, download and listen to them on your computer or MP3 player/iPod, or burn them to a CD. I am co-host, with my partner Drew Smith, of _The Genealogy Guys Podcast_ at ( **<http://genealogyguys.com>** ; see Figure 3-11). Other genealogy podcasts include the _Genealogy Gems Podcast_ ( **www.genealogygemspodcast.com** ) and the _Irish Roots Cafe_ ( **www.irishroots.com** ). Each of these (and others) provides news, research tips, interviews, book reviews, and/or other features.

**FIGURE 3-11** The Genealogy Guys Podcast site

The video equivalent of a podcast is referred to as a "videocast" or "vodcast." You will find genealogy videos at YouTube ( **www.youtube.com** ) by searching for keyword **genealogy**.

Webinars

Webinars are live seminars presented on the Internet, and they are often recorded for later download and enjoyment. Genealogy webinars are presented on a wide variety of subjects. Ancestry.com presents webinars about using Ancestry.com and Family Tree Maker database software, and past webinars have been recorded. RootsMagic ( **www.rootsmagic.com** ) offers webinars about its product and about research topics. The Federation of Genealogical Societies ( **www.fgs.org** ) presents a free webinar each quarter to the public and monthly webinars for its members that concern genealogy society management topics. Genealogy webinars also are being offered by the leading genealogical speakers and by some genealogical societies. More and more of these are being offered each month.

Live Online Radio

Live genealogy radio programs are becoming popular. These are broadcast on the Internet at a scheduled time and you can listen to them live. They also are recorded and stored online so that you can also access them later. One program is _GeneaBloggers_ at **www.blogtalkradio.com/geneabloggers** , which broadcasts on Friday evenings at 9:00 p.m. Central Time (U.S.). Another is _My Society_ at **www.blogtalkradio.com/mysociety**. It is produced by the Federation of Genealogical Societies ( **www.fgs.org** ) and focuses on genealogical societies' issues and includes interviews with leaders in the genealogy field. It is broadcast on Saturday afternoons at 1:00 p.m. Central Time (U.S.).

Integrate Traditional and Electronic Research Findings

The overview I have shared with you in this chapter is sure to have piqued your interest in the many kinds of resources that are available. Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of the differences between so-called "traditional" and "electronic" resources. If you thought, "Wow! I can do it all on the Internet!" you would be completely wrong. While there _is_ a great deal of material on the Internet, there is much, much more that is not there. Your research must incorporate _and_ combine traditional research and resources _with_ electronic resources.

This chapter has prepared you to learn about each of the resources discussed throughout the book. Chapter 14 will expand on this chapter, and you'll learn all about social networking and a wide variety of currently available electronic resources that can also enhance your research. You're already well on your way to building the solid foundation for effective genealogy and family history research that will serve you well on this journey of discovery. Read on!
4

Place Your Ancestors into Context and Locate Vital Records

**HOW TO...**

  * Place your ancestors into context
  * Become a student of history
  * Establish your ancestor's location at different times
  * Use maps to locate the _right_ place to research
  * Locate birth, marriage, and death records

The most basic record types for establishing an ancestor's locations and life events are birth, marriage, and death records. Government census records are another type of documentary evidence that can be used to verify his or her location at regular intervals. The use of these records forms a framework for other research of an individual's life. Once you establish an ancestor's location in a specific place at a given point in his or her life, you can pursue your search for other documents and evidence to expand your knowledge and understanding of that person.

This chapter focuses on how to place your ancestors into historical and geographical context so you can be most effective in understanding and using records about their lives. A simple yet extremely effective methodology for the proper use of maps and gazetteers to help locate records is presented. We also will discuss the fundamental records that document the three types of personal records that may be available: birth certificates, marriage licenses and certificates, and death certificates. Examples of documents from the United States, the United Kingdom (like the one shown in Figure 4-1), and Canada are included to provide a better understanding of what these documents can offer.

**FIGURE 4-1** Certified copy of an 1874 birth entry from Wales

Chapter 5 will continue the discussion of how to place your ancestor into context with a detailed discussion of census records. For now, though, let's concentrate on methodologies for placing your ancestors' lives into context and get started locating these records.

Place Your Ancestors into Context

Our ancestors were real people. They lived in specific locations and were influenced by other people and events, just as we are today. Their curiosity and interest in the world around them was keen. Like the people shown in Figure 4-2, they actively sought out the news of the day, sometimes even traveling considerable distances to obtain a newspaper. They lived in a community and interacted with their family members, friends, neighbors, and other people in the area. The climate influenced their lifestyle, and the social, political, and economic environment most certainly influenced their lives. The type of government and its organization, leadership, and regulations imposed a structure under which they lived as well. All of these factors contributed to the types of records that may have been created for and about your ancestors.

**FIGURE 4-2** Our ancestors were interested in the news of the day.

An ancestor who was a farmer was dependent on weather and a market for his crop in order to survive and prosper. He may have farmed most of the year but worked elsewhere in the winter months to sustain an income. Another ancestor who was conscripted for military service would have received special training and was probably assigned duties in a specific geographic area. He may have traveled a great deal and been involved in armed conflict.

Consider, for example, an Irish family in the mid-1840s who was impacted by the Potato Famine. Starving and economically devastated, the father may have sought relief for himself and his family by emigrating from Ireland to America. By studying the history of Ireland during that period, you can understand the factors that motivated someone to want to emigrate elsewhere. By also studying the history of America at that time, and the specific area to which the family immigrated, you can gain an appreciation for what drew the family there: jobs, opportunity, cost of living, and climate, to name but a few.

As you can see, it is impossible to research your ancestors in a vacuum. It is important to place them into geographical _and_ historical context, and that means studying history, geography, economics, sociology, and all sorts of materials that may provide you with insights into their lives and into their motivations for making some of the decisions they made.

Become a Student of History

The study of your family's story also becomes a study of history at all levels. I've found that making the connection between my ancestors and the history of the places and times in which they lived has brought history to life. My ancestors came alive for me beginning on the snowy day spent with my aunt and grandmother in January 1962, and my interest in and appreciation for history, geography, and my family heritage were sparked forever. No longer were historical facts merely a memorization of places, dates, and famous people's names. The exploration of _my_ family's history has made me place _them_ in a particular place and time, and I give consideration to what the impact of events in the area at that time might have had on them. I reflect on what their participation in those events, and their interactions with their contemporaries, might have been. No matter their station in life, they come alive for me, and learning more about them is an exciting and enlightening experience!

My brother located some letters a few years ago that were written between 1900 and 1902 by the woman who was to become my paternal grandmother and that were addressed to my grandfather. One poignant letter dated Thursday, 19 September 1901, stated that she, her mother, and two sisters had been up late the night before. The family had attended a special church service that day in honor of President William McKinley who had died on 14 September of wounds sustained from an assassin's bullets on 6 September at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. It was a national day of mourning and the church service coincided with McKinley's funeral in Canton, Ohio. This letter is a personal expression of shock and grief that was echoed in newspaper accounts of the time.

Your research will take you to many interesting places where you will discover a wealth of information. There is no doubt that you will become fascinated with contemplating what your ancestors' lives must have been like as you read and learn more about history.

Historical newspapers can provide details of events and daily life that influenced your ancestors. Millions of newspaper pages are digitized and indexed each year. Database collections such as Ancestry.com and NewspaperARCHIVE.com are available for personal subscription. Others newspaper databases, such as HeritageQuest Online, NewsBank, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, the _Times_ (of London) Archive (1784–1985), and others, are only available by institution subscription. You may be able to access them through public and academic libraries.

Family Histories

Someone may have written a history of your family or an historical account that includes details about your family. Unless one of your ancestors was an eminently famous person whose biography would be of interest to a wide audience, you will find that most family histories are either self-published by the author or privately published. Sometimes an author only produces a few copies of the family chronicle in manuscript form and perhaps donates a copy to the local public library. These gems can be invaluable resources and point you to all sorts of information. However, it is important to use your critical thinking skills to evaluate the content and the source materials. Don't accept any "fact" at face value, even if the family history was compiled and written by Uncle John or Cousin Mary. Research and verify everything for yourself. You may find that all of their information is correct and well researched and that the source evidence was meticulously cited. However, there is no substitute for examining the source materials yourself and forming your own conclusions.

County and Local Histories

Histories written about a limited area, such as a town, county, or parish, can provide important details in your research. _The History of Mecklenburg County from 1740 to 1900_ by J. B. Alexander, originally published in 1902 by the Observer Printing House in Charlotte, North Carolina, proved a goldmine for my family research. I learned a great deal about the history of Charlotte and the surrounding area, which a number of my ancestors helped settle in the early 1700s. Included were articles concerning agriculture, commerce, and economics through the years, which helped me visualize my ancestors' environment. Other articles discussed individual churches, their histories, and their congregations. Modes of travel, clothing, and medical treatments were described. However, of special interest to me were biographical sketches of several of my ancestors, including my great-great-grandfather, Isaac Wilson, M.D., for whom a photograph was included. (See Figure 4-3.) To my knowledge, this is the only surviving photograph of my ancestor, who was born on 30 December 1802 and died on 15 December 1880. Imagine my excitement at learning specific details about him, such as the fact that he was a "progressive physician" who practiced between 1825 and 1875. I learned that he eschewed the practice of cupping, in which a cupping glass was used to increase the blood supply to an area of the skin.

**FIGURE 4-3** This photograph of the author's great-great-grandfather, perhaps the only surviving photograph of the man, was discovered in a county history published in 1902.

My great-great-grandfather organized and participated in both shooting matches and fox hunting. I also learned that he was a justice of the peace and that he officiated at many weddings. This was the first place I learned that he was married three times. Based on what I gleaned from this book, I set off on research to verify the information using other records and found the written account to be extremely accurate.

County heritage books have become popular in the United States and elsewhere over the years. These are primarily compilations of information about places, events, and families whose roots have been based in that area. Organizers solicit articles from area citizens and descendants. Recognize that a great deal of this information may be hearsay or family myth, and may have been written by persons who were neither researchers nor historians. Every fact should therefore be carefully scrutinized and personally verified for accuracy.

There are a variety of places where you can find local histories. Towns and cities celebrating centennials, sesquicentennials, bicentennials, and other milestone anniversaries often publish booklets commemorating the extended history of the area. Articles and photographs may include your ancestors and other family members. In addition, local newspaper and magazine coverage may include similar genealogical treasures. Don't overlook these resources in your search for family information.

Churches and synagogues preserve many types of records and also can be a source of local historical information. Commemorative books and albums are common and may include names, photographs, and other details that may be useful.

The local or county genealogical and historical societies are essential research resources. They may have unique photographic and documentary materials relating to your family that can be found nowhere else. In addition, these groups undertake transcription and preservation projects. These may involve compiling materials, creating indexes, and generating reports or articles for their newsletter or journal. Such projects might include compiling histories of local businesses, canvassing and indexing cemeteries, and transcribing tax rolls and jury lists. They also may possess diaries, journals, photographs, and correspondence files of local residents. You never know what they have until you ask.

The local public library and nearby academic libraries may have originals or copies of documentary information of local historical value. Besides the privately published family histories mentioned earlier, these repositories may also have file cabinets (known as "vertical files") with miscellaneous documents such as correspondence and obituaries. Newspaper clipping files may also contain collections of articles related to specific subjects and people. Some libraries' special collections have acquired unusual sets of records. The library at the University of South Florida in Tampa has acquired the earlier records of several local mortuaries/funeral homes. The special collections department of many public and academic libraries should be explored through their online catalogs and in person.

State and Provincial Histories

Learning about local history is important, but be sure to learn about state and provincial histories as well. These provide a broader perspective of the historical role played by a town or county. This can lead to a better understanding of the events and influences in your ancestor's life.

Again, historical and genealogical societies can potentially provide excellent resources for your research. Libraries of all types hold books about state or provincial history, particularly state libraries and archives. One of my favorite websites is LibrarySpot.com at **www.libraryspot.com**. Here you will find links to all types of libraries in the United States, links to national libraries in more than 100 countries, and many reference resource links. The UK Public Libraries site at **<http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/ac940/weblibs.html>** provides a compilation of links to public libraries in the United Kingdom. The National Archives (TNA) in the UK provides access to a combined catalog of the country's archives called Access to Archives (A2A) at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a**. Library and Archives Canada has created a web page of Canadian library websites and catalogs at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/gateway/s22-200-e.html**. State, provincial, and national libraries and archives provide extensive materials about history. Many of these facilities also house and preserve original sources, as well as printed, microfilmed, and scanned images. Such collections include

  * U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at **www.archives.gov**
  * Library of Congress at **www.loc.gov**
  * Library and Archives Canada at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca**
  * The National Archives (of the United Kingdom) at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk**
  * National Archives of Australia at **www.naa.gov.au**

Many more such national sites can be located by using your favorite search engine and entering terms such as "national library" or "national archive" and the name of the country.

The study of histories of many types will help you place your ancestors in context with the events of the times. Local histories may even contain references to your ancestral family. At the very least, local histories will help you understand the environment in which your ancestors lived and worked and the people in their lives.

National and World History

The influences of national and international events were important factors in the lives of our ancestors, their families, and their communities. The perspective of history gives us the opportunity to better understand our forebears' place in it. You may think that events in France in the late 1700s had little impact on the American continents, but you would be incorrect. On the contrary, following its devastating defeat in the Seven Years' War against Britain (1756–63), France was eager for revenge against the British. When the American Revolution erupted, statesman Benjamin Franklin traveled to Paris and met with French government officials, and the two countries entered into a treaty on 6 February 1778. Franklin met with King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette on 20 March 1778 to confirm that treaty, and with that the French entered into an agreement to provide aid and support to the American colonies. Following the American Revolution, the French helped broker the signing of the Treaty of Paris at Versailles on 3 September 1783, in which Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States of America. (See Figure 4-4.)

**FIGURE 4-4** Signatures on one of two original copies of the Treaty of Paris, signed on 3 September 1783

In another treaty, signed on 30 April 1803, the United States successfully completed the negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase from France at a price of about $27 million. The area comprised more than 800,000 square miles extending from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. In addition to the impact of this on North America, the French also occupied Spain in the early 19th century. The occupation severed commerce between Spain and its colonies in Central and South America. Between 1808 and 1826, the Spanish lost all of Latin America, with the exception of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Emulating the example of their neighbors to the north in the new United States, the Spanish colonies rebelled and ultimately claimed their independence.

Another important event in France in the late 1780s was the formation of a group, the Société des Amis des Noirs (Society of the Friends of the Blacks), who met in Paris in early 1788 to campaign against the French slave trade. On 4 February 1794, slavery was abolished in the French colonies. The news spread across the Atlantic and slaves were freed in those colonies. The action did not go unnoticed in the United States and elsewhere. By 1807, the slave trade in all British colonies was abolished and, in that same year, the United States Congress passed legislation prohibiting the importation of slaves into the country and its territories. Slave smuggling persisted through 1862 until President Abraham Lincoln's _Emancipation Proclamation_ abolished all forms of slavery in the Southern states, effective on 1 January 1863. The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed by Congress on 31 January 1865 and adopted on 6 December of that year, ending slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States and greatly expanding the civil rights of Americans.

As you can see, events on a national level had far-reaching and enduring impacts elsewhere. That is why it is important to study history and to consider how all world events may have impacted your ancestors and their contemporaries. The French actions described above can be applied to persons of French, Spanish, English, North American, South American, and African descent. You will find that it is imperative to learn something about the history of both the place where your ancestors originally lived _and_ the places to which they immigrated. There definitely is a push-pull influence involved that, if you take the time to explore histories, may provide a much clearer understanding and appreciation of your heritage.

Use Maps to Locate the _Right_ Place to Research

Maps, like the one shown in Figure 4-5, are an essential part of our everyday life. We consult them to plot travel routes as we move from place to place, check them to determine correct postal codes, and use them in a wide variety of other ways. We find maps today printed on paper, on the Internet, and in computer software programs, and the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is becoming more widespread.

**FIGURE 4-5** Historical Ordnance Survey map of Oxford, England, from the early 20th century

Throughout history, maps have changed again and again. Boundaries have moved, towns have come under different jurisdictions, place names have changed, and some places have ceased to exist for countless reasons. Therefore, we cannot simply use contemporary maps as references for locating records. We must use a number of types of historical maps in our genealogical research. In order to determine the _right_ place to look for records and other evidence, it is essential to understand the geographical history of an area. Many genealogists hit "dead ends" and waste inordinate amounts of time because either they fail to understand the importance of properly using maps in their research or they don't possess the skills to use them.

Avoid Wasted Time and Energy

Imagine the frustration of having planned a vacation that included research at a courthouse in a particular area, only to discover when you arrived that the information you were seeking was actually located in another county's courthouse. It happens all too frequently, especially when a person fails to determine beforehand where his or her ancestors lived _and_ which county had jurisdiction over the area at that time.

Perhaps expending the time and expense of a research trip is an extreme example, but it does happen. However, there are many other ways we can waste time and money researching the wrong materials. You want to avoid the following types of errors:

  * Researching in the wrong books
  * Checking the wrong census areas
  * Using the wrong indexes and other finding aids
  * Ordering and researching the wrong microfilm reels
  * Writing to the wrong courthouse
  * Researching the wrong geographical areas and records in databases and on the Internet
  * Traveling to the wrong location

Worse yet, you could actually be researching the wrong ancestors! When your family has a common name and there are people of the same name in the area, it is entirely possible to latch onto the records of one individual whose details seem "almost right." You might then spend a great deal of time tracing that person's records until you encounter names, places, dates, and other evidence that definitively tell you that you've been on a wild goose chase. Don't think it can't happen to you; it happens to the best of us.

Use Maps for Multiple Purposes

Maps are a necessity in our genealogical research. They help us locate landmarks, waterways, roads and streets, towns, cities, counties, parishes, states, provinces, territories, countries, oceans, continents, islands, and more. Contemporary and historical maps, such as the one shown in Figure 4-6, help us determine the geopolitical jurisdictions in place at a specific time. They provide a visual representation of the geographic spatial relationships between physical locations, and can help us place our ancestors' physical location into perspective. This can help us better understand where they might have been in relationship to events occurring around them.

**FIGURE 4-6** Map of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, circa 1770

I happen to use historical maps of and from the 16th to 19th centuries to plot the possible migration paths followed by my own ancestors in the American colonies. This means having studied the history of migration routes north and south as well as across the Appalachian Mountains. The investment in that research has allowed me to plot the potential migration routes for ancestors between two points and to anticipate what their journey entailed at that time. Then, using colored markers, I draw the probable routes on a map and begin researching the interim stops they may have made and the records that may have been created and left behind. The process has been remarkably successful, and I'd like to share it with you.

Because boundaries change frequently over time, using historical maps enables you to find the boundaries that existed at the times your ancestors lived in specific places. It is important for you to know which government had jurisdiction in the area and created official documents. The documents of the period will have remained with the old governmental entity even if the boundaries changed. Check in the offices of the government that had responsibility for the area at the time your ancestor lived there.

Use a Methodology That Works

I have worked with maps for many years and have found a practical methodology for working with maps and other related resources that can improve your success at locating the _right_ place to search for records.

Step 1: Start with a Contemporary Map

Obtain a good current map of the area where you believe your ancestors lived in the past. There are many excellent map resources available, including bound atlases, printed individual maps for areas, and maps available from motoring associations such as the American Automobile Association (AAA) and their counterparts in other countries. In addition, highway department maps at a local, county, or other administrative area level provide excellent detail, including secondary and tertiary roads, natural landmarks, churches and cemeteries, and other features. Whatever maps you use should include contemporary boundary lines.

You probably won't want to use cheap maps and atlases because they seldom contain as much detail as you would like, and they sometimes contain errors or omit important features. Maps on the Internet services also are sometimes less than accurate, and seldom contain the detail you need, especially boundaries. Beware of driving directions from these sites, and always compare two sets of driving instructions for conflicting information. Consider the creator of the map, their authority and expertise, the purpose of the map, and the accuracy.

On your good contemporary map, follow this progression and make notes as you proceed:

  1. Locate the place you seek.
  2. Note the name of the specific county or province in which it is located today.
  3. Make specific note of the location within the contemporary boundaries.
  4. Note surrounding towns or cities and their direction from your site.
  5. Make note of other surrounding geographic features such as waterways, mountains, and shorelines, and their physical position in relation to the place you located.

It is possible that the place you are searching for isn't listed on the map. Perhaps it is too small or is an unincorporated area, or perhaps the place has been renamed or no longer exists. What do you do? Never fear, there are other resources available to you. Local histories are invaluable in helping locate these places. However, one of the best tools you can use is a _gazetteer_ , also referred to as a _place name dictionary_. There are many of these available for different parts of the world, both printed and Web-based. For United States research, I have become addicted to using the book _American Place Names of Long Ago_ by Gilbert S. Bahn. The work is based on a portion of _Cram's Unrivaled Atlas of the World_ , published in 1898, and whose U.S. information was based on the 1890 U.S. federal census returns.

Among the best Internet-based gazetteers are the following:

  * United States Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System (also referred to as the USGS GNIS), a massive searchable database of United States national mapping information. Located at **<http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic>** , the GNIS allows you to search by name and location, and to narrow your search to specific feature type. I often find this facility indispensable in locating somewhat obscure cemeteries. The results include latitude and longitude, as well as links to a number of mapping services that can be used to display maps. Figure 4-7 shows an image from the GNIS in Google Maps.
  * The Atlas of Canada, located at **<http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/dataservices/gazetteer.html>** , provides access to its Gazetteer Map Service and allows you to search for place and feature names. You can narrow your search to a specific province and territory and/or feature type. In addition, however, the site contains links to collections of different maps, including a large number of historical maps covering the history of Canada, outline maps, and an archive of images from various editions of the _Atlas of Canada,_ going back to the first edition published in 1906.
  * The Geoscience Australia Place Name Search facility, hosted by the Australian government and located at **www.ga.gov.au/place-name/** , is a compilation of more than 322,000 geographic names provided by members of the Committee for Geographical Names in Australasia.
  * The Gazetteer for Scotland at **www.scottish-places.info** is an excellent resource for locating towns and features in Scotland. It also provides an historical timeline feature. In addition, facilities were recently added to allow you to work with areas using either the old Scottish counties or the modern council areas. The former facility is based on the full text of Francis H. Groome's _Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland,_ published in 1885. It also includes an historical map layer that includes maps of all the county and parish boundaries, overlaid with 19th-century six-inch Ordnance Survey maps.
  * GENUKI at **www.genuki.org.uk** has compiled a wealth of helpful resources, and its collection of links beginning with the page at **www.genuki.org.uk/big** includes maps of administrative regions, both contemporary and historical, and other online gazetteer materials.

**FIGURE 4-7** GNIS in Google Maps (Satellite view) showing Woodland Cemetery in Madison, Rockingham County, North Carolina

If you are seeking an online gazetteer facility for another country or locale, you can always use your favorite web browser and enter search terms like the ones shown here:

**gazetteer** _insert country/province name here_

You may be rewarded with search results that you can explore.

You also should consider using the reference resources available to you in libraries of all types. Reference librarians at public and academic libraries are trained to respond to research inquiries from patrons and can direct you to map collections, atlases, and gazetteers. State and national libraries and archives are another resource, and many of them handle reference question requests via telephone and email.

Step 2: Locate and Examine Historical Maps

Your next step is to determine the time period during which your ancestors lived in the area. Locate an historical map of that area from that time period. (See Figure 4-8.) If you are researching your ancestors in the United States, you might want to consult the _Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790–1920,_ by William Thorndale and William Dollarhide. This book provides maps of every state for each of the decennial censuses taken between 1790 and 1920. Each map shows the current counties and their boundaries and the counties in existence at the time of the census and their boundaries. This is an excellent tool for a high-level comparison between the contemporary and historical geopolitical boundaries in the United States. You can follow up with a search for and consultation of a detailed historical map of the period. This is the procedure you should follow for other countries and locales as well.

**FIGURE 4-8** Historical map of Washington, DC, dated 1822

Locate the place you found on your contemporary map in Step 1. Compare it to historical maps from before and after the dates in which your ancestors lived in the area. Make note of the surrounding towns and landmarks you found on your contemporary map and locate these on the historical map. This can be crucial when you are looking for places that changed names or disappeared. More important, though, is to carefully note the administrative boundaries, such as state, parish, or province. If the place you are researching was located in another county at the time your ancestors were there, for instance, you will be seeking to locate records in _that_ governmental division's records and not in that of the current governmental unit's repositories. There are some rare cases in which records are transferred to new jurisdictions, such as when new counties are created. It is therefore important to keep this in mind when asking about the availability of records in and from the original government offices.

Step 3: Fine-tune Your Search Location

The examination of maps is an important factor in locating the _right_ place to research records, but there is another step you should perform. While the _Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790–1920_ is an excellent reference work, it provides detail only at the ten-year intervals at which the federal censuses were taken. You may need to determine a more concise date for when the administrative area was formed. Let's look at two examples.

The Pennsylvania county of Wyoming (see Figure 4-9), for instance, was formed in 1842 from Luzerne County. If you were looking for marriage records of your ancestors from 1840, you would seek them in Luzerne County, while if they were married in 1843, you would look in Wyoming County. I was able to determine the county formation dates through use of _The Family Tree Sourcebook: The Essential Guide to American County and Town Sources_ , published by the editors of _Family Tree Magazine_. I might also search the Internet for information concerning the formation of Wyoming County and its parent county.

**FIGURE 4-9** Historical map of Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, dated 1791

Geopolitical boundaries across Europe have changed time and time again. Poland provides perhaps the most vivid example of boundary changes. The country was partitioned between Austria, Prussia, and Russia in 1772 and each country annexed a portion of Poland. In 1793, Russia and Prussia signed a Second Partition Treaty and more of Poland was seized. In 1795, Russia effected yet a third partition and obtained part of the remainder of Poland. While some of the records from these periods may still exist in Polish archives, others would have been created by the three other national governments. And, since the Kingdom of Prussia no longer exists, what would have happened to all of those records? Jumping forward to 20th-century Poland, the invasion by the German army on 1 September 1939 began yet another period of division. The Germans and the Russians partitioned and divided Poland yet again. As you can see, your research of Polish ancestral records would be dependent on the historical time period, the partitioning of the country, and the governmental jurisdiction at the time, as well as a number of other factors.

Step 4: Identify the Records Created and Their Current Location

It is important to read about the types of records created at the time and their purpose. You also will need to determine if they still exist and where they are located. The type of record often dictates its ultimate fate. Some records are of such a temporary nature that, once they have served their purpose, they are discarded or destroyed. Others are of such perpetual importance that they are maintained permanently or for an extended period of time.

_The Family Tree Sourcebook_ gives detailed descriptions of record types created in each of the United States, the dates when record-keeping for various record types began, and where these records are most likely to be housed today. I say "most likely" because there is the possibility that records may have been relocated for any number of reasons.

When researching in England, you will want to learn about The National Archives in Kew, Richmond, Surrey, and at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk**. The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) in Edinburgh, and at **www.gro-scotland.gov.uk** , is your starting point to learn what is available there, while the General Register Office in Roscommon, Ireland, at **www.groireland.ie** , provides the same type of information for Ireland. The combined Library and Archives Canada site, at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca** , is accessible in both English and French. It offers excellent, well-organized information about available records. The National Archives of Australia site at **www.naa.gov.au** likewise presents information about its record-keeping and details about available resources.

Please note that, as mentioned in Chapter 1, the GROS website says "From 1 April 2011, the General Register Office for Scotland merged with the National Archives of Scotland to become the National Records of Scotland (NRS). This website will remain active until it is replaced in due course by a new website for NRS." The website of the new entity is **www.nrscotland.gov.uk**.

In addition to all of the places previously mentioned, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), whose members are often referred to as "Mormons," has the largest genealogical library in the world. Their website at **www.familysearch.org** is filled with interesting resources.

Step 5: Contact the Repository to Obtain Copies of Records

Once you have determined the _right_ place to search for records, make contact with the facility. _The Family Tree Sourcebook_ provides excellent contact information for facilities in U.S. states and counties/parishes that can help you locate existing records. Materials sometimes are relocated, are stored off-site in another location, have limited or prohibited access due to legislation or governmental restrictions, or have been lost or destroyed. It is therefore a good idea to make contact with the repository of record to determine what they really have, how accessible the materials are, and how to access or obtain copies. This is especially important if you are planning a research visit. You will want to learn the days and hours of operation, what personal access is permitted, and costs. If records are in off-site storage, you will want to determine how you can gain access to them. This may require filing a special request for retrieval of older archived records so that you can work with them when you arrive.

Whenever you make contact with a facility, you can avoid some dead-ends by being prepared and by asking open-ended questions. Over the years, I've found that preparing a written set of the questions I want to ask is a way to make certain that I cover everything necessary and all the contingencies. Try this method yourself and I'm certain you will find it helpful.

Begin by performing some advance research so that you know the names of the persons for whom you are seeking records, what type of records you want, and the correct time period. You should include nicknames and any other names by which a person may have been known. Be certain to use the maiden name of a woman if you are seeking marriage records or other documents created before her wedding date. One distant cousin I always knew to be called "Sudie" actually was born Susan Elizabeth Wilson. It was under her nickname, however, that I found her in some records, and under her birth name that I found her in others.

Open-ended questions are those that require more than a "yes" or "no" answer. For example, if you ask a clerk if their facility has the marriage records from 1902 and he or she responds in the negative, what do you do? Your next question should be, "Can you tell me if the records exist and, if so, where I might be able to locate them?" Otherwise, the clerk may or may not volunteer that information.

Maps Can Equal Success

Libraries, archives, courthouses, records offices, government offices, museums, churches, other physical repositories, and the Internet can all be used to obtain maps. As you can see, this methodology for effectively locating and using maps will substantially improve your chances for success in locating the _right_ place for finding your ancestors' records and other evidence. With this in mind, let's proceed to learn about locating some official documents.

Locate Birth, Marriage, and Death Records

The most basic and yet most important records you can locate for your ancestors are ones that record their birth, marriage, and death information. (See Figure 4-10.) These are generally referred to as "vital records" because they record the vital life events. One of my English friends refers to these as the "hatch, match, and dispatch" records. What makes these records so important is that they not only confirm your ancestor or family member in a specific place at a given point in time, but also potentially connect the person to other family members.

**FIGURE 4-10** Certificate of Registry of Birth from the United Kingdom, dated 18 October 1897

The originals or copies of these records may be in your family's possession, and you just need to ask family members for access to them. However, in many instances and especially in cases of older births, marriages, and deaths, you will have to determine if the records were commonly created at the time and, if so, where they are located. You then will have to expend effort to obtain copies of them, either by mail, email, telephone, or personal visit to the repository where they are held. Some records may have been digitized and made available online in subscription databases or at government websites.

It is important to recognize right away that you may not be able to obtain copies of some records. Creation of a birth certificate, for example, may not have been required at the time your ancestor was born. In the United States, for instance, you may find that some of the counties in a particular state began creating official birth records earlier than others. Kentucky counties, for instance, began creating birth records as early as 1852. In contrast, the North Carolina legislature did not pass legislation requiring counties to create birth and death records until 10 March 1913, and it was not until 1920 that all counties were in full compliance with the law.

Civil registration was implemented in England and Wales in 1837 and required the registration of births, marriages, and deaths. Some people resisted registration for some years, however. Civil registration legislation was not passed in Scotland until 1854. In Ireland, compulsory civil registration of non–Roman Catholic marriages began on 1 April 1845. The registration of births, deaths, and all marriages began on 1 January 1864. Civil registration began in Canada in the mid-1800s but its implementation varied by province and territory. In Australia, the government of each colony or state implemented civil registration independently. Tasmania was the first area to start, beginning to keep records in 1838, and the Australian Capital Territory was the last to implement it, beginning in 1911.

In some cases, laws may limit access to originals or copies of birth records to the individual for whose birth the document was created and/or his or her parents. Certain information on death certificates may also be masked when copies are created, in order to preserve the privacy of the surviving family members and to prevent the release of information that might be used to steal an identity.

Keep in mind that these three types of records—birth, marriage, and death records—can be used to establish the location of your ancestor or family member at a specific place at a point in time. By extension, that helps you begin locating other records created in the same vicinity, which can expand your knowledge of that person and his or her extended family. When official birth, marriage, and death records are not available for whatever reason, you will need to consider locating alternative record sources to establish the same or similar information. We will discuss this later in the chapter.

Birth, marriage, and death records are referred to in the United States as _vital records_ or _vital statistics_. In the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, they are referred to as _civil records_ or _civil registration records_.

Locate Birth Certificates

The first document created for many people was a birth certificate such as the one shown in Figure 4-11. We all have had parents and the vast majority of us were probably born with the benefit of some medical attention. And typically there was a record made of the birth in the form of a birth certificate and/or a hospital or other medical record. A birth certificate is an important document because it is used to verify identity. From a genealogist's perspective, it can be the basis for beginning research in a specific geographic area for other family members and a wide variety of other records.

**FIGURE 4-11** Blank birth certificate form from South Dakota

You will need to determine _where_ the person was born in order to determine if there is a birth certificate from that time. The methodology for using maps to locate the _right_ place to search for records is especially helpful.

_The Family Tree Sourcebook_ , for example, can be used to determine for the United States, state by state, and county by county, when official birth records began to be kept by the government offices in those areas, as well as where to seek them.

Birth certificates come in many formats, with different titles, and contain different amounts of information. At a minimum, you can expect to find the name of the child, the parents' names, the child's date of birth, the child's gender, the location where the birth occurred (or was registered), the name of the attending physician or midwife, and the signature of the registrar. Other information likely to be found on birth records includes the child's birth weight and length, the precise time of birth, and the parents' racial or ethnic background and their occupations. More recent birth certificates may include the child's footprints and perhaps even a photograph. You will find a number of examples of birth certificates in the graphics throughout this chapter. Figure 4-12, for example, shows a certificate issued by a government office in 1942 that confirms a birth entry in the official files dating to 1875. Birth records in different parts of the world may look different and contain different levels of detail, but their intent was to formally record a birth. The Dutch birth certificate shown in Figure 4-13 is a good example of this.

**FIGURE 4-12** Certificate issued in 1942 attesting to a Canadian birth entry in Ontario in 1875

**FIGURE 4-13** An original Dutch birth certificate dated 1886

You may come across an amended birth certificate from time to time. These are used to change or correct information entered on the original birth certificate. A typical reason for the issuance of an amended certificate is to change or correct the name of the child or its parents. Amended birth certificates are also used in cases of adoption. At the time of the legal adoption, particularly that of an infant or small child, a magistrate orders the creation of an amended birth certificate. This document includes the names of the adopting parents and replaces the original birth certificate in all file locations. The original, which lists the natural or birth parents, is typically removed in U.S. locations and placed in a court file with the adoption records. In most cases, these records are sealed by the court and require a judicial order to access them. The amended birth certificate is clearly marked to indicate that it is amended and, in the case of adoption, that there was an adoption that caused its creation.

Birth civil registration forms provide a space for the later addition of a child's name. The name might not be selected until the time of christening, for example. The child's forename may therefore be added to the original document or an amended birth certificate may be issued at a later date.

Delayed birth certificates are not uncommon. Governments, in lieu of an original birth certificate, issue these. In cases in which birth records were not created at the time of a person's birth, or where the original records have been lost or destroyed, the governmental office will issue a substitute document. Typically, the applicant needs proof of birth for identification purposes in order to obtain a passport or a visa, or to apply for pension benefits. The person completes an application and presents him- or herself in a governmental facility, and supplies several alternative forms of proof. These might include a family Bible, school enrollment records, church records, military service records, employment records, and affidavits from other people who were alive at the time of the applicant's birth and who can confirm that the applicant is indeed the correct person. These alternative proofs, all of which are usually sources of secondary information, are reviewed. If they are deemed sufficient, a delayed birth certificate is issued and is considered the legal equivalent of an original birth record. An example of a delayed birth certificate is shown in Figure 4-14.

**FIGURE 4-14** A delayed birth certificate is often issued when no original was created. Alternate proofs are presented to the government for review.

Alternative records can, of course, be used as evidence of the birth. Remember that you must use your critical thinking skills to evaluate these materials and determine whether they contain primary vs. secondary information, or are original vs. derivative sources. You need to determine whether these materials are sufficient to prove the fact in question, in this case, a birth. Some of the many types of alternative records you might be able to use include the following:

  * Baby books created by the parents of other family members might document information about the birth.
  * Christening or baptismal records, such as the one shown in Figure 4-15, may be found in family documents or obtained from a church. These typically contain the child's name, date of birth, parents' names, and sometimes names of other family members and godparents.
  * A birth announcement published in a newspaper or a church publication may provide clues to the date and location of primary birth records.
  * The family Bible may contain entries recording names and dates of birth.
  * Letters, journals, and diaries of members of the immediate or extended family may contain information about a birth.
  * Affidavits from witnesses at or near the time of the event are useful in obtaining delayed birth certificates but may be helpful to you as well.
  * Medical records, although not generally released to persons other than the patient and his or her immediate family members, may provide a date of birth. Medical practitioners often maintained their own records of deliveries they performed.
  * School enrollment records are a good secondary source of birth information. Data may be obtained by making a request of the school administration officials, who may provide photocopies or written responses to specific questions.

**FIGURE 4-15** Certificate of Baptism and Confirmation from Wyoming

Another part of your investigative process also involves using your knowledge of history, geography, and your family, and coupling that with your creative thinking to consider what other types of record and materials might provide evidence of the event.

Find Marriage Licenses and Certificates

Marriage records are among some of the oldest records kept. The earliest ones are found in religious institutions, but others can be found among the many places where civil registration records are located. They are often indexed for easy reference, both in groom and bride sequence by surname and then given name.

In some places, such as U.S. courthouses, you will find large ledgers containing copies of marriage license or marriage certificate documents, maintained in chronological sequence. The older ones are handwritten entries made by a clerk (who may also have been known by the title of "ordinary") that indicate the authorization of a couple to be married. The actual license or certificate was then taken to a member of the clergy, a judge, or a justice of the peace, and the ceremony was performed. The original document was then returned to the courthouse, where the clerk transcribed information about the date of the wedding and the name of the officiating individual. As a result, these entries are often referred to as "marriage returns." Figure 4-16 shows an example of a marriage return from the State of Indiana.

**FIGURE 4-16** This 1860 marriage license from Indiana was returned to the county clerk after the ceremony for registration and filing.

In other places, there are civil offices or civil registration offices at which the license to wed was issued. In the United Kingdom, the completed marriage document ultimately was sent to the General Register Office (GRO), where it was recorded and filed. Quarterly indexes were compiled by groom's name and bride's name, along with the civil register book number or letter and the page number on which the marriage was recorded. By locating this information, you can order online from the GRO a certificate containing the information inscribed on the original marriage document on file.

In some cases, you may find the original documents in a government office, or you may obtain a copy of the document or a certified document, such as the one shown in Figure 4-17, attesting to the content of the marriage entry.

**FIGURE 4-17** This Certified Copy of an Entry of Marriage was issued in Gloucester, England, in 1919 as legal documentation of the marriage.

Marriage laws have varied over time in different places. The legal age at which an individual could enter into a marriage contract may have been 16, 18, or some other age. Exceptions to these laws may have been made with the express permission of one or both of the parents of a minor. In addition, laws dictating the permissibility of marriage between couples who shared a certain consanguinity, or blood relationship, were generally closely adhered to. For example, a person might not be permitted by law to marry his or her sibling, first cousin, uncle or aunt, or another close relative.

Marriage licenses are common across the world. What differs, however, are the formats and the amount of information contained on them. The typical marriage record will include the name of the groom, the name of the bride, the date and location, the name or signature of the person who officiated, and the names or signatures of at least two witnesses. Other records may include far more details, such as the ages or even the dates of birth of the bride and groom, the names of their parents, the filing date and location, and the name or signature of the clerk or ordinary. English marriage registrations even include the addresses of the bride and groom. Others may include the occupation of the fathers of the couple.

The elaborate marriage certificate shown in Figure 4-18 appears to have been issued by the church rather than by a governmental office as there is no registration information on it. The couple's names are Germanic, and the bride's name, Adolphine M. Reeb, is followed by the notation, "geb. Kleinknecht." The "geb." is an abbreviation for the German word _geborene,_ which is the feminine of the German word for _born_ or, in this context, _née._ This notation indicates that Kleinknecht was the bride's maiden name, and that she had been married before. Also note that another member of her family, Theodor (or Theador), signed the document as one of the witnesses.

**FIGURE 4-18** This elaborate marriage certificate, dated 20 April 1881, was probably issued by a church.

The earliest marriage documents recorded royal or noble marriages. Over time, marriage documents became more common and were issued and recorded by churches. These were all handwritten, often in florid script or calligraphy. Later ones used standardized forms. Still others can be found that are extremely ornate, with elaborate artwork, gold or silver leaf, wax or metallic seals, and affixed with ribbons.

There are other records that can be used to help prove a marriage or the intent to marry. The following list includes a number, but certainly not all, of the kinds of alternative record types you might use to help document a marriage:

  * Marriage banns are a public announcement, read out on at least three successive occasions in a parish church, of a declaration of intent to marry. These may be documented in church minutes, bulletins, and other publications. Figure 4-19 shows a page from an English parish church's marriage banns in 1796. Before the use of formal marriage certificates, marriage banns found in church records may be the only proof of the joining of a couple.
  * Marriage bonds were sworn by the groom and witnessed as a declaration of the intent to solemnize a marriage.
  * Newspaper announcements of engagements and marriages can provide clues to the date and place of a wedding that you can then follow up to locate primary documents.
  * A wedding invitation is an excellent indicator of intent that you may use to help locate a primary marriage record. Remember that dates on a preprinted invitation may have been changed due to unforeseen circumstances.
  * Marriage ceremonies performed in a religious institution are typically recorded in their records.
  * Civil marriages performed in a city hall or other government office will be found recorded in these governmental offices' files.
  * Bible entries may contain marriage information but should be verified with other records.
  * Letters, journals, and diaries may discuss details of a wedding, the persons who attended, and other details of the occasion.
  * Printed announcements, notices in church publications, or newspaper accounts of milestone anniversary celebrations, such as a 25th, 50th, or 75th wedding anniversary, are pointers back to the date and location of the original event and original documentary evidence.

**FIGURE 4-19** Marriage banns were announced or published on several successive Sundays to make public a couple's intention to wed.

Marriage records can be helpful in a number of ways. First, they are sources of primary information for the marriage. They place a couple in a specific place on a particular date. Using the name of the person officiating at the ceremony, you may be able to refer to a city directory of the time and connect him (or her) with a specific religious institution. That may lead you to individual and family records for the bride and perhaps even for the groom. Membership records may then point you to previous and subsequent places of residence in the form of entries in church minutes where transfers of membership were noted. Names of parents and witnesses may connect you with other family members, friends, and collateral relatives, too. These are examples of how to use your critical thinking skills and creativity to identify other potentially helpful records.

Research Divorce Records

Records of a divorce are far less numerous than marriage records, and so you would think they would be easier to locate. Unfortunately, though, that is not always true. Some courthouses, record offices, and government facilities have done an excellent job indexing the divorces by the names of the husband and wife. In other places, the divorce documentation may be filed only under the name of the plaintiff—the person who sued for divorce. Others, however, may simply have filed divorce petitions and decrees in chronological sequence. This can make your job problematic and may require you to spend hours paging through sheaves of papers. Even if the courthouse or clerks have not been as organized or diligent in their filing, there are other possibilities.

Make certain before you undertake a search for divorce records that you determine which court would have handled the process for the period in time when the divorce likely occurred. For example, in one place and time a divorce might have been handled by a civil court, while in another place the hearings may have been held and the dissolution of the marriage may have been finalized in a family court, a high court of justice in the family division, a superior court, a chancery court, or some other judicial division. Figure 4-20 shows an example of a bill of divorce handed down by a chancery court in 1846. Knowing in advance what the laws were at the time _and_ the court of law that handled marriage dissolutions at the time can be crucial to your success.

**FIGURE 4-20** Simple bill of divorce dated 5 March 1846 found in chancery court records

Contact the court that would have handled the divorce petition or suit before you make a trip there. If an index of documents does not exist, request a search of the minutes of the appropriate court. The minute books are well indexed to facilitate location of pertinent documentation, reference to previous court hearings and actions, and the expeditious handling of cases by the magistrate. You may have greater success by obtaining the dates of the filings and hearings in the court minutes, and then going directly to the records filed in chronological sequence.

Early records were handwritten, and reading the clerk's penmanship may be a challenge. Later records are typewritten and easier to read.

Locate Death Certificates

The sheer volume of records created as a result of a contemporary individual's death can be enormous. However, you may find that records from earlier times may be nonexistent. The creation and existence of these records will depend on a number of factors. Did the government require them to be kept? Who was responsible for creating them: the government or the church, or both? What information was to be included? Where were these records stored and for what duration? Were there natural or manmade catastrophes that caused records to be lost or destroyed? How will you find out what is and is not available?

A common death record is the death certificate. While a death registration was common in England and Wales from 1837, in the United States the issuance of an official, government-issued death certificate was not required until much later. In fact, a death certificate was not required in many states until the first two decades of the 20th century. Again, _The Family Tree Sourcebook_ can help you determine when records were kept in a specific U.S. state and where they may be found. Please remember that a death certificate is a source for _primary information_ about the death itself but is decidedly a source for _secondary information_ about the birth and other facts. This other information should be corroborated with other primary evidence.

Death records come in many forms. The form familiar to most people in the United States is the death certificate, and the format and amount of information included varies by location and time period. Other documents, however, serve a similar or identical purpose for genealogists because they are, after all, official documentation of a death. These might include a coroner's report, an autopsy, the final report of an inquest into the cause of death, or a ruling on evidence of an actual or assumed death presented to a judge or jury. This latter situation would include, among others, a case in which a person has disappeared and, after some period of time, is declared dead by a court of law. You also may encounter or obtain a document that acts as a certified copy of an original death certificate or that certifies the official death entry in the government's records. Figure 4-21 shows an example of a certified copy of a death entry document from the United Kingdom.

**FIGURE 4-21** Certified Copy of an Entry of Death document from Staffordshire, England, for 1875

Death certificates aren't necessarily 100 percent accurate. Death certificates in the United States contain both primary _and_ secondary information. Information about the date of death is probably quite accurate because the document was created at or near the time of the event. The name of the mortuary or funeral home and intended place of interment are also likely to be correct. Some person (an informant), however, provided other information, and he or she may not have known correct details about the decedent's date of birth, parents' names, and other data. Always use that data as clues but locate other original sources of primary information and personally verify the correct information.

You will remember from our discussion of sources that a death certificate can be a source of both primary _and_ secondary information. Since a death certificate is an official record of a person's death, it is usually created at or very near the time of death in order to record the event. There also are instances of amended death certificates being issued in order to correct or add to information entered on the original document.

The veracity of the information on a death certificate will depend on where the information originated. Information about the identity of the decedent and the death itself are usually obtained from medical, law enforcement, forensic, and other professional persons. It is their job to gather and report the correct information. You would therefore place a significant amount of credence in their data and, if placed on a certificate created at or very near the time of death, consider it to be good primary information. The name of the mortuary is generally accurate, and the intended place of interment or disposition of cremains is an excellent clue for more documentary information.

Other information found on a death certificate may not be as reliable as that gathered by the professionals. Someone who supposedly knew something about the deceased may have provided the other details included on a death certificate. Another family member or friend is usually solicited to provide the information, and he or she is referred to as the "informant." The informant may or may not know the answers to all the questions that are asked and, on the spur of the moment, may provide what he or she "thinks" is correct. As a result, there are many errors entered on death certificates. Unless the informant has direct, first-hand, and accurate knowledge of facts, the information provided can only be assumed to be secondary in nature. Everything should therefore be verified or corroborated with other sources before you accept those items of information as fact.

As an example, let's examine the death certificate presented in Figure 4-22. The name of the person may or may not be correct, depending on the source of the information. The informant provided information concerning the decedent's date and place of birth, parents' names, marital status, name of spouse, occupation, place of residence, and other data.

**FIGURE 4-22** Certified copy of a death certificate for the author's great-grandmother from Floyd County, Georgia, issued in 1935

When you request a copy of a death certificate, you may receive an exact copy of the original document, such as a photocopy. However, it is altogether likely that the official office from which you order a copy will issue a certified document attesting to be information correctly copied from the original death registration document. Figures 4-21, 4-22, and 4-23 are examples of certified copies, the first from the GRO in the United Kingdom and the other two from the United States. These copies commonly contain far less information than the original document. Remember that an exact copy of the original is your better resource, and that transcription errors might be made despite all caution. If you order a copy of a marriage or death record, request an exact copy of the original rather than a transcribed certified copy, if possible.

**FIGURE 4-23** Certified copy of a death record from New Jersey, issued in 1961

Other source materials for determining date of death and other family details include newspaper obituaries (a veritable wealth of clues!), burial permits, transit permits, medical records, family Bibles, tombstones and other cemetery markers, cemetery/sexton records, religious records, mortuary and funeral home records, and wills and probate records, just to name a few.

We've covered a great deal of territory in this chapter. By now, you have a well-grounded feel for how to conduct scholarly research and some excellent methodologies to help ensure your success. Chapter 5 will take you into a thorough examination of census records, which in turn can lead you to a wealth of other records.
5

Use Census Schedules and Records to Locate Your Ancestors

**HOW TO...**

  * Understand and work effectively with United States census records
  * Discover the history of the British, Scottish, and Irish censuses
  * Learn more about the census in Canada
  * Locate information about censuses in other places
  * Gain access to census records

Among the most important records that exist for confirming the presence of an ancestor at a particular place at a specific point in time are census records. A _census_ is defined as an official count of a population carried out at regular intervals. Censuses have been taken for many centuries in many countries and territories. Over the centuries, censuses were taken for purposes of taxation, determination of legislative representation, analysis of trends in population growth and movement, and planning.

Census records are the documents most frequently used by genealogists, and their use continues to accelerate and grow. This is especially true with the availability and expansion of Internet-based databases containing digitized census document images and searchable indices.

We are going to focus on the available census records in the United States, the British Isles, and Canada in this chapter. Unfortunately, early Australian census records have been destroyed by the government and no known copies exist.

Certainly other countries have taken censuses at various times and, if you are interested in learning more about them and accessing extant records, you can use your web browser to locate archives and other repositories in which the records may be located. Other census indexes, transcriptions, and images are accessible at various websites. For example, Ancestry.de, the German genealogy subscription database, contains some German census records (Volkszälung) such as the image shown in Figure 5-1.

**FIGURE 5-1** German 1900 census record

You will not always find entire countries' historical census record images on the Internet. You will need to search websites, particularly those of national archives and libraries, and visit subscription websites to locate what holdings they may have and learn how and where to access them. Some census records also may have privacy limitations that prevent the contents from being revealed for a substantial number of years. The U.S. federal censuses are not available for public viewing, for instance, until 72 years after the census. Census records in the United Kingdom are not available until 100 years after the enumeration.

As we discuss census records, be aware that they can be a source of primary information to help establish a person's location in a specific place at a certain point in time. Even that is suspect at times, as you will see. All other information on a census document should definitely be considered secondary information, and should be verified and corroborated with other sources whenever possible.

Census records are the documents most frequently used by genealogists. They help you locate your ancestor and his or her family at regular intervals, and the records contain important details about their lives, citizenship, employment, and family members and other people living with them.

Understand and Work with United States Census Records

In the United States, there have been censuses taken by the federal government every ten years, beginning in 1790 and continuing to the present. (A federal census was taken in 1885 for six states and territories and was intended to supercede the results of the 1880 census for those areas.) A number of state and territorial censuses also have been conducted periodically and these can supplement your use of federal census records in American research. Prior to 1790, a few of the original 13 colonies performed partial or complete enumerations of citizens for their own purposes. Some of these records still exist and, in order to locate them, it is a good idea to contact the respective state archive or state library to determine what might have been created, what might still survive, and where to locate the materials. Sources for digitized images of U.S. census records include Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Fold3.com, and HeritageQuest Online. (HeritageQuest Online is only available through libraries.) Not all census documents have been digitized, however; some may be available only in original paper records or in a microfilmed format.

The United States Constitution, which took effect on 4 March 1789, established the taking of a national census on a regular basis. Article I, Section 2 specifically called for a census to be taken every ten years. Direct taxation of the population to support the federal government's operation was to be based on census information. The Constitution stated that each free person counted as a whole number, including those bound for service for a term of years, and that free males would be taxed and could vote. Indians living on treaty land were excluded from direct taxation and voting. Other, non-free persons were to be counted as three-fifths of a free person for legislative representation. An Indian who joined the white population was to be considered a "free person" and could vote. The entire text of the Constitution is available at the Library of Congress website at **<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/continental>** and an extensive article about the Constitution is available at **<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_states_constitution>**.

Federal censuses have been taken every decade from 1790 through 2010. An official Census Day was established for enumerators to ask questions "as of" that date. The official United States Census Day for each census is shown here:

1790 | 2 August
---|---
1800 | 4 August
1810 | 6 August
1820 | 7 August
1830 through 1900 | 1 June
1910 | 15 April
1920 | 1 January
1930 through 2010 | 1 April

The enumerators, or census takers, were given a deadline by which time they were to accomplish their work, instructions to follow, and a set of questions to be used. Census forms for the 1850 to 2000 censuses are available at **<http://usa.ipums.org/usa/voliii/tEnumForm.shtml>**. The enumerators' instructions for the 1850 through 1950 censuses can be found at **<http://usa.ipums.org/usa/voliii/tEnumInstr.shtml>**. Refer also to the website at **<http://usa.ipums.org/usa/voliii/tQuestions.shtml>** for only the questions for 1850 through 1950 and for both the questions and the instructions for the 1960 through 2000 censuses.

Assistant marshals of the U.S. judicial districts performed the earliest census enumerations, 1790 through 1870. At the time of the 1790 census, there were 16 federal court districts. These represented each of the original 13 states and Vermont, which was included in the first census even though it didn't become a state until 1791. The 2 additional districts comprising the 16 represented the area of Virginia that became Kentucky and the area of Massachusetts that became Maine. These marshals performed the census enumerations in addition to their ordinary duties. They were poorly paid for their work and often had to purchase paper, pens, ink, horse feed, and other supplies with their own funds. They had little incentive to do a good job. They sometimes erred in the areas in which they were assigned. When they failed to reach the state and county boundaries they were assigned to enumerate, or when they enumerated past these boundaries, the result was either omitted residents or duplication of other marshals' enumerations. During these decades, Congress provided funding for the enumeration period and a subsequent tabulation only. This funding was usually appropriated in the Congressional session prior to the enumeration year.

It is important to note that the early federal census forms from 1790 through 1840 contained only the names of the heads of household, with the other members of the household represented numerically in categories organized by age, gender, and race. Figure 5-2 shows an example of the 1820 census, which recorded this type of enumeration.

**FIGURE 5-2** The 1820 U.S. federal census contained only the names of the heads of household and included numerical counts of persons by age group, gender, and free or slave status.

The first central Census Office established in Washington, D.C., to coordinate the taking of a decennial enumeration was opened in 1850. It was not until the 1850 census that the names of all persons within a household were listed. When the enumeration was complete, the documents were sent to Washington and the final tabulation and reporting was performed. When these activities were finished, the office was disbanded and all census activity was discontinued until preparation for the next census. The same process was used for both the 1860 and 1870 censuses.

A Congressional act established and provided funding for a permanent Census Office beginning in 1880. That year marked significant changes to the U.S. federal census process in a number of ways. For the first time, the assistant federal marshals were removed from the process. The Census Office hired employees to conduct the enumerations, devised formal Enumeration District maps and descriptions, revised the enumeration instructions, and revised the census forms (or census schedules as they are called). The most common of the federal census documents is the Population Schedule, a sample of which from 1880 is shown in Figure 5-3. These and other schedule documents are discussed next.

**FIGURE 5-3** An 1880 U.S. federal census Population Schedule for Floyd County, Georgia

In the 1880 census, the revision of the Population Schedule format called for the names of all inhabitants _and_ their relationship to the head of household to be included, and this is an important addition for genealogists. Table 5-4 at the end of this chapter defines for each federal census each of the census forms, or schedules, used for each enumeration year, and what information can be found on each schedule.

**TABLE 5-4** U.S. Federal Census Records, 1790 through 1940

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Understand Originals vs. Copies of Census Documents

There have been various numbers of copies of the original documents created as part of the census enumeration process. From 1790 through 1820, the states sent only summary data to Washington, D.C., and kept their original census documents. The summaries for 1790 through 1810 were destroyed during the War of 1812 when the British burned Washington, D.C.

In 1830, Congress passed legislation that required the states to send all pre-1830 original documents to Washington, D.C. Some states complied while others, unfortunately, sent nothing or only partial documentation. As a result, you may find that no census materials exist for certain states for certain years, or that only partial records exist.

If you examine Table 5-1, you will notice that for census years 1830 through 1885, copies of the original census schedules for each state (not summaries) were sent to Washington, D.C., and not the original documents, which were kept by the states. It is important to note that the census schedules that ultimately ended up in the possession of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) are the originals returned by the states for 1790–1820. Documents submitted for the 1830 through 1885 censuses were transcribed copies of the original documents completed by the enumerators. The documents for all subsequent enumerations were originals. The copies are transcriptions and, by their very nature, are prone to the possible introduction of transcription errors. In the case of the 1870 census schedules, a transcription of a transcription was actually sent.

**TABLE 5-1** U.S. Federal Censuses, Number of Copies, and Disposition

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All of the digitized U.S. documents you find online for the 1790 through 1930 censuses at sites such as Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Fold3.com, and HeritageQuest Online were made from microfilmed images of the NARA documents. The 1940 census documents were digitized directly from the census schedules. Therefore, whenever you work with census images on microfilm and in online databases, remember that the "copy censuses" may be prone to a higher error rate than the originals because some are transcribed copies of the original schedules. Transcription errors may have been introduced.

Use Strategies to Work with Population Schedules

The census Population Schedule is the most comprehensive of the U.S. federal census documents, and contains entries for each household. The completeness and accuracy of the enumeration was, of course, dependent on the quality of the work performed by the enumerator, the answers provided by the respondent, and any transcription work done to generate a copy or copies.

Certainly there are omissions in any census. This can be the result of an enumerator missing a residence for whatever reason. An important strategy for every genealogist when working with census records is to locate the family you are researching in one census, and to make note of three to six other families on either side of your family. The reason you will do so is to create a reference group for researching other census years. If you find your family in one census and cannot locate them in the next, check any indexes for that census and look for the neighbors next to them in the previous or subsequent censuses. If you can find the neighbors but your family is not there, there are four possibilities:

  * The enumerator omitted or skipped your family's residence.
  * Your family was not home, or refused to participate, when the enumerator called.
  * Your family moved.
  * Your family was deceased, which is more probable when there was only one family member at that location or if the family members were elderly at the time of the previous census.

Another important strategic consideration is that families who lived next door or close to one another, especially in the earlier times, may have intermarried. A check of marriage records in the area may reveal a marriage between families, in which case your "missing" family member may have relocated to live with the newly married couple. I have found numerous examples in my own family ancestry in which a husband died and the wife relocated to live with a son or daughter and their family. Don't be surprised to find a mother-in-law living with her daughter and son-in-law, and even buried in their cemetery plot.

Perhaps the best advice I can give you when doing your genealogical research is to learn how to _misspell_ your family members' names. Heaven knows, they misspelled them and so did the other people who created records about them. Consider the many spellings of the surname of SMITH. There are SMITH, SMYTH, SMYTHE, SMIT, SCHMIT, SCHMIDT, and even extended spelling versions of the names such as SMITT, SMITTY, SMITHERS, and many more. One of my ancestors, John Swords, has military service and pension records from the Revolutionary War filed under the spellings of SWORDS, SOARDS, and SORDS, and that doesn't include several other errors in indexes other people have prepared. You can prepare yourself for your research in any type of records by considering the spelling of the surnames, and even the given names, and by preparing a list of alternate spellings and possible misspellings. Using the list, make sure you look for these spellings in census indexes and schedules, or any other records of genealogical importance. By doing so, you can avoid missing records for your own family. Remember, too, that the people who index the digital census images may have introduced errors. The enumerator's handwriting may have been unclear or the indexer may simply have misspelled or omitted a name.

Don't Overlook the 1885 Census

Federal censuses were scheduled to be taken every ten years. However, following the 1880 census, some states and territories complained that there had been errors and that their populations had been undercounted. As a result, they argued that their congressional representation that was based on census population data had been compromised. Congress agreed that it would share 50 percent of the cost with any state or territory desiring another census enumeration. Only five states and territories took advantage of this offer and, in 1885, a special census was taken for these areas:

  * Colorado
  * Dakota Territory (only a part survives)
  * Florida (four counties missing)
  * Nebraska (two counties missing)
  * New Mexico Territory (four counties missing)

Ancestry.com has digitized and indexed the surviving 1885 census documents. Each of these areas' documents are titled as a state census even though the federal government paid half of the expense and the format forms were identical to those used by the 1880 federal census. The only differences were in the header, which stated that this was an 1885 census and that the enumerations were performed in June of 1885.

Use Substitutes for the 1890 Census

The 11th census of the United States, taken in 1890, was different from all others before or since. The Population Schedule included information on only one household per form. It also included a special Veterans and Widows Schedule on which Union soldiers, sailors, and marines, or their surviving widows, were to be enumerated. Again, Congress only financed one copy of the census documents, as it did for all later censuses. States or counties wishing to obtain a copy for their own records would have had to pay for a transcription for their own files. There is no known request having been received for a state or county copy. All original copies of the census documents were sent to the Census Office.

The federal government, recognizing that the tabulation of the 1890 census schedules would be an enormous job, called for a competition to be held for a mechanized method of processing the data to be collected. Herman Hollerith, who had been working on data entry and tabulation machines for a number of years, entered and won this competition. His system utilized punch cards created by use of a manual keyboard resembling a telegraph key. Clerks were able to process an average of 700 cards per day, after which tabulators tabulated an average of 2,000 to 3,000 families per day. As a result, there were over six million persons counted by Hollerith's machines in a single day!

Once the census was complete, the original documents were placed in cartons and stored. In 1896 or 1897, the Census Office destroyed all but the Population Schedules and the Union Veterans and Widows Schedules. The Population Schedules ended up in the basement of the Commerce Building in Washington, D.C., and the Veterans and Widows Schedules were stored on an upper floor. Around 5:00 p.m. on 10 January 1921, a fire broke out in the basement of the building. Records that had not been destroyed by flames had been inundated with water from the firefighters' efforts. The documents were relocated to another storage location but, unfortunately, no salvage was ever performed on the documents. The entire remainder of the 1890 census was destroyed in 1934 or 1935.

The 20-year gap in census records between 1880 and 1900 can seem, at first glance, devastating to your research. However, there are other types of records that can be used as a substitute for this lost census. You will need to use some creativity and refer to reference resources that still exist. These include

  * City directories
  * Jury rolls
  * Voter registration cards and lists
  * Land and property records, including plat maps and tax lists
  * Newspapers and journals

Use the 1940 Census

The 1940 U.S. federal census is different from all previous censuses in that it was never microfilmed. Instead, this census was digitized by NARA from the original documents and will only be available in digital format. On the public access date, 2 April 2012, the 1940 census will be hosted at the NARA website and will not be indexed. It is expected that one or more of the major genealogical database providers will undertake the indexing of the census images after they are made available by NARA.

Use More than Just Population Schedules

The primary type of census document used by the federal government is the Population Schedule. As we have discussed, the amount of information requested and entered on the Population Schedules varied over time. Additional schedule forms were used at various times, and these include the following types of schedules. All of these through 1930 have been microfilmed and are available from NARA in Washington, D.C., and are accessible at many of NARA's regional branches. In addition, copies of the NARA microfilm are available through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the LDS FamilySearch Centers, also known as Family History Centers (FHCs). Many have also been made available at Ancestry.com, as noted.

  * **Slave Schedules** Used in 1850 and 1860 to determine the numbers, vital statistics, and living conditions of slaves. You can cross-reference the slaveholders' names to Population Schedules on which they were listed. (See Figure 5-4.) Available at Ancestry.com.
  * **Mortality Schedules** Used in the 1850 through 1885 censuses to determine how many persons died in the 12 months prior to Census Day, their vital statistics, duration of illness, and cause of death. (See Figure 5-5.) Available at Ancestry.com.
  * **Union Veterans and Widows Schedule** Used in the 1890 census to enumerate the Union veterans of the U.S. Civil War and widows of Union soldiers. (This is the only substantial surviving fragment of the 1890 census—see Figure 5-6.) Available at Ancestry.com.
  * **Agricultural Schedules** Used in the 1840 through 1880 censuses to determine what agricultural activity was being conducted (farming, ranching, forestry, mining), the value of the land and agricultural output, and production in some key products. These can be used to determine the location and size of an ancestor's land holdings, the commodities in which he was engaged in producing, and the livestock he owned. They provide detailed context of your farming ancestor's life. Some of these schedules for some states are available at Ancestry.com in a database collection titled "Selected U.S. Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850–1880."
  * **Industry and/or Manufacturing Schedules** Used in the 1810 through 1910 censuses to determine the industrial and manufacturing activity and output, value of products, and other data. Many of these schedules have been lost or the federal government intentionally destroyed them. Images of the surviving schedules are mostly poor quality. Some of these schedules for some states are available at Ancestry.com in a database collection titled "Selected U.S. Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850–1880."
  * **Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent Classes Schedules** Used only in the 1880 census. This was a seven-page document that was completed when the enumerator received a response about one of these types of persons on the Population Schedule. The enumerator could also, through personal observation, make an entry in one of the seven classes as defined as follows:
    * **Schedule 1** Insane
    * **Schedule 2** Idiots
    * **Schedule 3** Deaf-mutes
    * **Schedule 4** Blind
    * **Schedule 5** Homeless children (in institutions)
    * **Schedule 6** Prisoners
    * **Schedule 7** Paupers and indigent persons

Some of these schedules for some states are available at Ancestry.com in a database collection titled "U.S. Federal Census - 1880 Schedules of Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent Classes."

  * **Social Statistics Schedules** Used in the 1850 through 1870 censuses. Important information about towns, counties, or states can be gleaned from these schedules. They include information that can be used as a resource to locate specific types of institutions in these years, and trace any surviving records. They include
    * Real estate values and taxes
    * Colleges, academies and schools
    * Crops
    * Libraries
    * Newspapers and periodicals published
    * Churches, affiliation, number of people the building will accommodate, and value
    * Pauperism, crime, and average wages

**FIGURE 5-4** A Slave Schedule from the 1860 U.S. federal census of Augusta County, Virginia

**FIGURE 5-5** Portion of a Mortality Schedule from the 1860 U.S. federal census of Indiana

**FIGURE 5-6** Portion of a Union Veterans and Widows Schedule

In addition to all the census schedules, beginning with the establishment of the Census Office for the 1880 census, the area to be canvassed by each enumerator was more clearly defined. The Census Office designated what were known as Enumeration Districts, or EDs. These were defined and represented with textual descriptions and/or ED maps to define the boundaries for each group of enumerators reporting to a district supervisor. Figure 5-7 shows the ED map for a portion of Detroit in the 1930 census. The enumeration districts defined on ED maps sometimes coincided with political or voting areas, but not always. These ED maps exist for federal census areas from 1880 through 1930, and are accessible on microfilm published by NARA.

**FIGURE 5-7** 1930 Enumeration district map showing an area of Detroit, Michigan

In Chapter 4, I told you about the importance of maps in your research, and provided you with a strategy for using maps to find the _right_ place to locate your ancestors and their records. The censuses can provide you with another opportunity to use different types of maps. An ED map is helpful if you know your ancestors' address and where in the area that address is situated. Once you know the ED in which your ancestors and family members lived, you greatly improve your chances of quickly locating the right census page(s) to find them, even if the surname was misspelled. There are other resources you can use to help you with this:

  * **City directories** are name and address listings published on a fairly regular basis in towns and cities, and were used to help people locate one another. Some of these directories include both individual persons and businesses.
  * **Telephone directories** , like city directories, can be helpful in locating addresses.
  * **Land and property records** , which we will discuss in a later chapter, typically include deeds, indentures, tax rolls, lien papers, and other records indexed by name for easy location by the property clerk, tax assessor, and other government officials. These can provide the names and addresses of the owners, and the governments' maps of property for taxation purposes can be compared with ED maps to help quickly establish a family member's location.
  * **Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps** were used in the United States to clearly document urban areas for property and casualty insurance purposes from 1867 until about 1970. These maps provide street-by-street details concerning the buildings, the materials used in their construction, the use of the building, and other information. Additional maps of sub areas provide extensive detail down to the actual shape of an individual building and its construction materials. You can use a Sanborn map in conjunction with directories and land and property records, and compare it against an ED map in order to quickly home in on an ancestor's census records. These maps may be accessible through an academic or public library's subscription to the Digital Sanborn Maps 1867–1970 database.

Use Census Finding Aids to Locate Your Ancestors

Indexes to the 1790 through 1870 federal censuses are available for most states in book form and can be found in many public libraries with genealogical collections and in academic libraries with genealogical and governmental documents collections.

Online subscription databases offering access to U.S. federal census indexes include those at Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Fold3.com, and, through many libraries, HeritageQuest Online, operated by ProQuest. At the time of this writing, no online service provides access to every census schedule type or to any ED maps. These online database services provide links to actual census Population Schedule document images. Ancestry.com provides additional indexes for the 1885 federal census enumeration conducted in and for the five states and territories mentioned earlier and in Table 5-4 at the end of this chapter.

Use Soundex and Miracode Index Resources

Another important finding aid for locating your ancestors in the census is the sound-alike indexing system. There were two forms of this system that were used in the retroactive indexing of census population schedules for 1880 through 1930: the Soundex and Miracode systems. They were initially developed for use by the Social Security Administration in the late 1930s as a means of confirming in lieu of birth certificates the ages of people applying for benefit payments. These systems were used for some states in the 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 censuses as follows:

1880 | Includes all states but only those households with children aged ten years and younger
---|---
1900 | Complete for all households in all states, with separate cards for each adult whose surname differed from the head of household
1910 | Includes only 21 states: AL, AR, CA, FL, GA, IL, KS, KY, LA, MI, MS, MO, NC, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, and WV
1920 | Includes all states as well as U.S. territories at the time: Alaska, Hawaii, the Canal Zone, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, and military and naval institutions
1930 | Includes only 12 states: AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, and WV

Soundex and Miracode are similar coding systems that use the first letter of the surname, followed by three numbers to represent the next three remaining consonants (no vowels are used in determining the numeric portion of the code) in the surname. This number is used to group together similar sounding names—such as Smith, Smyth, Smythe, for example—for ease of location.

The coding for Soundex and Miracode is actually pretty simple. The four-position code begins with the first letter of the surname, whatever it is. The next step is to take the remainder of the surname, discard all the vowels and the consonants H and W (which may be used as silent letters) and Y (which may be used as a vowel). Retain any remaining consonants. If you have more than three consonants remaining, you discard those additional ones. If you have less than three consonants, don't worry—whatever you have left at this point will be used to calculate the numeric digits. Zeroes are used to represent a "no consonant" situation. If your family surname is LEE, for example, you would have the letter "L" and no consonants remaining. Your Soundex code would be L000.

You select a numeric code for each of the consonants you have left, using Table 5-2.

**TABLE 5-2** Basic Coding Scheme for Soundex and Miracode; Additional Rules Apply

Code # | Represents These Letters
---|---
1 | B, F, P, V
2 | C, G, J, K, Q, S, X, Z
3 | D, T
4 | L
5 | M, N
6 | R
| Disregard A, E, I, O, U, H, W, and Y

Let's take an example. My surname, MORGAN, would be coded as follows:

  1. Surname beginning letter is "M."
  2. Discard vowels "O" and "A."
  3. Remaining consonants are "R," "G," and "N."
  4. Equivalent numeric digits to represent "R," "G," and "N" are 6, 2, and 5.
  5. Soundex code for MORGAN is therefore M625.

There are some exceptions for which some special rules apply. These are pretty straightforward, however, so don't let them throw you. They actually help you obtain a crisper separation.

  * _In surnames with double letters, treat those as a single letter_. For example, the surname SOMMERS would be coded as S562. (The vowels "O" and "E" are discarded, leaving "MM," which is treated as a single "M," an "R," and an "S.")
  * _In names with letters side by side that have the same Soundex code value, treat the two letters as one letter_. Here are three examples:
    * MACKEY would be coded M200. (The vowels "A" and "E" are discarded, the consonants "CK" are treated as a single letter and coded as a 2, and the "Y" is disregarded and there are no other consonants, and therefore the last two of the four codes are 0 and 0.)
    * TOMCZYAK would be coded T522. (The "M" is coded as a 5, the vowels "O," "Y," and "A" are discarded, the consonants "CZ" are treated as a single letter and coded as a 2, and the "K" is coded as a _2._ )
    * PFISTER would be coded as P236. (The "P" in the double-letter of "PF" is the surname letter, and the "F" is dropped, the "S" is coded as a 2, the "T" is coded as a 3, and the "R" is coded as a 6.)
  * _Names with prefixes, such as CON, DE, DI, LA, LE, LO, VAN, and VON, could have been coded either way by the personnel who created the Soundex or Miracode index._ Therefore, you should code the name both ways and check both listings. In all cases, the surnames beginning with MC or MAC are not considered to have prefixes. These letters are considered part of the entire surname and will be a part of the code.
  * _If the two successive consonants have the same Soundex code and are separated by a single vowel ("A," "E," "I," "O," "U," or "Y"), the consonant to the right of the vowel is coded, and the other one is ignored._ This could be represented by the example of TOMCZYAK above. However, if an "H" or a "W" separates two successive consonants having the same Soundex code, the consonant to the right of the "H" or "W" is not coded. For example, the surname ASHCROFT would be coded A261. (The "S" is coded as 2, the "C" is ignored, the "R" is coded as 6, the "F" is coded as 1, and the "T" is dropped.)

Try the coding system yourself. Dick Eastman, author of _Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter_ , has a Soundex Calculator at **www.eogn.com/soundex**. I have created a Soundex and Miracode list for myself for all the surnames for which I regularly perform research. I keep an electronic copy of the list and a copy of the coding rules as a document on my iPhone. You may want to create a Soundex reference for yourself.

Special index cards, using either Soundex or Miracode, were created at the request of the Social Security Administration for the 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 censuses. As mentioned earlier, these indexes were created in order to help employees of the SSA to verify the ages of persons applying for retirement benefits. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) created these during the Great Depression in the United States, and they were then grouped and microfilmed by WPA personnel and by some other personnel later. The microfilm is available at NARA, at many libraries with sizeable genealogical special collections, and through the local LDS FHC in your area on loan from the main FHL in Salt Lake City, Utah. Soundex and Miracode card records can point you to the exact census district and census page for the actual census entry for your ancestor or family's member. Soundex and Miracode microfilm has not been digitized.

Soundex or Miracode microfilm is organized by state, and then in code sequence. Within code, the cards are organized in alphabetical order by the spelling of the surname, and within surname by initials and/or given name of the primary person on the card.

Figure 5-8 shows a Soundex card from the 1920 federal census. For a smaller family, only the one side of the card would have been completed. In this case, however, Lucius Boddie is the head of the household and his family's Soundex card is filed under B300, and then under Boddie, and then under Lucius' name. The Lucius Boddie family consisted of himself, his wife, and seven children. Since the family was so large, the listing was continued to the back of the Soundex card, which is shown in Figure 5-9.

**FIGURE 5-8** Soundex card for the 1920 census (front) for the Lucius Boddie family

**FIGURE 5-9** Same Soundex card (back) listing remainder of the Boddie family members

In other cases, a person who was not a head of household and did not have the same surname as the head had a separate Soundex card created for him or her. That card indicated the name of the head of household with whom this person had been enumerated. Figure 5-10 shows an example of this for Lottie Bodie, who was enumerated with Benjamin F. Tindall. According to the card, she was his daughter.

**FIGURE 5-10** Soundex card from the 1920 census showing a person who was enumerated in a household of another surname

The Soundex and Miracode indexes were not created for all of the states for the census years mentioned above. Check with your library for more information about what is available for which states. The difference between the censuses coded using Soundex and Miracode is really only in the format of the card and the reference information it provides to the precise location in the census schedules.

The Soundex card provides reference information in the upper-right corner to the actual census volume, the enumeration district, the sheet number (or page), and the line number on the sheet on which the person appears. The Miracode card provides the volume number, the enumeration district, and then the visitation #. This last number refers to the dwelling's sequential number among the total dwellings the census taker visited in the course of enumeration. Please don't confuse this with a street address/ house number.

Use Excellent U.S. Census Reference Books

William Thorndale and William Dollarhide's book _Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790–1920_ (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1987; reprint 2007) is an excellent resource for locating places in the correct state and county for each of the U.S. federal censuses. There were also some censuses taken in colonial times, which may have been documented and/or microfilmed by state archives. (These maps are available as part of the HeritageQuest Online database via the Census Browse function.) Ann S. Lainhart's book _State Census Records_ (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1992; reprint 2008) is an excellent reference on this subject. Three other excellent books regarding the U.S. federal censuses are William Dollarhide's _The Census Book: A Genealogist's Guide to Federal Census Facts, Schedules and Indexes_ (Heritage Quest, 1999), Kathleen W. Hinckley's _Your Guide to the Federal Census for Genealogists, Researchers, and Family Historians_ (Betterway Books, 2002), and Loretto D. Szucs and Matthew Wright's _Finding Answers in U.S. Census Records_ (Ancestry Publishing, Inc., 2001).

Access the Census Images on Microfilm and in Online Databases

Federal census records for the years 1790 through 1930 were microfilmed decades ago and are available through your nearest LDS FHC. Subsequent years' census records are protected through the Privacy Act and are not made public for 72 years. (The 1940 census will be made available only in digital format in April 2012.) You may, however, contact the U.S. Census Bureau to request copies of the census records for your family for later years through 1990. There is a fee for this search service, and you will need to provide proof of your connection to the family.

Ancestry.com at **www.ancestry.com** has compiled the most complete online indexes for the U.S. federal censuses and has digitized the majority of the census schedules. These are available through a paid subscription to their U.S. Collection and through Ancestry Library Edition, an institutional database subscription at many public libraries. Figure 5-11 shows the result of a search at Ancestry.com in the 1930 census records, and you will note a link to view the actual census page for this person.

**FIGURE 5-11** 1930 census search result record for the Hon. Franklin Roosevelt and family from Ancestry.com with a link to the census image

ProQuest has digitized the federal census Population Schedules and made them available through access to its HeritageQuest Online databases. HeritageQuest Online is available by subscription, and you will find that many public libraries have subscriptions. As a library cardholder for one of those libraries, you may be able to remotely access the HeritageQuest Online databases from your home computer.

FamilySearch ( **www.familysearch.org** ) is, at the time of this writing, in the process of digitizing its microfilm records, including the U.S. census records, and indexing them with the help of thousands of individual volunteers.

Fold3.com at **www.fold3.com** is also digitizing and indexing federal census records.

Native American (Indian) censuses conducted over time can be found at Access Genealogy at **www.accessgenealogy.com/native/census/**.

Don't Forget to Search State Censuses

In addition to the federal censuses, at certain times a number of the individual states have conducted their own census enumerations. These typically occurred halfway between the decennial federal enumerations—in other words, at the half-decade mark. These records, many of which have been microfilmed and are stored at the respective state's archive or library, can provide evidence of the presence of your ancestor or family member in a particular location. Some of these microfilmed censuses have been digitized, indexed, and placed online as databases at Ancestry.com.

Ann S. Lainhart has compiled an authoritative reference titled _State Census Records_ , which details which states conducted their own censuses, and in what years, whether the records have been microfilmed and/or indexed, and where the records reside.

Understand and Work with British and Irish Census Records

The first modern census in the British Isles was taken in order to determine the makeup of the population and its activities. There had been a period of poor harvests and food shortages. A substantial number of agricultural workers also had joined the military services and therefore could not be involved with working the land.

The Census Act 1800 (41 George III, cap. 15) was enacted and called for a full population enumeration of England, Wales, and Scotland beginning in 1801. The act also called for an enumeration to be conducted every ten years thereafter. A census has been performed ever since, with the exception of 1941, when all government funding and activity were directed toward the war effort.

In order to determine the livelihoods of the citizens in the 1801 census, questions were asked that elicited responses to help divide the population into three categories: those involved with agriculture, those working in manufacturing and trade, and those engaged in other types of employment. The population of England and Wales in 1801 was almost nine million, and the population of Scotland was a little over 1,600,000. No names were requested, although a few officials did include names in their documents. The questions asked in 1801 included:

  * How many inhabited and uninhabited houses are located within the parish, and how many families live in the inhabited houses?
  * How many persons are living in the parish, how many are males, and how many are females? (Military personnel and seamen in military service or on registered vessels were not to be included.)
  * How many persons are involved with agriculture, with manufacturing or trade, with handicraft, or in other types of employment?
  * How many persons' baptisms and burials have there been within the parish in 1700, 1710, 1720, 1730, 1740, 1750, 1760, 1770, 1780, and in each subsequent year up through 31 December 1800, and how many were there of each gender?

The process of conducting this first census was extensive. Standardized forms were distributed to all households and were to be completed based on persons in a residence as of the census night, 10 March 1801. (See Table 5-3 for census dates.) The information was gathered by enumerators and attached to a copy of the Census Act 1800, and the enumerators presented the documents to a high constable or other officer and swore an oath as to the accuracy of the information. The returns were gathered by the official, endorsed, and submitted with a list of the names of the enumerators to a town clerk or clerk of the peace. The returns were then summarized into statistical reports, which were then submitted to the Home Office by 15 May 1801.

**TABLE 5-3** Census Enumeration Dates for British Censuses 1801–1911

Year | Census Date
---|---
1801 | Monday, 10 March
1811 | Monday, 27 May
1821 | Monday, 28 May
1831 | Monday, 30 May
1841 | Sunday, 6 June
1851 | Sunday, 30 March
1861 | Sunday, 7 April
1871 | Sunday, 2 April
1881 | Sunday, 3 April
1891 | Sunday, 5 April
1901 | Sunday, 31 March
1911 | Sunday, 2 April

**British Isles vs. Ireland**

The term "British Isles" is controversial, especially to many people in Ireland. The Irish government actually discourages the use of the term. The preferred description is "Britain and Ireland," which is more politically correct. From a census perspective, it is more appropriate to refer to the enumerations by their respective geopolitical areas: England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.

A similar format with comparable questions was used in the 1811, 1821, and 1831 enumerations. In 1811, a question was added to determine why a house was unoccupied. In 1821, a question was added to elicit ages of men in order to help determine how many men were able to bear arms. It was also in 1821 that Ireland was first included in the census, and its population at that time was calculated to be over 6,800,000. The 1831 census included more-detailed questions concerning economic conditions.

The 1841 census was the first to record the names of the inhabitants, their gender, and their age (the person's age was rounded down to the lower five-year increment for persons over the age of 15), and therefore is the earliest British census used by most genealogists and family historians. In addition, these census documents were sent to a central government location for tabulation and reference. For that reason, they have been preserved and it has been easier to digitize the documents.

The 1851 census included those persons living on vessels in inland waters or at sea (including the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy). In addition, persons serving abroad with the armed forces, those working with the East India Company, and British subjects residing overseas were enumerated.

Between 1861 and 1891, there were few changes in the format and questions asked on the census. The most important additions from a genealogical perspective, however, were the addition of questions concerning the languages spoken. This question was added for enumerations in Scotland beginning with the 1881 census and for Wales beginning with the 1891 census. It is shown in the last column on the example census form in Figure 5-12.

**FIGURE 5-12** 1891 census form created in the parish of Peterston-super-Ely in Cardiff, South Glamorgan, Wales

The 1901 census included questions to elicit more precise responses. A good introduction to the British census information can be found at The National Archives website at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/census-returns.htm**. Census records' contents are protected in the United Kingdom for a period of 100 years. The 1911 census information was released in digital image format in 2010 with some information redacted. The digitized census images will be re-released in January 2012 with the redacted information restored. The National Archives, previously known as the Public Record Office (PRO), is custodian of the census records for England and Wales, as well as for the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Separate enumerations for Scotland and Ireland were taken, and these records are in the possession of the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) at **www.gro-scotland.gov.uk** and at The National Archives of Ireland at **www.nationalarchives.ie** , respectively. (As mentioned in Chapters 1 and , the GROS website says, "From 1 April 2011, the General Register Office for Scotland merged with the National Archives of Scotland to become the National Records of Scotland (NRS). This website will remain active until it is replaced in due course by a new website for NRS." The website of the new entity is **www.nrscotland.gov.uk**.The UK census indexes and images for 1841 through 1901 are accessible through subscription online at **www.ancestry.co.uk**. The 1911 census was released after some controversy in Parliament concerning early release of the census and possible violation of promised privacy. An index and transcriptions of parts of this census are accessible at the time of this writing at a pay-per-view site, **www.1911census.co.uk** , with more transcriptions available soon.

Work with England's and Wales' Census Records

The British government, like that of the United States, defined an "as of" date for use by the respondents, and this date is referred to as the "census night." The individual household schedule was to be completed based on the persons who were in the household during the period of Sunday night to Monday morning on the dates listed in Table 5-3.

It is important that you take into consideration the "as of" date when considering the information found in a census schedule with other genealogical evidence. For example, you might wonder why a person's age is listed as 41 in the 1841 census and only as age 50 in the 1851 census. If you examine the dates in Table 5-3, you will notice that the 1851 census was taken more than a month earlier than the one the previous decade. You could hypothesize that the respondent's birthday fell after 30 March and up to and including 6 June of 1800. Based on that theory, you could then begin searching in other records for evidence of the person's date of birth.

If the head of the household did not properly complete the census form, the enumerator was supposed to have requested the additional information when he called at the house. If the person was illiterate, blind, or for some other reason could not complete the schedule, the enumerator was to have conducted an interview, asked the questions, and completed the document himself.

Descriptions of the enumeration districts can be extremely helpful in locating your ancestors' records. The example shown in Figure 5-13 is from the 1891 census of England and Wales and shows the registration district of Spilsby and the subdistrict of Alford in Lincolnshire.

**FIGURE 5-13** 1891 description of the enumeration district form

Learn the Status of Irish Census Records

The Irish government took an independent census in 1813, and then censuses were taken every ten years from 1821 through 1911. Due to the Irish Civil War, no census was taken in 1921, but the next census was done in 1926. The next censuses were taken in 1936 and 1946. From 1946 to 1971, the census was taken every five years. Since 1971, the census has been taken every ten years.

Unfortunately, the Irish census records have not fared well over time. The 1813 census no longer exists. Most of the census information from the 1821 through 1851 censuses was destroyed in a fire in Dublin in 1922, and the censuses from 1861 and 1871 were destroyed by government order shortly after the data was compiled and summarized. The 1881 and 1891 censuses were pulped during World War I because of a paper shortage. The surviving materials have been microfilmed by the LDS and these films can be obtained through the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, and through the LDS Family History Centers worldwide. The census returns for the whole of Ireland for 1901 and 1911 are fairly complete, and can be viewed online at the National Archives of Ireland at **www.census.nationalarchives.ie**.

As a result of the loss of so much of the Irish census material, census substitutes can sometimes be used as alternate evidence sources of residence, age, and other information. These include Old Age Pension Records; Tithe Applotment Books (1823–1838); Griffith's Primary Valuation (1848–1864); and other, later land and property records. Irish Census Finder at **www.censusfinder.com/ireland.htm** is particularly useful for locating Irish census substitutes for the 19th century Irish censuses.

Use Quality Reference Materials When Working with British Census Records

There are excellent resources available for your reference when working with British census records. The best written reference concerning the 1801–1901 censuses is Edward Higgs' _Making Sense of the Census Revisited: Census Records for England and Wales, 1801–1901: A Handbook for Historical Researchers_ , published in London by University of London, Institute of Historical Research in 2005. The book provides an excellent history and perspective of the enumerations of that period. Another excellent how-to book is _Making Use of the Census_ by Susan Lumas, part of the Public Record Office Readers' Guide series. The publication of the fourth revised edition in 2002 coincided with the release of the 1901 census records and contains excellent instructions for how to access and use them.

Indexes of censuses have been prepared by a variety of organizations. One excellent starting point is the GENUKI website at **www.genuki.org.uk** , which is concerned with UK and Ireland genealogy. Another is the BritishIslesGenWeb Project, which is a subsidiary part of the WorldGenWeb Project ( **www.worldgenweb.org** ). The BritishIslesGenWeb Project can be accessed at **www.britishislesgenweb.org** , from which you can visit the various county or island sites where information about and links to census resources can be found.

Access the Census Records for the British Isles

We've already mentioned a number of resources for gaining access to census records for England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, but let's recap:

  * The England and Wales manuscript returns of the 1841 to 1911 censuses are in the possession of The National Archives (formerly known as the PRO). These have been microfilmed and are available for review at The National Archives, at larger libraries with genealogical materials, and through the LDS Family History Library and LDS Family History Centers. (You can locate the Family History Center closest to you by conducting a search through the LDS FamilySearch website, specifically using the search template at **www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHC/frameset_fhc.asp**.) These census images for 1841 to 1911 are digitized and indexed at **www.ancestry.co.uk**. The 1911 census index and transcriptions are accessible at **www.1911census.co.uk**.
  * Surviving Irish census records have been microfilmed. The 1901 records for Northern Ireland are available on microfilm through the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) or through the LDS FHL and FHCs as described above. You can learn more about the 19th century records at **www.proni.gov.uk**. The 1901 and 1911 censuses for all of Ireland can be viewed online at the National Archives of Ireland at **www.census.nationalarchives.ie**.
  * Scotland's census records are in the possession of the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) and can be accessed at the National Archives of Scotland (NAS) in Edinburgh. Census records have been microfilmed and the microfilm can be accessed at NAS, at larger libraries with genealogical collections that have purchased the film, or through the LDS FHL and FHCs as described above. Learn more about the NAS holdings at **www.nas.gov.uk**. In addition, the GROS and brightsolid (formerly Scotland Online) have partnered to create and maintain a pay-per-view website called ScotlandsPeople at **www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk**. The site provides searchable indexes to birth, marriage, and death entries in the statutory indexes, old parish registers, and Catholic registers for various years. In addition, indexed census images are available from 1842 to 1911. To respect privacy of living people, Internet access has been limited to birth records over 100 years old, marriage records over 75 years, and death records over 50 years." Ancestry.co.uk has digitized and indexed the census records of Scotland from 1841 to 1901 but does not include the 1911 images as of the time of this writing.

Understand and Work with Canadian Census Records

Canada's history is a fascinating study of many people: French, English, Aboriginal, and a mélange of religions, ethnicities, and cultures. The first census in what became Canada was conducted in 1666 by Jean Talon. This enumeration recorded the name, age, marital status, and occupation of each of the 3,215 inhabitants of New France. Between 1666 and the first official Canadian census in 1871, there were no less than 98 different colonial and regional censuses conducted, most of which were performed for purposes of taxation and military conscription. Over time, new questions were added to gather more information about building structures, livestock, crops, firearms, and churches. Religious affiliation—Catholic or Protestant—became another area of interest, and it became important to enumerate other groups, such as the Acadians, Indians (or "First People"), and Blacks. Census returns prior to 1851 are incomplete for most areas.

The Canadian census returns after 1851 used a Population Schedule form for the enumeration by name of every individual in a household, and that schedule was usually accompanied by a separate Agricultural Schedule that included information about the acreage, land use, buildings, crops, livestock, and valuation.

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca** is the repository for most of the census materials, including those from before Confederation in 1867. However, some of the original documents for New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island prior to 1871 are still in the possession of the provincial archives or libraries. Learn about the LAC census holdings on microfilm in its "Catalogue of Census Returns on Microfilm, 1666–1901" at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/census-microfilm-1666-1901/index-e.html**. The LAC has digitized 1901, 1906, 1911, and 1916, and recently converted all the images to PDF format. Ancestry. com's Canadian subscription website, at **www.ancestry.ca** , has digitized and indexed the 1861 to 1911 censuses and many of the provincial and territorial censuses.

Explore the Depth of the 1871 Census for Canada

The first official national census was conducted in 1871 and was part of the British North America Act in 1867, which created the Canadian Confederation. The Act stated, "In the general Census of the Population of Canada which is hereby required to be taken in the Year One thousand eight-hundred and seventy-one, and in every Tenth Year thereafter, the respective Populations of the Four Provinces shall be distinguished."

This first census requested a vast amount of information from the respondents and for that reason is extremely important for genealogical researchers whose ancestors and family members lived in Canada at that time. There were nine schedules used to collect information:

  * **Schedule 1** Population Schedule by name of every living person
  * **Schedule 2** Schedule with the name of every person who died within the previous 12 months
  * **Schedule 3** A return listing all public institutions, real estate, vehicles, and implements
  * **Schedule 4** Agricultural return for cultivated produce, such as crops, fruits, and plants
  * **Schedule 5** Agricultural return for livestock, animal products, furs, and homemade fabrics
  * **Schedule 6** Return of industrial manufacturing
  * **Schedule 7** Return of products of forest resources
  * **Schedule 8** Return for shipping concerns and fisheries
  * **Schedule 9** Return for mining and mineral products

You can relate the information found on surviving Schedules 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9 to the name of a person whose name is listed on Schedule 1, the Population Schedule. By doing so, you can expand your knowledge of what that person's economic livelihood entailed, of the extent of their holdings, and of the success or failure of the operation, and you also gain a perspective of the lifestyle of the person or family unit.

The 1881 census eliminated the schedule of industrial manufacturing. Unfortunately, though, only the Population Schedules exist. They have, however, been microfilmed and subsequently digitized.

The 1891 census returned to nine schedules again, but only the Population Schedules survive. These have been microfilmed and subsequently digitized.

By the time the 1901 census was to be conducted, Canada consisted of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and two territories: Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories. Census enumeration areas generally, but not always, corresponded to electoral districts. It is important for you to refer to enumeration area descriptions to help you home in on your family members' locations.

Enumeration was conducted by door-to-door interviews, with enumerators individually visiting each house and asking the questions of the "head" of the household. Enumeration was to be completed within 30 days of 31 March 1901. The census commissioners were forced to revise the schedules, however, before being able to compile and send the completed forms to the census office. By the end of August, the central census office in Ottawa had received 98 percent of the forms. The original schedules for British Columbia schedules were lost when the steamer _Islander_ sank on 15 August 1901. The census in British Columbia therefore had to be taken all over again, and this delayed the final tabulation of the census data.

The Dominion Bureau of Statistics, at the direction of the Public Records Committee, in 1955 destroyed the original documents from the 1901 census. Fortunately, however, all of the population records (Schedule 1) and most of the buildings, land, church, and school records (Schedule 2) have been preserved on microfilm, although the quality of the filming is uneven and some images are unreadable. Some instances of the additional schedule forms used can be found among the microfilmed records.

The good news is that Library and Archives Canada has digitized the microfilm images and made them available for browsing at its website ( **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/census-1901/001013-100.01-e.php** ) in a searchable database by geographic location. Census districts and maps also are accessible online which, as you've already learned, can be invaluable in helping you quickly locate your family. A search of the database for the census records for a province and then a geographical area will return a search results list with records like the one shown in Figure 5-14. It provides you with details about the specific location of the records associated with that place. It also indicates the Record Group (RG) under which Library and Archives Canada has classified and catalogued the records, as well as the reel number for use in accessing the microfilm from which the digital image was produced.

**FIGURE 5-14** Search results from the online index to the 1901 census at the Library and Archives Canada website

In 1905, the Census and Statistics Act received Royal Assent and defined that a general census would be taken in Canada in 1911 and every ten years thereafter. It also declared that a population and agriculture census was to be taken in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta in 1906 and every ten years thereafter. As a result, the following two schedules were prepared and the enumeration was conducted:

  * Population and livestock
  * Agriculture

As was done for the 1901 census, microfilm was created of the original records, but the original documents were destroyed in 1955. Library and Archives Canada also has digitized the microfilm images and made these available on its website.

The census documents contain vast amounts of information other than names. Look for addresses, ages, property ownership, occupation, citizenship information, literacy, and more.

Locate Additional Information on the Censuses

Census records can provide you with a huge amount of information and many clues to research. As I've mentioned before, it is important to become a student of history and to learn about the places where your ancestors and family members lived, the time period in which they lived, the documents that may have been created at the time for whatever purposes, which documents have survived, where the surviving materials are located, in what format(s) they exist, and how to gain access to them.

You have seen examples in this chapter of census materials that were created for various purposes. Some have survived while others have been lost to fire or through other causes. Transcripts may have been made or original documents may have been microfilmed, and then the originals may have been destroyed. In many cases, census documents have been digitized, indexed, and made available on the Internet. You may be able to conduct "armchair genealogy" over the Internet from the comfort of your own home to access images. In other cases, you may have to visit a library or an LDS Family History Center in order to access microfilm copies of document images. Other times, you may have to schedule a trip to visit the repository where original documents reside.

Your challenge is to actually track down the documents in whatever form they may exist, and determine how you can access them. And that does, indeed, mean studying the history of the documents. Fortunately for all of us, the Internet provides a wealth of knowledge we can use in our quest. I often use my web browser and a search engine to learn more about available documentary materials. As an example, when searching for information about Canadian census materials for 1906, I entered the following in the search engine:

**canada census 1906**

I was rewarded with a huge number of search results, not the least of which was one at the top of the list that happens to be the authoritative site on the subject: Library and Archives Canada's website for the Census of the Northwest Provinces, 1906, **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/census-1906/index-e.html**.

Take the time to study each column of a census document. You may find additional information that can act as clues to other evidence and resources to aid your understanding of your ancestor and his or her family.

Learn to use the Internet effectively to search and locate information that may be of historical value to your research. In addition, learn how to use online catalogs of libraries, archives, and other facilities so that you can determine what publications may be available to help in your search.

By this time, you have become very knowledgeable indeed about the process of genealogical research and about placing your ancestors into geographical and historical context. The next chapter will take you into some more advanced record types to help you further trace and understand your ancestors and family members. You're on your way now with perhaps the most exciting journey you will ever make. Let's move right ahead!
PART II

Expand Your Research
6

Extend Your Research with Advanced Record Types

**HOW TO...**

  * Use religious records to trace your family
  * Obtain and analyze mortuary and funeral home records
  * Read between the lines in obituaries
  * Discover the wealth of information in cemetery records
  * Get inside your ancestor's mind using wills and probate records
  * Use historical newspapers to learn about your ancestor's life events
  * Consider other institutional records

You've learned a great deal about your family so far by locating and using home sources, birth, marriage, and death records, and census resources. Along the way, you also have built a foundation for all of your future genealogical research. You now know how important it is to place your family into context, to conduct scholarly research, to analyze every piece of data you uncover, and to properly document your source materials.

You've made a lot of progress so far, but the records we've discussed so far have only just begun to scratch the surface of your family's rich history. There literally are hundreds of different documents and record types that may contain information of value in documenting your forebears' lives.

This chapter discusses some of the more important documentary evidence associated with your ancestor, their religion, and information sources concerned with the end of his or her life. They can provide a treasure trove of information and clues for you. You just need to know where to look, how to access the records, and how to properly analyze them. Remember that not everything is available on the Internet. Most records are stored in courthouses, libraries and archives, churches, government offices, and many other places. You will always need to combine traditional research with electronic research on the Internet and in databases. You will learn to apply your critical thinking skills to the evidence and formulate reasonable hypotheses, sometimes circumventing the "brick walls" that we all invariably encounter.

Use Religious Records

Religious records are those that relate to a church or some similar established religious institution. Organized religion has provided a source for scholarly philosophical and theological study and writing for many centuries. Documentation reaches far back into human history. Religious groups also have variously maintained documents concerning their operations, administration, and membership. As a result, religious records of many types can provide rich genealogical details and clues to other types of records.

There are a number of challenges you will face in your search for and investigation into these ecclesiastical records. Let's discuss these challenges first, and then we'll explore some of the types of records you might expect to find.

Locate the Right Institution

It is an easy task to contact the place of worship for yourself, your parents, and your siblings. The knowledge of the religious affiliation and where the family members attend worship services is pretty easy to come by. However, as we move backward in time, this information may become obscured. You may make the assumption that your ancestors belonged to the same religious denomination as your family does today, and you may be making a terrible error.

Not every member of a family necessarily belongs to the same religious group. My maternal grandmother's family provides an excellent example. Her father belonged to the Presbyterian Church and her mother to a Primitive Baptist congregation. Among their six sons and six daughters, I have found them to be members of two Presbyterian, three Baptist, one Methodist, and one Christian Science churches. In addition, some of the people changed churches. Most notable was the entry I found in the membership roll of the First Presbyterian Church of Rome, Georgia, dated 31 October 1926, for one of my great-aunts. It read, "Seen entering Christian Science Church" and her name was lined out. That clue pointed me to the Church of Christ, Scientist, where I learned that she had formally become a member of its congregation.

In some cases, prior to or upon marriage, one spouse may change his or her religious affiliation to that of the other spouse's affiliation. Many religions want to see children of a marital union raised in their faith, and formal religious instruction and conversion is common.

Determining the religion of an ancestor or other family member is an important part of your research because there may be any number of records to provide more information for your research and pointers to other records. You cannot assume that everyone who lived in England or Wales was a member of the Church of England, that everyone who lived in Scotland was a member of the Church of Scotland, or that everyone who lived in Ireland was either Catholic or Protestant. In all these areas, other religious congregations were common, including Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Quaker, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, and Buddhist. You also cannot assume that the only religions in Germany were Catholicism and Lutheranism. You will find Mennonite, Baptist, Anabaptist, Methodist, Seventh-day Adventist, and Orthodox churches, as well as Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu, and Bahá'í Faith groups.

Look for clues to the religion of a person in the name of the _clergy_ who performed marriage ceremonies for the person and the spouse, for the person's parents, and for any siblings. Clergy names are typically found on marriage certificates created by churches, such as the one shown in Figure 6-1, and on many marriage licenses filed at government offices after the marriage ceremony has taken place. These documents are referred to as "marriage returns," as they have been returned to the courthouse or civil registration office to be registered as complete. Look, too, at obituaries for the names of officiating clergy at funerals and memorial services. It is often easy to determine the religious affiliation of the clergyperson and the organization to which he or she was attached in local historical records and city directories. This can provide an important link to membership rolls and to records of life events associated with the congregation.

**FIGURE 6-1** Marriage certificate issued by a church showing the name of the officiating clergy

The religious affiliation provides one level of information. However, your job is to determine the _right_ institution to which your ancestor belonged. If the community in which he or she lived has multiple groups of the same denomination, you may have to contact or visit each one in order to determine if your ancestor was a member of one of those congregations. Depending on the time period in which your ancestor lived in the area, you may also need to research local histories to determine which specific religious groups existed at the time. Your best strategy, however, may be to start with the congregation located closest geographically to where your ancestor or family lived, and work outward. You may also have to escalate your search to an administrative or similar jurisdictional level to locate records for defunct congregations. For example, records for the congregation of a Catholic church that merged with another may have been transferred to the latter church. Alternatively, the records may have been moved to another diocese location or to some other place. Be prepared to escalate your inquiry for a defunct church's records to a higher administrative office. This means doing a little more research into the structure of the religion and its jurisdictional structure.

Determine What Records the Institution Might Have Created

Once you have determined the religious affiliation of your ancestor, it is important to learn something about the organization. Some groups are meticulous about documenting their organizational affairs and their membership information, while others are less inclined. The Quakers and the Catholic Church, for example, generally maintain thorough documentation of the church business and have created detailed documents about each member, including records for birth, baptism, christening, marriage, death, other sacramental and personal events, and even tithing. Other denominations or congregations may not have maintained such comprehensive records, and the documents that survive can often be far less detailed or revealing.

Invest some time in learning about the history of the denomination to which your ancestor belonged and types of records it may have created at the time your ancestor was a member. This will give you a foundation for your research. You will begin to learn what types of records to request when you make contact with the particular church or organization, where they were created and by whom, what information is likely to be contained in them, and where they were kept. A good starting point is a search in Wikipedia at **www.wikipedia.com** , followed by a web search for the name of the religion.

Locate the Records Today

Your most immediate consideration is where to locate the records _now_. Congregations sometimes merge with one another, or a congregation may find it can no longer sustain itself financially, and therefore dissolves. What happens to the records?

Your understanding of the history and organization of the denomination can go a long way in helping you locate records. Your study will also help you identify the types of records that were created. For example, some Christian denominations may mark a person's first communion with a ceremony and issue a certificate such as the one shown in Figure 6-2, while others may only record the event in membership records. While an existing church location may have all of its records dating back to its founding, those records may not necessarily be located on-site at that church. They may be stored in a rectory, parsonage, or vicarage. Records may have been moved to another church of the same denomination in the area, to a central parish or diocesan office, to a regional or national level administrative office, or to a storage site.

**FIGURE 6-2** Certificate of a first communion

A good strategy for determining the location of historical records is to contact the clergy or secretary at the specific house of worship. Having learned what records might have been created, you can ask about their availability and request access to or copies of them. If the records have been moved or sent elsewhere, ask for the name and address of a contact and then follow that lead.

If a congregation no longer exists or you can't find it, contact the local public library and any academic libraries in the area and ask the reference department to assist you in tracing the group and its records. The local, county, state, or provincial genealogical and historical societies are additional resources you should enlist in your research. Their in-depth knowledge of the area and religious groups can be invaluable. Indeed, they may have copied or transcribed indexes, and some ecclesiastical records may even have come into their possession. Again, don't overlook making contact with a higher administrative area of the religious organization. The personnel should be able to provide you with details of the group's history and of the fate of a "missing" congregation's records.

Parish registers in England, Wales, Scotland, and the Channel Islands were in danger of damage or loss during World War II. German bombing raids often focused on churches as targets. Many of the original parish records were evacuated from the churches to other places of safety. Many of these were ceded to archives or universities for permanent safekeeping. Locating the parish registers is a key to locating an ancestor's christening, marriage, or burial record prior to the implementation of civil registration in England and Wales in 1837 and in Scotland in 1855. An excellent resource for determining which parish registers exist, the years they cover, and their location is the book _The Phillimore Atlas & Index of Parish Registers_, 3rd edition, by Cecil R. Humphery-Smith (The History Press, 2003). The book contains detailed maps of every county and its parishes, as well as a detailed table of current locations of the records.

Parish clergy in the Church of England were required from the time of Elizabeth I to transcribe the christening, marriage, and burial entries from their parish registers and send a copy to their bishop. Many of these Bishop's Transcripts are now in the possession of the County Record Office (CRO) in the county where the parish was located at the time. Please note that county boundaries have changed over the centuries. You will want to research histories and historical maps to determine the correct CRO from which to seek information.

Gain Access to the Records

Another challenge can be gaining access to or obtaining copies of the ecclesiastical records you want. Religious groups are, in effect, private organizations and have a right and an obligation to protect their privacy and that of their members. Most are willing to help you locate information about your ancestors and family members, particularly if you do most of the work. Remember that not all church office personnel are paid employees; some are simply members volunteering their time. Not all members of the office staff, and even members of the clergy, know what records they have and what is in them. The old books and papers in their offices may just be gathering dust in a closet or file cabinet. Few of these materials are indexed, such as the document shown in Figure 6-3, which was found among a sheaf of loose papers tucked into a cardboard box in a church office cabinet. It often takes a considerable effort to go through such documents and locate information that may relate to your family.

**FIGURE 6-3** This loose document from the minutes of a church session commemorating the life and service of a member was found in a box, and it was never indexed.

Be prepared to offer to help the person you contact in the church office. You may have to describe the types of record you are seeking and where they might be located. Any reluctance you encounter may be a result of the person's lack of knowledge and experience, lack of time, the cost of making and mailing copies for you, or some other reason. Be kind, patient, and friendly, and offer all the help you can. Be prepared to reimburse all the expenses and to make a donation to the congregation.

Interpret, Evaluate, and Place the Records into Perspective

Once you obtain the documents you want, your next step is to carefully read and review them. Interpretation can be a real challenge, particularly if the handwriting is poor, the copies are dim or illegible, or the document is written in a language you do not understand. Many church records are written in Latin, particularly those of the Catholic Church and those of the early Church of England. You may encounter Jewish documents written in Hebrew or other languages, Russian Orthodox Church documents written using the Cyrillic alphabet, and any number of foreign languages and dialects. Old English script and German Fraktur both resemble calligraphy and their character embellishments can be particularly difficult to read. Other older or archaic handwritten materials may be difficult or nearly impossible to decipher. You will want to consider obtaining books on the subject of paleography (the study of ancient writings and inscriptions; also spelled palaeography) and using the skills or services of interpreters. Two particularly good books are _Palaeography for Family and Local Historians_ (2nd Revised edition) by Hilary Marshall (The History Press, 2010) and _Reading Early American Handwriting_ by Kip Sperry (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1998; reprint 2008).

The National Archives (TNA) in England has developed several online tutorials at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/reading-old-documents.htm** that will instruct you about reading old documents. There are four tutorials: _Palaeography_ , _Latin Palaeography_ , _Beginners' Latin_ , and _Advanced Latin_.

As with the other documentary evidence you have obtained, be prepared to evaluate the contents of the documents. Consider the information provided and use it to add to the overall chronological picture you are constructing of your ancestor or family member. Let's now look at specific ecclesiastical records.

Consider a Variety of Religious Records

Your research will present you with a vast array of potential information sources from religious organizations. The following is a list of some of the records you may encounter. Some are more common than others, and the list certainly will vary depending on denomination, time period, and the specific congregation.

Any of these documents can provide clues about your ancestor or family member's life. Don't overlook the fact that membership records and meeting minutes also may record the previous place of membership for an individual. I was successful in tracing my maternal grandfather from the church in which he was a member at the time of his death, back through three other churches in which he was a member, to the church in which he was baptized more than six decades before, all through their membership records. A church bulletin, such as the one shown in Figure 6-4, provided details of the election of another family member to the position of head deacon. And another church had a photograph of a grandfather at the groundbreaking ceremony for a new church building. You never know what you will find in the records of religious organizations.

**FIGURE 6-4** Church bulletins share news and may point to other types of church records.

Obtain and Analyze Mortuary and Funeral Home Records

Among some of the most detailed records compiled about a person are those that are created at the time of his or her death. The records of an ancestor or family member whose remains were handled by a mortuary or funeral home may hold many important clues. As with religious records, it is important to do some research in advance to determine whether a mortuary's services were used and, if so, which mortuary it was.

A mortuary or funeral home performs a variety of functions, and someone usually selects the specific duties desired for the person who is deceased. The activities of the mortuary or funeral home may include providing a simple coffin or fancy casket, embalming and cosmetic preparation, clothing the corpse, writing an obituary, arranging for or conducting services, providing transportation for the family, arranging for interment or cremation, and other, more-specialized services.

Records from a mortuary, funeral home, or crematory relating to the handling of an individual's arrangements may include many documents. You will usually find a copy of a document, such as a death certificate or coroner's report, in the file, along with an itemized accounting or invoice for all the services provided. Figure 6-5 shows a page of detail from a funeral home invoice. Information about the selection of a coffin or casket, a burial vault, and other commodities is often included. A mortuary is often called upon to prepare and handle placement of obituaries in newspapers and other media, and that information or a copy of the obituary information may be included in the file. Look for copies of a cemetery deed and a burial permit, depending on the time period, place, and type of burial. These are the more common documents you might find in these files but occasionally you may find others, such as correspondence and photographs.

**FIGURE 6-5** Detail page from a funeral home invoice

Mortuaries and funeral homes are private companies and, as such, are not required to provide copies of their business documents to genealogists. An owner or administrator may decline to provide access to you for reasons of business privacy or to protect the confidentiality of family information. They also are not required to retain and preserve records in perpetuity.

Many of these facilities over the years have been sold or have gone out of business. Their records may have been transferred, lost, or destroyed. You may need to work with libraries, archives, and genealogical and/or historical societies to determine the disposition of their records. Some may have been preserved in the special collections of libraries, such as those of several funeral homes in Tampa, Florida, which are now residing in the Special Collections of the University of South Florida Tampa Library. You may need to contact the government offices that handle corporate licensing to determine when a funeral home or mortuary was sold or went out of business. Records of a sale include details of the transfer of ownership and new licensing, and this can point you toward the possible disposition of older records.

Read Between the Lines in Obituaries

We're all familiar with obituaries and death notices, those announcements of people's deaths that appear in the newspaper and other media, and also on the Internet. These published gems often contain a wealth of biographical information in condensed form. You can gather a lot from reading what is printed _and_ from reading between the lines.

An obituary is definitely a source of secondary information, derived from one or more persons or documents. You will definitely want to confirm and verify every piece of data listed there. The accuracy of the information included should always be considered questionable because errors can be introduced at any point in the publication process. The informant for the information may or may not be a knowledgeable family member, or the person may be under the stress of the occasion and provide inaccurate details. The person who takes down the information may introduce an error, a newspaper employee may transcribe something incorrectly, and an editor may miss a typographical error.

Some of the information and clues you can look for in obituaries include the following:

  * Name and age of the deceased
  * Date, location, and sometimes cause of death
  * Place of residence
  * Names of parents and siblings
  * Names and/or numbers of children and grandchildren
  * Places of residence of living relatives
  * Names of and notes about deceased relatives
  * Where and when deceased was born
  * When deceased left his/her native land, perhaps even the port of entry and date
  * Naturalization date and location
  * Place(s) where deceased was educated
  * Date(s) and location(s) of marriage(s), and name of spouse(es) (sometimes maiden names)
  * Religious affiliation and name of congregation
  * Military service information (branch, rank, dates served, medals, and awards)
  * Place(s) of employment
  * Public office(s) held
  * Organizations to which he/she belonged
  * Awards received
  * Events in which he/she participated
  * Name and address of funeral home, church, or other venue where funeral was to occur
  * Date and time of funeral
  * Name(s) of officiating clergy
  * List of pallbearers
  * Date, place, and disposition of remains
  * Statement regarding any memorial services
  * Directions regarding donations or memorial gifts

I use obituaries as pointers to locate record sources of primary information. I certainly use them to help corroborate other sources of evidence, and to help verify names, dates, and locations of events. They may include the names and locations of other family members, and may identify alternative research paths to get past some of the "dead ends" I may have encountered.

One of my most successful uses of obituaries occurred when researching a great-grandmother. I had tried unsuccessfully for years to trace back and identify her parents. I finally visited the town where she lived in 1997 and was able to access the actual 1914 newspaper in which her obituary had been printed. The obituary included the names of three surviving sisters whose married names I had not known. Two of the three were dead ends, but records for the third sister and her husband were easily located. I transferred my research attention to that sister and pretty quickly was able to identify and locate the parents' records. I then used a will to "connect downward" and prove that my great-grandmother was one of their children. Suddenly the doors opened and, within a matter of months, I traced my lineage back to a great-great-great-grandfather who had fought in the American Revolution and I obtained copies of his military service and pension records.

Locate and Delve into Cemetery Records

Most people's perception is that a cemetery is a lonely place, devoid of any activity other than the interment of remains and the visits by families and friends of those who have passed before. However, if you have ever participated in the process of making arrangements for a family member, spouse or partner, or a friend, you know that there can be a lot of paperwork involved. And where there is paperwork, there are pieces of potentially valuable genealogical evidence. Some of these materials are accessible to you, the researcher, and others are not. However, let's examine the processes involved with handling the death of an individual and the documentation that may have been created.

Cemeteries are much more than graveyards. They are representations in a location of the society, culture, architecture, and the sense of the community. Many genealogists and family historians arrive at a cemetery, wander around looking for gravestones, copy down the names and dates, perhaps take a few photographs, and then leave, thinking they have found all there is to be found. In many cases, they have merely drifted past what might have been a treasure trove.

A marker may have been installed in a place in which the decedent was not interred. these markers are known as _cenotaphs_. In other cases, a marker may have been installed at an intended gravesite, and a person may not have been buried there. Look for the absence of a death date, and always check with the cemetery office or administrator to confirm that an interment did or did not take place.

It is important to know that a tombstone or other type of marker isn't necessarily the only record to be found in or associated with a cemetery. You also should recognize that these memorial markers are not necessarily accurate sources of _primary information_. That is because the markers are not always created at or near the time of death, and incorrect information may have been provided and/or inscribed. While a marker may have been placed within a short time of the interment, you cannot always determine if that is the case. In other cases, a marker may have been installed in a place in which the decedent was not interred. These markers are known as _cenotaphs_. Also, understand that the information carved on a tombstone or cast in a metal marker is actually a transcription of data provided, and that one or more errors may have been made. For example, there is a granite marker in an old cemetery in St. Marys, Georgia, on which an incorrect name was carved. Rather than replace the entire stone, the stonecutter used a composite stone paste to fill in the incorrect letter. After the paste set, the correct letter was carved. Unfortunately, the flaw is still visible on the stone (see Figure 6-6). I have seen many "tombstone typos" over the decades.

**FIGURE 6-6** Grave marker showing a stonecutter's error and correction

Someone or some organization owns and/or is responsible for a cemetery. A visit to the local city government office that issues burial permits, to the office that handles land and tax records, or to the closest mortuary can usually provide you with the name of the owner or a contact individual. The next step is to make contact with the person or agency responsible for the maintenance of the cemetery. That may be an administrator or sexton, and this contact may yield important information.

Cemeteries typically consist of lots that are subdivided into plots into which persons' remains are interred. Someone owns the lot and has authorized the burials there. If a government is involved, there may have been a burial permit or similar document created to allow a grave to be opened and an individual's remains to be interred. A crematory's information concerning the commitment of the cremains to a columbarium niche may also be included. Other documents may well have been created, and they may have been given to the cemetery administrator or sexton for inclusion in the cemetery's files. As a result, making contact with the cemetery may help you obtain copies of documents that are available nowhere else. Let me give you a few examples.

When I was searching for the burial location of my great-grandparents, Green Berry Holder and his wife, Penelope Swords, I knew they were buried in Rome, Georgia, in the Myrtle Hill Cemetery. I contacted the Rome city administrative offices to determine who was responsible for the cemetery's administration and maintenance. I was directed to the Rome Cemetery Department, which is responsible for five municipal cemeteries. I made a call and spoke with the sexton of Myrtle Hill Cemetery. He was able to quickly pull the records for Green Berry Holder while we were on the telephone and told me the following:

  * The date of the original purchase of the cemetery lot
  * The identification information of the lot (lot number and location)
  * The names of each person buried in the lot, their date of death, their ages, and the dates of their interments
  * The date on which two plots in the lot were resold to the owner of an adjacent lot

I also asked about a great-uncle, Edward Holder, whom I believed was also buried in that cemetery. There was, in fact, a joint grave marker for him and his wife, shown in Figure 6-7, although his year of death was missing. I had assumed that he was buried there; however, the sexton told me that only his wife was interred in this cemetery. It turned out that my Great-Uncle Ed actually was buried in another municipal cemetery on the other side of town beside another woman bearing his surname. I learned that he had a _second_ marriage about which neither I nor anyone else in the family was aware.

**FIGURE 6-7** Grave marker for the author's great-uncle, who is buried in another cemetery with his second wife

Based on the information the sexton was able to provide, I had much better details with which to research my family members interred in both of the cemeteries. I also had information about dates of death that I followed to the Floyd County Health Department. There I was able to obtain copies of all the death certificates. I also headed to the county courthouse for a marriage record for my Great-Uncle Ed's second marriage and to the library to work with microfilmed newspapers, looking for marriage announcements and obituaries. Had I located the obituary of the great-uncle earlier, I would have known he was buried in the other cemetery _and_ that his second wife survived him.

These clues led me to others, including the name of the current owner of the local funeral home that handled most of the family members' funerals over the decades, to church records in multiple congregations, to land and property records, to wills and estate probate files, and more.

An on-site visit to the cemetery sexton's office also provided me the opportunity to see the physical files maintained there. My great-grandmother, Penelope Swords Holder, died prior to Georgia's requirement that counties issue death certificates. However, there were copies of her obituary, a burial permit, and a note to the sexton from my great-grandfather asking that my great-grandmother be buried in a specific plot adjacent to one of their grandchildren. In addition, the sexton checked an ancient interment ledger and found recorded there the cause of death—pneumonia. This was important because, in the absence of a death certificate, the entry confirmed the family account of the cause of her death.

There are other documents that you may find in a cemetery's office. These include requests for burial, such as the ones shown in Figures 6-8 and 6-9. A burial permit, such as the one shown in Figure 6-10, is often required in order to control and keep track of the interment, and as another source of local tax revenue.

**FIGURE 6-8** A request for burial found in a cemetery file

**FIGURE 6-9** A cemetery's form requesting the opening of a grave

**FIGURE 6-10** A burial permit from New York, 1867

Transit permits are used to facilitate the movement of human remains from one political jurisdiction to another. Two examples are shown in Figures 6-11 and 6-12. These documents are usually completed in multiple copies. The original document accompanies the body to the place of final interment; the issuing governmental office retains another copy (or coupon); and other copies may be provided to the transportation carrier(s) en route. A transit permit, such as the one shown in Figure 6-11, may contain a significant amount of information about the deceased, including the age, address, cause of death, the names of the physician and coroner, the name of the undertaker, and the mode of transportation.

**FIGURE 6-11** This 1903 transit permit contains many details that can be researched.

**FIGURE 6-12** This City of New York transit permit includes less information, but it can still provide clues to locating a death certificate and other records.

Some transit permit formats provided very little information, such as the example shown in Figure 6-12. Transit permits were used when shipping bodies of soldiers back home from other locations, and a copy may be found in the mortuary records, in cemetery files, and in surviving military personnel files.

Search for burial and transit permit records in the county or municipal district in which the death occurred. Depending on the location, they may or may not have survived in the issuing governmental office.

Search for Other Death-Related Documents

Death certificates, obituaries, and burial permits are not the only documents relating to death that you may locate that contain genealogical information. Nor are mortuaries, funeral homes, crematoria, and cemeteries the only places to look for these documents.

Table 6-1 includes a number of important documents, data that they may contain, and where you may search for them.

**TABLE 6-1** Other Death-Related Documents and Where to Locate Them

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Get Inside Your Ancestor's Mind Using Wills and Probate Records

Wills and probate packets are extremely interesting and revealing collections of records. A person's last will may be one of the most honest statements about his or her relationships with other family members and friends. The probate packet's contents may also provide information and insights into the person that you may never find anywhere else.

A person's last will may be one of the most honest statements about his or her relationships with other family members and friends. Documents included in the probate packet are an estate inventory, lists of debts owed and due, financial reports, and a list of all potential heirs' names, addresses, and other details.

Understand the Meaning of a Will and Testament

Let's first discuss some of the terminology. A _will_ is a legal document in which a person specifies the disposition of his or her property after death. The person who makes the will is called the _testator_ , and the will may also be referred to as the _last will and testament_.

At the time a testator dies, he or she is referred to as the _decedent_ or the _deceased_. The process of proving a will's authenticity or validity is called _probate_ , taken from the Latin word _probatim_ or _probare_ , which means "to examine." The legal body responsible for reviewing and examining materials related to the handling of an estate in the United States is the _probate court_. From the 13th century until 1857 (with the exception of the period of the Interregnum, 1649–1660) in England and Wales, ecclesiastical courts handled the probate process, and this usually dealt only with nobility and wealthy landowners. The Court of Probate Act 1857 established a civil court, the Principal Probate Registry (today at **www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/courts-and-tribunals/courts/probate** ), was established on 11 January 1858. A Principal Registry which, under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, also served the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, was attached to the Court of Probate in London, together with a number of District Registries throughout England and Wales. Probate law in the United States, Canada, Australia, and certain other countries is based on the English model.

The person appointed by a court to oversee or administer the affairs of the estate during the probate process is known as the _executor_. Alternatively or in conjunction with an executor, one or more _administrators_ may be appointed.

Historically, the terms "testator" and "testatrix" and "executor" and "executrix" were used to designate the gender of individuals. the former terms indicate a male and the latter terms indicate a female. In modern times, however, most probate courts no longer use the terms "testatrix" and "executrix." the masculine terms are used to recognize either gender.

Depending on the size of the estate and/or the amount of detail to which the testator went, a will may be a short document or a lengthy one. A will does not need to be drawn up by a lawyer or solicitor; an individual may write his or her own. It is a legal document so long as the testator signs it. Usually, however, it is advisable to have two or more witnesses to the signing of the document. This makes the probate process, or the proving of the will, simpler because it assures that the signature or mark of the testator is genuine.

If the testator decides to change the will after it is made and signed, a new will can be drawn up, signed, and witnessed. Sometimes, if there are minor changes or if there is an expedient required (such as an interim change to a will while an entirely new one is being drawn up), a codicil can be drafted and signed. A _codicil_ is simply a supplement to a will, usually containing an addition or modification to the original will.

Understand the Probate Process

Medieval English law and legal customs influenced laws in the United States, Canada, and Australia. The terms "will" and "testament" originally referred to separate portions of an individual's estate, and the documents were usually separate documents handled by separate courts. A "will" was used to dispose of one's real property, or real estate, and the "testament" was used to bequeath personal property. A study of history in the British Isles will reveal that the courts that were used to probate an estate changed over time from ecclesiastical ones to civil courts. In Wales and England, the last will and testament became a single probated entity and this practice spread to other places. If you are researching wills and probate in the British Isles, an understanding of the history of the process, the courts, their jurisdictions, and the documents' contents in England, Wales, Scotland, and throughout Ireland, respectively, is essential.

In the United States, though, the use of the singular last will and testament document is generally found to be the norm. This is the type of probate process we will explore in this section. Of course, there are exceptions and special circumstances as with any legal documentary process. However, in the interest of clarifying the probate process, let's focus on a rather straightforward definition.

The person making a will is called the _testator._ a person appointed by a court **|** to oversee and perform the activities associated with settling an estate is called the _executor_ or _administrator._ a minor change or a temporary amendment to a will is called a _codicil._

A person's last will and testament is intended to express his or her wishes for what is to be done with their possessions after death, as illustrated in the case of Isaac Mitchell, whose will is shown in Figures 6-13 and 6-14. In some cases, there are heavy religious overtones to the document. This is perhaps understandable under the circumstances because, at the time this document is written, the testator is giving careful thought, no doubt, to meeting his or her Maker. In many cases, a person's will may include instructions concerning the disposition of the body, funeral directions, and/or memorial instructions. A will may be revoked through the creation of a new will or through a document known as a codicil. A codicil can be used to revoke and/or amend specific sections of a will without the person having to write an entirely new will. It may also be used to append additional, supplemental instructions to an existing will. In all cases, however, a will or codicil must be signed by the individual and witnessed by at least two other persons. A notary public also sometimes witnesses the document.

**FIGURE 6-13** Part one of the will for Isaac Mitchell of Newberry District, South Carolina, taken from the copy transcribed into the county will book

**FIGURE 6-14** Signature area of Isaac Mitchell's will showing names of the witnesses and the probate clerk's filing reference details

The probate process is a legal procedure intended to certify that a person's estate is properly disposed of, and the process has changed very little over the past centuries. Where there is a will and it is presented to a court to be proved, there is usually a probate process that takes place. In cases where a person dies without having written or left a will, also known as dying _intestate_ , a court may become involved in making sure the person's estate is correctly valued, divided, and distributed to appropriate beneficiaries.

While there may be some special conditions of a will or codicil that add additional steps to the process, here's how a simple probate process works:

  1. The testator makes his/her will and any subsequent codicil(s).
  2. The testator dies.
  3. Someone involved in the testator's legal affairs or estate presents the will/ codicil(s) to a special court of law called the probate court. The probate court and its judge are concerned with the body of law devoted to processing estates. (Minutes and notes concerning the estate and any probate court proceedings related to the estate are recorded throughout the process and should never be overlooked in your research of the estate.)
  4. The will/codicil(s) is/are recorded by the probate court. The persons who witnessed the testator's signature are called upon to testify or attest to, in person or by sworn affidavit, that they witnessed the actual signature to the document(s). This is part of the "proving" of the will—that it is the authentic document on which the testator signed his/her name.
  5. The probate court assigns an identifying code, usually a number, to the estate and enters it into the court's records. A probate packet is created for the court into which all documents pertaining to the settlement of the estate are placed. If the will or codicil(s) named one or more persons to act as the executor and/ or administrator of the estate, the probate court issues what is called "letters testamentary." (If a named executor cannot or will not serve, the court may name another person to act in that capacity.) This document authorizes that person or persons to act on behalf of the estate in conducting business related to settling all claims.
  6. Potential beneficiaries named in the will/codicil(s) are identified and contacted. If any are deceased, evidence to that effect is obtained, and if the intent of the will indicates that others besides the deceased beneficiaries are to benefit from the estate, they are identified and contacted.
  7. The executor and/or administrator publishes a series of notices, usually in newspapers circulated in the area where the testator lived, concerning the estate. Persons having claims on or owing obligations to the estate are thereby given notice that they have a specified amount of time to respond.
  8. The executor and/or administrator conducts an inventory of the estate and prepares a written list of all assets, including personal property, real estate, financial items (cash, investments, loans, and other instruments), and any other materials that might be a part of the estate.
  9. The executor and/or administrator settles any debts, outstanding claims, or obligations of the estate, and then prepares an adjusted inventory of the deceased's assets. This document, along with any supporting materials, is submitted to the probate court and becomes a permanent part of the probate packet.
  10. The probate clerk reviews all the documentation for completeness and submits it to the probate judge for review. The probate court rules that the estate is now ready for distribution to beneficiaries.
  11. Inheritance taxes and other death duties are paid.
  12. The estate is divided and distributed and, in many cases, beneficiaries are required to sign a document confirming their receipt of their legacies.
  13. Following the distribution, the executor and/or administrator prepares a final statement of account and presents it to the probate court.
  14. The probate court rules that the estate has been properly processed, that all assets have been divided and distributed, and that the estate is closed.
  15. The probate packet is filed in the records of the probate court.
  16. The estate is closed.

Special arrangements specified in wills and codicils, such as trusts and long-term bequests, may require additional steps in the process. In some cases, the final settlement of an estate may be deferred for many years until certain conditions are satisfied. A trust, for instance, may require the establishment of a separate legal entity, and the estate may not be settled until a later date. Some people leave wills that skip a generation, perhaps leaving property and/or monies to grandchildren, in which case the estate may not be settled for a generation or more and may require extended administration. In the case of any estate whose settlement extends to multiple years, the executor and/or administrator must prepare annual reports for the probate court. Receipt of these reports is entered into the probate court record and the reports usually are placed into the probate packet.

During the process, the executor and/or administrator typically pays to publish one or more notices in the press as a public notice that all claims against the deceased's estate should be presented and all debts owed to the estate are to be presented by a specific date. As a result, not only will you be looking in the courthouse and the probate court minutes and files, but you should also be looking in the local newspapers and other publications about the area.

Learn What a Will Can Tell You—Literally and by Implication

Some of the most interesting insights into an individual's personality and his or her relationships with other family members can be found by looking at probate records. A wife may have been provided for through a trust. It is not unusual in older wills to see a bequest such as, "To my beloved wife, Elizabeth, I leave her the house for her use for her lifetime, after which it is to be sold and proceeds divided between my children." One of the most amusing bequests I've seen was, "I leave my wife, Addie, the bed, her clothes, the ax and the mule." What a generous husband! However, the husband actually may, at that specific period in time, have legally owned all of his wife's clothing.

Farther back, you will find that laws sometimes dictated that the eldest son inherited all of the estate, a custom known as the _law of primogeniture_. Sometimes the eldest son is not listed in the will at all because this law dictated that all real property automatically came to him. In other cases, the eldest son may be named and may be given a double share of the otherwise equally divided estate. In some cases, the testator may apply the rule of primogeniture in order to accomplish some goal, such as keeping an estate from being divided. _Ultimogeniture_ , also known as postremogeniture or junior right, is the tradition of bestowing inheritance to the last-born. Ultimogeniture is much less common than primogeniture.

You will often see a father leave his daughter's share of his estate to her husband. Why? Often it was because a woman was not allowed to own real property or because it was felt that she could not manage the affairs of the bequest. Sometimes, because a father may have settled a dowry on his daughter when she married, the father's bequest may be a smaller one than to other, unmarried sisters. It is also possible that a will may leave an unmarried daughter a larger amount than her sisters, in order to make them equal in their overall share of the father's estate.

A father who did not possess a large estate may have made arrangements for the placement of a son as an apprentice or indentured servant. This was a common means of guaranteeing the care and education of a son when there would not have been enough from the estate to support him. If you find such a statement in a will, investigate court records for the formalization of the arrangement. The guardian became responsible by law for the apprentice or servant.

The absence of a specific child's name may or may not indicate that he or she is deceased. The omission may indicate that the child has moved elsewhere and has not been heard from for some considerable time. It might also indicate some estrangement, especially if you can determine that the child was, in fact, still alive at the time of the death. Otherwise, it is more likely that the testator would leave an equal part to that child and the court would probably have charged the executor with locating the child. You should investigate each of these possibilities.

It also is possible that, before a will was prepared and signed, an individual may have personally prepared an inventory of his or her possessions or may have engaged the services of an appraiser. Such an inventory would help determine the value of items of real and personal property and therefore facilitate the decisions concerning how to divide them in an equitable fashion.

Examine the Contents of a Probate Packet

You may be amazed at what is or isn't in a probate packet. Some courts are very meticulous in their maintenance of the packets, in which case you may find vast amounts of documents. Other courts are less thorough, and documents may have been misplaced, incorrectly filed, lost, or even destroyed. It is important when examining probate packets to also review probate court minutes for details. (I once found a missing document from one ancestor's probate packet filed in the packet of another person's packet whose estate was heard the same day in court. It had been misfiled.) The most common items found in a probate packet are the following:

  * **Will** These documents are the core of a probate packet and include names of heirs and beneficiaries, and often the relationship to the deceased. Married names of daughters are great clues to tracing lines of descent, and names of other siblings might be located only in these documents.
  * **Codicil** Look for these amendments to a will as part of the probate packet. They also are noted in the minutes of the probate court, along with the judge's ruling on the validity of the will and the changes included in the codicil. Figure 6-15 shows the first codicil to the will of John Smith of Chelsea, London, making an additional bequest of £1,000 to a neighbor, revoking the bequest of an automobile to his grandson, and calling for the sale of the car and the distribution of the proceeds to a daughter.

**FIGURE 6-15** Codicil of John Smith

  * **Letters testamentary** Look for a copy of this document in the probate packet. If it isn't there, look in court records. The name(s) of the actual executor and/ or administrator may well be different from the person named in the will. You will want to determine the actual person(s) and their relationship (if any) to the deceased. It is important to know if and why the named executor did not serve. Was the person deceased or did he or she decline to serve?
  * **Inventory or appraisal of the estate** The inventory reveals the financial state of the deceased, and this is a good indicator of his/her social status. The inventory of personal property, such as the example shown in Figure 6-16, provides indicators to the person's lifestyle. The presence of farm equipment and livestock may indicate the person was a farmer; an anvil and metal stock might point to blacksmithing as a profession; hammers, chisels, nails, a level, and other tools may reveal carpentry. In an 18th-century estate inventory, the presence of books indicates education and literacy, and the possession of a great deal of clothing and shoes indicates an elevated social position. The inclusion of slaves, as shown in the inventory in Figure 6-17, is indicative of a position of some wealth. There are many indicators that may direct you to other types of records. You may even find items listed in the inventory that confirm family stories, such as military medals.

**FIGURE 6-16** Estate inventory of a wealthy Southern man's estate file

**FIGURE 6-17** Estate inventory dated 1801 that includes the names of slaves

  * **List of beneficiaries** A list of persons named may differ from the list of names in the will. Beneficiaries may be deceased, they may have married and changed names, they may not be locatable, their descendants or spouses may become inheritors, and so on. This list will tell you much about the family.
  * **Records of an auction** Sometimes all or part of an estate was auctioned. Sometimes assets were liquidated to pay bills or to raise money for the surviving family. Auction records reveal much about estate contents and their value. It was common for relatives to participate as bidders/purchasers at an estate auction, and you may find people with the same surname (or maiden name) as the deceased. These may be parents, siblings, or cousins you will want to research.
  * **Deeds, notes, bills, invoices, and receipts** There may be a variety of loose papers in the probate packet that point to other persons. Deed copies point you to land and property records and tax rolls. Names appearing on other papers may connect you to relatives, neighbors, friends, and business associates whose records may open doors for you.
  * **Guardianship documents** Letters and other documents relating to the guardianship and/or custody of widows and minor children are common in probate packets. These can point you to family court documents and minutes that formally document the legal appointment of guardian(s). Figure 6-18 shows a petition for the appointment of a guardian for minor children, and Figure 6-19 shows a combination petition for and granting of guardianship from probate court records in 1911.

**FIGURE 6-18** Petition to the court for the appointment of a guardian for minor children

**FIGURE 6-19** Combination petition for and granting of guardianship for minor children

  * **Accounting reports** Reports filed with the probate records can provide names of claimants and entities holding estate debts, including names of relatives.
  * **Final disposition or distribution of the estate** A final estate distribution report is of vital importance. You may find the names and addresses of all the beneficiaries, and what they received from the estate. This will ultimately point you to the locations where you will find other records for these persons.

Watch for Clues and Pointers in the Probate Packet

You will almost always find clues and pointers in wills and probate packet documents that point to other types of records. As such, you will soon come to recognize that you must work with these documents in tandem with other documents. Let's discuss some of these clues and pointers.

A will or probate file may contain information about land and property—including personal property. These references point you to other areas of the courthouse. You may go into land records, tax rolls, court records, and other areas. If any of the assets of the estate were auctioned, check the auction records. These are generally a part of the probate packet too, and may have been entered into the court minutes. Here you may find connections to other relatives of the same surname who came to purchase items.

Guardians are appointed to protect the interests of children (as shown in Figures 6-18 and 6-19) and, in some cases, young widows. Remember that in many locations, if the father died and left a widow and minor children, the children were considered by the courts to be "orphans." Most often, the guardians appointed by the court were male relatives of the deceased or of the spouse. A different surname of a guardian may be a clue to the maiden name of the widow. Start looking for guardianship papers and possibly adoption papers. If you "lose" a child at the death of one or both parents, start searching census records (beginning with the U.S. federal census of 1850 and the UK census in 1851) for the child being enumerated in another residence, particularly in a relative's home. In the absence of relatives, the county, parish, state, or province may have committed the child to an orphanage, orphan asylum, or a poorhouse. Leave no stone unturned. Check the respective court minutes and files for the year following a parent's death for any evidence of legal actions regarding a child. You might be surprised at what you locate.

Witnesses are important. By law, they cannot inherit in a will; however, they may be relatives of the deceased. It is not uncommon to find an in-law as a witness. Bondsmen involved in the settlement of an estate were often relatives. If the wife of the testator was the executor of the estate, the bondsmen were usually _her_ relatives. (If you do not know the maiden name of the wife, check the surnames of the bondsmen carefully because one of them may have been her brother.)

You will almost always find an inventory of the estate in the probate packet. The executor or administrator of the estate is first charged by the court to determine the assets, the debts, and the receivables of an estate in order to properly determine what needs to be done to divide or dispose of it. The inventory often paints a colorful picture of the way of life of the deceased. The type of furniture listed and the presence or absence of books, farm equipment, livestock, and real and personal property listed in the inventory all tell us what type of life and what social status the person enjoyed—or did _not_ enjoy.

Obviously, there are many things to consider when reviewing wills and probate packet contents. Just a few of the many things to consider are the location, the laws in effect at the time, the religious affiliation of the testator, the size of the estate, and the presence or absence of a spouse, children, brothers, sisters, and parents.

When researching probate records, don't overlook the probate court minutes. Entries are indexed by name of the testator, and they document every action relating to the estate that was filed with the court. these may provide additional clues.

Learn Why You Really Want to Examine Documents Yourself

There are many ways to obtain information about a will or probate packet. Since most of us cannot afford to travel to all the places where our ancestors lived, we may need to do some "mail order" business, writing or emailing for copies of courthouse records.

One of the problems with will and probate documentation published in books, magazines, periodicals, and on the Internet is that it may represent the interpretation of someone _else_ who has looked at the documents. Unless that person is also a descendant of your ancestors, they may not have the family perspective and insight that you have. If they have transcribed the document _verbatim_ , it might be correctly done but you can't be sure unless you review it yourself. Even worse, materials that have been extracted or abstracted often contain omissions of details that might be of significant importance to your research. As an example, one will that I examined listed nine children's names, some of which were double-barrel names, such as Billy Ray and Mary Lou. The insertion of extra commas in the transcription, extract, or abstract of these two children's names could easily turn these two children's names into _four_ children—and wouldn't that play havoc with your research efforts?

Watch wills carefully for names of children. Don't make any assumptions. One of my friends researched her great-great-grandfather's family and was convinced that there were seven children in the family. That was until she studied the actual will of the great-great-grandfather. In the will, the names Elizabeth and Mary had no comma between them. This led her to suspect that there was one daughter named Elizabeth Mary, rather than two daughters. Further investigation of marriage records in the county contradicted the one-daughter theory because she found that there were individual marriage records for two daughters, one married a year after her father's death and the other two years later. Further, Elizabeth and Mary and their respective spouses settled on land that had been part of their father's holdings and appeared there on subsequent census records.

Locate and Obtain Copies of Wills and Probate Documents

Wills, testaments, codicils, and other probate documents can be found in a variety of places. It is important to start in the area in which the person lived and make contact with the courts that had jurisdiction at that time, if they still exist.

In England, this may be difficult for older wills that at one time were handled by different levels of ecclesiastical courts that no longer exist. From the 13th century until 1858, church courts handled the entire probate process. Their jurisdictions sometimes overlapped and their administrative powers were not always clear. In addition, English wills that required the probate of an estate containing multiple pieces of land could be complicated if the parcels were in multiple church administrative districts. In those cases, a level of ecclesiastical court whose administrative level included all of the districts in which the lands were located handled the probate process. Those early ecclesiastical records were written in Latin and may present you with difficulty, both with the language used _and_ the ancient handwriting style. It is important to understand the structure of the jurisdictions in the specific time period you are researching before undertaking a search for your English ancestor's will. It was not until 1858 that civil courts began handling probate and a more standard approach was put in place.

Probate documents may be encountered in many forms. The original documents may still exist and may be filed with the records of the court that handled the process. Look for court minutes and other evidence of the proceedings. Many courts and administrative offices have microfilmed their court records. Microfilm provides for compact storage of these voluminous records while preserving the originals. Microfilm also allows for the economic duplication of the records for access and use in multiple locations, and makes printing and copying simple and inexpensive.

You may also find that some original probate documents have been digitized and made available on the Internet. The Scottish Archive Network (SCAN) has made more than half a million Scottish wills and testaments dating from 1500 to 1901 accessible in digital format at **www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk**. Individual counties, municipalities, and courts also have digitized records. A particularly impressive effort has been accomplished in Alachua County, Florida, with the ongoing digitization of the county's Ancient Records Archives. This collection of indexed and, in some cases, transcribed documents can be seen at **www.clerk-alachua-fl.org/Archive**.

Obtain Information from the Social Security Administration and Railroad Retirement Board

The Social Security Administration (SSA) was established by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1935, in the depths of the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration was hard at work trying to help the United States recover economically through a number of social and financial programs. One area that required attention was that of old-age pensions. Older Americans were at significant risk of financial ruin during the Depression, and old-age pensions were primarily only available from some state and local governments. Many of those pension programs were faltering or had collapsed, and Congress was under pressure from the administration and from the public to take action.

The Social Security Act of 1935 established a national program for Americans over the age of 65 to receive benefits, and defined the structure and criteria for participation of those people in the work force and their employers to contribute to their retirement security. The program would not begin for several years and credit would not be given for any service prior to 1937.

In the meantime, railroad employees clamored for a program that would provide credit for prior service _and_ an unemployment compensation program. Legislation passed in 1934, 1935, and 1937 established the Railroad Retirement program for employees of the U.S. railroads (more about that later in this section).

At the beginning of the program, in order to determine which persons would immediately be eligible to receive unemployment benefits, the SSA used the 1880 U.S. federal census as a reference to help verify the age of recipients. The SSA formed a special branch called the Age Search group to handle this function. That branch still exists today to perform the same function. The Age Search group quickly determined that searching the 1880 census Population Schedules for a single person's enumeration listing was a highly laborious process. The SSA therefore commissioned the creation of an indexing system to assist in the search process. It was at that time that the Soundex coding system was developed for this program, and the first index was created for the 1880 census. Index cards were prepared by a group of employees of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and these cards were created only for households in which there were children aged ten and under. After the 1880 census was Soundexed, indexes were prepared for entire households in the 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 censuses. This is the same Soundex and Miracode coding scheme described earlier in this book.

In order to pay retirement pension benefits to an applicant, the SSA required that applicant to prove his or her age eligibility. While the Soundex system was used by the Age Search group, the person applying for benefits had to a) have applied for and been assigned a Social Security number (SSN), b) prove his or her identity, and c) provide evidence of his or her age. (Persons with disabilities who could not work also later became eligible for Social Security benefits, and their requirements were the same.)

Social Security Numbers were assigned by offices in each state and territory, with each geographical division (state and territory) having been assigned a block of numbers. As is still the case today, the SSN consisted of three groups of digits: the first group of three digits represented the area in which the assignment was made; the next two digits represented a group; and the last group of four digits was a serial number, chronologically assigned. These numbers were assigned at the time that the applicant completed the SS-5 application form, such as the one shown in Figure 6-20, to obtain the SSN. The _first_ group of three represents where the applicant's SSN was assigned, and _not_ necessarily where the person was born. This is an important distinction, and a source of confusion and misunderstanding among many genealogical researchers.

**FIGURE 6-20** A photocopy of the SS-5 application form from the Social Security Administration

When a beneficiary dies, it is a legal requirement to notify the SSA so that it can immediately stop payments. A benefit check for the last partial month of the person's life usually must be returned, and the SSA has a procedure for handling the final payment. The SSA now requires a copy of a death certificate or other form of written proof of death.

The SSA's records were maintained on paper until the early 1960s. At that time, data from the SS-5 forms of all known living persons with SSNs (along with the last known address) and information from all new applicants' SS-5 forms were entered into a computer database. In addition, the SSA began maintaining benefit information by computer and entering death information as notifications of the deaths of recipients were received. Beginning in 1962, the Social Security Death Master File began to be produced electronically on a regular basis. Initially, it contained only about 17 percent of the reported deaths, but that increased to more than 92 percent in 1980. The percentage of completeness has varied up and down since then, and will never be 100 percent complete. The file has since come to be known as the Social Security Death Index, or SSDI, and is accessible for free at **<http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com>**. Genealogists with family members in the United States have used this valuable tool to locate the place of last residence or benefit payment in order to locate other records.

It is important to understand that the SSDI contains only information about deceased individuals, in compliance with both the Privacy Act, which protects individuals' information for 72 years, and the Freedom of Information Act, which makes information available to the public. There are four criteria for a person's information to be included in the SSDI:

  * The person must be deceased.
  * The person must have had a Social Security number assigned to him or her.
  * The person must have applied for and received a Social Security benefit payment.
  * The person's death must have been reported to the Social Security Administration.

If a person was assigned a SSN and is deceased, but never received a benefit of any sort, he or she will not be found in the SSDI. For these persons, and for those persons who died prior to the computerization of the SSA records, you can still obtain a copy of their SS-5 application form from the SSA. All you need to do is write the SSA Freedom of Information Officer, provide the full name, address, and birth date of the individual, and request the SS-5. If you can provide the person's SSN, the cost of obtaining an SS-5 at this writing is $27; without the SSN, the cost is $29. In addition, you can request a copy of a printout from the SSDI database known as a Numident. Numident is an acronym for Numerical Identification System. The Numident is nothing more than the data entered into the SSA database. The price of this document is $16 if you can provide the SSN or $18 if you cannot. Requests for SS-5 forms and Numident printouts can be made at **<https://secure.ssa.gov/apps9/eFOIA-FEWeb/internet/main.jsp>** or sent by mail to:

Social Security Administration

OEO FOIA Workgroup

300 N. Greene Street

P.O. Box 33022

Baltimore, Maryland 21290-3022

Your request to the SSA for a copy of the application (SS-5) for a person who never received a benefit and for whom the SSA wasn't notified of the death may be denied. However, if you can supply evidence of the person's death, such as a copy of a death certificate, you can appeal the decision and then receive the copy of their SS-5 form.

The U.S. Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) is the administrative body for the railroad workers' retirement pension benefits system. The Railroad Retirement program is similar to Social Security but is administered by the RRB in Chicago, Illinois. Up until 1963, persons who worked for a railroad in the United States at the time they applied for a SSN were assigned a number between 700 and 728. Therefore, if you locate any document that lists a SSN whose first three digits are in that numbering range, you will know that the person worked for the railroad industry at the time he or she was assigned the number. You also will know to check first with the RRB for records.

A person who worked exclusively in the railroad industry will apply for and receive old-age pension benefits from Railroad Retirement. An individual who worked for both the railroad industry and elsewhere would have contributed to both a Railroad Retirement pension account and to Social Security during his or her working career. At the time of retirement, the person had to apply for a retirement pension benefit from either one or the other, but not both plans.

The RRB records you obtain may be more detailed, including earnings reports, copies of designation of beneficiary forms, and perhaps more. The address to which you would send your request, along with a check for $27 made payable to the Railroad Retirement Board, is

Congressional Inquiry Section

U.S. Railroad Retirement Board

844 North Rush Street

Chicago, Illinois 60611-2092

For more information about the RRB, visit their website at **www.rrb.gov** and specifically their genealogy web page at **<http://rrb.gov/mep/genealogy.asp>**.

Use Historical Newspapers to Learn About Your Ancestor's Life Events

Newspapers chronicle a community's life and record the cultural, social, political, commercial, and agricultural conditions. Vast collections of newspapers have been microfilmed over time. Many of these, as well as surviving newsprint documents, are in the process of being digitized and every-word indexed, and are being made available online.

Historical newspapers that are being made available online are accessible in several ways. First, there are individual newspapers made available by their publishers. These are typically the more recent newspapers, from around 1985 to present. Accessing them may or may not require a fee.

Two centralized websites that can be used to locate and access them are OnlineNewspapers.com at **www.onlinenewspapers.com** and the Internet Public Library's newspaper section at **www.ipl.org/div/news**. The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., is compiling a collection of historical American newspapers from 1836 through 1922. This collection is freely accessible at **<http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov>**. Don't overlook digital newspaper collections that may have been compiled by libraries and archives worldwide. In the United States, many state libraries and archives have endeavored to identify all of the newspapers in their state that were ever published, acquire copies of the newspapers or microfilm, and digitize and index those materials. The British Library at **www.bl.uk** announced in mid-2010 that it has begun digitizing more than 40 million pages of its Newspaper Library collection in Colindale.

Next, there are databases of historical newspapers to which you can subscribe as an individual. One such example is NewspaperARCHIVE.com at **<http://newspaperarchive.com>** (see Figure 6-21). It claims to have the largest collection online with newspapers dating from 1753 to present. The Ancestry.com subscription service at **www.ancestry.com** and some of its geographical sites also include newspapers. Fold3.com at **www.fold3.com** , WorldVitalRecords.com at **www.worldvitalrecords.com** , and others include digitized newspaper collections. Another important subscription site is the Times Archive at **<http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/archive>** , which provides access to the digitized archive of _The Times_ of London from 1785 through 1985.

**FIGURE 6-21** The death announcement for the author's paternal grandmother's first husband appeared in the _Statesville Landmark_ on Tuesday, 12 July 1898. The digitized newspaper was discovered at NewspaperARCHIVE.com.

There are digitized historical newspaper database collections that are only available as institutional subscriptions to libraries and archives. ProQuest is a major provider of historical newspaper databases and their collections include the _New York Times_ , _Atlanta Constitution_ , _Chicago Tribune_ , _Los Angeles Times_ , _Toronto Star_ , _Wall Street Journal_ , and many more. NewsBank, Inc., offers genealogy-specific databases such as "America's GenealogyBank" and "America's Obituaries & Death Notices." America's GenealogyBank ( **www.genealogybank.com** ) includes digitized and indexed U.S. newspapers from 1690 to 1977, historical books from 1801 to 1900, and historical documents from 1789 to 1980. America's Obituaries & Death Notices includes obituaries from more recent newspapers from the 1970s and later.

You will want to check with your local public library, academic libraries, and with archives to determine what is available. If you hold a library card and your library subscribes to a historical newspaper collection, you may have remote access from home to connect and work with some of these databases.

Consider Other Institutional Record Types

You can see now how the investigative work you are doing and the scholarly methodologies you are using can begin to pay big dividends. In many of the examples I've shown in this chapter, I have tried to convey the ways that one record may provide clues and pointers to others.

As you encounter new sources of information, use your critical thinking skills to read between the lines. Consider the other institutional records that might add to your knowledge. These could include records from employers, unions, schools, professional organizations, civic and social clubs, and veterans groups, just to name a few. Just as with cemetery offices, you never know what information might be in these organizations' files.
7

Use the Many Types of Military Service Records

**HOW TO...**

  * Expand your knowledge of the military services
  * Identify possible sources for military records
  * Find facts in registration, conscription, and enlistment records
  * Locate other military-related records

In the previous chapters you have learned the importance of building a firm foundation on your ancestors' and family members' records of many types. We discussed census records in Chapter 5, and you saw that there are cases in which a census document may have included information about someone's military service record. The U.S. federal census of 1840 was the first to call for the name and age of American Revolutionary War veterans, and the 1890 census included a separate census schedule specifically for surviving Union veterans or the widows of Union soldiers who died during or after the war. In Great Britain, the 1851 census included those persons living on vessels in inland waters or at sea, including members of the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy. In addition, persons serving abroad with the armed forces and those working with the East India Company were enumerated.

As you can see, census materials may provide information about an ancestor that can spur you to search for military records. Even if you are unsure whether or not your ancestor or a family member served in the armed forces of a particular country, it is wise to invest some amount of time researching the official rosters and/or indexes to see if a familiar name appears there. You would be surprised how often people make the discovery of a military ancestor when they didn't know or think there was one. Registration and enlistment records can help link a person to other relatives, and they may provide a physical description of the individual. Military service and pension records also can provide more detailed insight into a person's life than you could imagine. There is sometimes a link between military service and other records. For example, the U.S. federal government compensated some military personnel with land rather than or in addition to paying them cash. These "bounty lands" were granted to persons in reward for their military service or for rendering goods and services to the government and/or troops. We'll discuss bounty land in more detail in Chapter 8.

You may find military-related documents among family papers. Commendations, medals, and other awards are often cherished family treasures. Military discharge documents provided proof of service and, because military service often entitled the veteran to certain benefits, they were typically stored with important papers. Other sources you may encounter may refer or point to military records. Some examples of these are pension statements, copies of income tax documents, obituaries and death notices, wills and probate records, tombstone carvings, and naturalization records.

Military records in the British Isles, as you will see, have become more accessible in the past several years. Many of these are available on microfilm at The National Archives (TNA) at Kew, and others have been digitized and made accessible online. These can contain exceptionally detailed history for an individual. Military medals cards from World War I have been digitized and copies are available for a small fee through DocumentsOnline at TNA at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline**. Naval Officers' Service Record Cards for more than 5,000 Royal Navy, Royal Naval Reserve, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and Women's Royal Naval Service officers are also available. TNA hopes to make available in their DocumentsOnline facility the service records related to Service Record Cards held in their files during 2012. More than five million First World War Medal Index Cards, which record an individual's medal entitlement, their rank(s), their unit(s), and often the first theater of war in which they served, are digitized and online. Other military records are available online, but others have not yet been digitized.

Many genealogists fail to follow through with a search for military service records and pension files. These omissions or oversights can generally be attributed to a lack of understanding of the history of the area where their ancestors and family members lived, the military history of which might have played a very significant role in their lives. However, another contributing factor is that military records are not always located together. Sometimes the military service records are in one archive, the pension files are in another, and perhaps other pertinent records are in the possession of another governmental office. This can be confusing if you haven't taken the time to determine what records were created at a particular time, what part of the government or military used them, what they were used for, and what was done with those records when they were no longer needed. Context is important!

With all of this in mind, let's set out to become experts in the research of military records. I think you will find that these are fascinating types of records, and that they provide insights into history you never imagined.

Expand Your Knowledge of the Military Services

Military service is a job and, as such, can produce a vast amount of written documentation. Census records provide information at ten-year intervals, which is a substantial span of time between milestones. Military records, on the other hand, provide a more regular form of documentation, at shorter intervals, than a census. From the date of registration, conscription, or enlistment, there will have been official military records maintained. These may include the following record types:

Draft registration cards | Draft notices
---|---
Enlistment forms and related documentation | Medical records
Quartermaster or provisions records | Educational testing and training reports/diplomas
Duty assignments | Muster rolls
Payroll records and pay stubs | Announcements/postings of promotions
Records of the awarding of medals and awards, such as the medal shown in Figure 7-1 | Casualty reports
Service files or dossiers | Discharge papers
Records of courts-martial | Pension applications
Pension files containing affidavits, correspondence, payment records, and other documents | Pension payment vouchers
Veterans records | Veteran's life insurance certificate
Benefits records | Death and burial records
Military unit daily reports | Military unit histories

**FIGURE 7-1** The Congressional Medal of Honor is the United States' highest military award.

That is an impressive list. It is important to note that not every country generated or maintained this broad a range of documents, and that fewer types of records were created the farther back in history you research. Specific personnel units, too, may have required the use of additional or unique records. Still, the sheer volume of military documentation of a soldier's daily, monthly, or annual affairs can present you with a detailed insight into his or her life at that time. Remember, too, that military assignments take a person to many locations and expose him or her to a wide range of experiences. That exposure may influence the decisions made later in life to select a particular profession, to relocate to another area, or to take some other course of action. In some cases, a soldier, sailor, or airman may have met and married someone during his or her period of military service. Pay attention to these events and follow the leads to locate records of the spouse in his or her country of residence.

In addition to the official file contents listed above, you may find items among materials in the home that can further your research, such as uniforms, dog tags, insignia, patches, badges, medals, ribbons, certificates and awards, correspondence, and photographs. Each of these can provide clues and pointers to military records and documentation.

Investigate Military History for the Appropriate Time Period

Every time I visit a library, a bookstore, or an online bookseller's site, I am impressed by the vast number of books and periodicals available on the subject of military history. More and more of these publications are becoming available in electronic book (ebook) editions. There are books available about armies, navies, and every conceivable military branch. Innumerable historical accounts and examinations of military units, their engagements, and strategic analyses from the present and extending back to ancient times have been published in books, magazines, journals, and other media. There are specialty book and magazine titles that discuss the uses of horses, wagons, tanks, jeeps, ships, airplanes, helicopters, land-sea transports, landing vehicles, and other transportation modes employed in warfare. Every manner of weapon you can imagine is documented in intricate detail, from swords, scimitars, cutlasses, spears, lances, maces, sabers, knives, and bayonets to catapults, pistols, rifles, cannon, mortars, bombs, bazookas, flamethrowers, missiles, fighter aircraft, missiles, computer-assisted weapons, and other types of armaments.

You will find extensive information on the Internet about these same topics. Remember that, whether you search in print or electronic media, you should review the sources used to determine the veracity and reliability of the content.

You already know the importance of placing your ancestors and family members into geographical, historical, and social context. This is also emphatically true when it comes to researching the history of someone who may have performed some military service. You will benefit from the study of the history of the country and locale in which your ancestor lived. You will want to focus particularly on the military establishment there at the time, military service requirements, and the military conflicts in which the country and its population were engaged. This information can help you better understand what records you might expect to find. You could expect to find that a government in a time of war imposed conscription or impressments to force enrollment of personnel in the military service. In the United States in 1917 and 1918, a series of draft calls were made by the U.S. federal government to quickly build the armed forces for involvement in "The Great War" in Europe. Men in certain age ranges, such as 19-year-old Charles Ray Morrison shown in Figure 7-2, were required to present themselves at the office of their local draft board to complete a draft registration card. Knowing that every male between certain ages was required to complete a card will prompt you to attempt to obtain a copy of the record for your research. Likewise, if you had a male ancestor living in Prussia in 1816, it is important to know that compulsory military service had been imposed, even in peacetime. You might therefore want to investigate the history of Prussia, and the existence of military service records that documented your ancestor's date and place of birth and other details that might be included about him.

**FIGURE 7-2** Charles Ray Morrison, born in 1899, was enrolled in the United States' Third Draft Registration on 12 September 1918.

Sometimes you will find that individual records may no longer exist, in which case you will need to seek out alternate sources of information. State, county, parish, and local histories can be beneficial in that regard because they frequently include sections about military units that originated in the area and rosters of the people who served in them. Even if your ancestor or other family member is not listed by name, identifying the military unit(s) that originated in that area can provide important clues that might lead you to alternate materials.

Biographies of legendary military leaders, such as Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Horatio Nelson, General George Washington, General Robert E. Lee, General George S. Patton, and others, provide minute details of their lives and military leadership. Military unit histories, analyses of battles and strategies, diaries, and memoirs are abundant. Following the U.S. Civil War and throughout the remaining decades of the 19th century, former officers and veterans penned exhaustive memoirs and historical accounts of their experiences. These narratives often contain complete rosters of the people serving with them and anecdotal materials about them. In some cases, these accounts may contain the only surviving details about the fates of individual soldiers lost in battle or to disease. Likewise, copious British military histories exist relating to many military campaigns, including the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Napoleonic Wars, the Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, the New Zealand Land Wars, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Boer Wars, the Fenian raids, the Irish War of Rebellion, and other engagements.

Historians also have chronicled military units' histories and their engagements, compiling official records and personal accounts to re-create a chronological account of events. Military-related heritage societies also have organized to honor the veterans, their families, and their descendants, and to perpetuate the history of their service. Organizations in the United States such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Sons of the American Revolution, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the Daughters of the British Empire foster education, caretaking activities for historical materials, maintenance of cemeteries, and publication of information relating to their respective group.

There are other organizations whose members may or may not be descendants of veterans of specific military personnel but who are interested in preserving information and materials and encouraging the study of a specific area or period. Examples of these groups include the English Civil War Society ( **<http://english-civil-war-society.org>** ), the Military Historical Society of Australia ( **www.mhsa.org.au** ), the Scottish Military History Website ( **www.btinternet.com/~james.mckay/dispatch.htm** ), and the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada ( **www.uelac.org** ). Military reenactment groups are extremely popular and provide excellent experiences for participants and spectators alike. They can help you understand what life was like at the time that your ancestor lived.

In addition, there are a number of magazines with military and historical themes, currently among them _World War II_ , _World War II History, Military Heritage, Military History_ , _Civil War Times_ , _History Magazine_ , _Naval History_ , _Canadian Journal of History_ , _BBC History Magazine_ , _British Heritage_ , and _Journal of Australian Naval History_. You may want to purchase a copy of a magazine at a newsstand to determine if it contains information of interest or help to you. You can then subscribe to one or more publications that will contribute to your growing knowledge of the subject. These publications can help contribute to placing your military ancestors into context with their time and branches of the armed forces. You can expect to locate vast amounts of military unit information both in book and magazine form, in ebooks, and also on the Internet. Whenever you begin to research an ancestor who was or may have been in the military service, do some preliminary investigative work into the history of the area and time period, and into the records that may have been created for the military command and the personnel. Once you know what was created, you can then begin tracking down the locations where those materials may be stored and the procedures for accessing them.

Identify Possible Sources for Military Records

Military records are government documents. You will find that for a particular country or government, military records may well be distributed across a number of document depositories. This is a primary reason why it is important to study history. In the United States, military records are held by both the National Archives and Records Administration ( **www.archives.gov** ) and its National Personnel Records Center ( **www.archives.gov/st-louis** ) in St. Louis, Missouri. In Canada, most of the military service records are held by Library and Archives Canada ( **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/022-909-e.html** ). In the United Kingdom, significant collections of military records, including service and pension records, are held by The National Archives ( **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk** ). Other UK military records, however, may still be in the possession of the Ministry of Defence. The National Archives of Australia holds Army, Navy, and Air Force records ( **www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/defence/services.aspx** ). Please note that, if your ancestor served in the military forces in other than his or her native country, the records for that service will be in the other country's possession. Let's examine each of these governments' records in detail.

Many indexes, transcripts, and abstracts of military records have been prepared. These include summary personnel records, muster rolls, casualty lists, medical reports, and many other types of records. These can point you in the direction of original, primary source documents, a copy of which you will want to obtain for your own review.

Locate Military Records in the United States

The United States, as a comparatively young nation, has a considerable military history, and a vast collection of military records from colonial times still exists. You will find that the earlier the era, however, the less complete the military records may be. Documents may have been lost or destroyed, or they may simply have deteriorated before they were gathered together for archiving and preservation. You will be amazed, however, how many of the military records have been or are in the process of being digitized, indexed, and made available online.

Learn About Early Records

The earliest recorded military conflicts are perhaps those that occurred at Jamestown in the colony of Virginia. The Native American attack on the settlement in March of 1622 killed more than 300 settlers and almost destroyed it. The English retaliated and, over the next 22 years, almost decimated the Native Americans in the area. Documents in the form of correspondence and historical accounts do exist from these years, which can be found among the documents both at TNA in the United Kingdom and at the Library of Virginia in the United States.

Other conflicts between the English and French colonies during the colonial period, in territory that is now split between the United States and Canada, and against the Native American tribes were numerous. However, no appreciable military documents exist _per se_. Rather, correspondence and anecdotal accounts form what historical materials exist, and these are in the hands of various archives in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and some of the states' and provinces' libraries or archives. A number of histories have been published about a number of these conflicts.

Military forces serving in what is now the United States during the colonial era consisted primarily of European military personnel from the countries controlling specific respective areas. The Spanish governed Florida on multiple occasions, California, and some southern areas. The English governed the eastern colonies and Florida for a time. The French governed the Louisiana Territory. In addition, Mexico governed what now are the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma. And Russia owned Alaska until it was sold to the United States on 30 March 1867.

Research Your Ancestors in the American Revolutionary War

American colonists supplemented the British troops with local military units and militia. It was not until the mid-1700s that the 13 original colonies began to actively oppose British governance. The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) was the first really organized armed conflict initiated by the Americans themselves, and there are unique military-related documents that were generated as a result of the clashes that occurred. There are four major sources for discovering who actually served during that war:

  * Lists of veterans compiled by each state early in the 19th century.
  * Pension applications filed by veterans or their surviving spouses and family members, found at the federal and/or state levels.
  * The 1840 U.S. federal census population schedule, which asked for the names and ages of pensioners of the American Revolutionary War.
  * Records of applicants to the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). These may include detailed documentation, both official papers and personal materials, of the military record of members' ancestors.
  * The Library of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR) holds more than 58,000 items of genealogical interest related to that period.

However, these are not the only resources you might expect to find. Let's look at one excellent example. Let's say that you are looking for an ancestor's records relating to his military service during the period of 1775 to 1783 in what is now the United States. You will be seeking records relating to the American Revolutionary War, and you will be looking in a number of places. It is important to know first of all the state from which he served. For our example, let's choose South Carolina.

You next need to know or investigate whether your ancestor served in the local regulators, the state militia, or the Continental Army (or a combination of the three). You therefore are going to be dealing with records originally created at the local/county, state, and/or national level. This makes a great deal of difference in how you approach locating any surviving records.

If your ancestor served with the local regulators, he was probably assigned to policing and protecting the area in which he lived. If he served in South Carolina's state militia, the records relating to his military service _and_ his military pension, if any, would have been created and maintained at the state level. Records of regulators and state militia are most likely to be found in the South Carolina Archives & History Center, in the South Carolina State Library, or with the state genealogical or historical societies. That is assuming, of course, that he enlisted in the state in which he lived.

If your ancestor served in the Continental Army, his military service and pension records would have been generated at a higher level and would be among the records maintained at the national level today. Payroll records, such as the one shown in Figure 7-3, can show the soldier's status on regular intervals throughout his service. Records for the Continental Army would be found among the records at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, DC.

**FIGURE 7-3** Company payroll record for John Soards [ _sic,_ Swords] for 1 August to 1 December 1779

Your ancestor may have served in one or more military units at all three levels, in which case your research might reveal records in multiple places. Your ancestor may have begun service in the local regulators, for example, and then enlisted in the state militia or the Continental Army. Similarly, he may have served his term in the state militia and then may have enlisted in the Continental Army. His unit, too, may have been sent by the state to be attached to the Continental Army. Your study of military units' history for that state's soldiers would help you understand where to seek existing records. You may find, as I did, that your ancestor collected a federal Revolutionary War pension and, upon its termination, applied for and was granted a state military pension for his service on behalf of the state in the Revolutionary War. What's more, all of these documents will be unique, created at different times by different government, military, or judicial officials, and therefore will contain different documents and potentially more information about your ancestor's service.

An American pension file typically includes an application for the pension, a doctor's statement, and an affidavit sworn by the applicant concerning the details of his military service. This personal account of the person's service can be very revealing, and even poignant. Another affidavit was required from someone else who personally knew the applicant and could vouch for his service. When the veteran died, his widow could apply for a continuation of her husband's pension for herself. She had to provide evidence of her marriage. Eleanor Swancy Swords applied for a continuation of her husband's pension. She submitted proof in the form of the actual family Bible pages for births, marriages, and deaths. These pages were removed from the Bible and they are among the contents of the pension file held at NARA. Children of the veteran also could apply for a continuation of the pension, and this was granted if requirements were met to establish relationship and need. Copies of the federal Revolutionary War pension files can be ordered from NARA. They also have been digitized by Fold3.com, in collaboration with NARA, and are available as part of a subscription to that service at **www.fold3.com**. Portions of these digitized files are also accessible through libraries with an institutional subscription to the HeritageQuest Online subscription database.

Research Your War of 1812 Ancestors

An important development for genealogists concerns the War of 1812 pension application and bounty land files. These files had been manually indexed at NARA many years ago but they had never been microfilmed. The Federation of Genealogical Societies ( **www.fgs.org** ) entered into an agreement with NARA in 2010 and began a fundraising effort to pay for the digitization and electronic indexing project for the more than 180,000 pension files held at NARA. Digitization is under way and the records are being made available for free at Fold3.com as they are completed. Diverse documents such as the one shown in Figure 7-4 can provide details of a veteran's life after the war.

**FIGURE 7-4** Survivor's Brief, one of 34 document pages from the War of 1812 pension application of Josiah Adams of Massachusetts, approved 13 July 1878

Research American Civil War Records

The United States' bloodiest conflict was its Civil War, which occurred between 1861 and 1865. The sheer volume of records produced is prodigious. NARA holds the Union and Confederate records in its collection. Fold3.com ( **www.fold3.com** ) has digitized and placed vast groups of Civil War era military service records and pensions online. FamilySearch.org ( **<https://familysearch.org>** ) also has placed indexes and images in its Civil War Era Records database. State archives may hold the original state-level militia records.

You will want to search for and research your American ancestors at these online sites, as well as the Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System at **<http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/>**. This site offers indexes to the men who fought, the regiments in which they served, battles in which they fought, national cemeteries, prisoners, and Union Medal of Honor recipients.

Find Later Military Records

Military records of different eras also may be located in different places. Military service records in the United States are located at NARA for the period from 1775 to 1916. The United States' World War I draft registration cards were created during three calls for registration in 1917 and 1918, as shown in Table 7-1. These draft registration cards are in the possession of NARA at its Southeast Region Branch in Morrow, Georgia. They were microfilmed by NARA and have also been digitized and indexed by Ancestry.com. Understanding the history of the World War I draft registration process helped me determine that Charles Ray Morrison, shown previously in Figure 7-2, who was born in Munford, Talladega County, Alabama, on 27 March 1899, was not required to register until the Third Registration Day on 12 September 1918. I was able to locate his registration card and obtain additional personal details about him from that record. This is one example of how understanding the historical background of the period for a specific area can help you to locate records that can further your research.

**TABLE 7-1** U.S. World War I Draft Registration Calls and Age Ranges of Eligible Registrants

You can request copies of the military service records held by NARA by completing NATF Form 86. You may request copies of military pension file records by completing NATF Form 85, or by submitting a request via the Internet. However, you will want to use NARA's eVetRecs site at **www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records** to create a customized order form to request copies of military service records. NARA has produced tens of thousands of rolls of microfilmed military records. Their _Military Service Records: A Select Catalog of National Archives Microfilm Publications_ is available in printed form but is also available in its entirety online. Visit their Publications web page at **www.archives.gov/publications/genealogy/microfilm-catalogs.html**. These microfilmed records are accessible at NARA facilities, a complete listing of which can be found at **www.archives.gov/locations**. (Be sure to check the locations website and contact the facility in advance to verify their microfilm holdings, because not all branches maintain a complete collection of all microfilm materials.) In addition, contact or visit the nearest LDS Family History Center (FHC) to determine if they can order copies of the microfilm from the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah, for your research use.

United States military service records from about 1917 to present are maintained by the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) at its new facility at 1 Archives Drive St. Louis, MO 63138. Unfortunately, a fire on 12 July 1973 at its previous facility destroyed an estimated 16–18 million military personnel files. Approximately 80 percent of the U.S. Army personnel records for persons discharged between 1 November 1912 and 1 January 1960 were destroyed. An estimated 75 percent of U.S. Air Force personnel records were lost for persons discharged between 25 September 1947 and 1 January 1964. There were no duplicates or microfilm records of these records. Some of these records in files were damaged but not destroyed, and these have been refiled. The NPRC, on receipt of a veteran's or surviving family member's request, will attempt to reconstruct a destroyed service record for an individual using other sources when possible.

You can learn more about the NPRC at **www.archives.gov/st-louis/military-personnel/about-ompfs.html**. Records are accessioned to NARA and become archival at the NPRC 62 years after the service member's separation from the military. There are therefore rules governing who can and who cannot access the service records. A guide is available at the website listed above.

As you can see, there is some overlap between the military records held by NARA and by the NPRC. Again, by doing some research in advance of making requests for documents, you may avoid the expense, delays, and disappointment of coming up empty-handed because you requested material from the wrong place.

This all might be confusing if you don't take the time to understand the historical background of the period in which your ancestor lived, the military service requirements at the time, the years and military conflicts in which he or she might have been serving, the branch of the military, the types of records created, and where they might be stored. For U.S. military records, the best book currently available is James C. Neagles' _U.S. Military Records: A Guide to Federal and State Sources—Colonial America to Present_. Published by Ancestry Publishing in 1994, this book provides excellent descriptions of the records created and where they are located. There are no Internet addresses in the book and, since its publication, some government departments have been renamed and their addresses and telephone numbers may have changed. However, the content of the book is excellent and you can use your Internet search skills to search to locate current governmental contact information.

Locate Canadian Military Records

Canada is a fascinating combination of French, British, and aboriginal cultures and a study of strength and courage of individuals carving life out of a rich but often harsh wilderness. It is interesting to read and learn about military conflicts between all of these groups, plus the clashes with the Americans to the south. In addition, Canadians have participated in both world wars and in other military conflicts around the world. If you are researching your Canadian ancestors, written histories may provide information to augment the contextual portrait of those individuals and their families.

Search for Early Records

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) ( **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca** ) is the primary source for the majority of the military records that exist, and has done an excellent job of indexing materials for ease of location. You can access these materials by visiting the main webpage and clicking the Genealogy and Family History link. Select the Military topic in the list in the middle of the page, and then choose the subtopic for the military records about which you would like to learn more. Many of the military records have been microfilmed, and links are included to complete lists of microfilm reel numbers for easy consultation.

The earliest Canadian military materials are from the colonial era and relate to records of the French Regime, records concerning British regiments that were stationed in Canada, and a variety of United Empire Loyalists resources from the time of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). The latter group also includes some petitions to the Crown seeking reward for their loyalty and service. Some collections are broken up into two sections, Upper Canada and Lower Canada.

Unfortunately, however, few military records of any genealogical value exist for the period prior to World War I, with the exception of records for the South African (or "Boer") War, which lasted from 1899 until 1902. Earlier records consist of little more than muster rolls and pay lists, and these contain very little information other than the name of the soldier. Most of these records also have not been indexed, which means that you will need to know the regimental unit in which your ancestor may have served.

LAC's collection of British military and naval records includes materials with references to the British army units in Canada, Loyalist regiments during the period of the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, Canadian militia records, and some other materials. The index to this collection and the collection itself may be available through inter-institutional loan. The index includes a short description of the document, the date, the volume number in the collection, and the page number.

The military service personnel records for soldiers who served in the South African War are in the possession of LAC. They have been organized in alphabetical order and have been microfilmed.

Locate and Access Records from World War I

LAC holds an extensive collection of records relating to World War I, accessible from the main page at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca** by clicking the Genealogy and Family History link, clicking the Military topic, and then clicking the First World War topic. The database of Soldiers of the First World War (1914–1918) consists of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), and images of each soldier's Attestation Papers, such as the one shown in Figure 7-5, are indexed and searchable.

**FIGURE 7-5** Portion of page one of an Attestation Paper for a soldier of the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force

Each CEF unit was required to maintain a daily account of its field activities from the beginning of World War I. These accounts were known as "War Diaries" and are actually detailed unit histories. They include reports, maps, copies of orders, casualty listings, and other documents. Many of the War Diaries have been digitized and placed online, and are searchable by unit name and date. When you locate one that you wish to view, enter the collection and you will find the contents' images listed in chronological sequence by date and page. Click the link, and the document, or facing pages, will be displayed. Some images will be displayed at full size. Others may be resized using your browser to fit in its display window. If your browser has resized the image and it can be enlarged, there is a simple way to zoom in for easier reading. To zoom in on the image, move your mouse cursor to the lower-right corner of the image and pause. If it can be enlarged, a small orange box with blue arrows pointing outward from the four corners will pop up. Click that box and the image will be expanded to full size. While the contents of these War Diaries have not been indexed to make them searchable by keyword or phrase, you will find that the details of your ancestor's or family member's unit's activities will provide a clear picture of day-to-day life.

You might also want to visit the Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) website at **www.vac-acc.gc.ca** for some of the best historical material about Canada's recent military past. Visit its Canada Remembers Program area (by clicking Remembrance on the home page), where you can search the Canadian Virtual War Memorial, a registry of more than 116,000 names of Canadians and Newfoundlanders with information about their graves and memorials. The site provides access to a searchable database of personnel information, which includes the soldier's name, date of death, service number, branch, regiment, and unit. The cemetery name, location, directions to it, and the precise burial location are included.

Another website you will want to visit is the Commonwealth War Graves Commission at **www.cwgc.org**. Here, too, you can search by name for an individual. At this site, which represents war memorials for the entire British Commonwealth, there is even more information, including rank and nationality, as well as a link to provide details about the cemetery of interment. A recent addition to this website is a large section called North Africa, 1940–1943. It includes campaign narratives, the campaign in context, an image library, and an engaging animated campaign map area that shows troop movements and includes text descriptions.

The VAC also maintains the Canadian Merchant Navy War Dead Database at **www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/history/secondwar/atlantic/merchant_search**. This database can be used to search for the names of sailors killed while serving in the Canadian Merchant Navy. It can also be used to search for the names of Canadian merchant naval vessels. You can enter the name of one of the Canadian Merchant Navy war dead, the vessel they served on, or both.

Some but by no means all of the Canadian military records are available on microfilm through the LDS Family History Centers. Microfilmed records are available for research at the LAC or through inter-institutional loan arrangements.

Search for Canadian Military Records After 1918

LAC holds personnel records for more than 5.5 million former military personnel of the Canadian Armed Forces and civilian employees of the Federal Public Service. You can request copies of records from LAC in writing, using their Application for Military Service Information form, an Access to Information Request Form, or by letter. All requests are subject to the conditions of Canada's Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act.

Except for those who died in service during World War II, there is no public online database for the World War II personnel and service records because of access restrictions. Visit **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/022-909.007-e.html** for more information about what records are and are not accessible.

Other military records not held by LAC are referenced by links to other websites.

Locate Military Records in the United Kingdom

Military records are of great interest in the United Kingdom because they are inextricably linked with documenting the history of the British Isles going back as far as William the Conqueror. You will find during your research that literally hundreds of books have been written about military conflicts that have involved the British Isles and their residents. The authors have used manuscripts and historical accounts of the military units and individuals, and have worked with the incredible wealth of records that have been preserved. The Naval & Military Press, for example, is one of the largest independent booksellers in Britain, and their focus is on specialized titles concerning military conflicts. You can visit their website at **www.naval-military-press.com** to view or search for specific titles and subjects.

Understand the Historical Background

It is important with any research in the British Isles to spend time understanding the historical background of the time period and the geographical area in which your ancestors lived. This is especially true when seeking military records, because understanding the military structure at that time can help you determine what might be available and where any existing records may be located.

The English Civil War (1642–1651) is an important milestone in your military research. Prior to that period, there were no standing armies in England and Wales. Armed forces were raised as needed to fight in specific wars or for special circumstances. Parliament raised the New Model Army, an organization of professional soldiers, in February of 1645 in order to more effectively fight the forces of King Charles I. This was the first real army in England. The Union of 1707 brought England and Scotland together, and Scottish regiments became part of the British armed forces after that period.

A significant number of army documents exist starting from about 1660, and some fragmentary military records from slightly earlier can also be found. However, it is not until you begin researching military units dating from the early 1700s that you will find that large numbers of military documents have survived and have been preserved. Still, the records from these periods are records of organizations and not documents about specific individuals.

King Henry VIII's reign (1509–1547) saw the formation of the first permanent English navy. A few naval records exist from approximately 1617. The majority of the surviving records, however, date from about 1660, the same era as those of the army.

Soldiers were organized into specific units that were known by various designations depending on the function of the organization. It helps to know that infantry troops were organized into regiments, and that subdivisions of these regiments were battalions and companies. Cavalry regiments were subdivided into squadrons, while the artillery units were subdivided into batteries. The subdivision distinctions were typically named in earlier times after their commanding officers, and it was not until the 1700s that numeric designations and a description were used to distinguish one from another. That does not mean that commanders' names were no longer used in references to the units, because you still might encounter a reference to a numeric designation along with a reference to a specific commander's group. Don't be surprised to find multiple commanders' names associated with a specific group, as there were numerous changes in leadership over time. It is therefore wise to focus on _both_ a commander's name _and_ a specific unit number and description. Other designations you will find for military units on active duty include armies, corps, divisions, brigades, and others. If your ancestor was an officer, there may be specific records concerning his service and command. However, if he was not an officer, it may be more difficult to locate specific records for him unless you know the unit in which he served, especially in the military records prior to the 20th century, which may not have been well organized and indexed.

If all of this seems confusing to you, don't feel that you are alone. The designations and names that were used have changed over time, and this just serves to illustrate the importance of learning more about your ancestor's origins and the military history of the era _and unit_ in which he or she may have served. This can be especially important if your ancestor did not serve in the government's army but instead served in a volunteer militia.

TNA has prepared an excellent web page titled "Looking for a person?" at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/default.htm**. Here you can learn more about specific Army, Navy, Air Force, and other records—by period—that exist at TNA, what you can access online or at the archives, links to other websites, and links to TNA in-depth research guides. These resources can help you understand the types of records created, what is available, and how you might accomplish your most effective research.

Locate the Repositories Where Records Are Held

The National Archives (TNA) in Kew, Richmond upon Thames, is the best starting point for your military research. TNA was formed in April 2003 from the Public Record Office (PRO) and the Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC). Movement of the holdings of the HMC to Kew was completed in the autumn of 2003, and everything is now housed and accessible at one location. When you are reading reference materials that refer to the PRO or the HMC, remember that these now refer to the holdings of The National Archives, whose website is at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk**.

Military documents at TNA have been organized, stored, and cataloged in groups for ease of access, and a majority of these records have been microfilmed. Therefore, TNA's holdings form a huge body of reference material that can help you learn more about and more successfully locate military documents for your ancestor. In addition, you will find that specific governmental and civilian organizations can provide information and reference assistance.

**Army Records** Army records prior to 1914 are held at TNA. Officers' records from 1914–1920 have been transferred from the Army Records Centre (ARC) to TNA, but those from 1920 and later remain at the ARC. All records of enlisted personnel from 1914 and later remain at the ARC.

You will want to visit the Army Museums Ogilby Trust website's "Ancestor Research & Military Genealogy" pages at **www.armymuseums.org.uk/ancestor.htm** to determine what is in their holdings and what may have been transferred to TNA, especially as this situation changes over time. You also will want to visit their Useful Addresses page at **www.armymuseums.org.uk/addr.htm** for postal, email, and website addresses that may supplement your research.

**Navy Records** Naval records can be a bit more problematic to locate. Royal Navy records prior to 1914 are held at TNA, while the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, London, retains the post-1914 records. The location of records, however, is subject to change periodically. Some good references for the location and accessibility of naval records are found at the website of the Mariners Mailing List at **www.mariners-l.co.uk/MarinersList.html**. In addition, be sure to check the United Kingdom Maritime Collections Strategy website at **www.ukmcs.org.uk** for links and access to specific sites holding maritime materials that may be of help in your research.

**Ministry of Defence** The Ministry of Defence's Veterans UK website was created in 2007 and is the ideal place to begin your inquiry for personnel service records and pension information for those who served in the armed forces from World War II and later. The website at **www.veterans-uk.info** contains links for Service Records, Medals, and other information. The A–Z index is particularly helpful. There is a charge for record requests for family history/genealogical research purposes.

**Military Museums of Note** Military museums hold fascinating collections of historical military materials that may be useful in your research. Inquiries for information and guidance usually receive prompt responses. The following list highlights some of the best of these resources:

  * Imperial War Museum **www.iwm.org.uk** (click the link labeled Family History to find downloadable information sheets concerning tracing military ancestors in different branches of service)
  * National Army Museum **www.nam.ac.uk**
  * National Maritime Museum **www.nmm.ac.uk**
  * Royal Air Force Museum **www.rafmuseum.org.uk**
  * Royal Marines Museum **www.royalmarinesmuseum.co.uk**
  * Royal Naval Museum **www.royalnavalmuseum.org**
  * Royal Navy Submarine Museum **www.submarine-museum.co.uk**

**Other Helpful Resources** Don't overlook the resources of local public and academic libraries in the area in which your ancestors lived or from which they may have served. Other helpful resources in locating military records and historical materials include the following organizations:

  * Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) **www.ffhs.org.uk**
  * Gazettes Online (London, Edinburgh, and Belfast) **www.gazettes-online.co.uk**
  * GENUKI—British Military Records page **www.genuki.org.uk/big/BritMilRecs.html**

Learn About the Types of Military Records in the United Kingdom

Military records may vary across the different branches of service. The following are document types that you may expect to locate, especially among the more modern era:

  * **Attestation Form** Attestation forms were completed by most recruits when they applied to be admitted for service in the military. This is the equivalent of an enlistment form in other military organizations, such as the U.S. armed forces. The attestation form usually asked for the person's name, date and place of birth, place of residence, marital status, next of kin, occupation and/or skills, previous military service, and physical description. Later forms asked for parents' names and other information.
  * **Muster Rolls and Pay Lists** Military units tracked the physical presence of troops and their attendance using muster rolls. Regular assembly of troops included roll calls and reports of persons missing. These rolls exist by unit and can be used to verify your ancestor's presence or status in a specific location at a precise point in time. Pay records exist in various forms ranging from payroll lists to individuals' payment stubs and/or receipts.
  * **Personnel Records** These, too, vary in their existence and content over time.
  * **Casualty Lists and Returns** As a result of muster calls, observations, reports, and medical information, casualty lists were created for the military unit. Depending on the time period, individual forms may have been created to document a person's injuries or death. These can take the shape of a letter or form, and there may also be copies of correspondence in an individual's personnel or service file and/or in the military unit's files.
  * **Medical Records** Medical records may be included in an individual's personnel file, in the records of the military unit or the appropriate echelon, or may still exist in the archives of the medical facility in which the individual was treated. Summary reports were often sent to the military unit for its records, while sometimes the records are quite extensive. Figure 7-6 shows a single page from a lengthy medical summary for an English soldier wounded by shrapnel in World War II and who underwent several years' treatment for his wounds.
  * **Records of Deserters** Military life was difficult at the best of times, and harsh conditions induced some individuals to desert. Military units maintained lists of deserters, and records were included in the individual's file. In addition, the British military published lists of deserters in public newspapers and in the _Police Gazette._ You will find that these records may be helpful if your ancestor "disappeared" from the military at a particular time.
  * **Records of Courts Martial** Military discipline was notoriously harsh, and a great deal was made of conducting and publicizing the court martial of personnel. Military court and tribunal records include records of hearings and trials, and detailed records are to be found in unit records and in an individual's service records. In addition, accounts of a high-profile person's court martial may sometimes be found in newspapers of the period.
  * **Discharge Papers** Discharge papers vary greatly from different periods. The earliest ones are nothing more than handwritten statements confirming the name, dates, and regiment in which the individual served, signed either by an officer or clerk in the organization. Later there were forms used that provided space for the name, rank, military unit, dates of service, places where the individual served and campaigns in which he had participated, any wounds suffered, physical condition at the time of discharge, and statements concerning the individual's character and performance. Later versions of the forms used included inoculation records and other data.
  * **Pension Files** Veterans and/or their surviving spouse and/or family members were entitled to certain pension benefits. In order to obtain a benefit, a person had to make an application. This might take the form of a written petition or an appearance before a court or hearing board. Documentation is therefore likely to exist in one or more places. You may find pension records and related documents in the possession of The National Archives or through a specific veterans' organization. Veterans' groups and organizations that formed to assist veterans in obtaining benefits may be particularly helpful to your research. The Ministry of Defence's Veterans UK site ( **www.veterans-uk.info** ) maintains a page of web links to ex-service (veteran) organizations and registered charities.

**FIGURE 7-6** Page from the medical records of a wounded English soldier in World War II

Learn About Military Records for Ireland

Military records for Ireland and its citizens who served in the military during the time that it was under the British government will be found among those records at The National Archives. Ireland has its own Army, Navy, and Air Corps forces, and those more modern records will be in the possession of the Irish government. An excellent website to begin your research for more contemporary Irish military history and records is the Defence Forces site located at **www.military.ie**.

As you can see, there are many, many avenues of research available for your search for military records in the British Isles. It is therefore important to conduct your preliminary historical research in advance so that you are better informed concerning what records may or may not be available and where to search for them.

Locate Australian Military Records

The National Archives of Australia holds records of its defense forces from the time of Federation in 1901. This includes Australian Army records from the Boer War, World War I, service between the wars, World War II, and service subsequent to World War II. The Royal Australian Navy records include two categories: service up to 1970 and service after 1970. The Royal Australian Air Force Records are also grouped into two categories: service before World War II and service after World War II. The archives also hold a number of other types of records relating to wartime service. You can learn about all of the holdings by visiting the website at **www.naa.gov.au**.

The Australian Ancestry.com site at **www.ancestry.com.au** is a genealogy database collection accessible by subscription, and it includes several military databases for Australian servicemen and servicewomen. They can be found by using the Ancestry Card Catalogue under the Search link. These include at this writing, among many others:

  * **ANZAC Memorial, 1914–1918** This database contains _The Anzac Memorial,_ a book compiled to commemorate those who served in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) and died in World War I. The digitized book contains the Roll of Honour and is organized in alphabetical sequence by surname and is searchable.
  * **_Australia's Fighting Sons of The Empire: Portraits and Biographies of Australians in the Great War_** This book contains biographical text and photographs of thousands of Australians who served in World War I. It is digitized, indexed, and searchable. (Enter **Portraits and Biographies** in the Title box in the Ancestry Card Catalogue search template to locate it.)

Another excellent site for locating information is the World War Two Nominal Roll website at **www.ww2roll.gov.au**. It "was created to honour and commemorate the men and women who served in Australia's defence forces and the Merchant Navy" during World War II. It contains the service details of individuals who served during the period 3 September 1939 to 2 September 1945. The number of individuals collected for the Nominal Roll includes some 50,600 members of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), 845,000 members of the Australian Army, 218,300 members of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and approximately 3,500 merchant mariners. This database is searchable by name, service number, honor awarded, or location (within Australia or elsewhere). For each search result, you can print a certificate (see Figure 7-7), see a full explanation of all the details in the record, or request a copy of the actual records from the National Archives of Australia.

**FIGURE 7-7** A certificate from the World War Two Nominal Roll website

Examine Samples of Military Records

I find that one helpful strategy in investigating military records is to examine specific representative examples of records created during the period I am researching. Army, Navy, Marine, and Army Air Corps records created during World War II in the United States all contain similar if not identical information. Military records from the same period in the United Kingdom will all contain information of a similar type as defined and required by the central governmental organization. Examining these materials can provide insight into just what types of data _were_ recorded, and this helps me focus my search on those records as well as other locations where identical or similar data were collected. Therefore, if I am unable to locate the information in one place, I can investigate alternate research paths to possibly locate it elsewhere.

There are many reference books available that can help you learn more about military records and their contents. James C. Neagles' books, _U.S. Military Records: A Guide to Federal and State Sources, Colonial America to the Present_ (Ancestry Publishing, 1994) and _Confederate Research Sources: A Guide to Archive Collections_ , Second Edition (Ancestry.com, 1986), are both excellent American references. Mark D. Herber's book, _Ancestral Trails: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History_ , Second Edition (Genealogical Publishing Company, 2006), contains an exhaustive study of available military records for that area. Other works, such as John J. Newman's book about U.S. World War I draft registrations, titled _Uncle, We Are Ready! Registering America's Men, 1917–1918_ (Heritage Quest, 2001), provide comprehensive, definitive information to help you research specialized topic areas and record types. You will find that these and other reference works can help you significantly with your research. You just need to start investigating what is available.

Your research into military records can provide you with many details about the individual. Let's look at a number of specific examples of military records from the United States. These are not arranged in chronological sequence by when these records were created, but rather in something of a logical order in which they might occur in the career of a serviceperson.

Locate Enlistment and Draft Registration Records

Some of the most detailed and descriptive records you will find are those relating to the enlistment or conscription of personnel. They contain name and address, date and location of birth, parents' names, a personal physical description, and other information, depending on the era. Bear in mind, however, that the information supplied on these documents should be corroborated with other sources. For example, it is not unusual for a minor to lie about his or her age in order to enlist in the military. It was not until well into the 20th century, when formal birth certificates were created, that a person was required to present such official proof of his or her age.

Figures 7-8 and 7-9 show both sides of a sample World War I draft registration card from the files at NARA. On the front are spaces for a serial number for the registration, the registrant's name, address, date of birth, whether a U.S. citizen, nearest relative, employer's name and address, and the signature of the registrant. The back includes spaces to provide a physical description of the registrant, the signature of the registrar, and the date. The stamp of the local draft board that had jurisdiction over the area in which the applicant registered was also applied.

**FIGURE 7-8** Front of a U.S. World War I draft registration card

**FIGURE 7-9** Back of a U.S. World War I draft registration card

The information on this draft card may point you to city directory listings, a voter registration, driver's license, land and property records, religious congregations in the area, employment records, and other records. The name of the nearest relative provides yet another research clue for you. In this case, E. E. Holder is indicated as the registrant's brother, and you might look for that name in census records, city and telephone directories, land and property records, death certificates, wills and probate records, obituaries, and other documents to locate that person in Rome, Georgia, and trace other family members. You might also search earlier census schedules to locate the two brothers together with their parents.

Military Muster Rolls and Pay Records

Military units regularly muster their troops to verify attendance, issue orders, make announcements, drill, and perform other functions. Muster roll records for a military unit and muster cards for individual soldiers can be found in many U.S. military service files from the colonial period forward. In addition, unit payroll records and payment stubs or receipts can provide important information to help place your ancestor at a specific place and time. The pay stub shown in Figure 7-10 for my ancestor John Swords indicates that he was paid "Three Pounds, five Shills, & eight Pence half Penny Sterling" for 43 days of military duty in 1782. Coupled with other military records, such as his sworn affidavit of service found in his Revolutionary War pension file, it is possible to link John Swords with a particular military command at that date. Further, by researching military history for that unit, I can determine where he traveled and what military action he saw.

**FIGURE 7-10** Image of a Revolutionary War pay record for John Swords' military service in 1782, obtained from a NARA pension file

Seek Out Educational and Training Records

Military personnel are trained to perform their jobs at an optimal level. We are all familiar with the idea of infantry troops going through their drills of marching, combat assault, hand-to-hand combat, rifle practice and marksmanship, use of artillery equipment, bivouac, flight training, seamanship, and a wide range of operations training. Military service records may contain information about the education, testing, and evaluation of an individual's skills and any specialized education or training provided. The records you may encounter in an individual's personnel files and/or the service files may include test scores, correspondence documenting successful completion of training, certificates, and diplomas. Figure 7-11 is an example of a certificate of completion of an Air Force medical training course.

**FIGURE 7-11** Certificate of completion of a medical training course

Look for Military Station and Duty Assignment Orders

Personnel are assigned to specific locations and are attached to specific units. Documents are created to order the individual to report to a location and to perform explicit duties or functions. These documents are often referred to as "orders," and the individual is typically charged with delivering his or her orders to the new unit's commanding officer or clerk. A copy of the orders is retained in the individual's service file. Figure 7-12 shows an example of a Permanent Change of Station Order. Again, the information in this document can be used to verify the movement of an individual from one place to another and to help relate his or her service to the activities of the military unit at that time.

**FIGURE 7-12** Permanent Change of Station Order

Promotions and Commissions

A successful individual may, in the course of his or her military service, be promoted to higher levels of authority and greater responsibility. In the U.S. armed forces, there is a distinction made between recruits, noncommissioned officers (also known as NCOs), and commissioned officers. You can learn more about the various ranks by researching the individual branches of the military service and their history at the time your ancestor or family member served. There are typically several documents associated with a personnel promotion or a commission.

A promotion of a noncommissioned officer is usually documented with a written notice to the serviceperson, a copy to every level of command under which the person serves, a copy to the person's file, and a notice posted in a unit's communication media, such as on a bulletin board, in a newsletter, or in some other venue.

An officer's commission is more formal. A congratulatory letter is delivered to the individual formally announcing the commissioning. The notification processes throughout the echelon are similar. In addition to the letter, an example of which is shown in Figure 7-13, a formal certificate like the one shown in Figure 7-14 commemorating the new appointment is created and presented to the individual.

**FIGURE 7-13** Letter notifying George Thomas Smith of his promotion to Captain

**FIGURE 7-14** Certificate commissioning George Thomas Smith to Captain

A promotion or commissioning, the awarding of medals, ribbons, clusters, and special insignia, and the awarding of a commendation and other recognition to the unit or to an individual is a ceremonial occasion. The ceremony may be as simple as an announcement made at a unit formation or as formal as an occasion at which dress uniforms are worn, a military band performs, troops march in formation, rifle salutes are fired, and high-ranking officers and other dignitaries speak. In any case, records are created and become part of the military record for the individual and for the military unit.

Locate Military Discharge and Separation Records

You will find that the normal conclusion of an individual's military service generates a significant number of important documents. A document detailing the permanent change of duty assignment or station order may be created, along with other internal administrative documentation that may or may not be included in an individual's personnel file. There will be, however, some record of discharge or separation. These documents vary depending on the time period. Let's examine three examples.

World War I

Emil I. Hoffman's Honorable Discharge from the United States Army, dated 9 January 1919, is shown in Figure 7-15. This document is important for a number of reasons. It states that he was born in Smorgan, Russia, and that "he was 30 years of age and by occupation a Salesman" when he enlisted. Further, it describes him physically as being 5 feet 4¾ inches in height with brown eyes, brown hair, and a ruddy complexion.

**FIGURE 7-15** World War I Honorable Discharge from the U.S. Army for Emil I. Hoffman

On the reverse side of the Honorable Discharge certificate is his enlistment record, shown in Figure 7-16. This document is filled with great information, starting with the date of his enlistment on 27 May 1918 at Youngstown, Ohio. He was not an NCO, and he served with the AEF (Allied Expeditionary Forces) from 22 July 1918 until 24 December 1918. He was married and deemed to be of excellent character. He was vaccinated against typhoid fever and was in good health when he was discharged. A stamp in the upper-right corner and a notation indicates that he received a bronze Victory Lapel Pin on 16 September 1919. The remarks indicate that there was no A.W.O.L. or absence from duty. He also was entitled to travel pay.

**FIGURE 7-16** World War I U.S. Army Enlistment Record for Emil I. Hoffman

World War II

The documentation changed somewhat by the time of World War II. In fact, there are even more documents that comprise the military service record and the certificates awarded to the individual.

The Honorable Discharge document and Enlistment Record for George Thomas Smith, which occupy the front and back of a single sheet and which are shown in Figures 7-17 and 7-18, are very similar to those from World War I.

**FIGURE 7-17** World War II Honorable Discharge from the U.S. Army for George T. Smith

**FIGURE 7-18** WWII Enlistment Record for George T. Smith

In addition to those records, the separate Honorable Discharge certificate on heavy paper stock, shown in Figure 7-19, was presented to the individual.

**FIGURE 7-19** Honorable Discharge certificate for George T. Smith

Another two-sided document was created and given to the individual at the time of separation. The Certificate of Service shown in Figure 7-20 was another form of honorable discharge documentation. On the reverse side is the detailed Military Record and Report of Separation, which is shown in Figure 7-21.

**FIGURE 7-20** Certificate of Service for George T. Smith

**FIGURE 7-21** The Military Record and Report of Separation for George T. Smith

The Military Record and Report of Separation contains name, rank, serial number, military organization and occupation, permanent civilian address, date and place of birth, race, a physical description, and marital status. The detailed military history includes the locations where the individual served, decorations and citations, education and training schools attended while enlisted, areas of service outside the United States, and information about continuation of insurance. His right thumbprint was applied as another form of identity confirmation.

One additional document of interest was awarded to the individual, the Army Air Forces Certificate of Appreciation for War Service, shown in Figure 7-22. I find this document particularly interesting in terms of the patriotic text that appears in the second paragraph: "Together we built the striking force that swept the Luftwaffe from the skies and broke the German power to resist. The total might of that striking force was then unleashed upon the Japanese."

**FIGURE 7-22** Certificate of Appreciation for War Service presented to George T. Smith

An interesting development during World War II was the development of Victory Mail, also known as V-mail. The transport of mail between U.S. service personnel and their families in America was bulky and expensive. The Eastman Kodak Company developed the "airgraph" in the 1930s as a means of reducing the weight and bulk for two British airlines, Imperial Airways (now British Airways) and Pan American World Airways. The process involved the use of pre-formatted forms on which people addressed the letter and wrote the body of the document. The airgraph forms were photographed and stored as negatives on microfilm. At their destination, the letters were printed on photographic paper and handled through the Army Postal Services (APS).

During World War II, letters to service personnel were addressed to Army Post Office (APO) addresses. They were opened, censored, and microfilmed. At their destination, they were printed and distributed to servicemen and servicewomen. The same process was employed for letters from military personnel back to the United States. Censors read all letters and redacted any sensitive information.

As you are researching home sources, be on the lookout for V-mail documents. You can easily identify them. (See Figure 7-23.) The envelopes measure 4" × 3" and have an oval window through which the address on the letter could be seen. The letter sheet was 4" × 5" when printed from microfilm. U.S. soldiers and their correspondents between 1942 and 1945 used V-mail. Its use was not mandatory but, during that period, 556,513,795 pieces of V-mail were sent from the United States and 510 million pieces were received in the United States from military personnel abroad. V-mail and standard mail from this period may contain information to help expand your knowledge about your ancestors and family members.

**FIGURE 7-23** An example of a Victory Mail (V-mail) letter

Post–World War II

The mix of military documents changed somewhat following World War II. In 1950, a new document, the Report of Transfer or Discharge from Active Duty, was introduced. It was used to facilitate the transfer of personnel between branches of the armed services and to provide documentation for separation and discharge. The document has become most commonly known as and referred to by its form number, DD 214, and an example is shown in Figure 7-24. In addition, a certificate of Honorable Discharge was issued.

**FIGURE 7-24** Report of Transfer or Discharge from Active Duty, also known as the DD 214

Death and Burial Records

An inevitable consequence of military service for some is the loss of life. The U.S. military is meticulous in its communications with surviving family members and in offering support. When military personnel were killed overseas in World War II, they were interred in military cemeteries and families were contacted to determine whether to return the remains to the United States for burial. One case I have reviewed is that of 1st Lieutenant William J. Smith, who died in England in 1943. (He was the brother of George Thomas Smith, whose records are included in Figures 7-17 through 7-22.) William J. Smith was initially interred in the military cemetery at Brookwood, England. After a series of detailed written communications, the family decided that his remains should stay in England rather than be returned to the United States, and the U.S. War Department arranged for permanent interment in the U.S. Military Cemetery in Cambridge, England. Figure 7-25 shows the letter received from the War Department.

**FIGURE 7-25** Letter from the U.S. War Department concerning final interment of 1st Lieutenant William J. Smith

Congress established the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) at the request of General John J. Pershing to honor the accomplishments of the American Armed Forces where they have served since World War I. The Commission is responsible for the establishment and maintenance of war memorials and cemeteries in foreign countries. Its website at **www.abmc.gov** provides access to databases of information regarding World War I, World War II, and Korean War casualties buried overseas. The site provides detailed information about the name, rank, unit, date and place of death, cemetery where the individual is interred, and information about services that the ABMC can provide to help honor and commemorate individuals buried in these places.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall USA website at **<http://thewall-usa.com>** has a searchable database of all U.S. casualties in the Vietnam War, and vast amounts of information is accessible there. A separate website exists for the United States Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office at **www.dtic.mil/dpmo**.

Locate Other Military-Related Records

Military records, as you have seen, can be a gold mine of detail if you know where to look. Your investment in the study of the history and geography of the areas where your ancestors and family members lived and from where they may have served in the military can prepare you for locating records more effectively.

There are many strictly military records created by governments and archived in their repositories. Other materials, including books, ebooks, magazines, and historical materials, can expand your knowledge and help you place your military ancestors into geographical and historical context. Letters, V-mail, diaries, journals, photographs, and other materials found around the house can also provide clues to open doors. Military-related materials truly can bring family history to life.
8

Understand and Use Land and Property Records

**HOW TO...**

  * Locate and use land and property records in the United States
  * Understand and use land and property records in Canada
  * Learn about land and property records in the United Kingdom
  * Locate land and property records online
  * Place your ancestors into context with property records

Land and property records are among the most numerous records in existence. They can also contain some very important information about your ancestors and their families. Unfortunately, these records are also some of the most poorly understood and least used resources by genealogical researchers. The common perceptions are that a) they are cryptic and unfathomable, and b) they contain little genealogical value.

Like military records, land and property records require a bit of advance research into the history of the geographical area and the types of records that were created there at specific periods. In addition, the methods used to define boundaries and register the ownership and transfer of property also need to be understood. This is not an insurmountable problem and, once you have invested the time to learn about land and property records, you will find that they can provide a tremendous source of information. And yes, they _can and do_ contain vast amounts of genealogical information to help further your research.

There are many excellent books and reference materials available to help you understand land and property records in various locations, such as libraries, bookstores, and on the Internet. However, as a beginning, let's explore the basics of land and property records in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. These overviews should provide you with some basic knowledge to get started in locating your ancestors' records in those places, and should give you ideas on how to approach similar research in other countries in which your ancestors lived and may have owned property.

Locate and Use Land and Property Records in the United States

The history of the United States is a colorful combination of Spanish, English, French, Dutch, Mexican, Russian, and Native American influences. Nearly every American schoolchild is taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492 and, although the place that Columbus "discovered" was not exactly a part of what we know to be the United States of today, this definitely was the beginning of centuries of colonization, conflict, and amazing expansion.

United States history makes for a fascinating study and its settlement parallels that of Canada in many ways. You will find in the course of your genealogical research in both the United States and Canada that land and property records development is similar because of the efforts of both France and England to colonize vast areas of the North American continent. The influence of the Spanish in Florida and the southeast, in California and the southwest, and in other areas brought Spain's form of government, its religion, its governmental processes, and its forms of record-keeping with it. Each time there was a change in government, the land and property records process was impacted from the perspectives of documentation and taxation. The records, too, changed in format and content.

Consider for a moment the Spanish possession of Florida in the 1500s. Spain's Catholic and Jesuit priests spent decades trying to convert the Native Americans to Christianity in that area. England, France, Portugal, and Spain all attempted to settle areas in the area. It was a bloody conflict from the outset but the Spanish continued to colonize and settle the area. In fact, the oldest permanent European settlement in what was to become the United States is St. Augustine, Florida, established by the Spanish in 1565. The English attacked and burned the settlement several times. The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763, ending the Seven Years' War, and giving England victory over France and Spain, and gave Florida and other substantial territories to England.

The British created two administrative territories, East Florida, with its capital at St. Augustine, and West Florida, with its capital at Pensacola. This action continues to influence the state to this day, as the state capital is Tallahassee in the panhandle of the state. During the period of British rule of Florida, residents sought proof from Spain of their ownership of land. The documents created are referred to as "memorials" and "concessions," and these were actually petitions for proof of land ownership. These are written in Spanish and are among some of the earliest land documents that exist for Florida.

The Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1783, ended the American Revolution, also returned control of both parts of Florida to Spain.

Spain and France also competed for possession of what we know as the Louisiana Territory, with both struggling to colonize and control this vast area. In 1800, Spain signed a secretly negotiated treaty in which it signed over its control of the entire territory to France. When the U.S. government learned that France, and not Spain, had authority over the area, it began negotiations to acquire the territory for itself. This culminated in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase, whereby the United States acquired 828,800 square miles (2,147,000 square kilometers) of new territory.

The U.S. Army under Andrew Jackson invaded Florida during the First Indian War in 1817-18. In 1819, under the terms of the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain ceded Florida to the United States in exchange for the American renunciation of any claims on Texas that they might have that resulted from the Louisiana Purchase and $5 million. The two administrative regions of Florida became a single U.S. territory in 1822. The Board of Land Commissioners was established in 1822 by the U.S. government to settle all Spanish land grant claims in the territory. These records are held by the State Library and Archives of Florida ( **<http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us>** ). Florida became the 27th U.S. state on 3 March 1845.

Mexico also fought for independence from Spain and gained its sovereignty in 1821. Texas declared its independence from Mexico in 1836 and won its freedom at the Battle of San Jacinto that same year.

The Dutch founded New Netherland, a territory that covered parts of the states of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. In 1621, the Dutch West India Company received its charter. New Amsterdam, on the island of Manhattan and the site of what is now New York City, was founded in 1625. The English battled the Dutch for the area and finally received the territory in 1674. It was renamed New York. Russia's influence is centered on Alaska, which was purchased for the United States by Secretary of State William H. Seward in 1867.

Settlers took many Native American lands over the centuries. However, the U.S. federal government did seek to settle tribal claims through the negotiation of numerous treaties. The tribes were seldom fairly compensated and this resulted in ill feelings and armed conflicts. The passage by Congress of the Indian Removal Act in 1830 began forced relocation and migration of Native Americans from the eastern states to what became Oklahoma and other western areas. AccessGenealogy.com has compiled an excellent collection of information about Native American records, including indexes to land allotment rolls and links to websites that host other data. Fold3.com ( **www.fold3.com** ) has digitized and indexed the Dawes Packets and Ancestry.com ( **www.ancestry.com** ) has digitized and indexed the Native American enrollment cards, both of which relate directly to the relocation of the Five Civilized Tribes.

This short "thumbnail" history is only one example of the kind of historical research that is important to understand as part of your preparation to conduct effective research, especially in land and property records in the areas and time periods when your ancestors arrived and lived there. You will want to study the historic events and learn more about the boundary changes at all levels, the government(s) that had jurisdiction, the records that were created, and the ultimate disposition of those particular records.

Refer to histories of the area in which your ancestors lived, at the time they lived there. Understand what government had jurisdiction at the time, and then determine where the records of that time period are stored. You can then arrange to access them or obtain copies.

Learn About the Organization of State and Public Lands

Land and property research in the United States can yield vast amounts of genealogical information if you understand the organization of the materials and where to search. There are two distinct types of what I'll call "land organization" in the United States: State Land States and Public Domain Land States. Understanding the distinction between them is important because the way they are measured and recorded differs. The descriptions provided in this chapter are intended only as an introduction for you. There are many books on the subject of land records in the United States, and I would refer you to them for a more detailed study. Perhaps the best of these is E. Wade Hone's book _Land and Property Research in the United States_ (Ancestry Publishing, 1997).

State Land States

The term "State Land States" refers to the fact that the land was originally controlled by the state and sold or distributed by the state itself. Any subsequent land transactions were conducted between private individuals and are therefore often referred to as "private lands." If you examine the following list, it is immediately apparent that many of the State Land States were part of the original 13 colonies under the control of the British Crown. Others, such as West Virginia, were derived from an original colony. And other foreign governments controlled others, such as Texas and Hawaii. The State Land States are Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Following the Revolutionary War, some of the original colonies claimed extensive westward territories as part of their jurisdictions. However, with the formation of the U.S. federal government and based on individual negotiations with the states, most of the land outside what are the current state boundaries was ceded to the federal government. These lands and other territorial acquisitions by the federal government became what were used to create Public Domain Land States. They are also referred to as Federal Land States.

State Land States Survey Methods

The common method of land measurement in the State Land States is referred to as "metes and bounds." This scheme is based on the use of physical natural features such as rocks, trees, and waterways as reference points and the surveyor's chain as a unit of measure. Table 8-1 shows a high-level conversion from surveyors' measurements to feet and inches. You will want to refer to a complete surveyors' conversion table in another reference work.

**TABLE 8-1** Surveyors' Measurement Conversion

Surveyors' Measure | Equivalent
---|---
1 link | 7.92 inches
25 links | 1 rod, 1 pole, or 1 perch
100 links | 1 chain (also referred to as a Gunter's chain)
1 chain | 66 feet
80 chains | 1 mile
625 square links | 1 square rod
16 square rods | 1 square chain
10 square chains | 1 square acre

The metes and bounds survey method dates back to the earliest colonial days, and you will find that, as a result, there are some very strangely shaped land parcels. Some surveys included the placement of stakes for use in later surveys. However, since a stake could be physically moved, a parcel of land always had to be completely resurveyed to verify the accuracy of the land holding. You will therefore find, in many surveys and land description records, references to physical features, stakes, and other people's property, as well as the use of standard surveyors' measurements. The surveyor used compass directions stated as north, south, east, west, or combinations, a compass direction in degrees, and a distance measured in surveyors' units, such as chains.

Figure 8-1 shows a surveyor's report prepared for the estate of one Eli Jones, who owned property in Caswell County, North Carolina. The report includes representations of roads and waterways, and incorporates references to roads, stakes, pointers, sweet gum trees, and other persons' properties. It uses surveyors' chain measurements to illustrate and describe the property. You will also note that, at the upper end of the drawing of the parcel, there are references to "Dower" and "Dower line." This indicates that the owner of the parcel cited was married. By law, the property could not be sold or transferred without the consent of the wife. We will discuss "dower release" shortly.

**FIGURE 8-1** Survey report for a parcel of land in North Carolina that used the metes and bounds survey method

Figure 8-2 shows a detailed section from another survey report that includes a detailed metes and bounds description of the parcel of property.

**FIGURE 8-2** Detail of a metes and bounds property description from a land survey

A separate system of measurement is used in the Public Domain Land States and is known as the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), which uses units of area called "townships" and "sections." We'll discuss that in the "Public Domain Land States Records" section later in this chapter. However, be aware that a combination of metes and bounds and township systems, along with some other less widely used schemes, has been used in some areas. In Texas, for example, the Spanish land measurement method of "leagues and labors" was used in some areas. In Louisiana, the French used the "River Lot System" of slender lots laid out perpendicular to waterways, and these are referred to as _arpents_. Ohio has used several land measurement systems depending on the area and the measurement scheme used at the time.

State Land States Records

You will find a wealth of varied and interesting land records in use in State Land States. The original process of acquiring land began with a land grant. The grant simply defined the terms under which the land would be made available by the grantor to the grantee. The terms "grantor" and "grantee" continue to be used to this day in land transactions. In order to obtain an original grant, an individual (or organization) was required to make an application. A successful application resulted in the issue of a land warrant. A land warrant is simply an official, legal order or directive for a physical land survey to be performed. The survey was conducted and returned to the appropriate land office, where it was recorded. At this point, a patent was prepared. The patent is a title document signifying that the entire acquisition process has been conducted, including the exchange of any money or other consideration. The land patent was then recorded and the title process was complete.

You will find that the subsequent land transfer process typically was continued, as property ownership moved from person to person, with the use of indentures (or agreements), a property survey, and various sale transaction documents, ultimately resulting in the preparation and recording of a deed. Figures 8-3 and 8-4 show both sides of a copy of an indenture for the purchase of a piece of property in Caswell County, North Carolina, dating from 1792. (This document is a transcription prepared by the Register of Deeds on 7 November 1838 from the Deed Book in his office, as indicated by the clerk's statement at the bottom of the second page.)

**FIGURE 8-3** Front page of an indenture for the purchase of land in 1792

**FIGURE 8-4** Back page of the same indenture shown in Figure 8-3, showing the clerk's notation of his transcription made in 1838

During the American Revolution, there was no formal federal government and therefore no treasury. Soldiers were paid as possible, but some were rewarded for their service with what became known as "bounty land." There were both federal and state bounty land warrants issued. States that produced their own bounty-land warrants to compensate its citizens for service were Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. A sample bounty land warrant is shown in Figure 8-5. In order to obtain bounty land, an individual had to make application and go through a documentation process to prove eligibility to receive the land. Military service or providing supplies or other aid were reasons for eligibility, so don't be surprised to find the occasional woman's name on a bounty land application or warrant. The number of acres granted depended on the person's rank and service. Bounty land documents may be found in county records, state land offices, and/or in state archives. Bounty land warrants continued in use until 1855, with some finalized and dated in 1858. Many federal bounty land records have been digitized and indexed by Ancestry.com, Fold3.com, and HeritageQuest Online.

**FIGURE 8-5** Bounty land warrant to John Beache, brother and only heir at law of William Beache

As you can see, there are some interesting and diverse land survey schemes used in the State Land States that have their origins in their colonial past. You will want to do some preliminary research into the state and area in which your ancestors lived and owned property in order to learn what system(s) might have been in use at that time.

Measurements for Public Domain Land States

Following the American Revolution, the new federal government instituted several processes to control territorial land it acquired. There were several reasons for this. First, the government wanted to raise revenue to build its reserves and pay off debts incurred as a result of the Revolutionary War. Second, it wanted to compensate soldiers and other supporters from the war with land rather than money. Finally, with all of its new territory, the government wanted to encourage westward migration and settlement. As a result, documentation dating from this period is some of the richest genealogical evidence you will find.

In order to organize these Public Domain Land areas, also known as Federal Land areas, the federal government had to establish a system of measurement so that parcels could be defined. Rather than using the older metes and bounds survey system, the government decided to use a cartographic reference system using meridians. A _meridian_ is an imaginary north–south line running from the North Pole to the South Pole. Thirty-seven principal meridians were defined over a period of time to form the basis of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS). Additional imaginary north–south lines were defined as guide meridians, and these are located 24 miles to the east and to the west of the principal meridians or of the previously established guide meridians. A horizontal line, running east to west and intersecting the principal meridians and guide meridians, is referred to as a _base line_. It is used to measure distances from north to south. These imaginary reference lines are used to facilitate a quick reference for locating a physical location.

Meridian regions are divided into tracts, each of which is approximately 24 miles wide. Each tract is subdivided into 16 townships, each of which is approximately six miles square.

You also will encounter the term "range" in your research of townships. Ranges are imaginary north–south lines within a meridian that are set six miles apart. Remember that six miles is the width of a township. A count of the number of ranges to the east or west of a meridian and to the north or south of a base line indicates a specific township. For example, if you encounter a description that indicates "T2S and R2E," this means that the township being defined or described is two townships south of the base line and two townships east of the range line.

Each township is further subdivided to provide a more finite means of locating a specific piece of property. Each township is subdivided into sections. There are 36 square sections in a township, each of which comprises approximately 640 acres. Sections are numbered from 1 to 36, with the position of the numbers being dependent on whether the township is north or south of a baseline or east or west of a range line.

A section is most often subdivided into a variety of different-sized parcels. (There are exceptions to this, particularly in Ohio and other states in which the township, range, and section scheme was not clearly in place at the time the initial surveys were performed or where specific governments dictated use of other methods.) These subdivisions of sections are typically square or rectangular in shape. That is not to say that different parcels of land might not be subdivided and shaped differently. However, land descriptions you will encounter in Public Domain Land States usually refer to townships, ranges, and sections to help define the location and size of a parcel.

There are 30 Public Domain Land States: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Public Domain Land States Records

The land in the Public Domain Land States was distributed in a variety of ways over different time periods. Some was auctioned or sold by lottery. Initial sales of land were conducted by auction, with the land going to the highest bidder. Land offices opened and did the proverbial "booming business" in selling land to individuals wishing to settle on undeveloped properties to the west. Land patents are the legal documents that transferred land ownership from the U.S. government to individuals. Now you can search for land patent records online, for both Eastern and Western states.

There were a number of transactions used to transfer ownership of land from the federal government to an individual (or organization). In order to purchase a parcel of land, an individual had to be a native-born citizen of the United States or must have filed a Declaration of Intent document to initiate the naturalization process. The exception to this requirement was in the case of bounty-land warrants.

The process of acquiring property usually began with the individual filing an application for a desired parcel of land. The person had to pay cash or present evidence of some form of credit. At that time, a warrant for survey was issued to accurately define the property description and to ensure that someone else did not already own the property. A completed survey report was submitted to the government and was recorded in a township plat book. The plat book consisted of a map of the township and a listing of the parcels. The surveys recorded here also included descriptions of the physical characteristics of the property, such as rocks, streams, forests, and other features.

Next, the information about the transaction was recorded in the tract book. You can use the tract books' contents to point to specific townships to locate individual landowners' records. All of the paperwork created and documentation supplied so far was then gathered together and sent to the General Land Office. The materials were placed in what is commonly known as a land-entry case file and the files were reviewed. There should be a case file for every application processed, regardless of whether it was approved or rejected. The General Land Office reviewed the land-entry case file and, if approved, issued to the applicant a document referred to as a "final certificate." This indicated that all of the required steps had been taken and that a land patent for the parcel had been approved. The actual land patents were generated by the General Land Office and were sent to the local land office, where the applicant could then exchange the final certificate for the actual land patent. Figure 8-6 shows the land patent for my great-great-grandfather, John N. Swords, dated 10 August 1849, for a parcel of land in the area of Lebanon, Alabama.

**FIGURE 8-6** Land patent issued to John N. Swords dated 10 August 1849

There are over ten million such individual land transactions in the custody of the National Archives. They cover the 30 Public Domain Land States. The case files were filed as either military bounty land warrants, pre-1908 general land entry files, or post-1908 land entry files. The information required to access and order copies of the records will differ depending on which of these three categories the transaction falls into.

The tract books mentioned above relate to the land entry case files and are available to help your research. These are arranged by the legal description of the land: by township, range, section, and so forth. They are divided into two geographical areas: Eastern States and Western States. For the Eastern States, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has the tract books and patents. This geographical area includes the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. For the Western States, the tract books are located in the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. This geographical area includes the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

The land patents have been digitized and indexed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management General Land Office (BLM-GLO). These can be searched in a database at **www.glorecords.blm.gov** , viewed, and printed. You also can order a certified copy of the document from that agency. The document shown in Figure 8-6 was obtained from the BLM-GLO database.

Locate Land and Property Records

Subsequent sales and transfers of titles for Public Domain Land property occurred as private transactions without the participation of the U.S. federal government unless a question concerning the original patent or title arose. Agreements of sale, indentures, mortgages, surveys, receipts, and deeds are usually the most common documents found.

Land and property documents may be located almost anywhere. Some documents will be in the possession of the individual or family, while others will be found in courthouses, recorder of deeds' offices, registrars' offices, tax assessors' offices, county offices, state archives, NARA, the BLM-GLO, and other places. Copies of applications for bounty land can often be found in veterans' military service and/or pension files. Remember that city directories, voter registration lists, jury lists, and many other records may provide clues to property ownership and associated records.

Learn About Types of Records

Deeds are used to transfer title of property from the grantor to the grantee. Deeds are perhaps the most common document you will find in your property research, and they can contain extensive genealogical information. In the case of a piece of property owned by someone who has died, the transfer of property as part of an estate in probate may contain a great deal of information. The name of the deceased and his or her date of death are often shown to designate the reason for the transfer of ownership. In the times before laws required death certificates, a deed may be one of the few sources of a death date. The names and relationships of the devisees/heirs can also be a gold mine in your research. However, this information also serves as a pointer to other records, such as a will and probate packet or marriage documents.

A married man in many U.S. locations could not, by law, sell land unless his wife consented. She was interviewed apart from her husband by a judge, which was witnessed by a clerk, and was asked to swear that she was under no compulsion or duress from her husband regarding the sale. She then swore and signed a dower release. You will often find this sworn statement, known as a "dower release," entered in a county deed book along with the deed granting ownership to another person.

Another important piece of genealogical information that appears in land records is that of "dower release." In referencing Figure 8-1 earlier in this chapter, I called attention to the "dower line" shown on that particular survey report. When a woman had a legal interest in the ownership of property, laws in earlier times required that the woman sign a dower release in order to allow her husband to sell a piece of property. The woman appeared in a court and was interviewed by a judge, separate from her husband. She was asked if she voluntarily exercised her right to relinquish ownership or interest in the property to allow for its sale or transfer. Figure 8-7 shows a copy of a deed recorded in the deed books of Alachua County, Florida, dated 7 June 1873. At the bottom of the document is a record of Priscilla McCall's dower release for that piece of property.

**FIGURE 8-7** This deed includes a record of the wife's interview and dower release.

Warranty deeds are those instruments used in property transactions in which the grantor fully warrants good clear title to the property. A warranty deed offers the greatest protection of any deed, and you will find references to and copies of these warranty deeds among the land and property records you research. Figure 8-8 shows an example of a cover page of a warranty deed. The remainder of the text of the warranty deed is virtually identical to other deeds but, in this case, proof of title has been presented at the time of transfer to ensure the veracity of the title.

**FIGURE 8-8** Cover page of a warranty deed

Another type of deed is a "deed of gift" in which one person transfers ownership of property to another person without benefit of any compensation or remuneration. Figure 8-9 shows the original deed of gift from my great-great-grandfather, Goodlow W. Morgan, to his son, my great-grandfather, Rainey B. Morgan, dated 17 December 1885. This deed transfers ownership of the home tract of land to Rainey but reserves Goodlow's right of use and control for the remainder of his life. The deed is registered in a deed book in Caswell County, North Carolina.

**FIGURE 8-9** Deed of gift from the author's great-great-grandfather giving ownership of the home property to the author's great-grandfather

There are other documents associated with land and property ownership in the United States that you may find helpful to your research. Particularly useful are those documents that point you to the original land records. These include property tax bills such as the example shown in Figure 8-10.

**FIGURE 8-10** Sample of a real estate tax bill, which can direct you to the address of a specific piece of property and confirm the name(s) of the owner(s) of record

Other documents might include tax lists, tax liens, court judgments, and auction records, to name just a few. As you can see, the wide range of documents and the possible contents may provide you with a great many clues. It should be obvious to you by now, though, that there is a lot to learn about U.S. property records. You will want to learn more about the records available in the areas where your ancestors lived at the times they were there. By doing so, you can begin to tap these marvelous resources.

Learn About Land and Property Records in Canada

Canada was an attractive destination for people from both France and the British Isles. Over the centuries, people were drawn to immigrate by the availability of land. In fact, both governments recruited people to settle there, and examples of advertisements for emigration to Canada exist in the holdings of the archives of France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Many parcels of land were granted in payment for military service. Additionally, people migrated northward from the 13 American colonies and, later, the United States.

Among the earliest records that exist in many areas of Canada are the land records created as people migrated westward and settled. In many cases, land records are the only records available that document people who lived in the area. What is interesting is the high percentage of early settlers who did own land. While this is encouraging for genealogy research, remember that these records may have been handwritten in French or English by persons whose literacy and knowledge of legal affairs were not always the best. As a result, you may find that some records are particularly challenging to read and use.

Canada commonly uses four land measurement systems, resulting from systems in use at the time the land was first surveyed and conveyed.

Since settlement began in the eastern areas of Canada and spread westward, you can expect to find the oldest records among the surviving documentation in those areas. Most formal land records in eastern Canada date from the late 1700s. Land records in New France were based on the feudal system of _seigneuries,_ which were landed estates. In Canada, the holder of a _seigneurie_ was referred to as a _seigneur,_ as in a member of the landed gentry.

These land records include land petitions, conveyances, warrants and fiats (permissions), which authorized the granting of land in payment for a service, land grants and patents, Loyalist land grants, deeds, indentures, quit-claim deeds, titles, transfer documents, leases, mortgages, liens, and a variety of other land instruments. The documents that are available for research will vary based on the time period, the government having jurisdiction at the time, and the laws of the period.

Transcriptions of the documents were recorded in the government land offices in the various areas where the transactions occurred. Records of legal claims and actions may also be found in court records.

Land Measurement in Canada

As you work with property records in Canada, you will undoubtedly encounter the use of surveyors' measurements, just as in the State Land States in the United States. Surveyors used units of measurement based on the length of a surveyor's chain. Refer again to Table 8-1 for a brief overview of conversions from surveyors' measurements to feet and inches.

Land Systems Used in Canada

Several land systems have been used in Canada throughout the centuries. In the course of your research, you may encounter these systems and will need to understand a little about them in order to successfully work with the land records. There are four organizational systems you are likely to encounter:

  * **Dominion Land Survey** This is by far the most common organizational system used in Canada. It is based on the U.S. Public Land Survey System and began being used in Canada in 1871. The basis of this system is the use of townships and sections. A township consists of 36 square miles and is subdivided into 36 sections, which are one mile square. Each section is subdivided into four 160-acre areas referred to as quarter sections. This is the smallest unit of this land system. A parcel of land is typically described in its deed or other document as lying in a particular township, section, and quarter section.
  * **Patchwork System** This system used natural land features such as rocks, rivers and streams, and trees to indicate the beginning and end of a specific boundary. For example, a boundary might be described as "beginning at the large oak near the edge of Twenty-Mile Creek and traveling west, ending at the eastern edge of the creek." Canada is not unique in its use of such descriptive land measurements; this system also was used in areas of the United States for many years, and you will find later physical features noted, along with surveyors' measurements, to more fully describe a piece of property. This system was widely used in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.
  * **River Lot System** The use of this system is generally attributed to the land holding system developed and used in New France. Lands along rivers and streams were defined as long, relatively slender lots running perpendicular to the waterway.
  * **Rectangular Lot System** This system uses a Township or Parish system, which should not be confused with the designation of the use of township, section, and quarter section used in the Dominion Land Survey described above. Used primarily in Ontario, Québec, and the Maritimes, this system employs the use of a formal Township or Parish as its largest unit, and then subdivides individual parcels into individual lots of a uniform size and rectangular in shape. The size of the lot might range from 100 acres on up, and common sizes were 100 or 200 acres.

The land office with which you are working can help you to understand and locate specific parcels of property. They typically have produced information sheets or leaflets that describe the system or systems in use in their records and will provide them to you on request. In addition, they will also have detailed land maps of the area going back a long time and, using the property description found on a document, can help you pinpoint its precise physical location.

Taxation and Duty Records

Throughout your research for the land records themselves, don't overlook the taxation and duty records associated with the land in Canada. Property taxes and duty records associated with land transactions can provide another source of information for you. In addition, those records may include names and references to military service, land descriptions, previous and subsequent residences, wills and estates, and other clues that can further your research.

Locate the Land Records

The most logical place to start your land and property research is in the area where you think your ancestor lived. That means making contact with Library and Archives Canada (LAC) to determine what they may have in their possession. Start at their website at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca**.

Next, you will want to make contact with the appropriate provincial or territorial archives to determine what records are in their possession, or for recommendations of additional contacts in their area. LAC maintains a complete list of addresses and web links to the provincial and territorial archives, and to major genealogical societies in those areas, at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/022-802-e.html**.

Be sure to use your local public and academic libraries as reference resources, and visit the nearest LDS Family History Center for help determining what materials you can access at FamilySearch.org ( **www.familysearch.org** ) and/or through microfilm that can be ordered from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Learn About Land and Property Records in the United Kingdom

Some of the more complicated land and property records, from the perspective of organization, are those found in the British Isles. The manorial system in use in England dates back to before the _Domesday Book_ , which was commissioned in 1085. The manorial system is an amalgamation of an agricultural estate system and a feudal system of military tenures. In effect, the king owned all of the land. A tenant-in-chief received his ability to "hold" a large piece of land from the king. The tenant-in-chief could grant the privilege of "holding" to those persons who might be his retainers or valued representatives. These retainers are also referred to as _mesne lords_. The mesne lord could also grant "holdings" to his persons. Throughout the structure, however, each of these persons could and did create their own manorial area, complete with tenants, servants, and other lower persons.

_Domesday Book_ is the record of the great survey of England that was completed in 1086 on behalf of King William I (William the Conqueror). Men were sent to each shire to find and record what or how much each landowner possessed in land and livestock, and its value. The process was much like a census, but was used to assess value for taxation purposes. _Domesday Book_ is held at The National Archives in England. It has been digitized and can be seen at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday**.

A lord and his manor at any level owed his existence to the person from whom he received his holding, and his tenants and other residents of the manor owed their service and existence to the lord of the manor. That included fields for farming and the raising of livestock, forests for hunting, cottages, the church, and common necessary services such as mills and smithies. Tenants, both free and unfree, and other residents not only provided service to the lord, but also contributed a portion of the produce of the labor to support the lord and the manor. The lord, in turn, paid taxes and tribute to the king and provided men, materials, and service to the monarch as required. These services were originally called "tenures" and there were multiple types of these, including the lowliest of the tenants, the free tenures and non-free tenures. These persons were also known as serfs, bondsmen, or _villeins._

Tenures were slowly replaced by monetary payments, known as _socage,_ and military tenures were abolished in 1660.

The National Archives (TNA) has a portion of the Manorial Documents Register(MDR) digitized and online on its website at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/mdr/default.htm**.

How Many Manors Were There?

You might be surprised to learn that there were tens of thousands of manors in England in medieval times. By some calculations, there may have been as many as 25,000 to 65,000 manors. There were approximately 11,000 parishes in the 1500s and 1600s. There were manors of various sizes and with varying numbers of people affiliated with each one. Some parishes often had more than one manor associated with them.

One point of confusion with English land records concerns the fact that manorial lords were often more than simply landlords. In many cases they acted as the administrative and judicial authority, hearing and ruling on all types of claims and complaints. Further, some of the lords also claimed jurisdiction to rule on and administer the wills and estates of their tenants. Beginning in the 14th century, however, the responsibilities of the manorial courts were transferred to other bodies. These included church courts, secular courts, ecclesiastical parish authorities, and finally to the local authorities. Manorial courts still operated into the 19th century for the purpose of handling property transactions on the manor itself.

There actually were three types of manorial court. The Court Leet was the most common court, established by the lord of the manor. Its purpose was to assist in the administration of activities in the manor, and its functions included acting as a court of minor law and, in some cases, monitoring the quality of the produce of the manor. The Court Customary dealt with feudal matters, and particularly with disputes and other matters between the unfree tenants, or _villeins._ The Court Baron dealt with matters of tenure, feudal services, feudal dues, and disputes between free tenants. Obviously, there was more to these courts than this, and their functions varied from manor to manor, in different places, and at different periods. However, this should give you a brief idea of their purposes.

Manorial Records

The good news is that many manorial records have survived for centuries, going as far back as the 13th and 14th centuries. These manorial rolls consist primarily of the minutes of the courts dealing with a vast array of issues. The bad news, however, is that the earliest of these records are written in Latin. With the exception of some records dating from 1653–1660, it was not until the early 1730s that manorial court records began to be written in English, albeit they include many Latin abbreviations and subsidiary notations.

All that said, however, manorial records can contain a great deal of important and helpful genealogical information. The National Archives maintains the Manorial Documents Register (MDR) and Manorial Lordships records.

The MDR was established by passage of the Law of Property Act 1922. This legislation replaced the medieval system of land law and is important because it resulted in the abolishment of the use of "copyhold" in British property law. Copyhold was a form of feudal land tenure according to manorial law, and this form of ownership was used until it was abolished. Proof of property ownership, however, was primarily defined and registered in the original books and rolls of the manorial courts. Property was therefore seldom included in an individual's will.

In accordance with the 1922 legislation, it was imperative that references to the original copyhold entries be easily locatable in order to expedite the handling of land and property transactions. The MDR is maintained by TNA on behalf of the Master of the Rolls. It maintains a record of the locations of all manorial records throughout England and Wales. Manorial records survive today in many national and local record offices and, in some cases, in private hands. The MDR, therefore, is an essential tool for locating the records you might be seeking.

Some of the MDR is available online at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/mdr**. A detailed description of the MDR and Manorial Lordships records is available at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/manorial-documents-register-lordships.htm**. However, you may (at the time of this writing) search the MDR for every county in Wales and for many of the English counties. A search of the database will provide you with information about the number and types of available manorial records and where they are located. Manorial Lordships records are of little genealogical help; lordships can be sold.

Your research into British land and property records will require you to do some historical research into the locations and periods in which your ancestors lived. There are many excellent reference works available concerning manorial records and other land records. Among the best is Mark D. Herber's _Ancestral Trails: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History_ , Second Edition (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2006).

Locate Land and Property Records Online

More and more materials are being made available on the Internet each month. The MDR is one example of land and property reference materials that may be found online. However, there are numerous free and subscription databases that can help further your research. Don't overlook the government websites of the places your ancestors lived; they may have indexed and/or digitized many of their documents.

The Cyndi's List website at **www.cyndislist.com** includes many links to land and property records. These are located under the Land Records, Deeds, Homesteads, Etc. category and under the resources under England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.

Place Your Ancestors into Context with Property Records

Land and property records can most emphatically be used to place your ancestors and family members into geographical and historical context. While a census record may establish an individual's presence in a location at one point every decade, property tax records created on an annual basis can reconfirm the presence (or absence) of an ancestor. When you determine that an ancestor is no longer paying a property tax, you may then direct your research toward deed and property indexes, wills and probate documents, city directories, and other research paths to determine if the property changed hands and, if so, the reason for the change. In addition, when other government documents are lost or destroyed, property records are almost always recreated in some manner. It is essential for a government to quickly reconstruct these records in order to establish property ownership and to continue the taxation that is a primary source of its revenue.

There are numerous types of land and property records that you may encounter. As I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, some of these may be linked to military service. They might include bounty land warrants, homestead and other tax exemptions, military pension loan programs such as the United States' G.I. Bill, and others. You also can link property records with other documents, such as wills and probate records, jury lists, voter registration, divorce settlements, lawsuits, census enumeration districts, and more.

The wide range of documents attached to the purchase, ownership, sale, and transfer of land records is extensive. And while they may at first glance seem complicated or convoluted, the processes employed and the documentation created are actually quite logical. Now that you have an understanding of the types of land and property records that are used and where they might be found, you are prepared to begin searching for those that have been created for your ancestors and their families. Combine your study of history and geography with your genealogical research skills and you really can expand the chronicle of your family's history in a given area.
9

Locate and Use Immigration and Naturalization Records

**HOW TO...**

  * Understand why people migrate
  * Locate and use U.S. immigration and naturalization records
  * Locate and access Canadian immigration records
  * Locate and access Australian immigration records
  * Use strategies for determining your ancestor's ship
  * Use other strategies for determining your ancestor's place of origin
  * Expand your family's story by tracing their migrations
  * Understand the naturalization process and work with those documents

You've learned a great deal about your family so far by locating and using home sources, vital and personal records, and census resources. Along the way, you also have built a foundation for all of your future genealogical research. There are literally hundreds of different record types that may contain information of value in documenting your forebears' lives. You now know how important it is to place your family into context, to conduct scholarly research, to analyze every piece of evidence you uncover, and to properly document your source materials.

This chapter discusses some of the more important document types and presents successful methodologies for locating records of emigration, immigration, and naturalization and evaluating their content. Working with these documents will help you learn much more about the details of your ancestor and his or her family members' lives, and you will come to know them more intimately. A variety of other, less commonly used materials will also be referenced in this chapter, along with recommendations for where to locate them and how to incorporate their information into your family research and documentation.

Understand Why People Migrate

Since the dawn of time, it is a natural state of affairs for all creatures to migrate from place to place in order to survive and to make a better existence. It is the natural order of things, and humankind is no different. People moved from one place to another for a variety of reasons, sometimes moving multiple times until they found a place that suited them. While there are many reasons for moving from one place to another, the following are some of the principal motivations:

  * **Natural Disasters** Droughts, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters were life-altering catastrophes that caused people to leave one place and move to another. Floods in Germany in 1816 and 1830, for example, displaced thousands of people. Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan in March 2011 are examples of more recent natural disasters that dispersed thousands of people, many of whom may never return to their homes.
  * **Drought, Crop Failure, and Famine** Drought and plant diseases are common natural causes of famine; wars, land mismanagement, and other human-caused disasters also result in famine. Famine in Ireland in 1816–17 and the potato famines in 1822, 1838, and between the years 1845 and 1850 caused tens of millions of people to emigrate, particularly to the United States and Canada. Famines in France in 1750, 1774, and 1790 and then the general famine across Europe in 1848 caused French, German, Italian, Dutch, and Scandinavian people to immigrate to the United States.
  * **Economic Problems** Economic recessions and depressions in an area can cause people to migrate. Consider the mass migrations in the United States resulting from the Great Depression of the 1930s when people relocated to any place they could find work.
  * **Political Turmoil or Oppression** Millions of people have emigrated from their native lands in search of asylum in another place in order to avoid political instability, conflict, persecution, violation of personal rights or freedoms, and other problems.
  * **War** War is undoubtedly the greatest catalyst of change. Military conflicts have been caused by colonization, land hunger, economic advantage, and social issues, and the destruction they cause have long been a primary reason for migration, relocation, and evacuation. Residents of a war-torn area may seek refuge in other locations, never to return. Military personnel may also visit areas to which they later relocate.
  * **Accompanying or Following Family and Friends** Many people accompanied or followed other family members or friends who had already moved somewhere else. The lure of employment opportunities, better living conditions, and political and religious freedom was often irresistible.
  * **Adoption** Adoption forces the movement of the adoptee from one place to another without his or her control. Single-child and multiple-sibling adoptions have been common, especially when one or both parents died. The Orphan Trains carried children from across the United States and placed as many as 150,000 to 200,000 children in new homes in 47 states, Canada, and South America. Orphaned and indigent children were transported from the British Isles to Canada and Australia for adoption at various times. And during World War II, children from Britain, Holland, Belgium, and other countries were often evacuated to relatives or through social agencies to other locations in order to protect them.
  * **Religious or Ethnic Persecution** One overwhelming reason for the migration by our ancestors was their desire to live in freedom, to practice their religious beliefs without persecution, or to pursue the lifestyle of their ethnic group. The Pilgrims are an excellent example of the early settlers who emigrated from England to the American colonies. In the 20th century, the emigration of Jews and other persecuted peoples from Continental Europe to Britain, the United States, Australia, South America, and Israel provides vivid examples of persons fleeing persecution.
  * **Slavery** Slave trade was responsible for destroying families and entire communities, and for the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of persons over the ages. Human trafficking removed people from Africa to the New World, and then from place to place as a result of sale, barter, kidnapping, and theft. Invading Spanish conquerors enslaved native peoples of the Americas, and substantial numbers also were transported back to Europe as curiosities and as victims of enforced servitude.
  * **Forced Relocation of Native Americans** Native Americans were seen as an imminent danger to settlers and an impediment to progress. Armed conflicts between them and white settlers, and later the U.S. Army, ultimately resulted in treaties calling for the ceding of Native American lands and permanent relocation of Native Americans to parcels referred to as "reservations." Many died in the relocation marches, such as those who were removed to the Oklahoma Territory in the notorious "Trail of Tears," and in other tribal relocations.
  * **Criminal Incarceration/Deportment** Criminals, debtors, and political dissidents were transported to colonial settlements to eliminate them from society and serve sentences of hard labor. Others were offered the option of relocating to a colony rather than face execution or prolonged imprisonment in their homeland.
  * **Primogenitor or Ultimogenitor** It was common in the Middle Ages (and later) for the eldest son to inherit most or all property on the death of his father. In laws or societal rules, the eldest son could then allow his mother and other siblings to remain or he could force them to leave. In some places, a separate custom called _borough-English_ or _ultimogeniture_ required that the youngest son inherit all the property. In either case, sisters were usually married off and other brothers were encouraged to leave and fend for themselves or become indentured apprentices or servants.

These reasons cannot possibly encompass the universe of factors that influenced our ancestors to make a move. However, placing your own ancestors into context goes a long way toward understanding their motivations. One of my favorite reference websites for a chronological representation of historical events is the Timelines of History website at **<http://timelines.ws>**. You can also use your favorite web browser to search for historical timelines for specific geographical areas. Simply enter the word **timeline** and the name of the state, province, or country for which you want to find a timeline.

It's important to consider both the possible reasons for migration and the possible reasons why your ancestors settled in a particular place. People didn't just move for just any reason; there was a motivation. Likewise, something drew them to a new location, such as family, friends, land, or employment opportunities. Apply the "push and pull" rationale to your search for all your ancestors who moved.

Locate and Use U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Records

The desire to trace one's ancestors back to a place of origin is one of the principal motivations for family history researchers. Many of us will spend our entire genealogical research career investigating family members in the country in which they settled, and that is also commonly the same one in which we live and with which we are familiar. However, the impetus to continue the quest backwards to our ancestors' native land(s) will take many of us on another, more rigorous research trek.

Placing your ancestor in geographical and historical context becomes a research imperative when you begin retracing his or her migration path across an ocean and back to the place of birth. It is essential that you consider the country and place of origin _and_ the destination country, their geographies, the social and historical environments at the time, and the motivations for both leaving the old country _and_ going to a particular location in the new country. For a great many of us, the knowledge of the place of our family's origin has been lost to time and we will have to use all sorts of clues to reconnect a migration path backward. The pointers we'll use may include letters, photographs, books, family stories or traditions, immigration records, passenger lists, naturalization documents, census records, passports and visas, and a host of other primary and secondary information. This may seem a daunting task, but it is certainly one of the most rewarding and insightful experiences you can imagine.

Earlier we discussed some of the motivating factors that compelled our ancestors and their family members to migrate to a new place. Deciding to undertake a move of this magnitude was no small matter; it took a great deal of courage and planning and usually meant leaving family, friends, and everything familiar forever. Our ancestors were literally risking everything, including their lives. Under extreme circumstances, some people fled their homes with little preparation. However, a majority of the emigrants left their ancestral home place for another part of the world with some plan for where they would go and what they would do to survive when they arrived. These people were courageous and often endured terrible conditions in order to make a new life for themselves and their families.

Learn About How Our Ancestors Traveled

For most of us, our ancestors traveled in ships. One of the most familiar images to many immigrants or first-generation Americans is that of the immigration processing station Ellis Island. Millions of people, such as those shown in Figure 9-1, arrived there between 1 January 1892 and 12 November 1954. These immigrants may have left their hometowns on foot, in wagons and carts, in canal boats, and even on trains, to reach a seaport from which they departed to cross an ocean. Millions upon millions of people traveled in ships and, depending on the time period, the type of ships on which they traveled determined the duration of the voyage and the living conditions in which they traveled. It was not until well into the 20th century that people emigrated via airplane and, when they began doing so, many of the records we seek were no longer created—in particular, the ships' passenger lists and manifests.

**FIGURE 9-1** Immigrants arriving from Italy, ca. 1911

You will find that immigration and naturalization are inextricably linked together, not just because one event occurred before the other but also because, to become naturalized citizens in the new country, proof of when, where, and how your ancestors arrived there was required. We're going to concentrate on immigration to the United States and the naturalization process to become an American citizen. However, we also will explore the wealth of records concerning immigration to Canada and Australia from the British Isles and resources for tracing ships from other countries to these destinations as well.

Many migration routes have been used over the centuries, depending on the location you are researching, the time period, the method of transportation from place to place, and the destination. There are many excellent websites for your review, depending on your area of interest. They include the following:

  * German emigration to the United States at
 **www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAEgermany.htm**
  * Irish emigration to the United States at
 **www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAEireland.htm**
  * Italian emigration to the United States at
 **www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAEitaly.htm**
  * Russian emigration to the United States at
 **www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAErussia.htm**
  * Swedish emigration to the United States at
 **www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAEsweden.htm**
  * Immigrants to Canada at
 **<http://jubilation.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/thevoyage.html>**
  * Museum Victoria's "Immigration to Victoria [Australia] - A Timeline" at
 **<http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/websites-mini/immigration-timeline/>**

Geopolitical boundaries have frequently changed throughout history. Use historical maps of the areas in which your ancestors lived to help understand where they were located, and make sure you look at maps from the same time period to make sure you are looking for the records in the right repository.

In the United States, I have two favorite collections of historical maps online. The first is the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas at Austin, located at **www.lib.utexas.edu/maps**. Once at that site, click the first half of the link labeled "Maps of The United States including National Parks and Monuments," and then click the link labeled "Historical Maps of the United States." The menu bar near the top of the page contains links to several interesting groups of maps on this page, including "Exploration and Settlement" and "Territorial Growth," excellent references for migration routes. Also on this page, under the section labeled "Later Historical Maps," are a number of maps compiled from the 1870 U.S. federal census that show concentrations of population settlements of Chinese, English and Welsh, British American, German, Irish, and Swedish and Norwegian people. All of these were prepared in 1872.

My other favorite collection is the David Rumsey Map Collection at **www.davidrumsey.com**. You have a choice of a number of viewer tools with which to view the maps. The LUNA browser is simple to use and provides splendid viewing results. It runs in the Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome browsers. The in _sight_ Java Client, which requires a free download of software that installs on your computer, is another excellent viewing option. This collection is searchable in a variety of ways and the images are wonderful. (You may need to turn off any pop-up blocker software on your computer in order to access the map images.)

Learn About the History of Ships' Passenger Lists

Passenger lists, also referred to as "passenger manifests," will vary in format and content, depending on who created them, why they were created, the time period, and other factors. For example, persons transported in bondage from England—that is, prisoners transported to a colony as punishment and/or to permanently get rid of them—may be documented in court records in the country of origin. The person may also be listed on a prisoner ship's records. In other places, there may be no immigration lists available at the destination location but there may well be emigration lists and/or ships' manifests at the point of departure.

In addition, and perhaps most important of all, it is imperative to remember that you must always look for the obvious records _and_ , in the event that you can't find those, investigate the possibilities that there may be alternative record types that can help document the migration. For example, if there are no ships' passenger lists, look for immigration records to document the arrival. Also, in the United States, you can use the decennial federal census records starting in 1790 to help document and trace your immigrant ancestors. For example, the 1880 census asked for the place of birth of each person as well as of his/her father and mother. The 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 federal censuses all asked for the year of immigration and whether the person had been naturalized. The 1940 census asked for the name of the country in which the person's birthplace was located as of January 1, 1937, and citizenship status. It did not ask for the year of arrival in the United States. Census Population Schedules also may include the language spoken, or "mother tongue," and that can help lead you to the place of origin. These records therefore can be the bonanza you need in the way of pointers to other records and/or can be used as alternative, supplemental, and corroborative evidence and documentation.

Figure 9-2 shows detail from the 1910 U.S. federal census for the John Scullion family in Patterson Ward 8, District 0138, in Passaic County, New Jersey. John and his wife, Catherine, were born in Ireland. Their four sons and one daughter living were born in New Jersey. To the right of these birth locations is a two-column set of critical information for your search. The year of arrival in the United States is listed in the first column. You can see that John arrived in 1891, and it appears that Catherine arrived in 1881. (Other censuses may show that Catherine arrived in other years, therefore presenting a discrepancy that needs to be addressed. You may therefore need to check ships' passenger lists and naturalization records.)

**FIGURE 9-2** 1910 U.S. federal census detail showing places of birth, arrival year, and naturalization status

In the next column for John is a notation "na." This indicates that he has been naturalized. That should be a clue to begin tracing his naturalization records. It appears that his wife was not naturalized by 1910. Subsequent searches of the 1920 and 1930 censuses show that Catherine had not become a naturalized citizen.

Let's look at the United States and ships' passenger arrival lists that you may want to research and examine. In order to understand what is available, we need to briefly examine the history of these records.

A Chronology of Ships' Passenger Lists in the United States

Prior to the Revolutionary War, there was no formal attempt to require passenger arrival lists. Indeed, any requirements were instituted by the colonies themselves as they had control over their own affairs. Because the 13 colonies were, in fact, British, and close to 80 percent of the white immigrants arriving before 1790 came from England or British-governed countries, there was little or no need to record the arrivals. Any documentation about passenger movement was created or maintained by the ships' owners and operators; the colonial governments maintained any information concerning shipping commerce. Their primary concerns were the regulation and taxation of incoming and outgoing goods. Government officials had little interest in passenger arrivals other than those of Crown prisoners and indentured servants.

If you are seeking information about early immigrant arrivals in the colonies, it is important to look for alternative records, as mentioned before, such as "lists of departure" in the original country. Some of these are in national archives or in the collections of libraries and archives, or in local government record repositories near the port of departure. (In Spain and Portugal, there are extensive archival holdings relating to shipping and passenger movements that trace back in many cases into the 1300s, and hence we have a solid historical record of much of the global exploration from those periods.) Histories of individual colonies and settlements may also provide you with information about arrivals of individuals or families and their participation in the community affairs. Land and property records may also provide you with clues to your ancestor's time of arrival.

There are, as mentioned above, a few exceptions to the pre-Federal period's lack of passenger arrival lists. In Pennsylvania, for instance, beginning in 1727 that colony required that non-British immigrants be identified. The persons identified in the listings that were created were primarily of German nationality. There were essentially three lists compiled, consisting of: 1) the ship captain's list, made on board ship, of names from the manifest; 2) lists of oaths of allegiance to the British king that were signed by all males over the age of 16 who could walk to the local magistrate at the port of arrival; and 3) lists of the signers of the oath of fidelity and abjuration, a renunciation of any claims to the throne of England by "pretenders," also signed by males over the age of 16 who could walk to the courthouse. One estimate is that only about two-fifths of the ships' passengers actually signed these oaths, and not all of the ledgers and documents have survived. Still, these are a source of considerable interest to researchers with German ancestors who went to Pennsylvania in that time period. The surviving documents are in the possession of the Pennsylvania State Archives.

Nearly 100 percent of the passenger arrivals in U.S. ports were recorded on passenger lists prepared by shipping companies at the port of departure or by ships' captains. The custom officers in the ports of arrival were required to collect a passenger list before passengers could disembark. The officers were required to prepare a monthly summary of passenger arrivals and send them to Washington, D.C. Those reports have been used as replacements for any passenger lists that were lost or destroyed. The complete chronological set of lists and/or reports was microfilmed by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and has been digitized and indexed at Ancestry.com.

The year 1820 is a bellwether for U.S. historians and genealogists from an immigration perspective. In that year, Congress passed legislation calling for passenger lists to be filed by each ship's master with the customs officer in the port of arrival. Manifests of goods being brought into port were already being prepared and delivered to the customs officer. However, passenger manifests were something new. These documents are sometimes referred to as the "customs passenger lists" or "customs passenger manifests." Two copies of the passenger list, like the ones shown in Figures 9-3 and 9-4, were created on board the ship and listed every passenger. The ship's master was also required to record on the list any births and deaths that occurred during the voyage. The names of members of the crew were not required. On arrival at port, the ship's master was required to deliver both copies of the document to the customs collector. The master then swore under oath that the lists were complete and correct, and then both he and the customs officer signed the documents. One copy remained with the customs collector and the other copy was retained by the ship's master. The customs officer was required to prepare an abstract of the lists quarterly and send it to the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C. The abstract listed the name of every vessel; the port of origin; any intermediate ports of call; the date of arrival; each respective ship's master's name; and the names, gender, and ages of all passengers.

**FIGURE 9-3** Passenger list of the Brig _Elvira_ , which arrived in New York on 14 June 1855

**FIGURE 9-4** Manifest of the _Obidense_ , which arrived in New York on 10 July 1910

A Congressional act passed in 1882 required that federal immigration officials record all immigrants arriving in the United States. The lists that were produced date from 1883 for the port of Philadelphia and from 1891 for most other ports, and these have been microfilmed by NARA. These lists include the name of the master; the name of the ship; the ports of departure and arrival (including intermediate stops); the date of arrival; the name, place of birth, last residence, age, occupation, and gender of each passenger; and any other remarks. The intermediate ports of call may be important for tracing your ancestors' stages of migration.

The year 1891 was important to U.S. immigration and naturalization for a number of reasons. In that year, a separate federal governmental agency was formed whose purpose was specifically to oversee immigration. This was the Office of the Superintendent of Immigration within the Treasury Department. For the first time, this new bureau strictly oversaw this function and, as a result, the records created became more detailed. Between 1891 and 1903, responsibility for the collection and maintenance of the forms passed through several federal departments, finally becoming the province of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which was formed in 1933 as part of the Department of Labor (in 1940 transferred to the Department of Justice). The INS immigration service functions were transferred to the new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in 2003 as part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Standardized forms, such as the one shown in Figure 9-4, began to be used in every embarkation port around the world and were to be prepared _before_ the departure of the ship. Therefore, any changes would have been noted _prior_ to entry into any U.S. port. Only births, deaths, and the discovery of a stowaway would have caused the manifest to be changed en route.

Again, the forms were to be presented to the customs and immigration service officers at the port of arrival. The forms became known as Immigration Manifests or Immigration Passenger Lists. When these forms were introduced in the early 1890s, they required more information than ever before to be provided. (Please see Table 9-1.) Further columns were added in later years, all of which provide more information for our genealogical use.

**TABLE 9-1** Required Contents for Passenger Manifests Arriving in the United States

Time Period | Passenger List Columns/Contents
---|---
1820–1891 |

  * Passenger Name
  * Age
  * Gender
  * Occupation
  * Nationality

1892 |

  * Passenger Name
  * Age
  * Gender
  * Occupation
  * Nationality
  * Marital status
  * Last residence
  * Intended final destination in the U.S.
  * Whether ever in the U.S. before and, if so, where, when, and for what duration
  * Name, address, and relationship of any relative in the U.S. which the immigrant planned to join
  * Whether able to read and write
  * Whether in possession of a train ticket to the final destination
  * Who paid the passage to America
  * Amount of money (in dollars) the immigrant was carrying
  * Whether the person was a convict, indigent, insane, or a polygamist
  * State of the immigrant's health

1903 | All of the information as in 1892, plus:

  * Race or people

1906 | All of the information as in 1903, plus:

  * Personal description (height, complexion, hair color, eye color, and any other identifying marks)

1907 | All of the information as in 1906, plus:

  * Name and address of the closest living relative in the native country

The Bureau of Immigration requested that all of the earlier passenger arrival records be sent to that office. Unfortunately, though, that was easier said than done. The original documents had been stored in customs houses, courthouses, customs collectors' homes, and other places. Some had been damaged, destroyed, or simply lost. Fortunately, a vast majority of the original customs passenger lists from 1820 to 1905 survived, as did the majority of the customs collectors' monthly reports. These are in the possession of NARA and have been microfilmed. In fact, where the original passenger list had not survived, NARA used the customs officers' reports as substitutes to fill in gaps in chronological sequence in the microfilmed records. While these abstracts don't contain as much detail as the original passenger manifests, they do supply critical nominal information and other details.

As the years passed, passenger lists were prepared with more forethought to their clarity and accuracy. Many of these documents were prepared using a typewriter, such as the example in Figure 9-5, which certainly makes for easier reading. However, because the typewritten passenger lists were likely prepared from other handwritten documents, the possibility of transcription and typographical error is increased.

**FIGURE 9-5** Page from a passenger manifest of a ship arriving in New York on 1 May 1923

For more extensive information about ships' passenger lists and manifests, you will want to read John Philip Colletta's definitive how-to book, _They Came in Ships: Finding Your Immigrant Ancestor's Arrival Record_ , Third Edition (Ancestry Publishing, 2002), articles in _The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy_ , Third Edition (Ancestry, 2006), and Loretto D. Szucs's definitive reference book for immigration and naturalization reference, _They Became Americans: Finding Naturalization Records and Ethnic Origins_ (Ancestry Incorporated, 1998).

There are any number of indexes and finding aids to these records, and all three of the books cited above provide excellent guidance to help you locate these indexes. Perhaps the most definitive is the mammoth set of books by P. William Filby, the _Passenger and Immigration Lists Index_ (Gale Group, 1985 to present). These books are part of an ongoing project to index as many resources of ships' passenger information from as many sources as possible.

Ancestry.com has digitized and indexed all of the ships' passenger lists for all U.S. ports. These images can be accessed at their website at **www.ancestry.com** as part of their subscription database offering.

Learn About the American Ports of Entry

Although passengers arrived at about 100 different U.S. ports over the years, most ports saw only infrequent traffic. Sometimes only a few ships with passengers would arrive in a given year. During the early years, most of the immigration traffic coming into the United States tended to be directed to one of five major ports: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New Orleans. Although Philadelphia had been the most popular of these ports during the colonial era, within the first two decades of federal immigration regulation, New York emerged as the preferred port of arrival.

By 1850, more immigrants arrived in New York than in all other ports combined. This is a likely result of the construction of the Erie Canal and its expansion. The canal became a primary conduit for migration to western New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and further west by means of passenger ships plying the Great Lakes. New York became the nation's largest seaport beginning in the 1820s. By the 1850s, New York also was a major railroad hub offering access to nearly every part of the country. It is no wonder that it became the primary immigration port of entry.

Because of the waves of immigrants entering the city, New York was the first port to open an immigration depot. Castle Garden, shown in Figure 9-6, was located at the Battery in lower Manhattan. It was the immigration processing center for the Port of New York prior to the opening of Ellis Island on 1 January 1892. It was a massive stone structure originally built in 1808 as a fort. It later served as an opera house until 1 August 1855 when New York State authorities transformed it into an immigration landing and processing station.

**FIGURE 9-6** View of Castle Garden in New York

Castle Garden's primary purpose was not to inspect, but to protect new arrivals from the thieves, swindlers, confidence men, and prostitutes who prowled the piers looking for easy marks. Inside Castle Garden, immigrants could exchange money, purchase food and railway tickets, tend to baggage, and obtain information about boarding houses and employment. More buildings were erected outside the original Castle Garden to handle the additional volume of people as immigrant arrivals increased. Brick walls were constructed to enclose the large complex. On 18 April 1890, the last immigrants were processed through Castle Garden. During its lifetime, more than eight million immigrants had passed through Castle Garden.

Control over the immigration processing in New York shifted to the U.S. Superintendent of Immigration, and the Barge Office became an interim landing depot, pending the opening of a new immigrant processing center on Ellis Island on 1 January 1892. Immigrants such as those shown in Figure 9-7 arrived at a modern, well-organized facility where they were given physical examinations, helped with completing forms by interpreters who spoke their language, and processed efficiently through customs.

**FIGURE 9-7** Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island

Ellis Island wasn't the first immigration processing center in New York. Ellis Island opened on 1 January 1892 and replaced Castle Garden.

On 14 June 1897, however, fire destroyed the Ellis Island facility, and with it went the administrative records of Castle Garden (1855–1890), the Barge Office (1890–1891), and Ellis Island (1890–1897). These were administrative records only and it is believed that very few passenger list documents, if any, were lost. The passenger lists that had already been handled over Ellis Island's years of operation to that date were perfectly safe and already in the custody of the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Immigration. The Ellis Island facility was reconstructed, this time using fireproof materials, and it reopened on 17 December 1900. It served as the immigration processing site for New York until 1954. You will want to research passenger arrivals at the Ellis Island Foundation site at **www.ellisisland.org**. Stephen P. Morse has developed an excellent website that can help you get past some of the limitations of the official Ellis Island Foundation site, and his site can be accessed at **<http://stevemorse.org>**. Here you will find numerous search tools for Castle Garden and Ellis Island immigrant arrivals.

New immigration forms were implemented at different times in different ports depending upon a number of factors, most notably who was in charge of the port at the time. Federal immigration officials began regulating many ports of arrival starting in 1891. Other ports were regulated and administered by local officers contracted by federal officials. Any lists created under the authority of the Bureau of Immigration are considered and referred to as "immigration passenger lists." This distinguishes their content and handling from that of the customs collectors and the "customs passenger lists" and the associated processing that was used from 1820 until 1891.

Contrary to popular myth, the employees of the immigration processing centers did not arbitrarily change immigrants' names as they arrived. You may have seen photographs of immigrants queued up for interview or inspection in which paper tags was attached to their clothing. The tag actually bore the name of the ship on which the person had arrived and the line number on the passenger manifest on which his or her name was listed. The processing stations used these tags to facilitate the expeditious processing of persons who spoke little or no English. The tags assisted in directing the new arrivals into proper lines for processing. There also was a small army of translators available to assist in the arrival and inspection process. Many immigrants actually changed their own names prior to sailing, on arrival in the new country, or later in order to become more quickly assimilated into American society. Versions of the same forms used in the United States at various times have included a place to indicate the name under which the person arrived in the country.

Virtually all of the later immigration passenger lists survived and were eventually acquired by NARA after its creation. In the 1940s and 1950s, thousands of bound volumes of these lists (about 14,000 volumes of Ellis Island records alone) were microfilmed. Since the project was completed relatively early in the history of microfilming, the quality is not always good. Some estimates indicate that as much as 6 percent of the lists are difficult or impossible to read, with that number reaching as high as 15 percent for the pre-1902 lists. The passenger lists were destroyed after microfilming, though, making it impossible to create new digital images from the originals. Ancestry.com has digitized and indexed all of the surviving passenger lists for all U.S. ports of arrival from the NARA microfilm.

Locate Ships' Passenger Lists for Immigrants Arriving in the United States

There are several sets of indexes to the ships' passenger lists. You can begin by using indexed digital images at Ancestry.com. Many public libraries subscribe to Ancestry Library Edition and you can use this database product free inside the library. You can use the indexes such as those produced by P. William Filby, colonial, state, and local histories, and transcriptions in both print and on the Internet to locate ships whose port of origin and time period seem appropriate candidates to search. Federal census Population Schedules, too, can be used as part of your research strategy. For example, the following years' U.S. federal census Population Schedules contain important clues:

  * **1880** Nativity columns ask for place of birth for the named person on the census form, as well as his or her parents.
  * **1900** Nativity information is again requested. In addition, the year of immigration is requested, as well as number of years in the United States and status of naturalization.
  * **1910** Nativity information is again requested. In addition, the year of immigration, whether naturalized, and language spoken if not English were included.
  * **1920** Year of immigration, naturalization status, and year of naturalization are requested. Place of birth and mother tongue are requested for the named person on the census and his or her parents.
  * **1930** Place of birth of named person on census and parents were requested, as well as language spoken in home before coming to the United States. Year of immigration and naturalization status were included.
  * **1940** Place of birth of each individual and the citizenship status were requested.

All of these years' census Population Schedules can provide pointers to the person's nativity. On those census Population Schedules that requested language spoken or "mother tongue," a response of "Yiddish" would point to a Jewish background, and a reply such as Polish, French, or Urdu would indicate another national or ethnic origin.

Naturalization documents, which we will discuss later in the chapter, include the date of arrival, port of arrival, and name of the ship on which the person arrived.

If you are unsure of the ship on which your ancestor arrived, it is possible to use other clues such as language, place of birth, or spelling of the surname to narrow your search. If you have a good idea of the country of origin, you may be able to use microfilmed or digitized newspapers and read the shipping news. Ships' arrivals, name of the port of origin, intermediate ports of call, and shipping company can help you avoid having to read every entry for every ship in a given year. In addition, by identifying the names of shipping lines arriving from your ancestor's country of origin, you may also be able to locate ships' manifests created and filed on the other side of the ocean.

The Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild (ISTG) at **www.immigrantships.net** is an all-volunteer effort and is making great strides in locating, accessing, and producing accurate transcriptions of ships' passenger lists and manifests from the 1600s to the 1900s from all over the globe.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service, begun in 1933, became the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). You can access that site at **www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis** and learn about its history and the necessary requirements for obtaining information from that agency.

Locate and Access Canadian Immigration Records

There are many, many records available for researchers who are tracing their Canadian ancestors. One important website with which to begin your research is inGeneas, created and maintained by genealogy professionals in Ottawa. Located at **www.ingeneas.com** , the site provides searchable databases, including ships' passenger lists and immigration records from the mid-1700s to the early 1900s. Search results provide listings of matches, and following the links may present you with information about a person's age, the year of the record, and a description. You can then order transcripts of records you want more information on, or you can also order a photocopy of the original microfilmed document.

Another excellent website with many links is Immigrants to Canada, located at **<http://jubilation.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/thevoyage.html>**. Included are scores of links, including compilations of ships for specific years, written/transcribed accounts describing the voyages, emigrant handbooks, extracts from government immigration reports of the 19th century, and many, many nationalities' emigration/ immigration website links. Don't miss this one!

Ancestry.com completed the digitization and indexing of all the surviving Canadian passenger lists in 2008. This digital collection encompasses the years 1865 to 1935 and includes more than 7.2 million names. It is part of the Ancestry.com and Ancestry.ca subscription database collections. Figure 9-8 shows an example from 1934.

**FIGURE 9-8** Canadian passenger list from 1934

Consult the Library and Archives Canada

Library and Archives Canada (LAC), at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca** , provides its content in both English and French. Here you will find a wealth of information for your research. On the main page, click the Genealogy and Family History link. Here you can search any of the databases related to genealogy. You can also view the list of all the available databases. Click a link and explore the available information.

First, you should know that there are no comprehensive lists of immigrant arrivals in Canada prior to 1865. Shipping companies were not required to create, retain, or supply their passenger lists to the government offices until that year. Apparently a few of the lists include passenger names, and the Miscellaneous Immigration Index in LAC's reference room in Ottawa is accessible for locating those few records. The contents relate to immigrants from the British Isles to Québec and Ontario between the years 1800 and 1849. That information also is included in the inGeneas website as a result of volunteers' work to index and enter it.

Immigration passenger lists were not required in Canada until 1865. The originals are at Library and Archives Canada (LAC), and they have been digitized at Ancestry.com and Ancestry.ca. The LAC site at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca** is an excellent site at which you can learn more about the history and context of these records.

Please note that records from 1 January 1936 are still in the custody of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Privacy of individuals is protected, and certain restrictions exist. Border Entry records also are available for immigrants arriving across the U.S./ Canadian border between April 1908 and December 1935. However, not all immigrants were recorded. Some persons immigrated without being processed through ports when they were closed or where no port or governmental station existed. Others, for whom one or both parents were Canadian or who had previously resided in Canada, were considered "returning Canadians" and were not listed.

There also are registers of Chinese immigrants to Canada who arrived between 1885 and 1949.

It is important to know that the records are arranged by name of the port of arrival and the date of arrival, with the exception of the years 1923–1924 and some records from 1919 to 1922 when a separate governmental reporting Form 30A (individual manifest) was used. In addition, the Pier 21 Society of Halifax, Nova Scotia, has worked with LAC in inputting passenger list data from 1925–1935 and border entry records data.

LAC provides an Ancestors Search facility at its website that allows you to enter the surname and given name and search one or all databases related to genealogical data. The direct link is **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/lac-bac/search/anc** , and the search template is shown in Figure 9-9.

**FIGURE 9-9** The search template for the Ancestors Search template at the Library and Archives Canada site

Home Children is a term used to designate the more than 100,000 children who were sent from Great Britain to Canada between the years of 1869 and the late 1930s. The intent was to provide a better, healthier, and more moral life for them. These were primarily poor or orphaned children, and rural Canadians welcomed them as cheap labor for their farms. (You may learn more about this phenomenon at the Young Immigrants to Canada website at **www.dcs.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/homeadd.html**.) The archive contains a great deal of correspondence from sponsoring and administrative agencies for these children. Members of the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa are locating and indexing the names of these Home Children found in passenger lists in the custody of LAC. Details about the record holdings and a searchable database of these children are accessible at **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogie/022-908.009-e.html**.

Passenger lists and other records from before 1865 may exist in the provincial or territorial libraries, archives, and/or at maritime museums. The passenger arrival records in the custody of LAC that date from 1865 to 1935 have been microfilmed. They can be accessed in person by visiting them at 395 Wellington Street in Ottawa, through interlibrary loan among Canadian libraries, and/or through the LDS Family History Center nearest you. As mentioned before, digitized images are indexed and accessible at Ancestry.com and Ancestry.ca.

An excellent strategy for researching immigrants into Canada would be to start with LAC and then seek additional resources in the appropriate province or territory. Please note that Canada _does not_ maintain records of emigrations from Canada to other countries. If you are searching for an ancestor who emigrated to the United States, for example, you will need to refer to U.S. immigration records.

Locate and Access Australian Immigration Records

The history of Australia is a rich one, and it is the story of two peoples: the indigenous Aboriginals and the immigrants, primarily from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Most people know that Australia was used by Britain originally as a penal colony, and that most of the original colonial settlers were, in fact, convicts who were transported from the United Kingdom since 1788, along with the military personnel assigned to the colony. Nowadays it is the "in thing" to descend from a convict. In fact, Australian citizens often express the sentiment that the more convicts in the family tree, the merrier—and the more "ocker" (Australian) one becomes. So let's look at convicts first. The earlier your ancestor arrived in Australia, the greater the probability that you are descended from a convict or from a member of the Crown government, an army or naval person, or a member of a ship's crew.

It is important to recognize early on that the National Archives of Australia (NAA) on Queen Victoria Terrace in Canberra is the archives of the Commonwealth government. The records in that collection therefore date mostly from the Federation in 1901. The archives do not possess the records of convicts, of colonial migration, or of 19th-century Australian history concerning such periods as the early exploration, the gold rushes, or colonial administration. They also do not have information about functions administered by the state and territory governments such as births, deaths, and marriages registers, or land titles. To obtain further information on these topics, it is necessary to contact the relevant state or territory registrar.

What the NAA does have, however, are immigration records relating to the 20th century dating primarily from 1924. The NAA does have some older records dating to the 1850s, but most of the records will be found in the respective state and territory archives. The NAA's Fact sheets page can be accessed at **www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets**. You will also want to review specific fact sheets for records held in other offices of the archives as follows:

Fact sheet 56 | Passenger records held in Perth
 **www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs56.aspx**
---|---
Fact sheet 64 | Passenger records held in Sydney
 **www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs64.aspx**
Fact sheet 172 | Passenger records held in Melbourne
 **www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs172.aspx**
Fact sheet 184 | Passenger records held in Hobart
 **www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs184.aspx**

Fact sheet 2, located at **www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs02.aspx** , is perhaps your most valuable online reference in the search for historical documents related to your genealogical research. It contains the addresses, contact information, and web address links for all of the major Australian archival institutions.

Transcriptions of many passenger arrival records from the 20th century are accessible through the NAA's RecordSearch facility at **<http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au>**. You may search as a Guest, and there are several collections that you can access. One choice is the Passenger arrivals index, and this includes passengers arriving by ship in Fremantle and other western Australian ports between 1 January 1921 and 17 January 1950 or arriving at Perth airport between 1944 and 1949.

Learn About Australian History

Many criminal offenses in England during previous centuries could be punished by the imposition of extremely harsh and cruel sentences, ranging from public floggings to an appointment with the hangman, or to an executioner with an axe, if you were a "special" prisoner. During the 17th century, a more humane method of punishment was sought, and _transportation_ to a distant wilderness environment was seen as an ideal solution. Thus, transportation began from the United Kingdom to the American colonies. Debtors' colonies and criminal settlements existed for those condemned to penal servitude for a term of years or for life. The outbreak of the American Revolutionary War halted transportation of criminals and undesirables to that destination in 1775. While sentences of transportation were still passed by the courts, the convicts were remanded to prison. Before long, prison overcrowding created dire conditions. The government began to acquire older, perhaps no longer seaworthy ships, which were referred to as "the hulks." These were fitted to house criminals, and thousands of convicts were sentenced to terms of imprisonment in these floating jails moored in coastal waters. The deplorable living conditions in both the prisons and on board the hulks reached a crisis stage, with rampant disease and escalating death tolls. The government sought a new location for a penal colony as a solution to the situation. In 1787, what has been called the "First Fleet" set sail from England for Botany Bay in Australia. A number of penal colony settlements were founded and maintained over the next 70 years. Transportation as a punishment was effectively stopped in 1857, although it was not formally abolished until 1868.

As you begin your research for Australian ancestors, you will want to familiarize yourself with the history of the judicial system in the United Kingdom at the time in question, and about the history of the penal colonies in the various areas of Australia. You also will want to try to locate the records of the criminal proceedings against your ancestor, the details of sentencing, and to what colony he or she was transported. This will help you trace the migration path.

You also can trace the path backward, although it may be more complicated to make that leap without understanding the ancestor's circumstances and his or her offense. In either case, however, it is important to learn as much about your ancestor as possible before you begin. At a minimum, you will want to know the exact name, age, approximate date of arrival, and the port of disembarkation. Any additional information you can glean in advance may be crucial in distinguishing _your_ ancestor from another person bearing the same name. Again, most of these records will be in the possession of the respective state or territory to which the person was transported.

Use Strategies for Determining Your Ancestor's Migration Path

By now, you should have a much better idea of the types of information that are available for the various time periods and what you are likely to find at various points in time. Remember that your early ancestors migrated across country from their places of birth and residence to ports from which ships sailed. They may then have sailed on one of these ships to emigrate across oceans. Also remember that, if an ancestor perhaps arrived in Canada and later relocated to the United States, there may have been several travel choices and routes that were available. Your ancestor may have crossed the border on foot or by some form of wheeled transportation, depending on the time period. These might include wagon, train, automobile, truck, or motor coach. Addition travel by boat, ferry, or ship might also be an option. You will therefore want to research the migration routes and transportation methods. of the time for the geographical areas where your ancestor traveled.

The actual _locating_ of the records is, of course, the real challenge. The following are some strategies you may consider employing in order to locate these records for your ancestors.

Start with What You Know

As with all effective family history and genealogical research, start with the most recent period and work your way backward. Any other approach, especially when researching back "across the pond," can be unsuccessful. As you proceed backward, start with what other family members may know about immigrant ancestors. Look for home sources, including documentary materials that may have recorded immigration and/or naturalization details. These include family Bibles, letters, naturalization papers, voter registration documents, obituaries, and other documents. Another, older relative may even recall having heard Grandpa or Grandma discuss his or her trip to the new country, or something they recall having heard from another family member. While the intervening years may have dimmed or distorted the memory, there is likely to be a basis in fact with which to begin your research.

Refer to Vital Documents and Ecclesiastical Records

Marriage and death certificates, as well as any ecclesiastical records, may provide crucial information concerning your ancestor's origins. Church membership rolls and church minutes can direct you to other churches and locations from which membership may have been transferred. These may include congregations in the previous country of residence. This information may point you to a specific location or geographic area. You can then study migration patterns of the time when your ancestor lived there. These patterns may also point to commonly used ports of emigrant ships' embarkations.

Don't Overlook Voter Registration Records

One important record overlooked by many researchers is the voter registration record. These records typically are maintained at the county level across the United States and in governmental offices in other countries. Most times they are in a list format but sometimes the original voter registration application cards still exist. In order to vote in an election, an individual was supposed to be a citizen, and the voter registration records may include spaces to indicate the place of birth, when and where naturalized, how many years a resident lived in this voting precinct or ward, and so on.

Look for Passport Records

Passports were issued as early as 1797 in the United States to citizens traveling to other countries. It is possible that your ancestor had to obtain a passport to return to and visit his or her homeland (and even to bring other relatives to America). Ancestry.com has digitized and indexed more than 1.5 million passport applications dating from 1795 to 1925. Figure 9-10 shows the passport application for Samuel L. Clemens, also known as author Mark Twain, from 5 May 1891.

**FIGURE 9-10** Passport application for Samuel L. Clemens (aka Mark Twain) from 5 May 1891

Locate and Use the U.S. Federal Census Population Schedules

Don't overlook the information included on U.S. federal census records from 1880 forward concerning place of birth of the individual, his or her parents, and naturalization information details. We saw an example of the 1910 census in Figure 9-2. The information in the census documents often provides direct clues. However, be aware that a stated place of birth may have been in a different geopolitical jurisdiction at the time of birth than was listed on the census. Census enumerators' instructions stated that a foreign-born person was to tell where he or she was born and that the enumerator was to record the _current_ name of the country in which that place was located. Boundaries and political jurisdictions did change over time. If you discover the country of birth for your ancestor in one census is different from that listed in a previous or subsequent census, it may indicate a boundary change had taken place. Your understanding of the history and geographical boundary changes is crucial to your successful research. These changes can help you home in on a specific geographical area. Furthermore, it can indicate the governmental entity in charge of generating official documents. That entity and the places where its government offices were located will help you determine where documentary evidence is to be found.

Study Published Histories

It is important to locate histories of the country and the locale from which your ancestor(s) may have come. Some of these published chronicles include the names of emigrants, their reasons for emigration, the migration paths they took, the time periods in which they relocated, and, in some cases, the names of the shipping lines (and ships) used.

One category of histories that should not be overlooked is the British genealogies that mention relatives who have gone to the New World. In the 16th and 17th centuries, heralds from the College of Arms would visit the various counties and record the pedigrees of families who aspired to _armigerous_ status (meaning that they would have a coat of arms). Occasionally, there would be references to younger sons who had migrated or emigrated elsewhere.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, ambitious compilers of county histories would include pedigrees of the principal families of the county. Again, there might be the occasional reference to a relative who had gone to America, and perhaps even to a specified destination.

Finally, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the various volumes of pedigrees of landed gentry, peerage, and baronetcies, published by Burke's Peerage and Gentry ( **www.burkespeerage.com** ), contain many references to American settlers.

Look for Books About Early Settlers

By the same token, the companion to the histories discussed above would be the historical publications concerning arriving immigrants at the other end of your ancestors' journey. Often these books include the names, origins, and biographical sketches of literally hundreds of persons who lived first in a particular area after their immigration from Europe.

Google Books ( **<http://books.google.com>** ) is an excellent place to search for print and electronic books referencing your ancestors and their relatives. Google has digitized many thousands of older books that are out of copyright, and these are free. The Family History Archives collection provided by FamilySearch contains almost 18,000 digitized and searchable family and local histories. The search template for this collection can be found at **<http://lib.byu.edu/fhc/index.php>**. Other digital collections can be found in the Ancestry.com and HeritageQuest Online databases.

Search for Shipping News

Newspapers of the period in a location can provide important information about ships' departures and arrivals. Shipping was big business! For example, one researcher accessed microfilmed newspaper records for the port of Bremen and identified every ship sailing during a particular three-month (autumn) sailing season to the port of Boston. Armed with that narrowed-down information, she then researched the incoming shipping records in the Boston newspapers. Using the arrival dates, she then sought—and found—that there were several likely ships on which her own ancestors might have arrived. She went on to locate the passenger manifests and more information about the ships themselves in maritime books and on the Internet. From those records, she was able to reconstruct her ancestors' voyage, including the weather and sailing conditions, and finally located the records she sought. The picture she constructed through her research is a rich tapestry of life at the time for her emigrant/immigrant ancestors.

Use Other Strategies for Determining Your Ancestor's Place of Origin

By now, you should understand more clearly that there are more paths to follow than just one in the search for your ancestors' records. When the place of birth, previous residence, or other indication of native origin is conveniently and clearly marked, you can be thankful for more modern records. However, when you don't have such crystal-clear directional markers, what are you to do?

Determining your ancestral origin can be a tricky thing but it is not always impossible to ascertain. Numerous strategies are employed, so let's look at a few. This list can never be complete because each nationality has its own nuances, but you must invest some thought and ingenuity to reach out to your ancestors' stories and traits.

Use Photographic Images

If your ancestors came to America between 1850 and present, photographs of them may very well exist, especially in family photographic collections. An examination of clothing, hairstyles, shoes, jewelry, and other objects in the picture may be helpful. On older photographs mounted on cabinet card stock, there may even be the name of a photographer and a location. Researching these can be an interesting study as well, and it is not unusual to find a particular photographer having taken photos in a specific area or neighborhood in which a national or ethnic group lived.

Look at Home for Letters Written in Another Language

If you encounter letters written in another language among the family possessions, or Bibles and books in another language, start asking questions. These may be indicative of the nativity of members of your family or your ancestors. It may also be possible to have these items translated into your language so that you can understand them and potentially gain more clues.

Specific family clues can point to the country or region of origin for your ancestors. Consider language spoken, family traditions, ethnic recipes, and other clues.

Consider Family Customs

Are there specific customs in your family you don't understand? One researcher wondered why the family always ate marinated herring at Christmastime, only to discover later that it was a residual custom from her maternal grandmother, whose family always ate it at their home outside Uppsala, Sweden. And are there songs in another language that are sung, such as lullabies? They might provide an important clue.

Find Clues in Culinary Styles

Ethnic or national cooking is always an interesting tip-off, though not always. Your grandmother's Hungarian goulash may be indicative that she is a cousin to Zsa Zsa Gabor! Maybe not, but don't overlook the possibility that some culinary traditions or recipes might point to a particular ethnic or national heritage.

Pay Attention to Family Physical Traits

One African-American friend heard a lecture at the National Genealogical Society Conference in Denver, Colorado, in 1998, by Tommie Morton-Young, Ph.D. In that lecture, "African American Genealogy: New Insights Using Traditional and Less Traditional Methods," Dr. Morton-Young discussed that there are physical characteristics of some African peoples that may be used to trace ancestry of slave ancestors back to the geographical area and perhaps to a specific tribal group. The physical traits in this case were the size and shape of the ear, the shape of the nose, and the physical size of the ulna. It is a very interesting approach, and it might really matter.

Use Alternative Record Types to Identify Clues

It is important to use your creativity to identify and locate alternative records that might help you trace your ancestors to their native origins. Remember that ships' manifests are not the only possible extant records that may record that information. Consider the following record types: religious records, including letters of membership transfer; marriage records; census records; naturalization papers; death records; newspaper articles; obituaries; cemetery records; wills and probate packet documents; family histories; published local and provincial histories; genealogical and historical society documents; maritime museum archives; and academic libraries and archives and their special collections. Each of these is a possible source for prospecting for your immigrant ancestors' origins.

Use the Resources at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Website

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website, as mentioned before, provides some of the most important historical and reference materials for your immigration and naturalization research. USCIS is located at **www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis**. Under the Services list on the left side of the page is a link labeled Genealogy. Here you will find information concerning the fee-based search and copy services for genealogists to obtain naturalization information.

Understand the Naturalization Process

As our forebears began their new lives in new communities, they strove to "fit in" and to normalize in the new environment. Most realized they would never return to their past lives, and they eagerly embraced their new circumstances. This meant renouncing their political ties to their motherland and applying to become citizens of their new country.

The naturalization process has varied in every location we will discuss here, and has evolved over time to produce more consistent practices with more standardized and detailed records. The focus of this section is United States naturalization, but your study of naturalization practices in England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and other locations can provide you with the knowledge and legal background to help understand those places' laws and customs.

Naturalization in the United States, like the ships' passenger lists and manifests, has changed through the centuries of the country's existence. Different methods of handling the process, different laws and requirements, different forms, and different places where the process was handled all add up to what can be a challenging research effort. There are many intricacies and exceptions and, as a result, we have to do some self-education to learn the details of the history of naturalization in the United States. To that end, Loretto D. Szucs's book _They Became Americans: Finding Naturalization Records and Ethnic Origins_ wins my applause for the best volume on the process, and is illustrated with scores of document examples. However, in short, there are four principal documents associated with naturalization in the United States:

  * **Declaration of Intention** This document (also referred to as _first papers_ ) is signed by the immigrant, renouncing citizenship in his/her previous country and any allegiance to the country and/or its ruler or sovereign. It expresses the individual's intent to petition the United States to become a citizen after all requirements are met. The format varied over time, as you can see from the examples in Figures 9-11 and 9-12.

**FIGURE 9-11** Declaration of Intention (from 1923)

**FIGURE 9-12** Declaration of Intention filed at the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York (from 1899)

  * **Petition for Naturalization** This document (also referred to as _final papers_ ) is the application that the person completes and submits to request the granting of citizenship, typically after satisfying residency requirements and after filing first papers. Figure 9-13 shows an example of this document, and Figure 9-14 shows the court document granting permission to take the oath of naturalization.

**FIGURE 9-13** Petition for Naturalization to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York (from 1927)

**FIGURE 9-14** Oath of Allegiance (from 1933)

  * **Oath of Allegiance** This is the document that is signed by the petitioner for citizenship at the time citizenship is granted (or restored), swearing his/her allegiance and support to the United States. This may or may not be included in the naturalization file for your ancestor.
  * **Certificate of Naturalization** This is the formal document issued to the petitioner to certify that he/she has been naturalized as a citizen of the United States. Figure 9-15 shows a certificate from 1946.

**FIGURE 9-15** Certificate of Naturalization (1940)

One change required by the revised statute of 1906 was the addition of a step in the process to verify the arrival/admission of the immigrant in the United States. On the Declaration of Intention document, the individual was required to state the place from which he/she emigrated, the arrival point in the United States, the name under which he/she arrived, the date of arrival, and the vessel on which he/she arrived. Copies of the form were forwarded to the port of arrival, where clerks verified the data against the immigration manifests. If the record was found, the INS issued an additional document: the Certificate of Arrival, a sample of which is shown in Figure 9-16. Between its institution in 1906 and 1 July 1924, the Certificate of Arrival was an essential document to process a Petition for Citizenship. Beginning in 1924, the INS began collecting immigrant visas, and these documents ultimately replaced the need to have verification clerks search the immigration manifests. The visas were presented to an immigration inspector on arrival in the United States, and were filed. Visas for nonimmigrants were filed in the port of arrival, while visas for immigrants were forwarded to the INS in Washington, D.C., for filing and future reference.

**FIGURE 9-16** Certificate of Arrival (1929)

Another important document that may possibly be of help to your research is the Alien Registration Card. Concerned by the possibility of war and related espionage, the United States government enacted the Alien Registration Act (also known as the Smith Act) in 1940. Between 1940 and 1944, every alien was required to register as they applied for admission to the country, regardless of their origin. They completed a two-page form and were fingerprinted, and they were given an alien registration receipt card to present if asked to confirm their compliance with the law.

There are a number of other types of naturalization documents that were used during the 20th century. The scope of this book makes it impractical to list all of them here. However, Loretto Szucs provides an excellent reference list of documents issued by the INS since 1906, along with their abbreviations, on page 169 of her book _They Became Americans: Finding Naturalization Records and Ethnic Origins_.

Locate Repositories Where Naturalization and Related Documents Are Housed

Locating the original documents is your goal, and you certainly will hope to find definite data or clues as to the origins of your ancestor and how he or she traveled to America. As you conduct your research, please remember that an individual may begin the naturalization process, filing a Declaration of Intention, in one place and complete the naturalization process in another place. Therefore, the physical documents may be located in different areas altogether.

The sheer volume of naturalization indexes and documents described above can be mind-boggling. You should be aware that a significant number, but certainly not all, of the extant naturalization documents themselves that have been unearthed have been forwarded to the INS and, in turn, to NARA for microfilming and storage. As a general rule, NARA does _not_ have naturalization records created in state or local courts. However, some county court naturalization records have been donated to the National Archives and are available as National Archives microfilm publications. For a reference to the holdings of naturalization materials at NARA, please refer to their website on the topic located at **www.archives.gov/research/naturalization/index.html**. This is essential reading for the researcher!

NARA, for example, has none of the naturalization documents for the State of Utah. These reside with the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, and some of the older records reside with the Utah State Archives and Records Service. There certainly are many, many other exceptions.

What you will find is that the original naturalization records in NARA's possession have been stored in the National Archives Regional Archives facility that serves the state in which the federal court is located. As an example, NARA's Southeast Region in Morrow, Georgia, is the repository for documents relating to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. It is important that you determine what NARA Regional Archive serves the state in which your ancestor would have lived at the time he or she filed the Declaration of Intent and/or Petition for Citizenship. Then you need to determine if the NARA Regional Archive does, in fact, have the documents you seek. You can begin your research by visiting the NARA website at **www.archives.gov** , and then visit **www.archives.gov/locations** for the NARA Regional Archives. Within the pages for the locations, you will find information about their holdings, directions, and more. Not every NARA Regional Archive has genealogical records.

In the process of your research, it would be prudent whenever you are preparing to conduct a search for naturalization documents to visit the NARA website, check the holdings list of microfilm publications and/or in their online catalog, and consider making a telephone call to their reference desk. The reference staff can help you determine if the records you seek are or are not part of NARA's holdings, whether those documents have been indexed and/or microfilmed, and how to obtain copies. Be sure to check in advance of making a trip to a NARA Regional Archive to confirm that they do, in fact, have the microfilm and/or records you might want to view.

Don't overlook the use of your local LDS Family History Center as a resource to borrow the NARA microfilm from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. This is an economical means of accessing and working with the materials locally, rather than traveling to a NARA facility.

Finally, Fold3.com is, at this writing, in the process of digitizing the indexes to naturalization indexes and records and placing the images in a searchable database at their subscription website at **www.fold3.com**.

In any event, inasmuch as naturalization records research can involve searching in multiple facilities and potentially working with both archives _and_ court repositories, the NARA Regional Archive staff can provide excellent guidance for your research.

Work Immigration, Naturalization, and Census Records in Tandem

You will find it natural to work between using the immigration and naturalization records for your ancestors and family members, and using census records for many clues. Working backward, you can use the naturalization records to isolate the date of arrival, the port, and the name of the vessel. If your ancestors arrived during the implementation of the Certificate of Arrival (1906–1926), this document can provide a strong piece of evidence for you because the arrival date, place, and ship were researched at the time of naturalization. In addition, if the person had changed his or her name since immigration, the name under which he or she arrived would have had to be provided in order to locate and verify the arrival on a passenger list. With naturalization information in hand, tracing the ship can be greatly simplified. You can then trace to the port of departure to determine if other documents exist. These might contain more information to help you trace your immigrant to the hometown.

On the other hand, if you have already discovered the ship on which the person traveled and the port of arrival, you can begin to look for other evidence about them in that vicinity. Use the port of arrival as a central point, and seek other documents, including city directories and newspapers. Focus on other relatives or in-laws, both of the immigrant and a spouse, in the country and check census records, city directories, court records, and other documents in their areas. Your immigrant may have settled temporarily or for an extended period in that vicinity.

Using the knowledge you are already developing about genealogical record types and research methodologies, you can incorporate immigration and naturalization documents into your work. You're increasing your knowledge of each individual you study _and_ you are constantly expanding the overall story of your family. As you do so, remember to apply your critical thinking skills to the evidence and formulate reasonable hypotheses.
10

Discover Where to Locate Evidence About Your Family

**HOW TO...**

  * Determine where to look for different documents and evidence
  * Use indexes, compilations, and other finding aids
  * Use libraries and archives
  * Use an LDS Family History Center
  * Consult reference books and other resources
  * Deal with closed or limited access to materials
  * Order document copies by postal mail and email
  * Keep track of your correspondence
  * Use a research log

The previous chapters have addressed the foundations of your genealogical research and discussed a broad selection of record types. By this time, you should have a pretty good idea of what you want to do with your genealogical research. You should know about a variety of the most common document types and how to use your critical thinking skills to evaluate and assess them.

In this chapter, we will discuss processes you can use to locate major repositories where documents or copies are held, and how to access the materials. Advance preparation is essential for your success in accessing documentary evidence, and there are many tools available to you. These include indexes, compilations, and other printed finding aides. Electronic tools include the Internet, online databases, library and archive catalogs, and other products.

You will want to gain access to the original primary source documents whenever possible and obtain copies for your reference and documentation. Photocopies and reproductions can usually be obtained if you make an on-site visit to a facility. Many original documents have been digitized, indexed, and made available online. You also can write letters and email to request copies if you cannot make a trip to the repository, and many online facilities make electronic ordering available. If you are an active researcher, your correspondence may be extensive, and it is not uncommon in such situations to lose track of the status of all of your requests for copies. A correspondence log and a little dedication to maintaining it can provide a process you can use to maintain control and to generate follow-up messages.

You will visit many research facilities and examine literally hundreds of books, journals, periodicals, and documents in the pursuit of your family's genealogical history. As a result, it is easy to forget what you have already examined and, consequently, waste both time and money conducting duplicate research. A research log allows you to keep track of what materials you have already researched and what you did or did not find in those resources.

The topics covered in this chapter will provide you with some methodologies for becoming a more efficient and effective researcher. Over time, each strategy will become second nature in your standard research process.

Determine Where to Look for Different Document Types

You began your family history research in Chapter 1 when you began looking for home sources such as Bibles, letters, diaries and journals, scrapbooks, and copies of original records. Having only one place to search is a lot easier than having to conduct research to locate places where you _can_ conduct research. Yet that is what we have to do.

We can expect to find particular documents in specific places. For example, we know we can usually find probate files at the courthouse where the probate court conducts its business. In other cases, however, the place where document copies reside may not be where we might at first expect to find them. For example, a birth record might be found at a county health department office, a courthouse, a state or provincial vital records or vital statistics office, or elsewhere. The challenge we face as researchers is not just evaluating the records; it very often involves tracking down the records themselves.

We have already discussed the importance of studying geography and history to place our ancestors into context. However, studying history can be equally as important when trying to locate the documents for our family members. The type of record, the person or organization that generated it, the reason(s) for the document's production, the place it was created, and the time period, all contribute to our determining the location.

The place where a document was once stored might not be where it is stored today. The document may have been moved elsewhere, such as to another storage location. This is common when one facility exhausts its storage space or when older documents are needed infrequently for reference. They may be packed up and sent to a warehouse or other off-site storage facility. Some documents created by one governmental entity may have been generated in one place and then sent to a central governmental archive or storage facility. For example, the U.S. government in 1830 requested all states to forward their 1790 to 1820 census schedules to Washington, D.C., to replace the summaries that were destroyed when the British burned the city on 24 August 1814. The 1830 census documents and those for all subsequent censuses have been sent to Washington, D.C. Additionally, in some cases there have been multiple copies of certain documents produced, possibly as exact duplicates or as supposedly exact transcriptions, and one or more copies forwarded elsewhere for someone else's use. A good example of this would be a death certificate. The original and at least one copy are typically produced. The issuing governmental office retains the original and a copy is forwarded to a central office, such as a state or provincial records bureau. Other copies may have been provided to the undertaker, to the executor or administrator of the estate, to the probate court, to the coroner, and to other persons or organizations. If you know that duplicates were produced and held by different official organizations, and you know when that process began, you can begin planning to obtain a copy of a particular document from one or the other office.

A document may have been microfilmed or digitized and the original placed in storage or destroyed. This, too, is something you will find to be a common practice.

The U.S. government in 1830 requested all states to forward their 1790 to 1820 census schedules to Washington, D.C., to replace the summaries that were destroyed when the British burned the city on 24 August 1814.

Use Indexes, Compilations, and Other Finding Aids

There are many published materials to help you with your search. Some are available through traditional publishers and commercial companies, while genealogical or historical societies and individuals publish others. Still other materials are published in the form of databases, CD-ROMs, and/or on the Internet. Let's explore some examples of these resources.

Use Indexes

An index is defined as an ordered listing of people, places, topics, or other data that includes references allowing the user to quickly locate specific information. The format of the listing is dependent on the data being indexed. We're all familiar with the index found in the back of a book. This book's index is arranged alphabetically by subject, type of document, and so on, with page number references that point you to specific information. There are at least four major categories of indexes that will be of interest to every genealogist. Let's briefly discuss each of these.

Indexes in Courthouses and Government Facilities

We've discussed a number of types of records that you will find in courthouses. This includes marriage and divorce records, wills and probate packets, judicial records of all sorts, jury lists, land and property records, property maps, taxation maps and records, voter registration records, guardianship records, poorhouse records, lunacy records, and many more. Depending on the location you are researching and the time period, the responsibilities of the government in that locality will determine what records were created at the time. As boundaries and jurisdictions changed, the records usually remained in the possession of the original governmental entity. However, some of the records may have been physically transferred to (or copies made for) the new jurisdictional entity, depending on the record type and the need for the new office to have immediate access to the documents.

Most of the records are organized and filed in some manner and indexes have been prepared. An index is typically prepared at a later date than the original entries are made. You will encounter both hand-written and typed indexes. Marriage records are usually indexed twice: once in an alphabetical list of grooms' names and again in an alphabetical list of brides' names. Both are created in _surname sequence_ , and then in forename or given name order. These indexes reference the document in the government-held records so that it can be easily found. Women's surnames in these indexes are entered as they were listed on the original marriage record, using the maiden surname for a single woman or the surname from a previous marriage for a divorced or widowed woman. Also, don't be surprised to find a previously married woman's maiden name sometimes listed in the bride index. That means that you should always check for _both_ possible surname entries for the bride if you know them. Land and property entries also are typically indexed in two ways, once in grantor sequence and once in grantee sequence. The indexes you find in courthouses and other governmental facilities will point you to specific places where you will find the material you want to use. Figure 10-1 shows the detail of a grantor index. If you were researching the transfer of property from Jno. W. Burroughs to Harriet C. Berrien, investigation into the grantor index indicates the transaction was filed on 16 December 1882 and that the detail can be found in an entry on page 946 of Deed Book N.

**FIGURE 10-1** Detail of a grantor index to deed entries

There are two good books written by Christine Rose concerning courthouse research and using indexes there. They are: _Courthouse Research for Family Historians: Your Guide to Genealogical Treasures_ (CR Publications, 2004) and _Courthouse Indexes Illustrated_ (CR Publications, 2006).

Indexes in Libraries, Archives, and Other Research Facilities

Libraries and archives are veritable gold mines for your research. The most common items you will use in these research facilities are the printed books, journals, periodicals, and electronic databases to which they may provide access. There are thousands of indexes that have been published to many original records. Let me provide a few examples for you, along with bibliographic citations.

**Census Indexes**

Gibson, Jeremy and Mervyn Medlycott. _Local Census Listings: 1522–1930: Holdings in the British Isles_. 3rd ed. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1997.

Register, Alvaretta Kenan. _Index to the 1830 Census of Georgia_. Baltimore, MD: Clearfield Co., 2004.

**Immigration Lists**

Glazier, Ira A., ed. _Germans to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports_. 4 vols. to date. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2002–to date.

Glazier, Ira A. and P. William Filby, eds. _Germans to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports_. 67 vols. to date. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1988–to date.

**Marriage Index**

Daniell, Anne C. _Talladega County, Alabama, Marriage Book "A-1834," 1833–1846: An Alphabetical Listing of Grooms' Names with an Index to the Names of the Brides_. Anniston, AL: AlaBenton Book Shop, 1986.

**Land and Property Records Indexes**

Hughes, B. H. J. _Jottings and Historical Records with Index on the History of South Pembrokeshire: Manorial Accounts, 1324–33._ Pembroke Dock, Wales: Pennar Publications. 1996.

Shuck, Larry G. _Greenbrier County, (West) Virginia, Records._ 8 vols. Athens, GA: Iberian Publishing Co., 1988–1994.

**Wills and Probate Records Indexes**

Johnston, Ross B. _West Virginia Estate Settlements: An Index to Wills, Inventories, Appraisements, Land Grants, and Surveys to 1850._ Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1978.

Webb, Cliff, comp. _An Index of Wills Proved in the Archdeaconry Court of London, 1700–1807._ London, UK: Society of Genealogists, 1996.

As you can see, there are published indexes for many types of records from around the world. The preceding examples represent only a tiny fraction of the record types that have been indexed in printed form.

Online Database Indexes

The explosive growth of the Internet in the past 20 years has accelerated the already popular genealogical research to new heights. Individuals have created their own websites to display their genealogical data and/or have uploaded the contents of their databases to genealogy service providers' sites. The largest area of Internet growth for genealogists, however, has been in the area of online databases, both free and fee-based subscription services. These databases include indexes to original source records, digitized images of original documents, and other content.

A wealth of other online databases provides access to general or specific types of data. Some of these include the following:

  * Ancestry.com ( **www.ancestry.com** ) is a subscription site that has placed literally tens of thousands of indexed and searchable databases online. Some of the databases are free to access but most are available only on a subscription basis. Ancestry.com's collections are truly international in scope and are simple to search. A search will yield a full list, such as that shown in Figure 10-2, of every database at Ancestry.com that contains that name. Among their premier subscription databases are the U.S. Federal Census Collection, the UK Census Collection, U.S. Immigration Passenger Lists, World War I Draft Registration Cards, and the impressive Historical Newspaper Collection containing hundreds of indexed, searchable newspapers dating from the 1700s to 2000 from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Ancestry.com's Ancestry Library Edition database offering is marketed to libraries as an institutional subscription, and can often be found as part of public and academic libraries' subscription database collections. That edition does not provide access to all the databases available at Ancestry.com because of licensing arrangements made by the company with some of their database providers. (Other Ancestry subscription sites include, at this writing, Canada [in French and English], the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and China.)
  * Fold3.com ( **www.fold3.com** ) is a subscription site that provides access to millions of digitized U.S. document images, including military service and pension records, widows' pension records, naturalization index cards, city directories, photographs, and much more. Figure 10-3 shows the main page at Fold3.com.
  * HeritageQuest Online, a product offering from ProQuest, is a major collection of subscription databases. These include U.S. federal census images, images of Revolutionary War records, Freedman's Bank images, access to the Periodical Source Index (PERSI), access to the U.S. Serial Set, and a collection of more than 28,000 digitized, indexed, and fully searchable books. HeritageQuest Online can often be found as part of public and academic libraries' subscription database collections and is often accessible to registered library patrons from their home computers.
  * inGeneas ( **www.ingeneas.com** ) provides a collection of database materials related to Canadian genealogy, as well as links and access to professional genealogical researchers for hire.
  * Origins.net ( **www.origins.net** ), whose main website screen is shown in Figure 10-4, provides genealogical databases about the British Isles, including British Origins ( **www.britishorigins.com** ), Irish Origins ( **www.irishorigins.com** ), and Scots Origins ( **www.scotsorigins.com** ).
  * FamilySearch ( **<https://familysearch.org>** ) is a service provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is the largest genealogy organization in the world. It has been actively gathering records and documentation for over 100 years and making these genealogical materials available worldwide. People can access those materials at the renowned Family History Library in Salt lake City, Utah, and through more than 4,600 Family History Centers/FamilySearch Centers in more than 70 countries. FamilySearch.org is in the process of digitizing and indexing billions of records from microfilm and making them freely available at its website.

**FIGURE 10-2** Search results list at Ancestry.com

**FIGURE 10-3** The main page at Fold3.com

**FIGURE 10-4** The main page at the Origins.net

Some governmental agencies have also provided online databases of materials in their possession, although concerns for individuals' privacy and identity theft have caused legislators to prevent making many records accessible to the public or withdraw them from public access.

Search Engines' Indexes

Whenever you use a search engine on the Internet, you are using a highly sophisticated index. A search engine combs the Web electronically and, when it connects to and accesses a web page, it reads every word on the page. That includes the text, labels, and filenames of graphics on the web page, as well as the "hidden" meta tags used in the source code of the HTML or XHTML document that produced the page. The search engine indexes every word and then, when you enter a word or phrase in the engine's search box or template, presents matches to your entries in the form of a search results list. Figure 10-5 shows the beginning of the search results list for the words _genealogy database scotland_. Each search engine indexes the Web differently and uses its own relevancy ranking criteria to order and display the search results. We will discuss the use of search engines and other tools to perform research on the Internet in the next chapter.

**FIGURE 10-5** A search engine indexes words found on web pages and will present a search results list.

Use Compilations

A compilation is a gathering of information from a variety of places into a useful directory or organized listing. You could consider this book a compilation of a wide variety of useful information. A directory of materials on the Internet can also be considered a compilation. Perhaps the largest and best-known web-based genealogical compilation is Cyndi's List ( **www.cyndislist.com** ), shown in Figure 10-6, which contains over 300,000 links to other websites. You can always find resources to help your genealogy research by visiting Cyndi's List, locating the geographic or topic area you wish to pursue, and accessing the web page resources linked there.

**FIGURE 10-6** Categories of Cyndi's List, one of the largest genealogy compilations of web links on the Internet

There are many other excellent compilation websites, including Linkpendium ( **www.linkpendium.com** ), the USGenWeb Project ( **www.usgenweb.org** ), the WorldGenWeb Project ( **www.worldgenweb.org** ), GENUKI ( **www.genuki.org.uk** ), JewishGen ( **www.jewishgen.org** ), RootsWeb ( **www.rootsweb.ancestry.com** ), and the Canadian Genealogy & History Links website ( **www.islandnet.com/~cghl/** ).

Use Other Finding Aids

The term _finding aid_ shouldn't confuse you. It simply refers to any resource you can use to further your genealogical search, and includes tools such as the following:

  * Maps
  * Gazetteers (or place name dictionaries)
  * Surname dictionaries by national, ethnic, or religious group
  * Dictionaries of contemporary and archaic terminology
  * Dictionaries of abbreviations and acronyms of different areas and time periods
  * Language translation dictionaries
  * Histories of geographic areas, towns and communities, different population groups, and cultural histories
  * Reference works to aid in reading old handwriting (paleography)
  * Genealogy references, "how-to" books, and guides to working with record types
  * Compilations of Internet sites related to genealogy
  * Online indexes and databases, as discussed previously

Anything that you can use to gain insight into your ancestral search and access to quality source materials can be considered a valid finding aid. Look around you, and use your imagination and insight.

Use Libraries and Archives

Libraries, archives, and their staff are among the best resources you can have. I consider a good librarian to be a "personal information broker." While you can't expect every librarian to know everything about genealogical research and records, you can always rely on a librarian's willingness to help you and his or her ability to conduct quality research on almost any topic. A well-trained librarian or archivist understands research methods and resources of many types, and knows how to locate and access information. Furthermore, he or she is always willing to share their skills with you if you are willing to invest the time to listen and learn.

The facilities that libraries and archives provide to their users, or patrons, vary significantly depending on the content of their collection, their service population, and their stated mission. Special collections such as genealogy and local history materials usually are not circulated but are, instead, reserved for use in the facility. There are ways, however, to gain access to the materials without physically visiting the facility, and we'll discuss those shortly.

Learn How to Use the Library Catalog

It has not been too many years ago that libraries had no computers. The primary finding aid for its holdings was a card catalog. There were card catalog cabinets in a central area filled with small paperboard cards, all hand-typed and filed in sequence by author, title, and subject. Each item in the collection for which there was a card also was coded with a reference using the classification system employed by that library. Public libraries in North America and the United Kingdom typically use the Dewey Decimal Classification system, while most North American academic libraries use the Library of Congress Classification system. Academic libraries in the United Kingdom use a combination of systems. Other archives and repositories may use another system based on the type of holdings in their collections, including one of their own devising that fits the unique needs for organizing and accessing their types of special collection. It is to your advantage to learn a little about the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress systems. Understanding these systems helps you understand how any library is physically organized, and you can then quickly and effectively locate and access materials in their collections. You can learn about the Dewey Decimal Classification system and its contents at the OCLC website at **www.oclc.org/dewey/resources/summaries/default.htm** , and about the Library of Congress Classification scheme at **www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco**.

Some things in libraries and archives have changed over time while others have remained static. Computers changed information storage and retrieval expectations, and libraries understood the importance of changing their printed and typed card catalogs to computerized systems. Standardized online catalog computer programs were developed and have been implemented in most libraries.

Most catalogs in public libraries use the Dewey Decimal Classification system while academic libraries (in the United States) use the Library of Congress Classification system. Archives most often use systems specifically focused on their collections, sometimes unique and developed especially for them.

Online catalog software can be and has been integrated into libraries' websites, and multimedia capabilities have been added. It now is not unusual for a library to have incorporated graphic and sound files of their holdings into their online catalogs, complete with links to directly access those materials.

Throughout this evolution, the principles of organization, cataloging, and standardizing catalog entries for resources have been maintained and expanded. There are standards in place within the library industry to utilize technology to its maximum, integrate as many materials as possible into the online systems, and provide excellence in customer access and customer service.

Start with What Has Already Been Done

Many of us conduct a substantial amount of our genealogical research, or pre-research, from the comfort of our homes. Perhaps you find yourself sitting in front of the computer, searching on the Internet for records concerning your ancestors. Perhaps it is three o'clock in the morning; you're there in your pajamas, sipping a glass of milk, and munching on chocolate chip cookies. What a life!

Fortunately, the Internet and the online catalogs of libraries and archives are accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. If you are conversant with the use of the catalog, you can make a tremendous amount of headway with your research into the available resources without assistance.

For a genealogist, one of the first steps in doing research is to locate any published family histories and/or local histories that may contain information about ancestors and other family members. Family histories and many local histories are not usually the type of book that you're likely to find in your neighborhood bookstore, or even in a typical online bookstore. Instead, to locate such books, you'll have to visit a library, or look in their online catalogs. The next step is to locate the indexes and other finding aids that help you find the resources you want or need. Fortunately, the Web has made that process easier.

If you don't know which library or libraries have a copy of a particular book, contact your reference librarian and ask for help. You can search a free online database called WorldCat at **www.worldcat.org**. Figure 10-7 shows the main page at WorldCat. You can search for books, DVDs, CDs, and articles, and the search results will provide you with the locations of facilities that hold a copy. I recommend that you create a free ID and password for WorldCat and sign in. When you conduct a search, you can enter a location and WorldCat will sort the list of libraries for you from nearest to farthest. Using this sort feature, you can find libraries nearby that you can visit, or you can check the availability of an item near to a place you might be visiting.

**FIGURE 10-7** The main page at WorldCat

Once you have the information on a specific book, a sample of whose record from the John F. Germany Public Library in the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative based in Tampa, Florida, is shown in Figure 10-8, you now have all you need to visit the library and locate the book. (Notice in Figure 10-8 that you could add the title to a booklist, which you can later print or email to yourself, and place a hold on the title to make sure it doesn't get checked out before you get there. This always requires that you have a library card with that library or that your library has a reciprocal borrowing agreement of some sort with that library.)

**FIGURE 10-8** The catalog record at the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative shows the second edition of this book at the John F. Germany Public Library.

If you are unable to visit the library, there is another option open to you: interlibrary loan, also referred to as ILL in the United States and Canada. (In the United Kingdom, this is often spelled as Inter-Library Loan.) ILL is a service that allows patrons of one library to request the loan of a book from its owning library to their own. However, since most genealogy and local history collection materials are non-circulating reference materials, it is unlikely that you can actually have your library borrow the book. But all is not lost! ILL can be used to request that _photocopies_ be made of certain pages and sent to you or to your library for pickup. Some libraries now produce scanned images of pages instead. You might want to make two ILL requests. The first will request a copy of the pages of a book's index for the surname(s) you are seeking, and a second request after you've received the index pages will ask for copies of the text pages from the book in question. Keep in mind that, when requesting text pages, you might want to request one or two additional pages _before and after_ the pages shown in an index. This helps alleviate the problem that arises when meaningful descriptive text begins on a previous page or continues to a subsequent page.

As you can see, there is tremendous value to having performed advance research in an online library catalog. Let's now look at some specific library catalogs.

Use the Library of Congress Online Catalog

Sometimes, you'll hear about a book from a friend or a fellow genealogist, or you may see it referred to in some publication. Unfortunately, you may find that you are missing either the author's name or the title of the book, or that one of those is incorrect or incomplete. Your first step should be to pin down the exact title of the book and the full name of the author. This will make later searching much easier and more productive.

The online catalog of the Library of Congress (LC) is often a good place to begin searching for unusual books when you don't necessarily have all of the information you need. The LC does not lend (or circulate) their materials classified as genealogy or local history. Unless you are planning a trip to Washington, D.C., in the near future, the primary purpose of your use of the LC online catalog is to obtain information about the book so that you can then look for it in a closer library. Remember, you can identify a book at the LC and then use WorldCat to locate the nearest library with a copy of the book.

Use the FamilySearch Catalog and the LDS Family History Centers

The largest collection of genealogy manuscripts, printed materials, and microfilm in the world is undoubtedly the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The FHL has microfilmed many family and local histories and, for a small rental fee, lends the film from the FHL through its system of local Family History Centers (FHC)/FamilySearch Centers (FSCs) throughout the world. In order to identify what books the FHL has, visit the FamilySearch website at **www.familysearch.org**. Once there, click the Catalog link, and a search template will be displayed. The Search drop-down list allows you to search on author, title, and subject, just like the LC online catalog. The FHL catalog also makes the following search options available:

  * **Place-names** allows you to search for items in the FHL holdings that have been cataloged to include names of places.
  * **Last names** allows you to search for materials related to specific surnames.
  * **Call numbers** allows you to locate the catalog record for a specific book or other print item if you know the number.
  * **Film numbers** allows you to locate the catalog record for a specific reel of microfilm or sheet of microfiche if you know the number.
  * **Subjects** and **Keywords** are similar to the same facilities in other library and archives catalogs.

In addition to the catalog search, the FamilySearch site includes another link at the top of the search template labeled Books. Click that link and you will be presented with another page about the Brigham Young University Family History Archive. That facility has digitized and indexed thousands of historical books. Click the button labeled Visit the BYU Archive and you will be taken to **<http://lib.byu.edu/fhc/index.php>** where you can search this impressive collection.

If you do not know the location of your nearest FSC, click the FamilySearch Centers link. Enter a place name or ZIP code in the search box shown on the next page. A satellite map will be displayed with tree icons of each FSC. Zoom in or out on the map as needed. A list of links to nearby FSCs will be displayed. Click the link for an address. Figure 10-9 shows an example of a search for Des Moines, Iowa. The people who work at the FSC can help you learn how to use their materials and how to request the loan of microfilm and CD-ROMs from the FHL in Salt Lake City.

**FIGURE 10-9** The FamilySearch website page showing results for a search of a FamilySearch Center in the Des Moines, Iowa, vicinity

The LDS is currently involved in digitizing and indexing all of its microfilmed records. These are being placed on their website as they are completed and are available for free. This work will continue in the coming years until all the microfilmed materials are completed.

Consult Reference Books and Other Resources

Some of the best resources at your disposal are reference books that focus on different record types and the locations of those records. Among my personal favorites for general reference are the following titles:

  * _The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy,_ Third Edition, edited by Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking (Ancestry Publishing, 2006), provides the most comprehensive reference for U.S. records of all types and research methodologies. Information about conducting research about specific record types, what can be found in them, and how to locate and then assess the content are discussed in detail.
  * _The Family Tree Sourcebook: Your Essential Directory of American County and Town Records,_ produced by the editors of _Family Tree Magazine_ (Family Tree Books, 2010), provides a state-by-state reference. Historical background about the formation of each state is provided, along with descriptions of all major record types, when they began being created, and where they reside. For each state, there is a county boundary map and a table showing each county, its contact information, details about its formation, and the years when each of the following record types began being created: birth, marriage, death, land, probate, and court. (This book can be used instead of both Ancestry Publishing's _Red Book_ and Everton Publishing's _The Handybook for Genealogists,_ both of whose publishers have discontinued publication.)
  * _French-Canadian Sources: A Guide for Genealogists,_ by Patricia Keeney Geyh et al. (Ancestry Publishing, 2002), is a compilation of scholarly chapters written by experts in French-Canadian research. The book covers the entire history of the French in Canada from establishment in 1605 of Port Royal in what is now Nova Scotia, and details the many types of records created over the centuries by the French, English, and Canadian governments. Among the elegant appendixes are a collection of French vocabulary words and phrases you are likely to encounter; charts and descriptions of Canadian census records and substitutes; and an extensive compilation of French-Canadian research addresses.
  * _Ancestral Trails: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History,_ Second Edition, by Mark D. Herber (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2006), is the most extensive and comprehensive guide to tracing your British heritage, presented in an orderly fashion and in easily understandable language. It provides clear descriptions of all major and many obscure records, and will help you understand the church and governmental structures employed over the centuries in creating and maintaining the records. Volume II of this book was released in 2009.
  * _Tracing Your Irish Ancestors: The Complete Guide,_ Third Edition, by John Grenham (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2006), provides an excellent primer on how to begin your ancestral quest, and examines the major sources such as civil records, censuses, church records, land and property documentation, wills, emigration papers, deeds, registry sources, newspapers, and directories. A complete table of Roman Catholic parish registers' reference information is included, as are detailed materials about available research services, genealogical and historical societies, and contact information for an array of libraries and record repositories.
  * _Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians,_ by Ian Maxwell (Pen & Sword, 2010), is an excellent guide for Americans tracing Scottish immigrant ancestors. The book covers every aspect of Scottish history and all the relevant resources. In addition to covering the records held at the National Records of Scotland (NRS) (formerly the National Archives of Scotland), the author examines information held at local archives throughout the country. He also describes the extensive Scottish records that are now available online.

The preceding books form a strong core of reference works for your use. You may decide to purchase some of these as components of your personal genealogical reference collection. Your local public library also may own a copy of each of these books in its own collection. However, if not, you certainly can recommend acquisition to the person responsible for the library's collection development. Don't overlook asking your library about the availability of electronic books (ebooks) in its collection.

Locate the Repository on the Internet

Web pages typically provide the most current information about a facility or document repository you might want to access. Just as libraries and archives maintain a Web presence, usually with an embedded online catalog, government agencies, companies, organizations, societies, and other entities create and maintain websites. If you know the web address of the facility, you can quickly access their site and check on their holdings. If you don't know the address, you can use your favorite Internet search engine to locate the site. For example, I decided I wanted to locate information about local government offices in the area near the town of Chelmsford, located northeast of London in the United Kingdom. I entered the following in the Google search engine:

**chelmsford government**

I was rewarded with search results that included a number of links, including those for Chelmsford, Massachusetts. However, I accessed a direct link to the Chelmsford Borough Council's site at **www.chelmsford.gov.uk**. Another search result was that of the LocalLife site for Chelmsford at **www.locallife.co.uk/chelmsford/governmentoff3.asp** , which included links to government offices' sites. Knowing that Chelmsford is located in Essex, I searched for **essex government uk**. The first item in the search results list was the Essex County Council website at **www.essex.gov.uk**.

Researchers seeking information about vital records in the United States and its territories will want to visit the website at **www.vitalrec.com**. Also included is a link to a web page describing how to file a consular report for the birth or death of an American citizen abroad, or a marriage ceremony abroad in which at least one party was an American citizen. Instructions for applying for a certified copy of one of these consular reports also are provided.

Contact the Repository

While we hope that the "official" websites of government agencies and other entities are maintained with up-to-date information, the truth is that a vast number of websites are less than current. The old adage of "phone first!" certainly applies here, especially before making a visit.

Another complication that occurs is when the facility withdraws the materials temporarily for microfilming, scanning/digitization, repair, remodeling, or other maintenance. By contacting the repository in advance, you can learn if the materials you want to access will, in fact, be available when you visit or if you request them through ILL, postal mail, or email.

You will frequently find that many materials of genealogical interest may not have been cataloged. You have already learned about catalog records in this chapter and can understand the effort required to create a single catalog database record. Imagine, then, the loose documents, correspondence, maps, folders, and other materials that may be a part of a library's or archive's holdings. It is expensive and labor-intensive to catalog each and every item. Sometimes there may be a single catalog entry to reference a group of related materials, such as the correspondence files of a local historian. In many archives, you may find that the collected papers of an individual or family have been stored in one or more files or boxes. The catalog record may refer to the number of linear shelf feet occupied by the boxes. The record may also include only references to key contents, such as surnames, the names of heads of household, or other predominant information. In other cases, there may be no catalog record at all. For these and other reasons, it is important that you _always_ ask the question of a reference professional at the library or archive, "Are there any materials of genealogical or local historical significance in your collection that have not been cataloged?" More often than not, the answer will be in the affirmative. It's then time to form a strong bond with this reference person to learn what is available, the content and scope of those holdings, and how to access the materials. There may be materials stored in vertical files (file cabinets) or in individual family or newspaper clipping files.

Making individual contact with the repository in advance also allows you to confirm the location, travel directions, hours of operation, costs of printed copies of materials, availability of scanners, and policies for security, access, use of the materials, and use of personal digital cameras and portable scanners. Obtaining that information in advance helps you plan your research visit and your time there more efficiently.

In addition, if you believe there are specific materials that you want to use, you can confirm that they will be available. If you find that they are unavailable, you can adjust your schedule or your research plan. If you find out that the materials you are seeking have been relocated elsewhere, you can then pursue details about where the records are located and how to gain access to them at the new location.

Seek Help from a State, Provincial, or National Library or Archive

The personnel at a local repository may be unable to tell you about specific materials of genealogical importance. The individual may not have the knowledge or training to help you, or may just be overwhelmed with his or her duties and unable to give that little extra something to help you make your connection with the materials you want or need. Don't overlook the use of the expert professionals who staff libraries and archives that have a broader focus than local ones. Their collections are most often substantially larger than those of local libraries or county governments and they usually have received more intensive training than their local counterparts, so they typically have a broader perspective of documents, records, books, journals, microfilm, and digitized materials.

When I have been unable to locate specific geographical locations on maps of a particular state, I have called on the state library or state archive for assistance. Their collections of historical maps, gazetteers, and other reference materials are extensive and the staff members are well trained in effectively using these resources. In addition, I have used the telephone and email reference services of academic libraries, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Library of Congress, the U.S. Geological Survey, and other types of facilities to obtain answers to questions and to locate materials that either were difficult to find or had been relocated.

Contact Genealogical and Historical Societies at All Levels

Genealogical and historical societies are among your best resources. They are actively involved with the study of history, culture, society, and documentation in their respective areas. Their focus is on research and, in many cases, preservation of information, documentation, and artifacts. Think of these societies as "networks" of individuals with knowledge and experience in the materials in their area. If you contact one person who does not have an answer to your question, he or she usually knows where to look or who to put you in contact with to help you. It is possible that a society may have acquired records, photographs, or artifacts that have not been accessible to researchers before. The society may be indexing or cataloging records or preparing indexes in preparation perhaps for publishing them or donating them to a library or archive. They also may be involved with collecting and organizing information that is not yet available in any other way.

There are two excellent examples in Florida that immediately come to mind. One is a genealogical society's ongoing project of indexing articles concerning individuals who lived in or passed through their county in the territorial period prior to Florida statehood in 1845. The other is an ongoing project by one county's genealogical society to canvass and document every gravestone in every cemetery in the county, and to publish indexes for all of those cemeteries. The Florida State Genealogical Society is pleased to announce ongoing projects of this type on its Florida Projects Registry at **www.flsgs.org/cpage.php?pt=49**. The products of the work by both of the societies mentioned may be unique and found nowhere else.

It also is not unusual for these societies' members to respond to your problem by jumping in to help you with the research. They may look up records for you, make copies, scan documents, take photographs, or provide assistance in other ways.

Engage a Professional Researcher

Finally, if you are seeking records that you believe should exist somewhere but have been otherwise unable to locate them, you may want to engage the services of a professional genealogical researcher. You will want a person who has the experience and credentials to conduct a scholarly research effort for you and provide status reports and a final report with copies and fully documented source citations as the final project deliverable. There are a number of organizations that test and accredit professional researchers. Some of these are listed here:

  * Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG)
 **www.bcgcertification.org**
  * International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen)
 **www.icapgen.org**
  * Accredited genealogists who became accredited through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Family History Department prior to October 2000
  * Association of Professional Genealogists
 **www.apgen.org**
  * Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland
 **www.apgi.ie**

You can contract with certified professional researchers to help get you past your brick-wall research problems. You will discuss the project and research you have already done. You and the researcher will agree on the scope of the research you wish performed and the deliverables. You can negotiate a price and sign a contract.

Deal with Closed or Limited Access to Materials

Some records are not accessible to the public, or access may be restricted. Since the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001, many legislators and government agencies around the world have taken steps to prevent or limit access to information and records that they believe might be used to falsify an identity or otherwise engage in illegal activities. As a result, a number of official documents previously available for research may now be off-limits or require verification of your identity in order to use them. Vital records or civil records, including birth certificates, are highly protected because of their use in obtaining identity cards, driver's licenses, passports, and other official documents.

Some government documents are completely closed to the public and may never be opened, regardless of anything you might do. One type of these is adoption records, which, in many cases, cannot be accessed by anyone, even the adoptee or the adoptive parents, without a court order or the intervention of a judge or magistrate. Others include court-ordered, sealed files concerning some divorce settlements, civil lawsuit settlements, coroners' reports, and inquests.

Private companies and organizations also are reluctant to release any information about their clients, employees, or members for whatever reason. Some may divulge information and provide copies of records to persons who are immediate relations of an individual; however, many will refuse inquiries and requests unconditionally. As private entities, they have the right to hold information confidential and there is little you can do to circumvent their position.

Religious institutions also may choose to maintain the privacy of their records and those of their members.

These brick walls can certainly seem like insurmountable problems. There are, however, several methods you may take to help gain access to otherwise restricted or closed records. Let's explore a few of these approaches.

Be Prepared to Provide Proof of Your Relationship

You will almost always be asked to explain the reason for requesting someone else's information, even though that person may have been deceased for some time—even decades or centuries. Your best response will be that you are researching your family and that you can provide proof of your relationship to the individual whose records you are requesting. As an effective genealogist, you will already have traced your family backward from yourself and will have collected documentation concerning your lineage. It is important to be able to present your identification wherever you go but, if your surname is different from that of the person you are researching, you may have to present some additional proof. Be prepared by carrying a copy of a pedigree chart with you, along with copies of birth certificates, marriage licenses, death certificates, obituaries, and any other documentation that might prove your relationship. The fact that you _are_ prepared to prove your relationship speaks volumes to the people from whom you make these requests. They are usually so impressed by your preparation, your openness, and the evidence that you present that they often will open access to otherwise closed or restricted materials.

Offer to Pay All the Expenses

Demonstrate your seriousness about the subject by offering to pay for the expenses associated with making copies or scanning images, mailing or emailing them to you, and whatever else might be required. Be sure that the person you are dealing with knows this from the beginning. If you are working with a religious institution or a nonprofit organization, such as a genealogical or historical society, offer to make a small contribution as a gesture of appreciation and to help offset the person's time and effort.

Provide Letters of Authorization or Permission to Access

Your relationship to the individual you are researching may not be a direct one. Perhaps you are searching for records for your grandfather's brother's children. Since you are not a direct relative, you may be challenged and blocked from access to some or all records. This can sometimes be resolved by providing a letter of authorization or affidavit from a descendant or other direct blood relative. The letter or affidavit should be signed, dated, and legalized by a registered notary public. It also helps to be able to prove your relationship to the family in the same way described previously, only this time you should be able to show your ancestral connection to this collateral family line.

Invoke the Use of the Freedom of Information Act

In the United States, the Freedom of Information Act, also referred to as the FOIA, requires government agencies to disclose records requested in writing by any person. Certainly there are some restrictions that relate to national security, and certain privacy laws pertaining to living individuals may apply. However, it is important to recognize that you can invoke the FOIA in certain circumstances to overcome artificial obstacles and refusals.

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) maintains a web page at its site that specifically addresses FOIA requests. You can visit that site at **www.usdoj.gov/oip**. Consult their DOJ FOIA references for specific details concerning what can and cannot be accessed and the procedures for making your request. The U.S. Department of State's FOIA web page at **www.state.gov/m/a/ips** provides an extensive overview and additional FOIA reference materials.

Different countries' governments will have legislation that regulates access to information. It is wise to research these laws in each location.

Obtain a Court Order

Some documents are closed or restricted to the public by governments and individuals. One effective approach is to apply to a court of law for a court order to open records or to provide copies of specific items. You must be prepared to present a convincing argument of your need to access the materials and to provide proof of your relationship. One of the most persuasive arguments presented in contemporary court hearings of this sort is the necessity of medical information. The need to identify blood type, genetic predisposition to a disease or medical condition, or similar reason is often an effective argument for the issuance of a court order. You may or may not require a legal representative's help in preparing and presenting your request to the court. The use of a legal professional can be expensive, but the cost may be justified if this is your last resort.

Order Document Copies by Postal Mail and Email

Letter writing has become something of a lost art, and people tend to forget the importance of using effective correspondence to get results. Younger genealogists also may not know what informational components are required in order to get the best results, and some older genealogists may not be using modern technology to achieve success.

It isn't always convenient or cost-effective to make a visit to a particular place to obtain copies of documents you want or need for your research. Therefore, you will do what genealogists have done for decades: write letters and/or complete forms to obtain copies of documents. The difference between the way we handled this now and 20 years ago is that email is available in addition to traditional postal mail. Since email is so fast, the slower postal mail has acquired the name of "snail-mail." In other cases, many governmental offices, libraries, archives, and other repositories have embraced electronic ordering online to facilitate and automate the process.

Your first step, as always, is to determine the correct place to inquire about the records you want to obtain. You certainly can use the Internet and a search engine to locate the website of a particular facility. For example, if you were looking for the contact information for Augusta County, Virginia, governmental offices, you might enter the following into your favorite search engine:

" **augusta county" virginia government**

The search results list includes the county government's website at **www.co.augusta.va.us**. From that page, you could navigate to other pages containing the addresses and telephone numbers of the Circuit and District Courts. You could then write a letter to the clerk of the appropriate court and mail it, along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE). This is a professional gesture that encourages a response. You may instead send an email.

You also can obtain copies of required document request forms from some archives and libraries. NARA requires you to use their preprinted, multipart forms to request searches for and order copies of specific records, or use their online ordering facilities You can obtain these forms by visiting NARA's website at **www.archives.gov** , clicking the Research Our Records link, and then clicking the Order Copies of Records link, which takes you to the Obtaining Copies of Records page ( **www.archives.gov/research/order** ). There you will find all the information you need to order copies of many of the records in NARA's possession. Don't forget, though, that many of their older records have been digitized and indexed at Ancestry.com and Fold3.com.

When generating a request by mail to any person, organization, or institution requesting anything, use the standard business letter format. Include your complete return address and the date of your letter. The heading should include the name and complete address for the entity to whom you are writing. If you have the name of a specific contact individual, include that name, preceded with the title (Mr., Ms., Mrs., etc.), in the header. See the examples here:

Alamance County Offices

Attn.: Department of Vital Records

124 W. Elm Street

Graham, NC 27253

Ms. Iris Garden

Clerk of Court

Alamance County Courthouse

124 W. Elm Street

Graham, NC 27253

Next comes the salutation, followed by a colon. Use the person's name and title, if you know it. If you don't know the name, use the title or a generic salutation. Look at the following examples:

Dear Ms. Garden:

Dear Clerk of Court:

Gentlemen and Ladies:

To whom it may concern:

The body of the letter must communicate clearly what you are seeking. Include the full name of the person whose record you want to obtain. Include any nickname and, for women, the maiden name, and define these alternative names as what they are. Here is the text from the body of a letter that I wrote concerning my paternal grandparents:

_I am seeking a copy of the marriage record for my grandparents who were married on 24 December 1902 in Davidson, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Their names and information are as follows:_

_Groom: Samuel Goodloe Morgan (born 6 April 1879_ )

_Bride: Laura Augusta (Minnie) Wilson Murphy (born 25 January 1873_ )

_Laura Augusta Wilson was also known as "Minnie" and may be listed as such in the marriage records. Also, she had been previously married to a Mr. Jeter Earnest Murphy in 1898 but was widowed the same year._

_I have tried to provide as much information as possible above. I hope it will be enough for you to locate this record for me. Please advise me of the cost of locating and providing me with copies of these records. I will send a check immediately or provide credit card information, whichever you prefer. I am enclosing a SASE for your reply._

_If you do not have these records, please advise me if they have been transferred to another location, the state archive, to a library, or other facility so that I may continue my search there._

_Thank you in advance for your invaluable help with my family quest. You may also reach me at (813) 555-1212 or atgeorge@george.com._

You will notice that I included a paragraph asking that, if the records are no longer in that facility, the person should let me know where they may have been sent or transferred. Many clerks are overwhelmed with work and, if you don't ask the question, they may not automatically supply you with that invaluable information.

The signature block of your letter should include a complimentary closing such as "Yours" or "Sincerely." Include your full name and, if you wish, your title (Mr., Mrs., Ms.) and any professional or educational credential abbreviations that are appropriate (DDS, PhD., etc.).

Address your mailing envelope clearly so that it matches the header block of your letter, and be certain to include your return address. Enclose a clearly addressed SASE with ample postage to encourage a reply.

Another way to streamline the letter-writing process is to create a template in your word processor and save it. This can reduce the amount of typing you have to do. You might consider creating a separate letter template document for use in requesting marriage records, one for death certificates, another for wills and probate records, and yet another for land and property records. Each template will have the specific verbiage you need to specify and obtain copies. You also might consider a mail merge document in your word processor, which is one in which you can define specific fields of the letter and code them in such a way that you simply enter data into one document and then cause it to be merged into the template, creating multiple documents. Check the Help facility of your word processor program for detailed instructions for how to create document templates for these letters and/or mail merge documents. You actually could create multiple mail merge documents. Use the data entry document as the single place you type in information and then allow it to produce the letters and produce a sheet of mailing labels for envelopes. You also can create a number of self-addressed envelopes at one time and then you only need to add the stamp and enclose it with your letters. It really is simple to automate the process. It requires a little time investment in the beginning to set everything up. However, after that, the letter-writing process itself can be a breeze.

Keep Track of Your Correspondence

My genealogy correspondence used to be a terrible mess. I would write letters to courthouses for copies of documents, send off forms to obtain copies from NARA, and fire off email messages to many other researchers. I was so busy sending things out that I wasn't really sure what I had done and what I had not. I ended up duplicating my efforts, and never followed up on anything because I didn't keep control of it. It is particularly embarrassing when you send the same request two or three times to the same person, and it gets expensive sending money multiple times to the same courthouse or archives and receiving the same documents more than once. Yes, it _can_ happen to you!

The simple solution is to maintain a correspondence log and get into the habit of entering information about all of your correspondence, including both postal mail and email. The correspondence log is merely a formatted record of what you have written to someone else about, when you wrote it, when you received a response, and what results you obtained.

Some people choose to maintain a record of their correspondence at the surname level and, by doing so, have only one place to check for every letter or email sent and received for an entire family. I know other people who maintain a control log based on geography, or even surname and geography, to get a little more granular. There are a number of options for setting up and maintaining a correspondence log. You will have to choose the format and organizational scheme that works best for you based on the people you are researching.

You have a number of options in terms of format. Ancestry.com provides a free downloadable Correspondence Record form at **<http://c.ancestry.com/pdf/trees/charts/correc.pdf>** ; RootsWeb offers another format at **www.rootsweb.com/~cokids/forms/pics/corresp.jpg** ; and _Family Tree Magazine_ provides yet another document at **www.familytreemagazine.com/upload/images/pdf/correspondence.pdf**. There are other examples on the Internet that you can find by typing **genealogy forms** into your favorite search engine.

Another option is to create your own form using a word processor or spreadsheet program. You can define whatever columns you would like and format them to suit your own research needs. At a minimum, you will want to keep track of the following data fields:

  * Date on which you made the request
  * Name and address of the person or institution
  * Type of information requested
  * Type of information received
  * Any money that you sent along with the request

I use a spreadsheet program for my genealogy correspondence log. Microsoft's Excel or Apple's Numbers program is a good choice for the PC or Macintosh, respectively. By setting up multiple columns for surname, forename/given name, and middle initial, I can sort the data in the spreadsheet into whatever sequence I like. The spreadsheet program allows me to sort in ascending or descending order for every field. For example, perhaps I want to see all correspondence I've generated for all persons in alphabetical order. I could sort the surnames alphabetically as the primary sort, then by forename as the secondary sort, and middle initial as a third sort. That would present a spreadsheet in all alphabetical sequence by name. I also could add another sort to place the correspondence in date sequence within person—or in surname. Perhaps I want to see what correspondence I've sent to a specific person or organization. I could sort the spreadsheet in addressee name sequence and then, if I like, add additional sorting within that by date and by surname. As you can see, using a spreadsheet program can provide great deal of flexibility in viewing the data. That way you can generate follow-ups for correspondence for which you have received no reply.

Using a correspondence log requires a little investment in setup time and a commitment to the process of setting it up and maintaining it. The payback, however, comes in the elimination of redundant written correspondence and in being able to maintain control over what can be an overwhelming activity.

Use a Research Log

Keeping track of all the places you have conducted research and all the resources that you have consulted can be difficult. The danger is that you may duplicate your research, which can be a terrible waste of time and money. It is important to keep track of what resources you have investigated in the past, even those that yielded nothing of value, so that you don't duplicate your efforts. A research log or research calendar can help you record your progress. You can maintain your log by surname, by individual, by geographic area, in a combination of any of these, or in whatever organizational structure makes you most effective.

An excellent research log form for use in online databases can be found at **<http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~kidmiff/online research log.pdf>**.

All of the information discussed in this chapter will help you home in on different record types in all types of locations. In the process, using correspondence and research logs can help you identify the materials you have already used and thereby avoid an enormous duplication of work effort and waste of money making photocopies, ordering document copies, and purchasing books.

Now that we have covered so many different record types, and discussed various printed references and finding aids, let's proceed to the next chapter and discuss how to locate information on the Internet about your ancestors.
PART III

Learn Research Methods and Strategies
11

Learn How to Successfully Research Your Ancestors on the Internet

**HOW TO...**

  * Categorize the major types of genealogical resources on the Internet
  * Structure effective searches to locate information
  * Use online message boards to share information and collaborate with others
  * Subscribe to and use genealogy mailing lists
  * Write effective messages and postings that get results
  * Locate and use additional Internet resources to help your research

Genealogical research is one of the top uses of the Internet, and it is no surprise that so many of us are confused by all the options and overwhelmed by the information we find. Making sense of what you find on the Internet means understanding what you are looking at. Understanding the various types of Internet resources is not unlike visiting your local public library and recognizing that dictionaries are vastly different resources than fiction and nonfiction books, magazines are different than journals, and microfilm is different than the Internet. You use your critical thinking skills every time you visit the library to differentiate between materials you want to use; to recognize what is current vs. noncurrent information; and to discern between quality, authoritative, and unbiased information as opposed to that which is not.

This chapter focuses on the different types of Internet resources, how to evaluate them, and how to incorporate them with the "traditional" documents, print materials, and other resources you use. Ultimately, you will work all of these sources in tandem to obtain more comprehensive results and make yourself a more effective researcher.

The emergence of social media such as Facebook, Genealogy Wise, Google+, Twitter, and similar resources in the past few years have added even more tools for genealogists to collaborate with one another. These are discussed in Chapter 14.

Categorize the Major Types of Internet Resources

Many people equate "the Internet" only with web pages. It is, however, much more than that. Certainly there are billions of web pages, but the Internet really is a collection of numerous tools. These can be grouped into three main categories:

  * Web pages
  * Electronic mail (email)
  * Message boards and mailing lists

Within web pages are other subsidiary contents, including text, graphics files, sound files, video files, forms for inputting data, search templates, archives of files that can be transferred or downloaded, chat rooms, and a number of other resources.

Email is the most widely used form of communication on earth today. Many billions of electronic messages are sent and received each day. Some are individual person-to-person messages while others are one-to-many messages, such as those sent to an email mailing list or distribution list. Email has, like web pages, become more than just textual. Messages can contain multimedia graphics, sound, and video files within the body of the message, and attachments in many forms can be shared.

Message boards and mailing lists are Internet tools that allow you to reach many persons at once who share an interest in a particular topic. Genealogy message boards are used by many thousands of persons each day to post queries concerning persons with a specific surname, questions about a geographical area, or questions concerning some other subject area. A mailing list uses email messages to communicate to persons who have subscribed to that particular list whose messages are focused on a specific surname, geographical area, or topic. Message boards and mailing lists are discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.

Web pages, email, message boards, and mailing lists are different media and are used for different purposes. If you understand their uses up front, you are better prepared for what you may _and_ may not expect to find when you use them.

One of the best pieces of advice I can give you is to look for "help" resources on the websites you use in your research. Most websites and Internet resources include a "Help" facility. This may also be titled "Tips and Tricks" or some other name. You may also discover Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) facilities that provide information to assist your use of the site. You can always become more conversant and effective in the use of any online facility by accessing and reading the Help text provided. This area will explain what is and is not available in the way of functionality. Often you will find examples of how to access content effectively and, if there is a search facility available, how to optimize your use of it. These "mini-tutorials" are intended as primers for you and usually are not long, drawn-out, dry narratives.

Categorize the Major Types of Genealogical Web Page Resources

No matter whether you're just starting your genealogical odyssey on the Internet or you're a seasoned web researcher, there is always something new to be discovered there. What you must remember is that websites change over time. New content is added, content is updated, dead links and outdated materials are removed (hopefully!), and websites evolve to become easier to use. Let's explore the major types of websites you will encounter and assess what you can expect to find there.

Compilation Sites

Compilation sites are websites that gather significant resources together in an organized fashion. The materials are presented in a format that allows you to locate materials by reviewing the logical groupings of materials or hierarchical structures to find what you want. Some of these sites may include a search function that allows you to locate specific resources by keyword or phrase. Following are some examples of compilation websites and suggested areas to explore at each:

  * Ancestry.com **www.ancestry.com**
Ancestry.com is a subscription-based website, but there is a great deal of content that is free. Visit the main page and hover your mouse over the Learning Center link at the top of the page. A drop-down menu (shown in Figure 11-1) lists a number of resources. These include
    * **Build a Tree** This area contains details about creating a free family tree at the Ancestry.com site. There also are a number of free genealogy forms in PDF format that may be useful in transcribing information from documents and for organizing your research.
    * **How to Search** Information here includes detailed guidance for effectively searching the Ancestry.com site. You can always search the site, but access to data and images is limited to subscribers. Alternately, however, your public library system may have an institutional subscription to Ancestry Library Edition, a subset of the full subscription that includes key databases. You can access this product in the library.
    * **Understanding Records** Here you will find resources that explain what is included in different record types such as vital records, censuses, military records, and others.
    * **Article Archives** Ancestry.com has published thousands of articles over the years, both in its now defunct _Ancestry Magazine_ and at its website. They are filled with helpful and instructive information that you won't want to overlook. These are all now available online and can be searched, accessed, read, and printed.
    * **Webinars: Online Seminars** Webinars are online seminars conducted online that include both audio and video content. We will discuss these in more detail later in this chapter.
    * **Help - FAQ** Here you will find resources to answer your questions about using Ancestry.com, its products, and its services.
    * **Ancestry.com Blog** Ancestry.com publishes a blog with information about the company and projects and events in which it is involved. We will discuss blogs later in this chapter.
    * **Family History Wiki** Ancestry.com's wiki includes thousands of articles about genealogy topics that have been written by Ancestry.com's staff, independent writers, and collaborative additions by other members of the genealogical community. We will discuss wikis later in this chapter.
  * Canadian Genealogy & History Links **www.islandnet.com/~cghl** Visit the main page (shown in Figure 11-2) and click the Newfoundland link, and then scroll through the categorized links to locate more information about the area and its records.
  * Cyndi's List **www.cyndislist.com**
Look for Cyndi Howells' group of information on Wills & Probate. Click the Categories link at the top of the left side of the page, and then scroll through the entire page to see what is there. Then, go back to the top and try the Search facility to locate listings for France. Then, return to the top of the page and type **france** in the Search box and see what all is at her site. You can narrow the search to locate marriage records in France by typing the two words, **france marriage**.
  * GENUKI **www.genuki.org.uk**
Visit the main page and click the link labeled UK and Ireland. Enter this large collection of genealogical information pages for England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. On the next page displayed, visit the links in the section "Church History."
  * JewishGen **www.jewishgen.org**
Visit the main page (shown in Figure 11-3), hover over the button labeled Get Started, and click the link in the drop-down list labeled InfoFiles. Scroll down the page to view the many links to learn about Jewish genealogical research around the world.
  * USGenWeb Project **www.usgenweb.org**
The USGenWeb Project is an all-volunteer effort that provides access to information about all 50 states and their counties. Visit the site, whose main page is shown in Figure 11-4, and view the list of states on the left side of the page. Click on Oklahoma, and then explore what is there. A list of county links are shown on the left side of the page, and links to specific Oklahoma GenWeb (OKGenWeb) Projects are listed on the right side of the page.
  * WorldGenWeb Project **www.worldgenweb.org**
This site is the international counterpart site to the USGenWeb Project. Visit this site and click the link for CenEuroGenWeb, located on the left side of the page. On the next page, click the link for Germany or the subsidiary list of German states and visit the page for the resources listed there.

**FIGURE 11-1** The Ancestry.com Learning Center drop-down list

**FIGURE 11-2** Main page from the Canadian Genealogy & History Links website

**FIGURE 11-3** The JewishGen site provides the most comprehensive set of links to Jewish resources on the Internet.

**FIGURE 11-4** Main page of the USGenWeb Project site

As you can see, each of these websites is a compilation of many different types of information. Within some of these are "how-to" materials, databases, maps, dictionaries, and links to other sites. While Cyndi's List offers an exceptionally comprehensive collection of reference links across many subject areas across the Internet, a compilation by topic area provides an excellent focal point for your research concerning a specific topic area. The esteemed JewishGen site, for example, provides categories of general and geography-specific information and links, making it the preeminent website for Jewish ancestral research guidance.

Cyndi's List at **www.cyndislist.com** is the work of genealogy maven Cyndi Howells, and is one of the largest compilations of genealogy websites on the Internet. Started in 1996, the site now has more than 309,900 links and continues to grow.

"How-to," Educational, and Reference Sites

This category includes "how-to" articles that provide instruction, as well as articles, columns, tips, and other online reference materials. The following are representative examples of this category:

  * AfriGeneas (African Ancestored Genealogy from Africa to the Americas) **www.afrigeneas.com**
Visit the main screen and click Records at the top of the page for a drop-down menu. Click Library Records. Select one of the items on the page to investigate.
  * Genealogy.com **www.genealogy.com**
Visit the main page and click the Learning Center link at the top of the page. Choose one of the areas of interest to you on the page and visit that page.
  * RootsWeb Guide to Tracing Family Trees **<http://rwguide.rootsweb.ancestry.com>** Visit this web page and select one or more subjects that are of interest to you in your research. You might want to try the Land Records (U.S.A.) link for interesting information.

In addition to these and similar websites, you will find instructional information on some of the compilation sites mentioned above and in wikis that we will discuss later in this chapter.

Genealogy Charts and Forms

In the course of your research, you will probably find a number of types of forms to be useful in recording information you uncover. In particular, census transcription forms and forms for abstracting wills, deeds, and other documents can be great tools. You certainly can create forms for your own work style, but there also are free forms available at a number of sites:

  * Ancestry.com **www.ancestry.com/trees/charts/ancchart.aspx**
Some of the best charts and forms are available at the Ancestry.com site. These include census forms for the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, and other forms. These are in Adobe PDF file format and are downloadable here.
  * _Family Tree Magazine_ online **www.familytreemagazine.com/freeforms**
 _Family Tree Magazine_ has perhaps the most complete collection of genealogy forms on the Internet, available in both PDF and plain text formats.
  * Genealogy.com **www.genealogy.com/00000061.html**
You will find that there are census forms here that provide another format option to those at Ancestry.com.

These are just a few of the many places on the Internet where you can obtain free forms to download and/or print. Additional free forms can be found by entering **genealogy forms** in your favorite search engine.

Online Databases

The fastest growing area of the Internet for genealogical resources is in online databases. There are both free databases and fee-based databases. Some sites offer a combination of databases. Various payment arrangements are available to access data at the fee-based sites. They include access on an annual or monthly subscription basis; pay-per-day; pay-as-you-go; or pay-per-record downloaded or printed. A number of the database sites will give you a free demonstration or sample subscription. It is wise to try the site on a short-term basis before committing yourself to a lengthy subscription.

In this category of web resources, you should consider exploring as far as you possibly can in these areas, _and_ returning often to these sites for new and updated materials. Some of the best of the databases are listed here:

  * Ancestry.com (free and pay databases) **www.ancestry.com**
Ancestry.com contains the U.S. collection of databases. However, there currently are international collections for the United Kingdom ( **www.ancestry.co.uk** ), Canada ( **www.ancestry.ca** ), Australia ( **www.ancestry.com.au** ), Germany ( **www.ancestry.de** ), France ( **www.ancestry.fr** ), Italy ( **www.ancestry.it** ), Sweden ( **www.ancestry.se** ), and China ( **www.jiapu.cn** ). You can use the search template at Ancestry.com to enter name, location, time period, and/or other data and conduct a search of all the databases. Alternatively, however, you can examine the full list of available databases at Ancestry.com by visiting their Card Catalog at **<http://search.ancestry.com/search/CardCatalog.aspx>**. You may either browse the entire list (which I strongly recommend in order to see what is there) or filter the titles by collection. You will be amazed at the scope and diversity of Ancestry.com's international databases. Among their Images Online premium databases are the U.S. federal census Population Schedules (1790–1930), the Immigration Ships Passenger Lists, the Historical Newspaper Collection, the United Kingdom Censuses, the Civil War Pension Index, Pallot's Marriage and Baptism Indexes for England (1780–1837), and the United States WWI Draft Cards, to name just a few of the more than 30,000 databases. More databases are in the process of being digitized, indexed, and placed online, which means that you should check back often to locate additional records.
  * FamilySearch.org (free databases) **www.familysearch.org**
The FamilySearch.org website is a fast-growing resource for your genealogical reference. FamilySearch is working to digitize, index, and make available on this site all of the microfilmed records they have captured over the decades. Visit the main page, shown in Figure 11-5, and click the Advanced Search link. Here you can search all of the databases or you can click a geographical area in the list on this page, browse through all the available databases, or search for a collection by name. Click a specific database to search it. Many databases already have digitized images; some of these may already have been indexed, while others have not been indexed. If a database of images has not yet been indexed, you will only be able to browse through the images.

**FIGURE 11-5** The Advanced Search page of the FamilySearch.org site allows you to search all the available databases or to browse and locate available databases by geographical region.

Click the link labeled Catalog at the top of the screen to find details of everything available through the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah. When you search and locate items in the catalog, you will find that there will be detailed information about each item. If a book or records are available in a microfilmed format, there will be a film number included in the catalog record. You can present these at the nearest LDS FamilySearch Cent **e** r (FSC), and the staff can work with you to arrange to order the rental microform materials from the FHL in Salt Lake City.

FamilySearch is working to digitize, index, and make available on FamilySearch .org all of the microfilmed records they have captured over the decades. Volunteers all over the world are working to index the images so that they can be easily searched. If you are interested in volunteering to help with indexing records, visit **<https://indexing.familysearch.org>** for more details and to register.

  * Fold3.com (subscription databases) **www.fold3.com**
Fold3.com is one of the fastest-growing collections of digitized, indexed records of genealogical interest on the Internet. It is adding approximately more than a million new images to its website each month. Many of these images come from microfilmed records at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), including U.S. Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War documents for service, pensions, and more. Naturalization index cards, city directories, and many other document types are available. Figure 11-6 shows a search result for the author's ancestor, John Swords. The Revolutionary War Pension database includes the complete file of 45 pages of digitized original documents for John Swords.
  * JewishGen (free databases) **www.jewishgen.org**
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, this site contains excellent databases, which are available with a simple registration.
  * Library and Archives Canada (free databases) **www.collectionscanada.gc.ca** LAC was discussed in some detail in the chapter concerning census records. LAC has, in its online Genealogy and Family History area, a variety of articles and links and a good number of digitized image databases.
  * The National Archives (UK) (pay UK census databases) **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk**
The National Archives (TNA) is the primary repository for records of England and Wales and contains over 11 million publicly available documents. The former Public Record Office (PRO) and the Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC) were merged in April 2003 to form TNA, and the Family Records Centre (FRC) was relocated to TNA in 2008. The TNA website is a wonderful compendium of information, online exhibits, educational tutorials, and much more. TNA's main web page is shown in Figure 11-7. Of special interest to family history researchers are the digitized census images from TNA's DocumentsOnline collection. Browse the full list of collections in the Records category, accessible by clicking the Records link from the main page.

**FIGURE 11-6** Revolutionary War Pension file for John Swords at Fold3.com

**FIGURE 11-7** Main page of The National Archives (UK)

GEDCOM is an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, and refers to a specific computer file format. GEDCOMs are extracted data files produced from genealogy database software programs in a common structured format. a GEDCOM from one genealogy database program can be imported into another genealogy database program, and uploaded to certain genealogy websites, complete with individuals' information.

Genealogical Societies

Genealogical societies can offer a wealth of information to you, including reference and referrals, education, companionship, and publications, and may well possess important genealogical records found nowhere else. You will want to investigate the societies at the national, regional, state or provincial, county, parish, and local levels where your ancestors and family members lived. The following are some of the major ones of interest to researchers:

  * Canadian Genealogical Societies **www.generations.on.ca/genealogical-canadian.htm**
This web page is a subsidiary of the Generations website and provides a list of links to the provincial genealogical societies' websites. There are, however, hundreds of genealogical societies in Canada, and you may locate information for and links to a more extensive list of local societies at the provincial societies' sites.
  * Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) **www.ffhs.org.uk**
This international organization, based in the United Kingdom, has more than 160 member societies representing more than 180,000 members worldwide. It provides education and support to individuals and to genealogical societies, and coordinates a number of national projects in order to integrate the efforts of multiple societies, publish the efforts, and publicize the results.
  * Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) **www.fgs.org**
This international organization consists primarily of U.S. and Canadian genealogical societies but also includes some overseas members. Individual societies join FGS and it, in turn, provides a forum for society education and communications, and hosts an annual conference. The list of member societies is available at **www.fgs.org/membership/members.php**.

You can also search for a particular genealogical society by using your favorite search engine and typing the name of the area and the quotation mark-enclosed phrase **"genealogical society"** or **"genealogy society"** in the search box.

Structure Effective Searches to Locate Information

The Web is an enormous place, currently consisting of billions of individual pages. In reality, we can only guess at its actual size, but it is growing at a rapid pace. Because it is relatively easy for anyone to put information on the Web, there is a good possibility that somebody, somewhere, has created a web page that contains information you might find useful for your genealogical research. The trick, then, is to locate that one useful page among the billions of pages out there.

It is important that you learn how to use, in a logical, structured way, the two primary search tools on the Internet: search engines and directories. We're going to explore each one in detail, after which you should practice, practice, and practice in order to become an expert Internet searcher.

Define the Difference Between Search Engines and Directories

Early in the development of the World Wide Web, directories were the way of the world. Before long, search engines appeared. The problem is, however, that over time the directories have added search facilities to their sites and search engines have added directories to their sites. For example, the largest of the directories, Yahoo!, now embeds a search engine that can either search within Yahoo! itself or reach out onto the Web to search millions of web pages. Google, on the other hand, as the largest search engine currently, also has created other facilities. _Both_ Yahoo! _and_ Google include facilities to search the Web for graphics and audio files, as well as to locate news and financial information. Google also includes an impressive Maps facility. With that in mind, let's define each of the tools and what distinguishes one from another.

A _search engine_ is an index of web pages that has been created by a mechanical contrivance known as a spider, a robot, or simply a "bot." The key here is that the index is mechanically created, with very little human intervention. There are three indexed components in a web page that a search index indexes: the title, the meta tags, and the body of the web page.

When you enter a single word for a search, it might be located anywhere within these areas of the web pages. As you'll see later, the Advanced Search facility of many search engines may allow you to specify where in the web page the word or phrase is to be sought.

Search engines employ the use of structured searches, using words, keywords, and phrases to match entries in their indexes. Search engines offer both a simple and an Advanced Search facility, the second of which allows you to select criteria to narrow your search results.

Examples of the leading search engines today include Google (located at **www.google.com** , **www.google.co.uk** , and other addresses in other countries), Bing ( **www.bing.com** ), Ask.com ( **www.ask.com** ), and a number of others.

A genealogy-specific search engine called Mocavo ( **www.mocavo.com** ) made its debut in 2011 and claims to search billions of free genealogy records. The Advanced Search page of Mocavo is shown in Figure 11-8.

**FIGURE 11-8** Mocavo is a genealogy-specific search engine that searches free genealogy records on the Internet.

A _directory_ is another Internet tool that, unlike the search engine, is created entirely by human editors who look at web pages and assign them to logical or appropriate categories. A directory is essentially a compilation. Broad categories can be broken down into narrower subcategories and sub-subcategories. This hierarchical structure can be used to browse deeper and deeper to narrow your focus and to locate materials you seek. A directory may also embed a search facility, which enables you to search in just that hierarchical category or to search the entire directory. Some hybrid directories also may allow you to expand your search onto the Web to locate non-categorized materials that are not included in the directory, graphic files, audio files, news wire services, and other resources.

Among the largest directories today are Yahoo! (shown in Figure 11-9 and located at **www.yahoo.com** ), Open Directory Project ( **<http://dmoz.org>** ), MSN ( **www.msn.com** ), and several others. Another important reference directory you will want to include in your Favorites list is ipl2 at **www.ipl.org** , formerly known as the Internet Public Library. Each of the large directories has links to several million different web pages that have been compiled by their human editors. Because editors add new links to a directory, it may take some time (months, perhaps) before a new web page will appear in a general directory.

**FIGURE 11-9** Main page at Yahoo!

There is one more search tool that should be mentioned: the _metasearch engine._ A metasearch engine is another hybrid creature, one that allows you to enter a search in one place and have that engine simultaneously search multiple search engines for you. Does this seem like the answer to a prayer? Hardly! The results may be overwhelming. The search results may be less than relevant to the search terms and keywords you submitted. They also may yield duplicate search results and/or omit important leads. Many experienced researchers use metasearch engines only to learn which of the individual search engines has the most or the better search results. However, a metasearch tool can save a great deal of time and can often locate higher-quality results very quickly. Among the major metasearch engines in use today are Dogpile (shown in Figure 11-10 and located at **www.dogpile.com** ), MetaCrawler ( **www.metacrawler.com** ), and Mamma ( **www.mamma.com** ).

**FIGURE 11-10** Main page of metasearch engine Dogpile.com

There are some simple rules of thumb to use in your work with searching the Web. These apply to most search engines. However, read the Help materials for your favorite engine to get the best results.

  * To enter a word, simply type it in the box. Most search directories and search engines don't care whether you type it in uppercase or lowercase.
  * Avoid the use of a plural if you can avoid it. If you are searching for matches about bluebirds, enter the word as a singular "bluebird" and most search engines will give matches for both "bluebird" and "bluebirds." When entering a surname that ends in an "s," you may want to enter it _without_ the "s" in order to see what matches you will get in your search results list.
  * To enter an exact phrase in which two or more words must be contiguous to one another in the precise order you type them, make sure you enclose them in double quotation marks to make them one entity.
  * If you want to force a search engine to _include_ one or another of the words and/ or exact phrases you entered in the pages returned in the search results, insert the word OR in uppercase letters between the search words or phrases.
  * If you want to force a search engine to _exclude_ pages that include a word or exact phrase in the pages returned in the search results, insert the word NOT in uppercase letters. You can also indicate _exclude_ by placing a minus sign (−) immediately before the term or phrase you wish to exclude. There should be no space between the minus sign and the term you wish to exclude.

These rules will hold true when searching in both a directory and a search engine, but please check the Help facility in your favorite search tool to see how it handles searches.

Use a Search Engine to Get Great Results

The Simple Search or Basic Search screen is typically the main screen you reach at any search engine website. It allows you to type in a word or two or a phrase, and off you go. Too often, though, a researcher may believe that this is all there is to using a search engine. And while it may give you results, those results may be so massive as to be overwhelming, and may contain a whole lot of results that are useless to you. You may get a sense of all this from the first screen of your search results list. No one I know has the time to cull through 2,175,218 results, and I personally would be skeptical of a search result from Billy Ray Bob's Down Home Page of Genieology! (And yes, that would be misspelled, wouldn't it?) You need to narrow the field. That's where the Advanced Search screen options may help. You can access the Advanced Search page at **www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en**. Look at the Advanced Search screen from Google in Figure 11-11.

**FIGURE 11-11** The Advanced Search page of the Google search engine

Don't forget to check the Advanced Search Tips (the Help text) link in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. The following are the fields on the Advanced Search page:

  * **all these words** Entering a single word asks for a search for all web pages that have that word anywhere in the page. Entering multiple words asks for a search for web pages that have _both or all_ those words located anywhere in the page and in any order.
  * **this exact wording or phrase** Entering multiple words here will have the same effect as you would have had on the Simple Search screen had you enclosed them in double quotation marks. Here, however, you don't have to enclose them in double quotation marks. You simply enter the words you want treated as a phrase and they will be automatically enclosed in quotation marks when the search begins.
  * **one or more of the words** Entering multiple words asks for a search for web pages that have _any single one_ of those words located anywhere in the page.
  * **any of these unwanted words** Entering one or more words here has the effect of excluding from your search results any pages in which one or more of these words might be included anywhere in the page.

The Advanced Search screen also gives you the option of narrowing your search to only web pages written in a specific language. (You may need to download from your browser's development website the character set to install to display certain characters, such as Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Cyrillic, Korean, Kanji, or others.)

You may opt to have the search engine return only certain document types (or exclude web pages with those types). These include Adobe PDF files, Adobe PostScript files, Microsoft Word files, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, and Rich Text Format (RTF) files.

You may specify how current a web page must be in order to be returned. However, remember that many web pages contain no date information to make this type of specification 100 percent reliable.

One very helpful feature is the occurrences specification. Click the link labeled "Date, usage rights, region, and more" to expand these additional options. Here you can designate how recently the page was created or updated. You also can indicate where in the web page the term(s)/phrase appears by choosing one of the options from the "Where your keywords show up" drop-down list:

  * **anywhere in the page** This means that the term may appear anywhere in the title or the body of the page. In addition, it may appear in the underlying keywords the web page author may have included in his or her HTML document, in which case the term may not be visible to you.
  * **in the title of the page** This means the term must appear in the blue title bar at the top of your browser window.
  * **in the text of the page** This means the term must appear anywhere in the viewable body of the web page.
  * **in the URL of the page** This means the term must appear somewhere within the web address (URL) of the page.
  * **in links to the page** This means that the term must appear in the text of a link to this specific web page.

The next option, which can narrow your search dramatically, is the selection of Region (or domain). You can specify web pages whose addresses contain the domain(s) you indicate _or_ you can cause pages from certain domains not to be included in your search results. Be sure to read the Help material at the search engine you are using to make sure you know how to use this restrictive filter effectively. You can also specify a numeric range. This can be helpful because you can use it to specify year ranges for your searches.

Two other options, located at the bottom of the page, include searches for similar web pages or for web pages that link to a web page. In either case, you may enter a web address (URL) to locate other websites of these types.

Mailing lists and message boards are among the best tools to use to share and obtain information from other researchers. Both have subjects related to surnames, geographical areas, ethnic groups, and a wide variety of other topics.

Use Mailing Lists and Message Boards to Share Information and Collaborate with Others

Before there was an Internet, genealogists turned to genealogical periodicals (magazines, newsletters, etc.) as a way to publish a question concerning the ancestors they were trying to learn more about. These messages, usually referred to as "queries," were sometimes successful, but they usually were not, since the odds weren't typically very high that the right person (a person who knew the answer to the question) would stumble upon the query. Few genealogists would have the patience to scan every genealogy publication to read every query, especially a backlog of issues going back many years.

Fortunately, the Internet brought a new tool: the electronic mailing list. A query could be sent to a single email address, and it would be automatically re-sent to every mailing list "subscriber." By itself, this was not necessarily a huge improvement over printed queries appearing in subscription magazines or newsletters. However, electronic mailing lists can be archived, and often are. In other words, the older messages can be saved in a database and, as you've already learned, databases can be searched. This means that you can periodically go to the mailing list's archive and search for information of interest.

Online services such as Prodigy, CompuServe, GEnie, and America Online provided another way to exchange queries: a message board (also called a "bulletin board"). Similar message boards could be found on Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) and as part of another, older tool referred to as Usenet. Eventually, message boards devoted to genealogy were established on the Web, at such places as GenForum at Genealogy.com ( **<http://genforum.genealogy.com>** ) and Ancestry.com (a merger of the old RootsWeb message boards and the newer Ancestry.com boards, located at **<http://boards.ancestry.com>** ).

A message board works like a cork bulletin board found in a typical office or school. Someone posts a message and hopes that interested parties will see it (and perhaps respond appropriately to it). As with a cork bulletin board, the messages may not remain posted forever. However, as a general rule, genealogy message boards archive messages so that they can be accessed indefinitely. Just to make certain that you clearly understand the differences between a mailing list and a message board, let's explore and discuss both.

What Is a Mailing List?

A mailing list is a facility on the Internet that uses email to distribute a single message to all subscribers. There literally are thousands of genealogical mailing lists to fulfill almost every interest you may have. These include mailing lists dedicated to the following topics: surnames, geographical locations, city directories, record types, ethnic groups, religious groups and records, fraternal organizations, immigration and naturalization, military records, cemeteries, genealogical software, search methodologies, and more.

The organization that hosts the vast majority of genealogical mailing lists is RootsWeb, and you can access their directory of available mailing lists at **<http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com>**.

It is easy to subscribe to a mailing list. For example, let's say that I am researching my ancestors who lived in Rome, Floyd County, Georgia. The Floyd County mailing list would be a good place to learn more from people who also are researching there. I might learn about the history of the area, learn about archives of records of various types, and even meet someone who also is researching the same surnames that I am researching.

From the RootsWeb mailing list directory (see URL above), I entered **georgia floyd** in the "Find a mailing list" field, clicked Find, and, on the next page, clicked the list for Floyd County, GA. Figure 11-12 shows the web page that is displayed.

**FIGURE 11-12** Detail page for Floyd County, Georgia, mailing list

If you study Figure 11-12 for a few minutes, you will note several important pieces of information:

  * The list is named GAFLOYD-L.
  * There are instructions for subscribing to:
    * The GAFLOYD-L mailing list (individual messages)
    * The GAFLOYD-D mailing list (digest mode)
  * There are instructions for unsubscribing.
  * There is an archive of older messages that may be browsed or searched, using the links shown here.

The difference between the GAFLOYD-L mailing list (individual messages) and the GAFLOYD-D mailing list (digest mode) is important to you as a subscriber. Subscribing to the mailing list whose name ends in _L_ will result in your receiving a copy of every message as an individual message. This could bury you with email if this turns out to be a busy mailing list. Subscribing to the mailing list whose name ends in _D_ will result in your receiving a digest version. This consists of a single email in which all the messages generated in a specific period will be included. There typically is a list of subject headers at the top of the message so that you can tell what types of information are in these messages, followed by the actual messages.

You can use the Find function to quickly search a page for a word or phrase. You can access the Find facility by going to the menu bar on your browser, selecting Edit, and clicking the Find option in the drop-down list. You can also access this using a keyboard shortcut. On a PC, press the CTRL-F keys; on a Macintosh, press the COMMAND ( )-F keys. When you subscribe to a digest version of a mailing list and receive a potentially lengthy email with a number of messages inside, the Find function allows you to quickly search for surnames or specific words in which you are interested. This can be a real timesaver.

When you subscribe to a mailing list, you will receive a welcome message. Print and save this message! I personally maintain a file folder labeled "Mailing Lists" in which I keep these messages. The welcome message will provide important information to you to help you maximize your use of the mailing list:

  * The purpose of the mailing list
  * How to subscribe and unsubscribe
  * How to contact the list administrator
  * How to browse and/or search the list archives (if available)

By keeping the welcome message, you will be able to quickly locate important information about the mailing list when you need it. In particular, if you decide you want to get off the list, you will have instructions about how to unsubscribe. If there are problems with the list, such as a nasty person who is abusing his or her privilege of participating, the email address of the list owner is invaluable.

When you join a mailing list, it is a good idea to "lurk before you leap." In other words, watch the exchanges of information and messages for a week or two before you jump in. You may find that this isn't really the mailing list you want, and you can unsubscribe.

When you subscribe, also browse or search the archives, if there is one, for answers to any basic questions you have. People on mailing lists cringe when a new person (a "newbie") jumps in and asks a question that has been asked and answered a hundred times.

Last but not least, there are three important rules you should follow:

  * Never send an email of a commercial nature unless the description of the list expressly permits it. Sending commercial email on a mailing list is considered to be spamming and is offensive to subscribers.
  * Always be polite and patient. There are always "newbies" and your courtesy is expected and appreciated.
  * Never type in all capital letters. It is, in the Internet world, considered to be "shouting," not to mention that all caps are more difficult to read. The only exception is that you _should_ type surnames in all caps in order to make them stand out.

What Is a Message Board?

A message board, as explained before, is a place on the Internet where people who share an interest in a topic post electronic messages. The difference between a mailing list and a message board is that, for a mailing list, people subscribe via email and messages arrive in their email mailbox. With a message board, the onus is on you to visit the board, to search out information, and to read the postings there yourself.

The Ancestry.com Message Boards at **<http://boards.ancestry.com>** are among the best available. Figure 11-13 shows the main screen at the Ancestry.com Message Boards. As you can see, it is easy to locate specific surnames, localities, and topics. It also is easy, using the search template toward the top, to either search _all_ message boards for a name or text _or_ to find a specific message board. Finding a message board is easy: just fill in the name and go from there. For example, I entered the name **weatherly** (no quotes) in the Find a board about a specific topic box and was presented with a new page for the Weatherly surname.

**FIGURE 11-13** Main page at the Ancestry.com Message Boards

I simply clicked the link and was taken to the page displayed in Figure 11-14. If you study this screen of the Weatherly message board for a few minutes, you'll see that you can search _either_ all the message boards _or_ just this one for specific words or terms or names. Just click the radio button you want.

**FIGURE 11-14** The Weatherly message board at Ancestry.com

You have some other options, including the following:

  * **Begin New Thread** Click this to post a new message on a new topic to this board.
  * **Add Board to (or Remove Board from) Favorites** Whenever you are signed in to Ancestry.com and you visit the message boards, you will have a customized list of places to visit. You must be a registered user to use this feature.
  * **Add Board to (or Remove Board from) Alerts** Allows you to set up a system that sends you an email every time someone posts a message to this message board. You must be a registered user to use this feature.

What you will see in message board postings is something called a "thread." A thread is nothing more than "a thread of conversation" about a single topic. It consists of an original posting and all of the responses to it and the responses to the responses. Each posting is further indented to indicate the response in the thread chain. For example, Figure 11-15 shows an example of a thread that began 9 June 2000 and that has continued through a series of message postings.

**FIGURE 11-15** Messages on the Weatherly message board displayed in "thread view"

There are two display options available when working with the Ancestry.com Message Boards. The first is the "thread view." The page shown in Figure 11-15 is a thread view. The second is the "flat view" in which each message is displayed in its entirety. This is shown in Figure 11-16. Either view can be sorted into oldest first or newest first sequence. You can switch from one display option to the other at will, and this makes reading the entire correspondence in a whole thread easier than having to click through each one individually. In flat view they are shown on a single screen. What's more, you can use the browser's Find facility to quickly search an entire web page for a specific name or word you want to locate.

**FIGURE 11-16** Messages on the Weatherly message board displayed in "flat view"

You also have the option to display the postings in date sequence in either the collapsed or expanded form. When using the message boards to search for particular text, you may find the Advanced Search feature here as useful as the same function in one of the search engines or directories we have discussed. The Advanced Search template for the Ancestry.com Message Boards is shown in Figure 11-17.

**FIGURE 11-17** Advanced Search template for the Ancestry.com Message Boards

Again, you can search either all the Ancestry.com Message Boards or just the one for this topic, in this case, the Weatherly surname. As you can see, there are some options to help you narrow your search. At the bottom of the screen are five additional important links:

  * **Request New Board** You use this if you wish to submit a request to have a new message board established when a surname or topic is not addressed.
  * **Community Guidelines** This contains guidelines for what is and is not a proper use of the message boards.
  * **Board Help** As always, this is your best friend when you need help and guidance.
  * **Board FAQ** This contains frequently asked questions and answers.
  * **Send Feedback** You can comment on your experience with the message boards by clicking this link, competing a comment form, and sending it.

Remember that the Ancestry.com Message Boards aren't the only ones that exist. The GenForum message boards at **<http://genforum.genealogy.com>** are a separate group of boards. FamilySearch.org also has an area of message boards in its Forums area at **www.familysearch.org/learn/forums**. For maximum exposure for your query, it's a great idea to post your query messages at _multiple_ sites.

Write Effective Messages and Postings That Get Results

Well-constructed, well-written messages get results. However, you need to know how to create an effective message. A great message really starts with a great subject line that captures the readers' attention. The subject line should be brief but descriptive. It should tell the reader what is inside the message and help him or her determine whether to read the message at all. The subject line content should include details such as the following:

  * Name of person sought
  * Location
  * Time period
  * All of the above or other data

Let's look at three examples of potential subject lines. The first is for Rebecca MONFORT who lived in Greene County, Georgia, and her life dates were 1819 to 1886. Please note that the surname is in all uppercase letters to make spotting the surname simpler. This subject line tells the reader who, where, and when. This should be enough to help the reader decide if this is a person about whom he or she would like to learn more or if he or she has something to share. The reader _will_ open this message.

**Rebecca MONFORT—Greene Co., GA—1819-1886**

The second example tells the reader that the author has or wants information concerning a church in a particular location: Madison, North Carolina, in the county of Rockingham.

**Zion Baptist Church—Madison, Rockingham, NC**

In the third example, the subject tells the reader a lot of information. In this case, the author is seeking information about Brisco HOLDER, who was born in 1879 and who died in the 1920s. Mr. Holder was in Georgia, and then moved to Alabama, and then to Kentucky, and then to some unknown place until his death certificate was located in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. (The greater than character, >, indicates that the person moved.) Reading just this header, you might determine (correctly) that the author is seeking to learn exactly where and when Mr. Holder died and where he was buried.

**Brisco HOLDER—1879-ca. 1925—GA >AL>KY>?>MO**

These are all examples of good subject headers. A subject line that reads "Help!" or "Wilson Family" or "Want Grandpa's Dates" is not effective.

The body of the message is just as important as the subject line. It should be concise and should indicate the following:

  * The full name (and any nickname or alias) of the individual
  * The location in which the person was located
  * The time period about which you are interested
  * What it is specifically that you are seeking
  * Any research you have already conducted or sources you have checked, regardless of whether they helped your search or not
  * What else you might be willing to share with another researcher
  * How someone can contact or respond to you

Let's look at an example of the body of a good message in Figure 11-18. The author wrote a subject line that clearly provided the surname and the location of the query. The body of the message indicated that the author was seeking information on one John N. (or M.) SWORDS, his wife, and other members of the family. He provided a detailed description of what he knew, and hoped that this would help the reader determine what he or she might be able to share with the author.

**FIGURE 11-18** Example of a good message board posting

In contrast, let's look at an example of the body of a bad message in Figure 11-19. The author posted this message with the impossible subject line of "any info-Wilson" on the WILSON surname message board. I seriously doubt that anyone read the message, because of the subject line. The author has posted a detailed name and date of birth, but no location. The reader would need to dissect the message, reorganize its content, and further correspond with the author to really determine what the author is seeking.

**FIGURE 11-19** Example of a less than great message board posting

As you can see, the use of electronic mailing lists and message boards can really expand and extend your research range by providing the ability to advertise the fact that you are seeking information. You will be surprised how many other researchers, even your own cousins, are out there using these electronic queries. Mailing lists and message boards, along with other Internet resources, provide you with opportunities to share information and to collaborate with other researchers.

Locate and Use Additional Resources in Your Research

Everything we have discussed so far can contribute to your understanding of how and where to locate important genealogical resources for your research. However, there are so many, many more materials available to you! Consider for a moment that you are visiting your local public library to conduct family history research. You certainly will spend time in the genealogy collection. However, you are sure to encounter material that will cause you to want to use additional library materials that are not physically located within the genealogy and local history department. You will want to consult maps and atlases, and these may be in another part of the library. Encyclopedias, biographies, dictionaries, and language translation books are also in another area. Calendar and timeline books are elsewhere, as are telephone directories and other people-finder materials. The list goes on and on. And hopefully, in the course of your library visits, you are now utilizing _all_ of the resources there already, and not just the genealogy books.

Let's explore a number of additional Internet-based resources that may be of help to you in your research. In the following sections, I will suggest some examples of Internet searches to help you locate materials for that genre, and will include some of my favorite sites for your review and enjoyment. Your job in all of this is to search for materials that will be of use in your own research, _and_ to incorporate these tools into your search strategies.

Online Map Resources

Maps are an essential part of your research work. It is imperative that you use historical aps to locate precisely where your ancestors lived at the time they were there. Contemporaneous historical maps, compared with today's maps, can help you focus in on the places where documents may now reside. Political boundaries have altered tremendously over the centuries. Nations have come and gone, counties and provinces have been formed and divided into smaller, more easily governed areas, towns have been founded and disappeared, places have been renamed, and some places have simply disappeared. It is therefore important to be able to locate historical maps, atlases, and gazetteers (place name dictionaries) of all types.

Following are some examples of Internet searches that might be of help to you. Substitute the place name you are seeking for the one(s) shown in the following examples. Please note that Boolean search characters + and − are being used, as are the double quotation marks (" ") that form an exact phrase. You may use any search engine you like, and may want to use the Advanced Search facility to exclude some materials. For example, for the map searches, perhaps you will want to exclude commercial sources and therefore use the Advanced Search facility to exclude the .com sites from your results. (Remember: You've learned a lot already about how to search the Internet more effectively. Don't slip back into your old ways!)

**map "south carolina"**

**map persia**

**atlas Georgia 1895**

**gazetteer ireland 1800s -site:.com**

(This search was conducted using Google, and locates pages with the words "gazetteer," "Ireland," and "1800s," and excludes the commercial [.com] sites. Be sure to check the Help of your favorite search engine to verify the correct format for including and excluding specific domains and other data.)

I have a number of favorite websites where I find historical maps. I encourage you to try some of these terrific resources for yourself:

  * Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection **www.lib.utexas.edu/maps**
  * David Rumsey Map Collection **www.davidrumsey.com**
  * Library of Congress Geography & Map Division **www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap**
The Library of Congress Geography & Map Reading Room website (see Figure 11-20) is an excellent place to begin searching the facility's extensive collection. Be sure to visit the American Memory Map Collections page at **<http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html>**.
  * The U.S. Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) **<http://geonames.usgs.gov>**
This is a database that is searchable by name and also by _Feature Class,_ such as cemetery, to locate places. The resulting list will provide you all known sites. Select one and you'll be supplied with the latitude and longitude, and if you scroll down you will see an option to click a link titled Show Feature Location, and this will access and display a map for you from the U.S. Census Bureau's Tiger Map Server. This is a great resource for traveling, and the latitude and longitude are excellent if you plan to use a GPS unit to help locate a place.

**FIGURE 11-20** The Geography & Map Reading Room page from the Library of Congress site

Dictionaries

There are hundreds of sources for dictionaries online, for English and for other languages that may be helpful for translation purposes. Some excellent dictionaries may be found in the following sites:

  * ipl2, under Resources by Subject **www.ipl.org**
  * Wikipedia, the largest online reference compendium **www.wikipedia.com**

Language Translation

The SYSTRAN site (located at **www.systransoft.com** ) remains one of the very best resources for language-to-language translation. The SYSTRANBox product provides you with two methods you can use:

  * You may type up to 150 words of text and translate it. This can be helpful when trying to translate foreign languages into English, or for translating into another language when writing letters of inquiry and for record copies.
  * You may enter a web address and it will be translated from its original language into English or one of a number of other languages.

The Google Language Tools page at **www.google.com/language_tools** includes a language translation tool.

Please recognize that no online translation is ever going to be perfect. The idiomatic variations and vernacular may not translate well. However, the translation you obtain should be sufficient to help you gather the meaning of the text. For more precise translations, you may want to seek a professional or contact a college or university where students are learning the language. A professor may be willing to have a student assist you as a for-credit project.

Historical and Biographical Resources

Information abounds on the Internet about history and about the lives of notable or historical figures. The databases at Ancestry.com and Fold3.com and the HeritageQuest Online databases available in libraries and archives include a number of important resources in this area.

Wikipedia ( **www.wikipedia.com** ) is a good place to begin to locate historical and biographical reference articles. In addition, you can use your favorite search engine to search for information. (Remember to use your critical thinking skills to evaluate the information you find on websites, and look for source citations that can help you locate authoritative materials to verify and extend your research.) Here are some examples of searches you might employ using your Internet browser and a search engine:

" **george washington" biography**

**"george washington" genealogy**

**"richard ball" genealogy**

**pedigree "mark twain"**

**life "queen Victoria"-albert**

Note in the last example that the minus sign (−) was placed immediately in front of the word or phrase to be excluded. In this case, the search would attempt to exclude details about Prince Albert.

Calendars

You may find good use for calendars in your research. Remember that there was a switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752 in Britain and the British Empire. The changeover in other parts of the world occurred at different times. A good place to find a reference table for the changeover is located at **<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar#Timeline>**. You also can search for calendar converters using the keywords **julian gregorian jewish** and others as needed.

Perhaps you want to know on what day of the week an ancestral event occurred, in which case a perpetual calendar is just what you want. There are many on the Internet, but one of the easiest to use is at **www.searchforancestors.com/utility/perpetualcalendar.html**.

People Finders and Telephone Directories

In the course of your research, you are going to want to try to locate "lost relatives" and others. There are many online telephone and people finder resources on the Internet and most are geographically specific. Be aware that there are a couple of drawbacks to using these facilities:

  * People with unlisted telephone numbers are not included in the telephone number and people finder databases.
  * People's cellular telephone numbers are not included in these databases.
  * Email addresses are seldom if ever updated. Therefore, if you find an old email address for someone, a message you send may not be delivered, and some email service providers do not generate "postmaster" messages indicating a failed delivery attempt.

Among the most prolific of the people finder facilities for U.S. residents and businesses are the resources shown in the list below. You will want to search regional versions of Yahoo! and Google for other countries to locate online telephone, email, and people finder services.

  * Yahoo! People Search **<http://people.yahoo.com>**
  * The New Ultimates **www.newultimates.com**
  * Internet Address Finder (IAF) **www.iaf.net**
  * PeopleSpot **www.peoplespot.com**
  * PeopleSearch.net **www.peoplesearch.net**
  * superpages.com **www.superpages.com**
  * Veromi **www.veromi.net**

All of your reading and studying will not pay off until you apply what you've learned in a practical way— _and_ do it on a regular basis. Throughout this book, you have learned the foundations for research and analysis, applying your critical thinking skills to both the traditional genealogical resources and items and to electronic materials of all sorts. All types of materials can, individually, be used as important tools for your investigative work. By themselves, they are great reference materials. However, when you combine them and work them in tandem with one another, they become a powerful toolkit for your work. That includes the home sources you have found, the documentary evidence you have located and personally reviewed, the databases you have researched, and the Internet resources you have accessed. It is important that you recognize how important working all of these together can be.

The next chapter is "Research and Verify Your Ancestors Using Genetic Genealogy (DNA). Chapter 14 will discuss social networking tools on the Internet as well as a variety of other fascinating electronic resources. Some of these can help you connect with other genealogists and collaborate with them on your research. Others can be used to obtain education and expand your knowledge. You're going to be excited to see how much the Internet resources have grown to extend your research reach. You're really on your way now!
12

Research and Verify Your Ancestors Using Genetic Genealogy (DNA)

**HOW TO...**

  * Learn about DNA and its place in genealogical research
  * Discover the difference between paternal and maternal testing and the results
  * Determine what tests are appropriate for you and other family members
  * Learn about genetic testing services
  * Join a DNA surname project on the Internet
  * Learn more about genetic genealogy

You've probably heard other genealogists talking about using DNA to assist with their research. One of the most recent additions to the genealogist's toolkit is genetic testing. Like learning how to use the Internet and databases, you'll want to learn about DNA and genetic testing in order to understand it and apply it in your own research. Because this chapter cannot possibly address everything about genetic genealogy, I'll discuss some basic concepts and then refer you to other books at the chapter's end that will provide you with an in-depth understanding.

We all have physical traits that distinguish us from one another. You've often heard the comment that someone has his mother's eyes, his father's hair coloring, or some other physical attribute. We know that genetics, the science of biology and heredity, plays a central role in how we are formed. Our genes provide the template for our physical development, from the single-cell fertilized egg to the human form that we become. The basis of this genetic template is DNA.

Learn About DNA and Its Place in Genealogical Research

DNA is an acronym for deoxyribonucleic acid, a chemical that is the blueprint for every cell in all living organisms and in some viruses. DNA molecules store the information and instructions for all the components of cells. DNA carries the genetic information, called genes, that is involved with how the entire organism is formed.

You may have heard the structure of DNA referred to as a "double helix." DNA physically consists of two long strands of organic material called nucleotides. The nucleotides are formed from sugars and phosphate groups that are joined together. These long strands run in opposite directions and form the twisted double helix. One of four types of molecules is attached to each sugar in each strand, and these molecules are called bases. The sequence of the bases is the coding that determines the genetic coding for each cell. The coding is replicated into ribonucleic acid, known as RNA, a single strand of nucleotides.

DNA is organized into structures called chromosomes, and these building blocks are duplicated before cells divide and replicate themselves. All of this information is essential to the creation of life. Scientists have been working for decades to decode the genetic sequences and understand the function of each gene. The Human Genome Project began in 1990 with the goal of identifying all of the human genes and studying their physical structures and their functions.

Although this is a relatively simple description of DNA, it will suffice for the rest of the discussion in this chapter.

Both genetics and genealogy focus on heredity:

  * _Genetics_ is a branch of biology that concentrates on scientific study of the heredity of an individual organism's physical traits. It also is used to demonstrate relationships between individuals.
  * _Genealogy_ is the study of families and includes tracing the lineage and history of families and demonstrating kinship and history. It seeks to establish proof of relationships from one generation to another.

As you can see, the two research disciplines share a somewhat common goal. DNA has been used in medical and forensic applications for quite some time. Amniocentesis is a method in which a small amount of a pregnant woman's amniotic fluid is removed and tested. It is an important procedure used to diagnose chromosomal irregularities and infections and employs genetic testing. Paternity tests use DNA to confirm or refute the relationship of a man to a child. We've also seen episodes of television dramas in which DNA evidence has been used to identify a body, to determine the relationship between individuals, or to link a suspect to a crime scene or a victim.

DNA in your genealogy can similarly be used to prove or disprove relationships between individuals and family groups. While not as precise as forensic DNA analysis, modern DNA testing for genealogical purposes has advanced to include more genetic marker tests. These provide a broader range for comparison with other people's test results.

There are three timeframes with which DNA testing can help genealogists:

  * **Modern Era** This period covers the last 500 years, which encompasses the time when the first surnames began being used in England and elsewhere.
  * **Historical Era** This period includes the time before surnames were commonly used; generally speaking, between 1 A.D. and 1500 A.D. Written names were, however, recorded.
  * **Ancient Era** This period extends backward before the historical era. This is often referred to as the period of "deep genealogy" or "deep ancestry" when it is possible only to trace migrations of groups.

Each of the three time periods can provide insights into your genealogical research and your deep geographical and ethnic heritage. The modern era is the period in which you are most likely to be able to achieve the most value from DNA testing in your genealogical research. However, the testing also can identify your haplogroup. _Haplogroups are_ the main branches of the human genealogical tree, and they consist of haplotypes. _Haplotypes_ are closely linked genes and genetic markers that are shared by a closely related group of people. These people typically are from a specific geographical area and/or part of the same ethnic origin. Haplogroups correspond to early human migrations between distinct geographical regions. Your haplogroup is indicative of your deep ancestral origin. Figure 12-1 shows an example of a haplogroup report from Ancestry.com.

**FIGURE 12-1** Sample of haplogroup results

Discover the Difference Between Paternal and Maternal Testing and the Results

DNA testing, also referred to as genetic profiling or genetic "fingerprinting," is used to identify individuals based on their DNA profile. You begin by deciding what test you want and investigating the companies that provide the test. One consideration will be the number of genetic markers you want tested and reported on. The price of the DNA test you want is based on the number of markers you want tested. Once you have made this decision, you can then order a test kit from a DNA testing company. It typically consists of two or more sterile cotton swabs, an envelope that you seal and label, and a return mailer. The physical test consists of rubbing the cotton swabs inside your mouth. Your oral epithelial cells and saliva contain DNA, and it is that which is captured on the swab. You return the swabs to the testing company and, after some weeks, you receive your test results.

The test determines the values of a set number of markers, and the resulting values can be compared against other people's results. The test uses highly variable repeat sequences that can identify closely related individuals _or_ differentiate between unrelated individuals. It also is used to study mutations in the marker values. It is both the similarities _and_ the mutations that help determine the number of generations backward that there may be a "most recent common ancestor" (also referred to as the MRCA). The mutations occur at a comparatively regular rate, and these changes can be statistically used to project the number of generations between you and your MRCA.

It is important to know that humans, and most other mammals, have one pair of sex-determining chromosomes in each cell. Males have one Y chromosome and one X chromosome, while females have two X chromosomes. The Y chromosome is present only in males and can therefore reveal information only about the paternal line. The test for the Y chromosome is referred to as a Y-DNA or paternal DNA test. Figure 12-2 shows the results of my paternal DNA test.

**FIGURE 12-2** Sample of Y-DNA test results

Mitochondria are structures within cells that convert energy from food into a form that the cells can use. The mitochondria contain a small amount of their own DNA. This genetic material is known as mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA. This mtDNA is passed only from mother to child, and there is usually no change from parent to child. It is therefore a powerful tool for tracing ancestry through the female line.

As a result, there are two primary types of DNA test available to assist in your genealogical research:

  * **Y-DNA Test** This is a test available only for males to help determine their direct paternal line.
  * **mtDNA Test** This is a test available to males and females to help trace their direct maternal line.

The Y chromosome can reveal that a man is related to other males—with the same surname or not. It indicates that there is a common male ancestor, but there may be no way to determine exactly how many generations back that the MRCA lived. The value, however, is in comparing your Y-DNA test results with other people's results. We'll discuss this later in the chapter when we cover DNA surname projects.

The mtDNA test allows you to undertake research into the records of your mother's maternal ancestors. This can be a daunting task. However, the mtDNA test results can be used to definitively confirm your research and the relationships in your maternal lineage (see Figure 12-3).

**FIGURE 12-3** Sample of mtDNA test results

Another test is the autosomal DNA test. This test has only recently been introduced but it is important for genealogists. While the Y-DNA and mtDNA tests are dependent on the markers found on the Y-chromosome or in the mitochondrial DNA, the autosomal DNA test checks the additional 22 pairs beyond those that are sex linked. An autosomal DNA test is most effective when people share comparatively recent common ancestors.

It is important to know that we inherit, on average, 50 percent of the DNA from each of our parents. Since our parents also inherited, on average, 50 percent of each of _their_ parents' DNA, we can be certain that the DNA we inherited from our parents contains markers reflecting approximately 25 percent of our grandparents' DNA. The autosomal DNA test is used to study the marker code values of those 22 additional pairs of chromosomes, and then it is possible to compare those values against other people's test results to check for cousinship. First- and second-cousin relationships are almost certain to show up. The percentage of DNA from great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, and more distant ancestors diminishes in each successive generation. Therefore, matches with third, fourth, and more distant cousins become less likely.

Genetic genealogy gives genealogists a means to check or supplement the historical record with information from genetic data. It can be used to solve gaps in your documentary research. However, there are other possibilities. A positive test match with another individual may:

  * Validate your existing research
  * Suggest geographical areas for genealogical research
  * Help determine the ancestral homeland and/or ethnic origin
  * Discover living relatives
  * Confirm or refute possible connections with other individuals and/or families
  * Prove or disprove theories concerning ancestry

As you can see, Y-DNA and mtDNA tests can trace ancestry on the paternal and maternal lines, respectively. The autosomal DNA test, however, can take your research into a more precise area. It also will provide you with matches from _both_ sides of your family at once.

You should know that there is resistance to DNA testing by some individuals. The reasons may include:

  * Uncertainty about which testing company to use
  * Cost of the test
  * Quality of the testing
  * Variation in the number of markers tested by the companies
  * Privacy issues
  * Identity theft concerns

You may want to seek the participation of other relatives to help expand your genetic genealogy research. Many genealogists encourage cousins, aunts, and uncles to submit DNA test kits, even offering to pay for the testing in order to gather more sample data. You may want to consider this incentive approach in order to extend the range of your genetic research.

Learn About Genetic Testing Services

There are many commercial DNA testing services available. You will want to conduct a little research about the types of tests and the number of markers tested, the price of the tests, and any affiliations they may have with other companies and/or with surname DNA projects on the Internet. You may, in fact, be able to obtain a lower price as part of a surname group, discussed in the next section. Prices differ between the different types of testing, and prices also vary between testing services, dependent on the number of markers tested and other factors. Some of the companies offer a combination of tests together in a bundle at a package deal price. You want to select a testing service whose results are specifically used for genealogical heritage purposes. A DNA paternity test kit and a forensic DNA testing service are not going to be of value to your genealogical research.

The following table lists some of the major DNA testing services for genealogists. Some of these are ethnicity-specific and provide specialized test results.

23andMe | **www.23andme.com**
---|---
African Ancestry | **www.africanancestry.com**
DNA Testing by Ancestry.com | **<http://dna.ancestry.com>**
Family Tree DNA | **www.familytreedna.com**
GeneTree | **www.genetree.com**
Jewish DNA Central | **www.jewishgen.org/dna/**
Oxford Ancestors | **www.oxfordancestors.com**

Join a DNA Surname Project on the Internet

Genealogists who have had their DNA tested want to locate genetic matches to other researchers. This is particularly true of those who have had their Y-DNA tested and are seeking matches with others with the same surname and those who have had their autosomal DNA tested and wish to connect with cousins. A surname DNA project is the ideal place to make connections with other researchers.

A surname project is a genetic genealogical project in which the results from Y-DNA testing are used to trace male lineage. Surnames are passed down from father to son in many cultures, and Y chromosomes are passed from father to son with a predictable rate of mutation. People who share the same surname can use genealogical DNA testing to determine if they share a common ancestor within recent history. It is certainly possible for persons with a different surname to share the same Y-DNA test results. Don't jump to any conclusions, however. Yes, there may have been an illegitimate child, but other factors may account for the discrepancy. There may have been a change of surname due to adoption; a man may have taken his wife's name; frequent misspelling of an earlier surname may have resulted in a man taking another surname; a surname may have been changed by a male immigrant in order to "fit in"; or a nickname or alias may have been used and was then taken as the surname.

The results of a Y-DNA test checks the values of Y-chromosome markers. Depending on the number of markers tested, the results can be compared to someone else's results and can reveal whether the two individuals share a common male ancestor. The number of markers tested and the number of matches at those markers can help determine the range of generations until their most recent common ancestor (MRCA) would be expected. Let's say that two men are tested using 37 genetic markers. If the two tests match on 37 markers, there is a 50 percent probability that the MRCA was no more than 2 generations ago and a 90 percent probability that the MRCA was no more than 5 generations ago. A further comparison with other persons' test results might indicate a familial relationship.

A DNA surname project takes the comparison another step. By joining such a project on the Internet, you not only share your test results, but also provide documentation of that surname in your ancestry back to the earliest known male ancestor in that surname line. The administrator of the project adds your test results into a grid that allows for easy comparison of each marker's value with that of other people. The name of each participant's earliest documented ancestor is included, as is the haplotype. (See the example in Figure 12-4.) The results are typically grouped together by haplotype and infer clustering. You can make contact with other researchers, usually with the project administrator acting as intermediary to help preserve each person's identity and privacy until they both may indicate their desire to communicate directly. You can then share more detailed genealogical information and collaborate to further one another's research.

**FIGURE 12-4** Portion of the Morgan Surname DNA Project page

Learn More About Genetic Genealogy

There is obviously much more that you can learn about genetic genealogy and using DNA test results in your research. There are several books available on the subject. I personally recommend the following titles:

  * Pomery, Chris. _Family History in the Genes._ Kew, Richmond, Surrey, UK: The National Archives, 2007.
  * Smolenyak, Megan, and Ann Turner. _Trace Your Roots with DNA: Using Genetic Tests to Explore Your Family Tree._ Emmaus, PA: Rodale, Inc., 2004.

The possibilities offered by DNA testing are increasing and improving each year. You will want to incorporate genetic genealogical research into your research toolkit, and gain another strong research facility for your family history.
13

Use Alternative Research Strategies to Locate Difficult Records

**HOW TO...**

  * Recognize when you have hit a "brick wall"
  * Take a fresh look at your evidence
  * Reevaluate the quality of your sources
  * Widen the scope of your search to include new and different sources
  * Use photographs
  * Develop an ancestor profile/timeline
  * Switch to another family member to bypass your roadblock
  * Seek help from libraries, archives, and societies
  * Engage the help of a professional researcher

Inevitably you will confront the genealogist's worst nightmare: the dreaded "brick wall." Despite all your best research efforts, your careful assessment of the evidence, documentation, and facts, the quality of your source materials, and your best hypotheses, you'll find you just can't progress any further. It happens to all of us, but the situation isn't always hopeless.

We have explored the most common record types, and you have learned about methodologies for using them to discover and document more about your ancestral families. There are literally hundreds of other types of records and artifacts that may provide valuable clues or data to expand your research. This chapter will provide an introduction to some of these resources.

Recognize When You Have Hit a "Brick Wall"

Sometimes a person you think is going to be the simplest to locate becomes a dead end. Every avenue you explore seems to come to an abrupt halt. One of the most frustrating things is not being able to locate even the most basic vital or civil records that should have been where you expected to find them. Worse yet is the discovery that the person who you _thought_ was your ancestor and in whom you've invested so much research effort actually is not related to you at all. You've been researching someone _else's_ ancestor!

Unfortunately, it is easy to become so consumed with the "ordinary" search that you may not even realize you've hit the proverbial "brick wall." You may think that the next record is just around the corner when, in fact, you may never find another record for the person in the place you've identified as the "correct location." Now is the time to step back, put all your knowledge and experience to the test, and employ your most creative thought processes to locate alternative sources. The work you've done to hone your critical thinking skills can now provide the biggest payoffs.

There are several keys to solving your problem. The first thing to do is to recognize the fact that you really _do_ have a brick wall, and that you haven't just made an oversight. Identify and literally describe the scope and symptoms of the problem. Write a description of your problem, including what you know to be fact and the sources of every fact in evidence. Include what you _want_ to find out, what you _already_ have searched, and the results you have _or_ have not achieved. And then describe the brick wall and why you think it has stopped your research. Often, just putting the facts and the actions you've already taken into words on paper can help focus your attention on the real issues. Here are examples of just a few of the more common categories of research brick walls you can expect to encounter:

  * You can locate no records for your ancestor—anywhere!
  * You cannot identify your ancestor's parents or cannot link him or her with people who you believe are or might be the parents.
  * Records have been lost, stolen, destroyed, or transferred elsewhere.
  * Records that you want to access are private, restricted, or entirely closed to the public.
  * No resources can be found on Internet web pages, in Internet-based genealogical subscription databases, and/or in those databases accessible through libraries and archives.
  * Books or manuscripts are not readily available but are located far away.

Using your written description of the problem _and_ the resources you have already researched, now develop a list of alternative research paths, records, and other sources that might help resolve the problem. You may need to conduct some additional research to put your ancestor into geographical, historical, and/or social context and to determine what records might or might not exist to help you locate more information. You may not know about all the various alternative resources that might be available. Your continued reading, research, and collaboration with other genealogists can help you learn about these resources and how to maximize your use of them. Here are some examples of problems and possible solutions.

Problem: A Person's Parents Cannot Be Identified

The person's parents cannot be identified or traced. This is perhaps the most common brick wall genealogists face. Moving backward one more generational step can be exceptionally challenging.

**Possible Solutions** Search for ecclesiastical records for your person that may indicate previous membership in another congregation elsewhere. I was able to trace one of my grandfathers from the church in North Carolina in which he was a member at the time of his death back to the church in which his family were members in Georgia, then back to another church in Alabama, and finally to the church in Tennessee in which he was christened. That church's membership roll also included his parents' transfers of membership from other churches, thus directing me to those churches for _their_ families. Another possible solution, which we will discuss in further detail later in the chapter, involves researching one or more other family members.

Problem: A Person's Previous Place of Residence Can't Be Identified

The person's previous place of residence cannot be identified or traced. This is perhaps the second most common brick wall genealogists face.

**Possible Solutions** The ecclesiastical membership record search could work here as well. Common alternative records to help locate previous places of residence include voter registration records, school records, census indexes and population schedules, immigration and naturalization documents, land and tax records, probate packet inventories and heir lists showing property ownership and/or the residences of heirs in other locations, military service records, and obituaries.

Problem: Records Are Missing or Have Been Destroyed

The records you wanted or expected to find are missing, lost, or have been destroyed. Records do disappear, sometimes through misfiling and sometimes by having been removed or stolen. A common problem, too, is that the courthouse or other repository burned at some time and the records were lost. Consider my dismay to find evidence of an ancestor's considerable estate documented in probate court minutes, only to find that the entire probate packet was not in the probate clerk's files. The will and the executor's/administrator's documentation could have provided definitive proof of the names of my ancestor's children and whether they were living or deceased at the time of his death. It also could have identified other relatives, land and property holdings, and other pointers to other documentation.

**Possible Solutions** Locate all the probate court minutes for hearings concerning the estate. Some of the probate file materials may actually have been read into evidence in the probate court minutes when the report was introduced. Seek newspaper announcements concerning the settlement of the estate. Determine the name(s) of the executor/administrator(s) of an estate through the use of probate court's minutes, and then check the probate files in the event your ancestor's packet was incorrectly filed under the executor/administrator's name rather than under your ancestor's or another family member's name. In addition, it is not unheard of to find that a probate packet was removed by a lawyer or other representative and retained in that person's professional files. Investigate the possible existence of transcriptions, extracts, or abstracts of the original will in books, genealogical society publications, and elsewhere. Contact libraries, archives, and genealogical and historical societies to determine if they are aware of the existence and/or disposition of the records you are seeking.

Some of the records you seek may actually have been microfilmed after they were separated, and your research may require that you reunite and reconstruct the different materials from different locations.

Problem: Records Have Been Discarded or Destroyed

The records you are seeking have been discarded or destroyed. Perhaps the courthouse or other government repository ran out of space and determined that records older than a certain date were no longer needed. Originals of records may have been microfilmed and then destroyed, and then the microfilm might have been lost. There may have been a fire, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, flood, or other calamity in which the courthouse or archive was damaged or destroyed, and records were lost.

**Possible Solutions** Consider substitute records that might provide identical or similar information. Contact archives, libraries, and genealogical and historical societies that might have acquired or salvaged any records. Investigate the possible existence of transcriptions, extracts, or abstracts of the original materials made or published prior to the records' loss. Don't overlook the possibility that records could have been duplicated and sent/transferred to another agency. Tax lists are usually published annually in a newspaper. These may help identify land ownership for your ancestor from the time the property was purchased until the time it was sold or ownership was otherwise transferred.

Problem: Records Were Destroyed During Wartime

Records were destroyed during a time of war. Contrary to what you may have heard, General William Tecumseh Sherman did _not_ destroy every courthouse in his march through Georgia during the U.S. Civil War. However, some county government buildings and their records were lost. During World War II, there was so much bombing and fire damage in Antwerp, Belgium, that only a few individual ships' passenger lists survived.

**Possible Solutions** Look for possible duplicate or substitute records. Investigate the possibility that the records were copied or microfilmed prior to their loss, that transcripts were published elsewhere, or that indexes survived when the actual records did not.

Problem: No Evidence Exists That a Person Lived in a Certain Place

There is no evidence the person ever lived in that place. Your research has led you to a specific place where, no matter what type of records you investigate, there are no records that your ancestor was ever there.

**Possible Solutions** Perhaps the lead you had was incorrect. Or maybe the governmental jurisdiction has changed and the records are really in another place. Be sure to check historical maps from the time period you believe your ancestor was there, and verify the correct jurisdiction. Stop and reexamine all of your information to look for clues you may have missed or information that may have been incorrect.

Problem: Names and Dates Don't Fit

The names and/or dates are all wrong. I was searching for the origin of one of my great-great-grandfathers, Jesse Holder. I knew he lived in Georgia after he was married, but U.S. federal censuses indicated he was born in North Carolina. Searches of records in North Carolina yielded nothing, and so I transferred my attention to the possibility that he may have lived in South Carolina during some period. I found a Jesse Holder in Laurens County, South Carolina. Unfortunately, his year of birth didn't seem to fit. I then determined that this Jesse Holder had married another woman and had died prior to when my great-grandfather was born in Georgia. My own Jesse Holder had been born on 13 August 1810 in North Carolina, and the other Jesse Holder had been born well before his inclusion as a head of household in the 1790 U.S. federal census. That Jesse may, in fact, have been the uncle and person after whom _my_ maternal great-great-grandfather was named. As you can see, I still have research to do.

**Possible Solutions** Retrace the research steps to determine if you are on the right track or took a wrong turn. Look also in the same area for other branches of the same family that really might be yours. Naming patterns sometimes show that children may have been named for one of the parents' parents, an aunt or uncle, or a sibling.

Problem: You Can't Link Your Ancestor with Possible Family Members

There is no discernable link between _your_ ancestor and the people you think could be the parents, siblings, spouse, and/or other relatives.

**Possible Solutions** Examine census records in the area in which your person lived and look for other persons in the vicinity with the same surname, and begin to research them. Examine obituaries, wills, probate records, and ecclesiastical records and look for any family relationship or common denominator linking them together. Consider cemetery records and monumental descriptions to help you relate persons to one another, and then conduct research on those people.

Problem: Person Has Vanished

The person has just simply vanished into thin air. (I call this the "my ancestor was abducted by an alien spaceship" problem.)

**Possible Solutions** Reexamine census records for your ancestor and for the four to six neighboring families on either side of your ancestor. Locate your ancestor in the last census where you found him or her. Look, then, at the next available census for the neighbors. If _they_ are all still in the same place and your ancestor is gone, you know you have looked in the correct place. If one or more of the neighbors also is gone, start looking for your ancestor _and_ the neighbor in available census indexes in that location and surrounding parishes, counties, provinces, or states. Work in concentric circles, using a map and considering the migration routes and social trends of the time, and move outward seeking your ancestor in records that might likely have been created at the time. For example, if you know your ancestor was a Methodist, start looking at Methodist church membership records. Look for voter registration records if the period coincides with a major national election year. Check land and property records to determine if there was a change in property ownership—property sold, different property purchased, relocation to another location, or reference to the death of the property owner and the inheritance by an heir.

Problem: Adoption Records Are Sealed

Adoption records are sealed by a court and not accessible to the public.

**Possible Solutions** Formally petition the court in whose jurisdiction the adoption took place for access to names and dates of the parties. Be prepared to demonstrate your relationship to any and all parties. (Be sure to check the more recent legislation of the locations involved, as some of these adoption records are being made available, especially in the United States.)

Problem: Records Are Private

The records you want are the property of a private corporation and you are refused access to them.

**Possible Solutions** Prepare evidence of your relationship to the person whose records you require and a solid reason for your request. Instead of access to the entire body of records, request an exact extract of the content you want to obtain. If you are refused, be prepared to escalate your request to the headquarters and/or executive officer(s) of the corporation. I have used this tactic in order to access personnel records and funeral home/mortuary records of individual family members.

These examples are not, of course, comprehensive in the scope of possible alternative sources and strategies, but they will give you some ideas to contemplate. Again, it is important to understand your ancestor in context, _all_ of the record types that might have been created, possible repositories, and individuals and organizations that may be of help to you.

Take a Fresh Look at Your Evidence

One strategy that I constantly use is the reexamination of documentation and other evidence that I have previously collected. It amazes me how much information can be gleaned from taking a fresh look at something that I thought I knew so well. Remember that over time you will gather new evidence; learn more about history, geography, and other influences; and become acquainted with new people in your family history. Let me give you a good example of how just reexamining census population schedules clarified my research.

My great-grandmother, Caroline Alice Whitefield, was born on 23 August 1853 to William A. Whitefield (also spelled Whitfield) and his second wife, Sophia D. Briggs. Caroline was their fourth and last child. William had fathered nine other children by his first wife, Rozella H. Moore, who died on 25 September 1841. William died on 18 September 1857 and Sophia died on 29 April 1859, both in Person County, North Carolina. At that time in history, the children of a woman who became a widow were considered orphans under the law. Courts reviewed the situation and usually appointed a male guardian to oversee the financial and personal well being of the children. That guardian might be one of the father's male relatives, one of the mother's male relatives, or a significantly older male sibling of the "orphaned" child or children. Guardianship was granted in Person County in September of 1857, following her father's death, to Caroline's 35-year-old half-brother, LeGrande Whitefield of Montgomery County, Tennessee. I could not find Caroline with LeGrande in the 1860 census, nor could I seem to locate her in North Carolina. However, in working my way through the U.S. federal census of 1870, a portion of which is shown in Figure 13-1, I found Caroline living in the home of Dolphin D. Villines (age 52) and his wife, Emily (age 49), and 80-year-old Sallie Villines, in Person County. When I first acquired the census page in 1989, I did not know why Caroline might be living with this family. It was not until 1999 when I reexamined the record that I realized that Emily Villines was, in fact, Sophia's older sister. Her maiden name had been Emily L. Briggs.

**FIGURE 13-1** Portion of the 1870 U.S. federal census showing Caroline Whitefield in the home of her aunt and uncle

In the intervening years between examining the census population schedule, I had learned more about the family and had actually researched both of William Whitefield's wives' lineages. The connection between the Whitefield and Villines families would not have been clear unless I had reexamined the 1870 census. I now knew that, even though guardianship had been granted to LeGrande Whitefield, he did _not_ relocate his half-sister to Tennessee to live with him and his wife. Instead, she remained in the area where she was born and lived with her maternal aunt and uncle. I mentioned that I could not find Caroline in the 1860 census. However, when I went back to the 1860 census in Person County, North Carolina, and searched for Villines again, I found Caroline there. However, her last name had been mis-indexed as "Aschelefed."

Even though you _think_ you are familiar with the details of all the evidence you have located for a particular ancestor or family member, look at it again. I like to organize the materials in chronological sequence by individual and read through it all, page by page, as if it is a biography. I examine each piece of evidence as if I have never seen it before. This gives me a sense of order to the life of the individual. By approaching the person's life story sequentially as documents and other materials were produced, I begin to get to really know and understand the person better. Sometimes this is extremely helpful because, knowing their history, I may be able to anticipate a decision about migration, settlement, occupation, or some other life factor. Try it for yourself and see if this technique doesn't help you.

Reevaluate the Quality of Your Sources

Scholarly work is one of the foremost goals of genealogical research and we are therefore always searching for the best evidence we can find. It is certainly gratifying to locate an original marriage certificate, created at the time of the marriage and bearing the actual signatures of the bride and groom. Few things are as exciting as holding and touching a document that was handled and signed by our ancestors and that was as important to them as a marriage certificate. The next best thing, of course, is seeing a facsimile of such a document on a photocopy, on microfilm, or as a digitized image. You already know that there are more and more digitized images being made available on the Internet every month.

Not all of our source materials, however, can be such excellent forms of evidence. As you've learned, genealogists work with sources of both primary _and_ secondary information; with data transcribed, extracted, and abstracted from original documents; and with a vast array of published materials in all types of formats. In our quest to locate facts about our family, we often must use sources that may be one or more times removed from original source material, and often this information is less than 100 percent accurate. There is something lost in the transfer, diluted as it were, and it is for that reason that we must maintain a keen awareness of primary _vs._ secondary information and be prepared to carefully analyze the quality of our sources.

I often tell fellow genealogists, "Two secondary sources do not a primary source make." Perhaps it sounds a little corny, but it is emphatically true. I recommend maintaining a healthy skepticism of almost any information until its authority can be proved, and then evaluate the weight that it may provide to the big picture.

One major factor contributing to many of our research brick walls can be a problem with the quality of the information we may have obtained from source materials. It is important to take a giant step back from a problem and reexamine all of our evidence. I don't mean "just" the sources of secondary information, but everything. As I said earlier, a great way to do this is to arrange every piece of evidence you have in the chronological sequence as it may have occurred in the ancestor's life. Reread everything in order. You are sure to find gaps in what you know. In the meantime, reexamine where your information was derived. What you may think is a solid fact may be well documented by a less than excellent source. Let me give you an example.

A friend in Georgia hit a brick wall in her search to prove the identities of the parents of her grandmother and locate other documentation about them. She had a death certificate for her grandmother that documented the date of death as 4 October 1935 and indicated the place of burial was to be in Munford, Alabama. It indicated that her grandmother had been born on 22 June 1859 in Atlanta, Georgia, and that she was 78 at the time of her death. The only information my friend had about the names of her great-grandparents came from the death certificate, and she inferred from the place of birth listed on her grandmother's death certificate that her great-grandparents had lived in Atlanta.

You will remember that a death certificate can be one of those "combination" sources: a source of primary information about the death and a source of secondary information about everything else. My friend knew that well, but still had entered the information she found on the death certificate into her genealogical database and documented the source. However, in her concentration on locating documentation on her great-grandparents, she failed to recognize that the _only_ information she had about their names and the place they lived was the information on this death certificate. It turned out that the informant who provided the information for the death certificate was a nephew, and that he really did not know the facts about the date and place of birth, the names of the parents, and their place of residence. One glaring error was in the age shown on the certificate. Wait a minute! When I subtract 1859 from 1935, I come up with 76, not 78! Something was amiss here. And why was she to be buried in Alabama?

My friend backed up and began her research again, this time with a fresh perspective. She knew that she had made an error in judgment and assumed that the names, dates, and locations on the death certificate were "probably correct." She now knew that she needed to search for additional source materials. Her next step was to begin again with what she really knew to be factual based on primary information. She developed a list of document sources that might be available and that might help her solve her research problem. She did some research to determine where those documents might be located, and then began making contact with those locations to see what she could obtain by mail or email. She ultimately arranged to make two short trips to conduct research on-site.

After about a year, she told me that she had solved some problems and had finally gotten around her brick wall. There were four important pieces of information she had obtained from other materials that helped her:

  * She located a copy of her grandmother's obituary, which indicated that she grew up in Greensboro, Georgia. It listed her age as 78, and not 76, and confirmed that burial was to occur in Munford, Alabama.
  * She traveled to Alabama and located the cemetery where her grandmother was buried. Her grandmother's grave was next to that of her grandfather in _his_ family's cemetery lot. That made sense. She also noted on her grandmother's gravestone the birth date of 22 June 1857, yet another confirmation of the age of 78 and not 76 years. This contradicted the information the nephew had provided for the death certificate.
  * She reexamined her grandparents' marriage certificate and noted the marriage date of 24 November 1881 and the place of issue as Greene County, Georgia. As it was customary for a bride to be married at home or in her church, my friend believed it made sense to pursue research in Greene County, Georgia, and not in Atlanta.
  * She traveled to Greensboro, Georgia, to search for records of her grandmother's family. She located microfilmed copies of the local newspaper in the public library and began searching for marriage announcements. She found the announcement in a newspaper dated Thursday, 8 September 1881, and the notice included her grandmother's name, the name of her fiancé, and the names of _both_ sets of parents and _their_ places of residence.

Armed with the new information, my friend continued her research in Greene County, Georgia, and located a vast amount of information about her grandmother's family. She found church records, land and property records, tax rolls, and a probate packet for her great-grandfather in which his children's names were listed. Knowing the correct county, she continued by working with the 1880 federal census records to verify the family's residence there, the names of the children, and their ages. Furthermore, my friend learned that her great-grandfather had been the county sheriff for many years, including at the time that her grandmother had been born in 1857. She has been trying to determine whether her grandmother really was born in Atlanta or in Greensboro, Georgia.

My friend's story is not uncommon. Even though her brick wall is a comparatively simple problem, it illustrates how a small error in judgment or an assumption can result in a major blockage in a person's research. This case required stepping back and reexamining the source material, followed with the development of an additional research plan, and some concentrated research to get around her brick wall. Since that time, she has extended her research to include other of her grandmother's siblings and has been able to identify and document her great-grandmother's parents and grandparents. She is still on the right research track, and she has extended her factual evidence by three generations.

Dissect Obituaries

Obituaries can offer tremendous clues for genealogical research. And even though they are distinctly sources of secondary information and prone to errors, they can provide pointers to a wide array of resources. Unfortunately, though, many researchers fail to get the most from an obituary.

A method of mining information from an obituary that really works involves dissecting the obituary. The process involves identifying every possible component that states or infers a fact, determining what evidentiary sources might exist to document or substantiate the fact, and then where each source might be located.

Figure 13-2 shows a transcription of the obituary for a Tampa, Florida, resident who died on 30 December 1998. You can use a photocopy of an original obituary for your dissection. I have underlined each component that might point to sources of evidence about Mr. Nathaniel Cannon, Sr.'s life.

**FIGURE 13-2** Transcription of the obituary of Nathaniel Cannon, Sr., from the _St. Petersburg Times_ on 2 January 1999

The following table shows the component pieces of information that may point to other information, what that evidence may be, and where it might be located. Some of these records may be sources of distinctly secondary information, such as the tombstone, directories, and so forth. They should not, however, be overlooked as they can provide another source of corroboration of the fact in consideration.

You can see that this obituary is packed with informational details that provide clues to other evidence. Some of this evidence will take the form of documents, while other sources will include making contact with family members, friends, fellow church members, and other people. Don't ever overlook a cemetery's office; its files may contain letters, a burial permit, records of the installation of a marker, a copy of a death certificate, and possibly a transit permit.

Once you have dissected the obituary for types of alternative records, take the time to consider the places where each of those records might be found. You can then prepare your research plans to locate the records and access for your personal examination.

Widen the Scope of Your Search to Include New and Different Sources

One of the joys of genealogy is learning about different resources that can be used to document your family history. Discovery of these materials is exciting and invariably leads to a desire to learn more about them. I remember my excitement at learning about transit permits, those documents that are used to facilitate the transport of bodies across state or national borders to a hometown or some other place of interment. A transit permit can contain a great deal of information about the individual and, prior to the use of official death certificates, can provide details about the cause of death. In the course of my research, I have encountered transit permits in cemeteries' files for soldiers in the U.S. Civil War who died in battle or from disease. I even found a death certificate for my great-uncle, Luther Moffett Holder, who died of tuberculosis en route by train from New Mexico to Georgia. A digital image found on Fold3.com gave me the documentary proof I needed to confirm his death in 1908 (see Figure 13-3).

**FIGURE 13-3** Death certificate of the author's great-uncle, Luther Moffett Holder

I've also seen transit permits for a woman killed by a train, people killed by gunshot wounds, several suicides, and for people who died from any number of different diseases. Transit permits that allowed the transport of Civil War soldiers' bodies from one state to another may still be inside cemeteries' administrators' files or inscribed in interment books. These may be the only records of the causes of death of these soldiers. This certainly is not unusual in the offices of administrators and sextons in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other places worldwide.

There are literally hundreds of documents you may never have imagined existed that could help you document your ancestors and family members. Beyond the record types I've covered in this book, you will want to consider other sources. How do you find out about them? Well, there are all sorts of books available that can introduce you to descriptions and samples of these records. Let me share a few of my favorites.

_Hidden Sources: Family History in Unlikely Places_ , by Laura Szucs Pfeiffer, is a compilation of more than a hundred different record types that may be of help to your personal research. Each record type is described in detail, along with information about places where it can be located and how it can be used. You will find an illustration included for each record and a bibliography for additional reading and reference. Some of the more interesting records are almshouse records, coroner's inquests, bankruptcies, Freedmen's Bureau records, name change records, orphan asylum records, passport records, school censuses, street indexes, post office guides and directories, patent records, and voter registration records.

Another excellent compilation is _Printed Sources: A Guide to Published Genealogical Records_ , edited by Kory L. Meyerink. This impressive book contains authoritative chapters concerning different record categories, written by a number of eminent genealogical experts. For example, if you are looking for a more thorough understanding of U.S. military records, David T. Thackery's chapter, "Military Sources," is a comprehensive study of what types of records are available and a selective description of published sources for major military conflicts. Records at the federal, colonial, and state level are addressed in detail; histories, rosters, and important reference works are described; and a vast, definitive biography is included.

A study of English parish records requires some understanding of the structure of the parish system _and_ of the social responsibilities of the parish officer. _The Compleat Parish Officer_ is a reprint by the Wiltshire Family History Society of a 1734 handbook for those persons "who had to apply and interpret the increasingly complex laws enacted to deal with the various social problems as they arose, its starting point being the Great Poor Law Act of 1601 and its various amendments." This compact little book details the authorities and responsibilities of parish constables, churchwardens, overseers of the poor, surveyors of the highways and scavengers, and other officials in the parish operational hierarchy. It is an invaluable primer for genealogists and family historians in understanding the English parish environment and the records that are found documenting your ancestors.

A companion to _The Compleat Parish Officer_ is Anne Cole's _An Introduction to Poor Law Documents Before 1834_. This volume describes the parish documents, explaining the reasons for each one's creation, the contents, and what can be gleaned from them. The settlement certificate, for example, was an exceptionally important document for those to whom it was issued. It provided legal proof of residence in the parish and thus, in time of need, entitled the person to financial assistance. However, more importantly, the settlement certificate was used to provide permission to persons to relocate their place of residence from one parish to another. These two books, used together, provide excellent insight for the researcher of English parish records.

And do you have an ancestor who was a midwife in 17th- or 18th-century England? If you do, or if you are simply interested in childbirth in this period, Joan E. Grundy's book _History's Midwives_ is a fascinating read. Childbirth was a dangerous process in those times and many women died in labor. Midwifery became an important medical profession and midwives were required by law to be licensed. The requirements for their licensing and their responsibilities are documented in this book. Examples of licensing documentation are included. The author has prepared and included an index of 17th- and 18th-century midwives nomination lists from Yorkshire for those family historians who have an ancestor who was a midwife.

The few examples I've provided here merely begin to scratch the surface of the wide range of record types that can be found and used for your genealogical documentation. I urge you to use the resources of library and archive catalogs, particularly the subject and title search facilities of their online catalogs, to locate books of interest for these topics. In addition, you will find that using the bibliographies included in many genealogical and historical publications will lead you to more reference materials. Further, be sure to check out digitized books available at Google Books ( **<http://books.google.com>** ) and other online venues that have been discussed earlier in this book.

Use Photographs in Your Family Research

If you're like most people, you have a collection of photographs stored somewhere in your home. Many of these may be identified and labeled, but you probably have a substantial group of unlabeled photographs, and I refer to these in my home as "the unknowns." You will find that photographs can, indeed, be helpful in identifying persons and placing them in a specific place at a particular point in time.

Photographs have been around since the production of the first photographic image in the summer of 1826, which is universally credited to Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Over time, other processes and methods of mounting or displaying photographs were developed and introduced. You will find that the type of photograph and its physical attributes, the mountings used, the clothing worn by the subjects, and the background or surroundings can be used to date your photographs with surprising accuracy. It is important to understand a little history of photography first.

Learn About the Types of Photographs

Louis Daguerre's technique of capturing an image on a silver-clad copper plate was officially announced in 1839. These first commercially successful photographs were known as _daguerreotypes_ and were, at the time, quite expensive. A daguerreotype was usually attached to a sheet of glass using a decorative frame made with a sheet of gold-colored heavy foil. The decoration was usually embossed into the foil material before enclosing the daguerreotype and its glass. This unit was then press-fitted into a wooden case specifically designed to hold a daguerreotype and sometimes padded with satin, silk, or velvet. The case also may have been a two-piece, hinged affair with a clasp that closed and protected the daguerreotype.

The _calotype_ was the first paper photograph, and it was made using a two-step process. The first step involved treating smooth, high-quality writing paper with a chemical wash of silver nitrate. This wash process was performed in a dim, candlelit room and the paper was then exposed to a little heat until it was almost dry. While still somewhat moist, the paper was soaked in a solution of potassium iodide for several minutes, then rinsed and gently dried. The chemical processes in effect iodized the surface of the paper to prepare it for its ultimate exposure to light. The slow drying process preserved the smooth texture of the paper, preventing wrinkling and puckering of its surface. The iodized paper could be stored for some time in a dark, dry place at a moderate temperature. The second step occurred almost immediately before the iodized paper was to be used for a photograph. The photographer mixed a solution of equal parts of silver nitrate and gallic acid that, because of its inherent instability, had to be used right away. Once again, in dim candlelight, the iodized paper that had been prepared in the first step was dipped in this solution, rinsed with water, and blotted dry. It was then loaded in complete darkness into the camera and the calotype photographic image was captured. While the paper treated to the second solution could be dried and stored for use a short time later, the most reliable images were captured using paper still moist with the solution. Calotypes were made for perhaps a decade, from approximately 1845 until 1855. The main problem with them was that because the silver nitrate–gallic acid solution was not chemically stable, many of the images faded over a relatively short time. The surviving examples of many of these early calotypes appear as shadows or "ghosts" on the paper.

The _ambrotype_ was introduced in 1854 and became very popular throughout the United States during the Civil War period. An ambrotype is a thin negative image bonded to a sheet of clear glass. When the negative image is mounted and displayed against a black background, the image appears as a positive. Ambrotypes were mounted in display cases much like those used for daguerreotypes.

Photography gained huge popularity in Great Britain when it was showcased at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. Both Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, were fascinated with photography and there are numerous photographs of the couple and other members of the Royal Family dating back to the 1840s. The public was introduced to several displays of photographs in various locations at the Exhibition and a subsequent increase in photographers' business in England has been attributed to that event.

The _tintype_ was introduced in the early- to mid-1850s and was in use until the early 1930s. It became hugely popular in both the United States and Great Britain because it was cheap to produce and therefore accessible by almost everyone. Advertisements of the time touted them as the "penny photograph," and street photographers became commonplace sights in towns, cities, and at resort areas such as Brighton, England, and Atlantic City, New Jersey, and also at carnivals and fairs. Tintypes were extremely popular during the U.S. Civil War when soldiers wished to have a picture made of themselves in uniform with their rifle or sword to send home to loved ones. Since a tintype is an image made on metal instead of on a glass plate, it could be mailed without concern for breakage. There is no "tin" in a tintype; it actually is a thin sheet of black iron. The original name for the tintype was _melainotype_ , but the more common name is _ferrotype_ , which refers to the ferrous (iron) base on which the image is recorded. It has been suggested that the term "tintype" was derived from the use of tin sheers used to cut and trim the images on the metal plates. Many tintypes will be irregular in shape, such as the one shown in Figure 13-4, because of the imprecise trimming work. It is possible to narrow the dating of tintype photographs produced during this extensive period based on a number of criteria, especially in the United States:

**FIGURE 13-4** The irregular shape of this "tintype" is due to how the photographer cut the piece from the iron sheet.

  * **1856–1860** The iron plate stock used in this period is thicker than at any other time, and plates are typically stamped on the edge with "Neff's Melainotype Pat 19 Feb 56." They may be found in gilded frames reminiscent of those used with ambrotypes or in leather sleeves.
  * **1861–1865** During the Civil War years, their paper display sleeves may help to date tintypes. These "frames" may bear patriotic symbols such as stars and flags, and early ones bear the imprint of Potter's Patent. After 1863, the paper holders became fancier, with designs embossed into the paper holder rather than printed. In an effort to raise revenue to help fund the Union Army, the U.S. Congress imposed a tax to be collected on all photographs sold between 1 September 1864 and 1 August 1866. A revenue stamp was required to be adhered to the reverse side of the photograph, either on the photographic plate itself or in the case. The tax was based on the amount of the sale, and these revenue stamps are highly prized by stamp collectors. Some photographers initialed the stamps to cancel them and included the day's date and this provides a precise date for the completion of the sale of the photograph.
  * **1870–1885** This period is referred to as the "Brown Period" because one company, the Phenix Plate Company, introduced a ferrous plate with a chocolate-tinted surface. Soon photographers across the United States were clamoring to use this new style of plate. The tintype shown in Figure 13-5 dates from this period. You should also know that photographers began using painted backgrounds reflecting a "country" look, with fences, trees, stones, and other rural images, in this time period. The painted rural background in these photographs is a telltale indicator that the photograph was made after 1870.
  * **1863–1890** Photographer Simon Wing patented a multiplying camera that captured multiple images on a single plate. These photographs measured approximately .75" × 1" and became known and marketed as "Gem" or "Gem Galleries" photographs. These tiny portraits were typically mounted in ovals and attached to a larger mounting card. Some were even cut to fit into pieces of jewelry, such as lockets, cameo frames, cufflinks, and stickpins.
  * **Circa 1866–1906** A new method of mounting photographs was introduced and is referred to as the "cabinet card." The photograph was adhered to a piece of cardboard stock. Early cabinet card stock is rather plain, with designs printed on the card. The type and color of the card stock and its decoration changed over the years, with embossed designs, colored inks, beveling, gilded or silvered card edges, and scalloped corners and edges being used at different periods. Photograph mountings were a point of high fashion, and you can use these distinctive traits, card sizes, and card thicknesses to date the period in which the photograph was made. The example shown in Figure 13-6 can be dated by the card stock to the period between 1880 and 1890 because the card stock is quite heavy, the front and back sides are of different colors, and the front surface is textured, rather than smooth. The woman's hairstyle indicates a bun worn high in the back. The not-so-high collar, the ornamental pleating on the shoulders of her dress, and the detailed, raised embroidery along the neckline and down the front of the bodice are indicative of fashion three to five years prior to the explosive couture of the 1890s.
  * At the same time that cabinet cards were being used, other sizes and styles of photographic mountings came into use. One very popular format was a smaller mounting referred to as the _carte-de-visite,_ or visiting card. These cards, like the example shown in Figure 13-7, typically measured 4 1/4" × 2 1/2" and were made of heavy, often glossy card stock. They became the rage and were used as souvenirs and, true to their name, were left as calling or visiting cards.
  * Other popular styles and sizes included the Victoria (5" × 3 1/4"), the Promenade (7" × 4"), the Boudoir (8 1/2" × 5 1/4"), the Imperial, shown in Figure 13-8 (9 7/8" × 6 7/8"), the Panel (8 1/4" × 4"), and the stereograph (3" × 7").
  * The stereoscope became a tremendously popular form of entertainment and education, beginning in approximately 1849 and continuing until the mid- to late-1920s. The apparatus consisted of a viewing hood with two lenses and an attached arm on which a sliding holder was mounted. The stereoscope was used to view _stereographs_ such as the one shown in Figure 13-9, which depicts destruction following the San Francisco earthquake of 18 April 1906. A stereograph is a card on which two almost identical photographs are mounted side by side. When viewed with the stereoscope, the effect is that of a three-dimensional view of the subject. Tens of thousands of stereographs were made for the huge consumer demand for more and more subjects. In fact, you might draw an analogy between the stereograph and a modern television/DVD setup. People could not seem to get enough of them. Subjects included Civil War battlefields and scenes, world travel photographs, public figures, expositions such as the St. Louis and Pan-American Expositions, Americana, African-American subjects, children's games and antics, costumes, cemetery tours, and even series of stereographs telling a story.
  * **Circa 1889 to Present** Photography historians argue about who invented photographic film. However, an Englishman named John Carbutt, who also was an accomplished stereographer living and working in the United States, is credited with coating sheets of celluloid with a photographic emulsion while working in Philadelphia in 1888. In that same year, George Eastman introduced a new camera called the Kodak that used a roll of photographic film. The camera with the film still inside was sent to his company for processing, and the camera and a new roll of film were returned to the customer. Within a year, the Kodak name was a household word in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, France, and elsewhere, and the public was hooked on photography. People even had a choice of the way photos were printed, including as a face side for a postcard. The photograph on the postcard in Figure 13-10 was taken by my maternal grandfather and shows my grandmother. The card is dated 18 September 1908, two days after they were married in Rome, Georgia, and was taken in Washington, D.C., on their honeymoon.
  * Over the years, several film base materials and a number of emulsion processes were used, each having specific attributes. You can learn more about 20th-century photography and fashions in books on the subjects and on the Internet.

**FIGURE 13-5** Tintype photograph of the author's grandfather, Samuel Goodloe Morgan, taken circa 1880

**FIGURE 13-6** This photograph of the author's great-grandmother, Ansibelle Penelope Swords Holder, was taken circa 1885.

**FIGURE 13-7** A typical _carte-de-visite_

**FIGURE 13-8** The Imperial size cabinet card was one of the larger, more formal photograph mountings and dates from circa 1900. This photograph shows the author's great-aunt, Emma Dale Holder, of Rome, Georgia.

**FIGURE 13-9** A stereograph looking east from the intersection of Ellis and Jones Streets in San Francisco, California, following the devastating earthquake on 18 April 1906

**FIGURE 13-10** Photographs were printed to make personalized postcards, such as this one of the author's maternal grandmother on her honeymoon in Washington, D.C., in September 1908.

Date Photographs Using Clothing and Hair Fashions

You probably never knew there was so much to learn about photographs, did you? One of the best books on the subject of dating photographs is Maureen A. Taylor's _Uncovering Your Ancestry through Family Photographs_.

Don't overlook the fact that clothing and hairstyles shown in photographs can be very important research clues. Studio photographs were often made with the subject wearing his or her very best clothing, sometimes purchased specifically for the occasion. A photograph of a woman wearing a dress with a wasp waist and balloon sleeves, mounted on a cabinet card with a buff-colored, matte front and a dark-gray back, with gold beveled edge can be dated to within a year or so of its creation date. Add a printed or embossed studio name (and location), and you are helping to narrow the focus of your genealogical search to a time and place.

Be sure to examine photographs for tiny details that might yield clues. Pay attention to buildings, signage, the presence or absence of electric and telephone wires, the styles of wagons and carriages, the sizes of trees and shrubs, and every detail that might communicate location and time period. Look at military insignia on uniforms, name badges or sewn-on patches, and other clothing details. Researching an old photograph is much like reading between the lines in a book. Enlarge and enhance photographic images to bring out details.

There are a number of excellent books about dating photographs, costume and hairstyles, and other visual history materials that can provide excellent references for you. Search the Internet using general phrases such as "history of photography" or "costume history" or conduct more specific searches such as "Victorian clothing"; "women's dresses" + 1830s; history + "men's clothing" 1860s; or other combinations of keywords and/or phrases. There is a wealth of information available to help you narrow the date and place of your photographs.

Switch to Another Family Member to Bypass Your Roadblock

Sometimes, despite all your research, analysis, and troubleshooting efforts, an ancestral brick wall will just be entirely too contrary. Every effort at direct research may be thwarted. What can you do now?

One of my favorite techniques is what I call "Sidestep Genealogy." This can be comparatively simple to perform, and involves locating another close family member and switching your research focus. There have been times when I have encountered a brick wall in my research for one person and could not progress to the next generation. What I do then is review all I know about the person through compiling an ancestor profile. If I can identify a sibling or some other blood relative, I move to that person and begin conducting detailed research. I often have found that, while my ancestor may not have a very good paper trail, his or her brother or sister may have. As a result, by researching a sibling, I have sometimes been able to trace the sibling's parents and then, from one or both parents' records, have been able to make the connection downward to my own ancestor.

If you cannot locate or identify a sibling to use in your research sidestep, look for another relative such as an aunt, uncle, cousin, and so forth. If you can identify one person as a focal point, you may just be able to blaze a new research path, albeit sometimes convoluted, up, down, and across the family tree, to locate the link that can then be connected downward to your own ancestor.

Seek Help from Libraries, Archives, Museums, and Societies

It may seem intuitive but I am often surprised that genealogists overlook the services that can be obtained from librarians, archivists, museums, and all types of societies. Librarians and archivists are among my favorite people. They are intelligent and have a nearly unquenchable thirst for knowledge. They love to research interesting and difficult questions and to provide help and instruction to their patrons. These unsung heroes of our communities are trained and skillful professional researchers. They may not know where my Great-grandmother Penelope Swords Holder was born, but they know how to employ their research skills, techniques, and tools to help me locate print and electronic reference materials.

If I have a particularly impossible question about the location of a place that no longer appears on any map, I certainly try to search the materials at my disposal. That includes my own collection of maps, atlases, and gazetteers; online databases and map collections; and any possible Internet resource that I am creative enough with search terms to locate. After my own exhaustive searches, however, I have been known to contact an academic library with a good map collection, a state library or archive, and even the cartographic division of places like the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, the National Geographic Society, and The National Archives in the UK. The staffs at these places are experts in locating this type of information and are always willing to help.

I encourage you to join genealogical societies in the places in which your ancestors lived and where you are conducting research. The cost is comparatively small but the benefits can be great. The publications of these societies, such as journals, magazines, and newsletters, often contain articles that provide contextual insight about your ancestors' lives and the events in the area. A genealogical or historical society may have conducted a project to identify, document, or otherwise produce a compendium of names, locations, or events in a specific area. They may even have published some or all of the information in a book or journal, but other materials may not yet have been made publically available in any widespread way. These materials may significantly extend your research. In addition, there is the opportunity to connect with other researchers who might be researching your family or connected collateral lineages.

Genealogical _and_ historical societies are excellent resources to assist in your research. Even if you are not a member, you may still make an inquiry of such a group to request information. The society can check its own collection of information and reference material and respond with information for you. Often, too, a society member will make an extra effort to help by heading to a local library, courthouse, government office, cemetery, or other facility to do a quick look-up for you. These "genealogical angels" perform extraordinarily kind services, and while it often is not expected or requested, I always offer to reimburse the person for the cost of their mileage, photocopies, postage, and other expenses. Don't overlook the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) at **www.fgs.org** and the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) at **www.americanancestors.org** in the United States and the Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) at **www.ffhs.org.uk** in the United Kingdom as resources to help connect you to important organizations and resources in their areas.

Heritage and lineage societies are another excellent source of information. Their staffs and members often maintain extensive collections of printed materials, as well as genealogical records and data submitted by members. These people are experts in genealogical problem solving and know how to address difficult questions and help find answers to obscure facts. There are scores of different such societies, many with regional chapters, lodges, or branches.

You may also determine that your ancestor or another family member was a member of a particular professional, fraternal, trade, alumni, or similar membership organization. If so, consider locating their headquarters and inquiring about any records that may exist about your ancestor, a website where they might be located, and how to proceed to request them. Almost all of them will have a website that you may locate using an Internet search engine.

All of these entities exist to serve their members, and their membership operational staffs may be able to help you locate information on your ancestor. They provide yet another resource to help you locate information to get past your brick wall.

Engage the Help of a Professional Researcher

There may come a time when you simply cannot get past your most stubborn brick wall. After trying everything you can think of and following every link you can discover, you may realize that you need the help of a professional genealogical researcher.

A professional genealogical researcher can help you in one of two ways. First, he or she can perform research for you on a fee basis or, second, he or she can act as a paid consultant to you and provide guidance and advice. Before engaging a professional, it is important to identify one who is qualified to provide the service(s) you wish performed, reach agreement on the scope of the work, and define the guidelines that will govern the arrangement.

Locate a Qualified Professional Genealogical Researcher

Anyone who has experience in genealogical research can assist and advise you. However, your best guidance will come from an individual who has been professionally trained and/or has successfully passed tests administered by a professional genealogy credentialing body. There are a number of organizations whose genealogical credentialing standards are held in high esteem. Let me share some of those with you, along with their websites at which you can learn more.

Association of Professional Genealogists (U.S.)

The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) is not an accreditation or credentialing body, _per se_. It is, instead, a membership organization consisting of more than 2,000 members in the United States, Canada, and 20 other countries whose primary purpose is to support professional genealogists in all phases of their work, from the amateur genealogist wishing to turn knowledge and skill into a vocation, to the experienced professional seeking to exchange ideas with colleagues and to upgrade the profession as a whole. Headquartered in Westminster, Colorado, the association also seeks to protect the interests of those engaging in the services of the professional. Their website at **www.apgen.org** presents a good primer at their link labeled, "Hiring a Professional." In addition, the site contains a searchable database of all current APG members, their titles and/or certification, organizations with which they are associated, and their area(s) of expertise or specialization.

Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland

The Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland (APGI) acts as a regulating body to maintain high standards among its members and to protect the interests of clients. Its members are drawn from every part of Ireland and represent a wide variety of interests and expertise. Applicants are required to submit samples of their work in the form of a report on research conducted over a period of not less than five hours, exclusive of report preparation time. The association's website is located at **www.apgi.ie**.

The Board for Certification of Genealogists

The Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) is an independent, internationally recognized organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., that certifies qualified individuals in the field of genealogy. They define their mission as follows: "To foster public confidence in genealogy as a respected branch of history by promoting an attainable, uniform standard of competence and ethics among genealogical practitioners, and by publicly recognizing persons who meet that standard." Certification involves preparing a portfolio of materials, which is independently reviewed by a panel of three or four judges. BCG requires different materials for each of the following certification categories (the credential designations are shown in parentheses):

  * Certified Genealogist (CG)
  * Certified Genealogical Lecturer (CGL)

BCG has published the _BCG Genealogical Standards Manual,_ which details the requirements for certification in each category. Certification is for a period of five years, after which time the researcher may apply for renewal of his or her certification.

The BCG website at **www.bcgcertification.org** maintains a current roster of certified individuals, searchable by where they are located and by special interests (Irish, English, Jewish, African-American, church records, and more).

Genealogical Institute of the Maritimes

The Genealogical Institute of the Maritimes (Institut Généalogique des Provinces Maritimes) is a nonprofit organization that examines and certifies persons wishing to establish their competence in the field of genealogical research. The first level of certification is that of Genealogical Record Searcher [Canada] [GRS (C)]; the second is that of Certified Genealogist [Canada] [CG (C)]. By completing a preliminary application form that assigns points for education, genealogical research experience, and publication, a candidate is evaluated through a points system to determine if he or she possesses the qualifications required to apply for certification at either of these two levels. More information is available at their website at **<http://nsgna.ednet.ns.ca/gim>**.

International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists

The International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen) is a professional credentialing organization that is involved in testing an individual's competence in genealogical research. Originally established in 1964 by the Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), the program was transferred to ICAPGen in 2000. At the time of the transfer, ICAPGen was affiliated with the Utah Genealogical Association (UGA).

Each applicant for the ICAPGen Accredited Genealogist (AG) credential must demonstrate through extensive written and oral testing, and through production of high-quality, well-researched documentation, that he or she is an expert in a particular geographical or subject area. The current areas of geographical testing are the United States, the British Isles, Scandinavia, Canada, Continental Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific Area. You can learn more about the specific countries and regions included by visiting the ICAPGen website at **www.icapgen.org**.

The ICAPGen website also provides a database of accredited researchers, searchable by name, their place of residence, or area of specialization. PDF files of North American and International researchers are also available for printing.

Other Credentials

Individual genealogical researchers may have been awarded other credentials than those listed above. Some colleges and universities offer courses in genealogical studies, and there are any number of specialized genealogical lecture programs and institutes offering individual classes or immersion conferences. These all may entitle the student or attendee to receive the award of a certificate, diploma, or another document attesting to his or her successful completion of the curriculum. These may be weighed in your decision-making process to determine if an individual has the education, experience, and expertise to perform the service(s) you require.

Define the Scope of the Work to Be Performed

Once you decide which professional researcher you want to hire, he or she will likely ask you to define exactly what you are seeking. You should prepare a written report on the individual or family group for which you want research performed, and provide all the information you have gathered. Include names, dates, and source materials you have located, and a description of each item's contents. Here is where an ancestor profile can really come in handy. What you are doing, in effect, is preparing for your potential researcher a complete picture of what you know.

Once that is prepared, you must decide what it is you want to know, and what you want the professional researcher to find for you. These two items may not be one and the same. For example, you may believe that identifying the parents of one ancestor may be all you need in order to continue your research beyond that point.

On the other hand, you may decide that you want the researcher to accept the commission and pursue your research farther. For example, you may have traced your ancestors back to a point at which they arrived from another country or continent, and you want the researcher to first locate the passenger arrival records in order to first determine their port of departure and then to trace your ancestors back to their native town or village.

Establish Guidelines, Goals, and Milestones

It is important to be precise in determining the goal or goals of your research. Your goal(s) will determine the scope of the work to be performed, and you should also define the scope in writing. This document complements the documentation of your research to date, that is, the ancestor profile.

The professional researcher will now be able to review your research materials and evaluate the scope of your project goals. Request a written research plan, an itemized estimate of research time and expenses, a reasonable timetable for the project, and a list of project deliverables. For example, the researcher may determine that locating your immigrant ancestors' passenger arrival may take 15 hours' work, tracing the ancestors to their native village is another 30 hours' work, and preparation of the final report will take another 5 hours' work, a total of 50 hours' work. In addition, costs of document copies, photocopies, telephone calls, postage, mileage, travel, lodging, and meals may be itemized to present an itemized grand total. A good researcher will generally offer you a list of references, and may provide a sample of a final report to give you an idea of the quality of the final product you would receive.

Take your time to review the researcher's proposal and weigh the expenses against what it might cost you in time and money to perform a similar job. Contact the references the researcher provided and discuss their experience with the researcher. Describe at a high level to each reference what it is you want the researcher to do for you, and ask if the person believes the researcher could and would be able to satisfy your need. Take notes and prepare additional questions for your potential research candidate.

Schedule a time to meet with or talk by telephone with your researcher about any questions you have. Make sure that they are all answered to your satisfaction. At that time, consider all the information you have at hand and make your decision. Investing in a professional researcher's services is much like buying an automobile. It pays to do your advance research and to shop around as necessary for the right researcher. Requesting proposals from two or more researchers is not a bad idea. This advance work may save you money and frustration as the project progresses.

Document the Relationship

Let's say that you have decided to accept the proposal of one professional researcher. The association between the two of you should be a formal contractor-contractee relationship. As such, it should be documented in the form of a contract. A good contract will detail the scope of the work. It also will specify the exact amount of time the researcher will spend and the precise amount of money that you authorize for the project. Be sure to establish benchmarking milestones in the project schedule. These facilitate communication of status reports from the researcher so that you know what is happening. It will help alleviate surprises later on and will allow you both to determine early on whether the scope and goals of the project need to be adjusted.

The contract should include payment terms, and it is not unusual to use a graduated payment schedule. For example, you might choose to pay 25 percent of the total fee as an advance before the project commences; incremental payments payable at certain milestone points, such as written status reports or some mutually agreeable criteria; and the remainder as a final payment when the final report and documentation are delivered. Include a contract cancellation clause that protects your and the researcher's interests.

A good contract is mutually acceptable to both you and your researcher. It should be designed to provide legal protection for both of you. With the project goals and deliverables clearly defined, and the authorized expenses clearly itemized, your expectations and those of the researcher are set.

Conclude the Relationship

When the research project is completed, and you have received your final report and accompanying documentation, make time to read and study its contents. Prepare a list of any questions you have about the contents or outstanding issues. At that point, you should schedule and conduct a final recap meeting with your researcher. Discuss the report and any questions you have about it, the documentation, the source materials found, where they were located, the source citations, and any other pertinent issues. You may learn a great deal from the researcher's recounting of the research process, including information that he or she may have encountered about other individuals that is not included in the report. These may be leads that you can pursue on your own at a later date.

If your experience with your professional researcher has been a positive one, you can offer to be a reference for his or her future clients' inquiries. In the event that the experience has been problematic or the researcher has not performed in a professional or ethical manner, you should consider contacting the certifying or regulatory body that awarded his or her genealogical credentials and file a formal report. This action will help the organization keep track of problems and consider them when reviewing the renewal of the individual's certification or continuation of accreditation. It also helps protect other genealogists from an unsatisfactory researcher.

You will find that professional genealogical researchers are eager to help you and subscribe to a code of high professional ethics and behavior. Seeking out a credentialed individual with the qualifications and experience in the field of specialization you require is a solid first step to getting what you want from a professional research experience. Carefully setting the goals and establishing the contractual relationship with your researcher is essential. You can encourage the progress of the project by establishing and following up on the milestone status reports along the way.

All of the methods and resources discussed in this chapter should make you feel more confident about the various research routes you have open to you. Difficult-to-trace ancestors will invariably show up in your family tree. However, as long as you know how to conduct scholarly research, learn about and work with all kinds of alternative records, and employ the strategies and methodologies defined here, the chances are excellent that you can knock down those brick walls and keep moving your genealogical research forward.
14

Use the Latest Online Resources and Social Networking in Your Genealogy Research

**HOW TO...**

  * Locate and use blogs
  * Use wikis and collaborate with others
  * Enjoy podcasts and web-based radio programs
  * Learn more about genealogical research with Internet videos
  * Attend live webinars and access recorded webinars
  * Learn about and use the latest social networking resources

The Internet has grown and evolved over the past few years beyond our wildest expectations. New resources and tools have become available and genealogists have seized the opportunities they present to learn more, create content, communicate with other people, collaborate with other researchers, and expand their research horizons. This chapter provides an introduction to the most important Internet-based resources available to genealogists at this writing. Other innovative Internet-based resources will be introduced in the future that will become an integral part of your research toolkit. In the meantime, it is important that you take the time to explore those that are currently available to you.

Locate and Use Blogs

The term _blog_ is short for "web log." A blog can be created and maintained by an individual, somewhat like a diary or journal, with regular entries being added with commentaries, descriptions of events in which he or she is participating, and possibly graphics and video. Blogs are also popular for companies wishing to communicate with the public.

After the introduction of blogging technology, genealogists quickly began blogging on a wide array of subjects: their research experiences; surname research; geographical research; record types and/or methodologies; cemeteries; ethnic and religious research; obituaries; technology; photography; preservation; and more. Unlike message boards and mailing lists that focus their attention on similar subjects, a blog primarily contains the writings and supplemental media of a single author. Readers may often add comments if the author enables that feature. Genealogy blogs offer a tremendous amount of information to the reader, and you will find blogs that mirror your interests so closely that you will eagerly anticipate every new entry.

Each blog entry is referred to as a _post_ or _posting_ , and postings are displayed in reverse chronological order—from most recent to oldest. Archives of older entries are typically stored in groups by month, and the majority of blogs incorporate a search facility that allows you to locate postings with the term(s) you enter. In addition, a blogger will often try to organize his or her postings by adding one or more labels or keywords, also referred to as _tags_ , to each posting. These help to organize blog postings about a single subject and quickly locate all such entries.

You can quickly establish your own blog. Free blogging services are available on the Internet, and they employ simple WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) formatting similar to what is available in a word processor. Three of the free blogging services are: Blogger ( **www.blogger.com** ), which is a product of Google; WordPress ( **<http://wordpress.org>** ); and LiveJournal ( **www.livejournal.com** ). Figure 14-1 shows a Blogger page into which you type your blog content. Notice the toolbar over the body of the text and the similarity to that of a word processor. Note, too, the labels box at the bottom. This is where you enter the tag(s) that you want to be associated with this blog.

**FIGURE 14-1** Blogger is a free blogging service on the Internet, and this is the WYSIWYG template it uses.

Now that you know what a blog is, how do you find those that might be of interest to you? There are two excellent resources to help locate blogs. One is the Genealogy Blog Finder at **<http://blogfinder.genealogue.com>** , shown in Figure 14-2. Another is GeneaBloggers at **www.geneabloggers.com** , which lists blogs in alphabetical sequence and by type (or category), and which also includes Blog Resources, a collection of educational resources for bloggers.

**FIGURE 14-2** Genealogy Blog Finder is an excellent tool to use to locate blogs of interest, by category.

Individual blogs are as different from one another as snowflakes. Each author communicates his or her ideas on a subject and supplements them with other media. The Irish Family History blog at **www.irishfamilyhistory.ie/blog** , shown in Figure 14-3, is more text based, while Steve's Genealogy Blog at **<http://stephendanko.com/blog/>** contains textual descriptions of his Polish research, scanned images of documents, and transcriptions.

**FIGURE 14-3** The Irish Family History blog

You can subscribe to a blog by examining its webpage for the subscription button or link. Look for an orange icon labeled RSS (Really Simply Syndication), a link labeled "Comments RSS," or some notation about subscribing. Click the icon or link and you will usually be given the option to add a link to this blog to your customized Google home page or add it to your favorite blog reader, such as Google Reader. (You must have a Google account in order to customize your Google home page, and you must be logged in before you can add a blog to Google Reader.)

Use Wikis and Collaborate with Others

A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of a collection of interlinked web pages using a web browser and software embedded in the wiki. The term _wiki_ comes from the Hawaiian word for "fast" or "quick." A wiki is usually the result of collaborative work among many people. A person starts an informational article entry on a new web page in a wiki, and then other people contribute to it and/or edit it. More details may be added, graphics may be inserted, and source citations and attributions may be added. While not every contributor may be an authority on the subject, the group collaboration tends to increase the quality and authority of the content. A wiki is created and edited using wiki software on the Internet. There are several software providers, and each uses a WYSIWYG template. You are probably already familiar with the largest wiki on the Web, Wikipedia, at **<http://en.wikipedia.org>**.

There are several very important genealogical wikis on the Internet that you will want to use:

  * Ancestry.com has created its Family History Wiki at **www.ancestry.com/wiki**. It contains vast numbers of articles about record types, ethnic research, societies, libraries and archives, and more. Of special interest is the fact that the company placed all of the content of its two most important genealogical books online in the wiki. These are _The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy_ (at **www.ancestry.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Source:_A_Guidebook_to_American Genealogy** ) and _Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources_ (at **www.ancestry.com/wiki/index.php?title=Red_Book:_American_State,_County,_and_Town_Sources** ).
  * The FamilySearch Research Wiki at **<https://wiki.familysearch.org>** is the fastest growing genealogical wiki on the Internet, with tens of thousands of articles concerning research all over the world. Figure 14-4 shows the main page of this wiki.
  * FamilyPedia at **<http://genealogy.wikia.com>** is a wiki containing a vast collection of articles about genealogy and ancestors.

**FIGURE 14-4** The main page of the FamilySearch Research Wiki

Enjoy Podcasts and Online Radio Broadcasts

The growth of transmission bandwidth on the Internet has allowed for faster and more data-intensive communications. Online radiocasts have been available for a number of years. There are two types of broadcasts, podcasts and live radio broadcasts.

A _podcast_ is a recorded audio program that you can listen to at the broadcaster's website, download from the same website, or subscribe to and receive the file electronically from iTunes or other sites. There are a number of great podcasts that you can access:

  * _The Genealogy Guys Podcast_ at **<http://genealogyguys.com>** is hosted by George G. Morgan and Drew Smith. It is the longest-running genealogical podcast in the world and is free to access. It presents news for the genealogical community, responds to listeners' email questions, and provides book reviews, interviews, and other discussions.
  * _Genealogy Gems Podcast_ at **www.genealogygems.tv/Pages/Podcast/PodcastList.htm** is hosted by Lisa Louise Cooke, and includes news, interviews, and genealogical discussions.
  * The National Archives in the UK presents excellent podcasts at **www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/podcasts/** about history and TNA's record holdings. Figure 14-5 shows the main page for the TNA podcasts.
  * _Family Tree Magazine_ produces monthly podcasts hosted by Lisa Louise Cooke. The podcasts are accessible at **www.familytreemagazine.com/info/podcasts**.

**FIGURE 14-5** The podcasts page of The National Archives (UK)

There are also some live radio broadcasts being produced for genealogy. Two very prominent ones are:

  * _GeneaBloggers Radio_ at **www.blogtalkradio.com/geneabloggers** is a program broadcast each Friday evening at 9:00 p.m. Central Time in the United States. Hosted by Thomas MacEntee, the program consists of interviews and discussions about genealogical topics.
  * _My Society,_ a weekly radio program, is broadcast live on Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. U.S. Central Time in the United States at **www.blogtalkradio.com/mysociety**. The show is produced by the Federation of Genealogical Societies ( **www.fgs.org** ) and focuses on ideas for and issues faced by genealogical societies.

Both of these live programs are recorded and audio files are available for later download.

Learn More About Genealogical Research with Internet Videos

Bandwidth growth has also made it possible for explosive growth in the availability of video files on the Internet, and this also stretches to genealogy. You will find that there are several places where you can access instructional videos for free or for a small fee:

  * Ancestry.com has published a number of short how-to videos in the Learning Center on its website, located at **<http://learn.ancestry.com>**.
  * The National Genealogical Society has produced many videos, many of which are free at **www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/videos_online**. Others are available only to its members.
  * YouTube at **www.youtube.com** contains scores of videos that can expand your knowledge. Visit the site and enter the term "genealogy" in the Search box. You will receive over thousands of search results. You can limit the search to just military records information, for example, by entering "genealogy" and "military." Please be aware that YouTube has a time limit on the length of video files. Some of the topics may therefore be broken into multiple files. However, you will find some excellent results, such as the one shown in Figure 14-6 presented by John Deeben of the National Archives and Records Administration.

**FIGURE 14-6** YouTube contains many excellent genealogical lectures and related video files.

Attend Live Webinars and Access Recorded Webinars

The webinar is becoming one of the fast growing resources of the Internet, and genealogists are actively involved. The time and expense involved with attending one class or an entire conference has grown. People are more and more willing to attend online educational classes, and this includes webinars.

A _webinar_ is an online training class, most frequently presented live on the Internet in real time. These virtual classes can include presentations created in PowerPoint or Keynote software with accompanying audio and video of the instructor. The presenter can share with the audience anything that he or she can bring up on the computer screen. Students can ask questions via a chat room message board, via audio in the webinar, or via telephone call in, depending on the webinar software used and the presenter's preference. Most webinars are also recorded for later access and playback.

You usually have to register in advance to attend a live webinar. Many are free while others are accessible for a fee. You will receive an email confirmation of your registration that contains a link to the webinar. Be sure to keep this email until the webinar is over. The organizer usually will send a reminder email during the week before the event. Calculate your time zone and when you will be attending. On the day of the webinar, use the confirmation email you received and click the link to connect to the online meeting room. Make sure you arrive early. Most webinars are limited to the first 1,000 attendees to arrive. And yes, some genealogy webinars are that popular!

When you go to the virtual meeting room, you will be asked to download and install a small piece of webinar software. This is a temporary program file that will be deleted from your computer when you disconnect from the webinar. You will listen to the audio portion of the webinar using your computer speakers, via headset, or by telephone (if that option is available).

There are many webinar resources available to you. First of all, GeneaWebinars at **<http://blog.geneawebinars.com>** is a blog that publishes news about genealogy webinars and a calendar. This site will alert you to upcoming events and will also allow you to home in on webinar providers whose previous webinars were recorded. You can always go back to download and enjoy them. Some of the best genealogy webinars available are listed here:

  * Ancestry.com produces many webinars about using its service, about the Family Tree Maker software program, and about its publishing tool called MyCanvas. Visit the Webinars page in the Learning Center at **<http://learn.ancestry.com/LearnMore/Webinars.aspx>** for a list of upcoming webinar topics and for links to their archive of recorded webinars.
  * The Federation of Genealogical Societies began producing webinars in 2011 that focus on genealogical societies. These can be accessed at **<http://fgs.org/webinars>**.
  * Legacy Family Tree, maker of the genealogy software by the same name, produces a broad selection of webinars at **www.legacyfamilytree.com/webinars.asp**. Some of the archived webinars are free while others are for sale in CD format.
  * The New England Historic Genealogical Society has produced some great webinars for beginning genealogists and for researchers wishing to learn more about the contents of the NEHGS collection that could benefit their research. Visit **www.americanancestors.org/online-seminars** to access these webinars.
  * RootsMagic, maker of the genealogy software by the same name and other titles, has produced a collection of excellent webinars concerning the RootsMagic product and how to get the most from it. The webinars are accessible at **<http://rootsmagic.com/Webinars>**.

Look for other webinars at the GeneaWebinars site and take advantage of these excellent online learning opportunities.

Learn About and Use the Latest Social Media Resources

A _social network_ can be defined as a social structure consisting of individuals who are acquainted with one another and share some type of relationship. This may be a friendship, a familial or professional relationship, or some other type of connection. Regardless, the individuals share some common interest or other link. A family is a social network. A church is a social network. A workplace is a social network, as is a neighborhood, a school, and more. We could go on and on to identify and describe many, many other types of social networks.

The Internet provides us with electronic tools with which to communicate with other people. Starting with email, mailing lists, and message boards, genealogists have been networking with one another to expand our research reach, to share information, and to collaborate with one another. However, the past several years have seen rapid development of new _social media_ —those electronic tools that facilitate communication and interaction with other people. That includes computer-based tools _and_ mobile device–based tools. Let's explore the most prolific of these social media resources that are available at this writing.

Facebook

Myspace ( **www.myspace.com** ) was the most popular social networking site in the world in June of 2006. Its main competitor, Facebook ( **www.facebook.com** ), overtook it in April of 2008, and Myspace has since been sold and has substantially declined in the social network rankings. Facebook had more than 750 million active users as of July 2011. It also has attracted a huge number of users among genealogists, particularly in the English-speaking world.

Facebook allows you to create a profile for yourself, engage in live chat with other users who you have accepted as "friends," post messages to those friends, upload photos and group them into "album" collections, create and join groups of people sharing a common interest, play online games, and otherwise stay in touch with one another. It is not unusual for a genealogist to post a message asking for opinions and suggestions about a research problem. The collaboration and support can be very helpful. (See Figure 14-7.) The site is free. There is also a mobile app for Facebook.

**FIGURE 14-7** A portion of a sample Facebook page

Genealogy Wise

Genealogy Wise ( **www.genealogywise.com** ) is another free social networking site, and it began operations in 2009. The National Institute for Genealogical Studies (NIGS) acquired the site in 2010. Like Facebook, Genealogy Wise is a social networking site that allows you to set up your own web page, invite people to be your "friends" on the site, upload photos, chat, and more. Of particular interest are the nearly 4,000 user-defined Groups on the site (see Figure 14-8). These groups include photographs, a discussion forum (message board), a common wall for user comments, and external links. You can visit a group and/or you can join it. By joining a group, you can always quickly find it again whenever you log in by clicking the link to My Groups.

**FIGURE 14-8** A portion of the Genealogy Wise page for the Wales and Welsh Genealogy Group

NIGS is affiliated with the University of Toronto in Canada and offers high quality genealogy courses and certificate programs in a variety of genealogy-focused areas.

Google+

Google+, also written as Google Plus, debuted on the Internet at **<https://plus.google.com>** in June of 2011. Within one month, more than 20 million people had joined and begun using it. Google+ is a new social networking site, owned and operated by the same company that runs the ubiquitous Google search engine.

Google+ is free and is another Google resource available when you log in to Google. All you need to do to start is to register to use Google+. It allows you to log in and create a profile for yourself and upload photographs (see Figure 14-9). You can also invite friends, but, unlike Facebook and Genealogy Wise, you assign them to one or more "circles." The predefined circles are Friends, Family, and Acquaintances. You can, however, also create new circles. People can be added to circles in multiple ways, including via drag-and-drop.

**FIGURE 14-9** A portion of a Google+ page

Google+ on its website features a facility call Hangouts. Hangouts allow you to create or participate in a live video chat with up to nine other people. Sparks is a facility that allows you to search for an interest by keyword, just like in the search engine, and then add that interest as a standing link on your Google+ page.

The mobile app for Google+ has a feature called Huddle. This feature allows you to define the addresses of the people you communicate with most often and exchange text messages with them from your cellular phone all at once.

Twitter

Twitter ( **www.twitter.com** ) is a social networking website that offers a messaging or micro-blogging service. Twitter was launched in July of 2006 and has experienced explosive growth. At the time of this writing, estimates are that there are at least 200 million Twitter users in the world, and that approximately 350 billion tweets are delivered each day.

Twitter users send short text messages, or posts, up to 140 characters in length, which are known as _tweets_. Messages are addressed and grouped together using what are known as _hashtags_. A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by the "#" character. Corporations and organizations define a hashtag for themselves and begin using it to help group traffic. They also can submit it to a directory where it can be listed and people can find it.

What do Twitter and hashtags have to do with genealogy? A genealogical society that is planning a conference may be interested in allowing attendees and interested parties to exchange messages in real time about the event. The conference planners can define a hashtag to identify the conference. They will then probably publicize that there is a Twitter hashtag for the conference, and people can then send tweets addressed to that hashtag. All of the tweets will be grouped together so that, when an interested person searches for the hashtag in Twitter, he or she will be able to see all the recent tweets made that contain that hashtag. Please note that a tweet can contain multiple hashtags, and that makes the posting available to search using multiple terms.

A common use of Twitter by genealogists occurs when they attend seminars or conferences. If there is a hashtag set up for that event, they may tweet short messages about their experiences. For example, perhaps a lecturer makes what I feel is a great point or observation. I might take out my cellular phone (which is on vibrate, of course), start the Twitter app, and send a quote of the speaker to the hashtag for that event. I also might add a hashtag of #genealogy so that anyone searching for #genealogy would see my tweet.

You can learn all about Twitter at a number of places on the Internet. One good starting point is _The Twitter Guide Book_ at Mashable.com ( **<http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/>** ). This primer includes text, video tutorials, instructions on how to find people on Twitter, and more.

Summary

We've covered a huge amount of ground in this chapter. It is important to recognize that technology does not stand still. New resources are being developed all the time. When I began working on this edition of the book, there was no such thing as Google+. As of this writing, there are more than 40 million users!

You will want to learn more about social networking and take advantage of these dynamic new tools. _Social Networking for Genealogists_ , written by Drew Smith (Genealogy Publishing Co., 2009) is a landmark book that explains in detail some of these resources.

Our journey together has taken us from things we find at home to many types of documents, into libraries and archives, to courthouses and cemeteries, into databases and searching the Internet, and finally to electronic tools and social networking resources. We have discussed using your critical thinking skills and experience to analyze evidence. We examined the reasons for and formats of good source citations. Along the way, I have tried to instill the idea that you must combine the traditional research materials and methods with the use of electronic resources. Blending these different types of resources together can accelerate your research. However, it is essential to take the time to carefully analyze what you find and to develop reliable hypotheses.

You now have built a foundation for performing scholarly research and are poised for success. I urge you to enjoy the thrill of the chase and to savor the people and experiences you encounter on your journey of discovery.
CASE STUDY

Getting Past Penelope Swords

My great-grandmother, Ansibelle Penelope Swords Holder, was an enigma, and represented one of my most difficult research "brick walls." I have mentioned her several times in this book because the methods I used to get past the gridlock are good examples of alternative research strategies that you will sometimes need to employ. The research techniques and resources described represent the types of approaches that are often necessary to work around brick wall problems.

Defining the Problem

M y childhood memories are peppered with recollections from my mother and her three sisters' discussions of their own mother's parents, Green Berry Holder (1845–1914) and his wife, Ansibelle Penelope Swords (1842–1914), of Rome, Floyd County, Georgia. It was not until my early twenties that I began to look in all seriousness at the ancestry in my maternal line. When I did, it was comparatively simple to document—first, my mother and her three sisters, and second, my grandmother, Elizabeth Holder, and her five sisters and five of her six brothers. (One of her brothers, Brisco Washington Holder, left home and traveled as an itinerant worker for much of his life. His story was another brick wall challenge I worked on for almost 20 years.)

Ansibelle Penelope Swords Holder (1842–1914).

My great-grandfather, Green Berry Holder, had been a Confederate soldier, and was the first postmaster of two federal post offices, a farmer, a merchant, founder of the North Georgia Fertilizer Company, owner and president of the Rome Mercantile Company, a board member of two banks, an elected representative from his county to the Georgia State Legislature for two non-consecutive terms, a real estate investor, an insurance salesman, a member of the United Confederate Veterans, a member of the Rome Presbyterian Church, and a member of a singing group.

As you can imagine, there were lots of records about him, and from those records I was able to link him to an older brother, also in the Confederate Army, and to their parents in Lawrenceville, Gwinnett County, Georgia. Unfortunately, though, the records for his wife were far from numerous, as was typical for women of that era. In fact, for quite a while, the only real record I had was her gravestone. My research problem was to locate information about my great-grandmother, identify her parents, and be able to continue my research in her ancestral line. In the course of my research, I found that most records referred to her as Penelope. My mother's sister, Carolyn Penelope "Nep" Weatherly, received her grandmother's middle name as her own. She, my mother, and their other two sisters were aware of their grandmother's full name. They often laughed that it was a good thing that Nep had not been given the name of Ansibelle. Other records I discovered, however, listed my great-grandmother's name as Annie, A. P., Annie P., Nancy, and Nancy B., or some other misspelling of Ansibelle. •

Gravestone of Penelope Swords Holder at Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Rome, Floyd County, Georgia

Start with What You Know and Work Backward

W e've discussed the importance of beginning your research with what you know and with searches for information, sources, and evidence found at your family home or in the possession of other family members. When you hit a "brick wall" in your research, go back and review in detail all the information you have acquired. Reread everything in chronological sequence and look at the total picture of your subject's life. I personally found myself doing this again and again in the course of my research on my great-grandmother, and ultimately the pieces fell into place. Let's examine my research process in this case study.

Family Tradition

The family story (or tradition) said that my great-grandmother Penelope died the morning after the birth of one of my mother's sisters. My aunt, Carolyn Penelope Weatherly, was born on 12 January 1914, in Green Berry and Penelope's home on Broad Street in Rome. She was shown to Penelope, who was ill at the time. Penelope asked that the child be named after her, and so she was given the name of Penelope, which she used all her life. Starting with that story, I began my search for records.

The first task was to ask questions of my mother and her sisters. I initially interviewed them together at a holiday get-together, and subsequently individually. By that time, my grandmother was deceased and only two of her siblings, two sisters, were still living. I spoke with them by telephone to gather as much oral information as possible. These discussions provided some basic details to get me started, and I also was given my great-grandmother's Bible and several letters in her handwriting. I next began to identify types of records that might have been created.

Start with Death-Related Records

It is important to begin at the end of a person's life for records created at or near the time of death. Obituaries and death certificates, if you can find them, can reveal clues to primary and/or secondary information sources. While some Georgia counties and cities did maintain birth and death records from earlier years, it was not until 1919 that Georgia required the registration of all births and deaths in the state. Floyd County and Rome did not create these records until 1919, and so there was no death certificate for Ansibelle Penelope Swords Holder.

I next contacted the Genealogy Department of the Sarah Hightower Regional Library in Rome to determine if they might have microfilm of the local newspapers from 1914 from which an obituary could be obtained. I was informed that their microfilm of the _Rome Herald-Tribune_ was incomplete, and that 1914 was one of the years that they did not have.

Locate a Marriage Record

My next step was to contact the Floyd County Courthouse in Rome to try to obtain a marriage record for Green Berry and Penelope. I hoped the marriage license might provide the bride's parents' names, her age, and/or her place of residence. The response from the courthouse included a document that showed Greenberry [ _sic_ ] Holder marrying a Miss A. P. Sanders (or Sauders) on 27 December 1866 (see Figure 1). This was a surprise. Could Penelope have been married before? I considered five possibilities:

  Penelope was supposedly born in 1842 and married Green Berry in 1866. She would have been 24 years old, a somewhat advanced age for a woman to be married at that time.

  The marriage occurred not long after the U.S. Civil War ended and, considering Penelope's age, it might have been possible that she had been married before to a man whose surname was Sanders or Sauders and that she had been widowed as a result of the war.

  The entry from the Floyd County Marriage Book (vol. A, page 347, # 1359) clearly identifies her as _Miss_ A. P. Sanders, indicating an unmarried woman.

  Was it possible that the clerk entering the record on 15 April 1868 made an error in reading or transcribing the name?

  The couple's first child, Edward Ernest Holder, was born on 28 January 1868. The couple was therefore most probably married before April of 1867.

Figure 1. Marriage record from the Floyd County, Georgia, marriage book

I contacted the Floyd County Courthouse again to determine if there was any record of another marriage for Ansibelle Penelope Swords on file or any record of a divorce for her from a man named Sanders. I was informed that no such records were found.

Check the Census Records

Based on the information I had found so far, I decided to check in the U.S. federal census records for Georgia for various years. Knowing that Green Berry married in 1866, I checked the 1870 census for his entry. I found a listing for him in Subdivision 141 of Floyd County, Georgia, along with his wife, "Arcybelle P.," and sons "Edward W.," age 2, and "Willis I.," age 3/12 years (3 months). This gave me four important clues:

  "Arcybelle P." (another misspelling) certainly agreed with the "A. P." initials on the marriage record, and the age of the first son certainly agreed.

  "Arzybell P." is listed as having been born in Alabama.

  I was not concerned about the wrong middle initial for Edward, which should have been "E." It also did not concern me too much that the forename of the second son was really William Ira Holder, and not "Willis." The original 1870 census documents were transcribed twice and the last copy was sent to Washington, D.C. This is the copy from which the microfilm was created (and later the digitized images were created from that film). I therefore surmised that the spelling of "Arcybelle" and the two name errors for the sons could point to either enumerator spelling errors or transcription errors.

  There was no child in the household with the surname of Sanders (or Sauder).

The 1880 census showed Green B. Holder in Enumeration District 11 of Floyd County, age 34. His wife is recorded as "Ansabell," age 34, and nine children are listed: Edward (son – 13 years old), Willis (son – 11), Scott T. (son – 9), Ida (daughter – 7), Annie (daughter – 5), Luther (son – 4), Ella (daughter – 3), Brisco (son – 1), and Emma (daughter – 4/12). This census shows that "Ansabell" and her parents were all born in Georgia.

The next available federal census, in 1900, shows Green B. Holder in Supervisor's District 7, Enumeration District 153, Lindale District in Floyd County, with his wife, "Nancy B.," [ _sic_ , Ansibelle] and the following children: William I. (born November 1869), Ida L. (July 1872), Anna L. (April 1874), Luther M. (July 1875), Ella E. (October 1876), Emma E. (December 1879), Charles W. (May 1881), Nita M. (June 1882), and Lizze B. [ _sic_ , Elizabeth] (July 1885). Note that family tradition always indicated that the last child, my grandmother Elizabeth Holder, was called by the nickname she gave herself as a baby, "Lizzie Bep." This census indicates that "Nancy B." and _her_ parents were all born in Georgia.

The 1910 census, the last enumeration before both Green Berry and Penelope died in 1914, shows them at 808 South Broad Street, Supervisor's District 7, Enumeration District 69, 5th Ward, the Rome Militia District. Green B. Holder is 65, wife "Annie" is 67, and living with them are three of their daughters: Ida (age 32), Anna (28), and Emma (26). A further clue indicates that "Annie" was born in Alabama, and that both of her parents were born in South Carolina.

Please note that both the 1870 and 1910 censuses show Penelope born in Alabama and her parents born in South Carolina. The 1880 and 1900 censuses show her and her parents all born in Georgia. This contradictory information is confusing, but it also points to South Carolina as a place to ultimately search for her parents, once they are identified.

It was now time to move backward from the marriage certificate to try to identify and connect Ansibelle Penelope to her parents and family. I next went looking through 1860 federal census indexes in Georgia, looking for the surname of Swords. I located a printed index of Cobb County, Georgia, for that year and it pointed me toward the census of the First District, Roswell Post Office, in Cobb County. A detail of the census page is shown in Figure 2. There I found the J. N. Swords family, including Penelope at age 18—the correct age if she was born in 1842 as indicated on her gravestone. I now had the names of her parents, J. N. and Rebecca Chapman Swords, and evidence inferring that both of them were born in South Carolina, and evidence inferring that Penelope was born in Alabama.

Figure 2. Detail from the 1860 U.S. federal census, Cobb County, Georgia

Make a Very Successful Genealogy Trip

I felt that I had done just about all the research possible from the comfort of home and with the remote assistance of the genealogical and history collections in libraries and archives and the Floyd County Courthouse. It was time to make a road trip. I gathered all my information about Green Berry Holder, Ansibelle Penelope Swords, and their children, organized it, and prepared a research plan. I did my preliminary research on the Internet, contacted the genealogy librarian at the Sarah Hightower Regional Library, and made contacts with the Rome Municipal Cemetery Department and the Northwest Georgia Genealogical Society for appointments to meet with people on site. Two months later, in July 1997, I drove from my home in Tampa, Florida, to Rome, Georgia, for what would be one of the most successful research trips of my life.

The library in Rome proved to contain a wealth of information for my research. The genealogy librarian there at the time, Gwen Billingsly, was an outstanding help to me. City directories in the library's collection helped me place Green Berry and his sons at specific addresses in Rome. The papers of George Magruder Battey, the local historian, contained correspondence with some of the Holder daughters and with others that discussed the town's history and my great-grandfather's role in the community. Local histories, both printed and typewritten one-of-a-kind manuscripts, also assisted in my quest. The microfilm collection of the _Rome Herald-Tribune_ was incomplete, as I had learned before. However, Ms. Billingsly knew that the missing years' original newspapers were stored in the county school district administration's records retention facility. Apparently the library had run out of funds to microfilm all the years of publication. She contacted the administrator there and arranged for me to visit and examine these original newspapers

When I arrived at the records retention facility, I was warmly greeted and led through a warehouse to the area where the complete, leather-bound volumes of the 1908, 1909, 1913, and 1914 newspapers were stored. The year 1914 was the one of most interest to me, since my great-grandmother died on 13 January 1914 and my great-grandfather followed her in death on 18 June 1914. It was easy to locate their obituaries and, working with the fragile newsprint and without the benefit of a photocopier (or a digital camera at that time), I carefully transcribed both obituaries. (These newspapers were subsequently microfilmed, by the way.) There were, of course, many clues in my great-grandmother's obituary in the _Rome Herald-Tribune_ , Rome, Georgia, on Wednesday morning, 14 January 1914, page 1, which reads as follows:

_Mrs. G.B. Holder, aged 71 years, an old and honored resident of Rome, died Tuesday night at 11:10 at the family residence, 808 South Broad Street, after a brief illness of pneumonia. The deceased was born at Rock Creek, Alabama, in 1848. She married in 1867, G.B. Holder, of this city, and has since resided in Rome. Her husband is a prominent business man of the county. Mrs. Holder was a member of the Primitive Baptist church and always took an active part in the church work._

_She is survived by 11 children, five sons and six daughters. The sons are Ed Holder, Will Holder,_

_Scott Holder, Brisco Holder and Charlie Holder. The daughters are Misses Isa_ [sic, s _Ida] Holder, Anna Holder and Emma Holder, Mrs. A.D. Starnes, Mrs. Walton Weatherly and Mrs. Wyatt Foster. She is also survived by three sisters, Mrs. Cal Menton and Mrs. Davis of Alabama, and Mrs. George Black of Cedartown._

_The funeral services will be conducted from the residence at 3 o'clock this afternoon, the Rev. J. W. Cooper officiating. Interment will follow in Myrtle Hill cemetery._

_The following pall-bearers will meet at 2:30 o'clock at Daniels Furniture Company: Honorary, J.G. Pollock, B.F. Griffin, Capt. J. H. May, M.W. Formby, H.V. Rambo, Tom Sanford. Active: J.M. Yarbrough, G.G. Burkhalter, Sanford Moore, W.A. Long, Dr. R.M. Harbin, C.B. Geotchius._

The most significant facts for my research beyond my great-grandmother into her siblings, parents, and her other ancestors were the names of her three surviving sisters. First, I discounted "Mrs. Davis of Alabama" as being nearly impossible to locate. However, I did search the Alabama census records for Mrs. Cal Menton. I began searching the Menton surname and for a man whose forename might have been Calvin, Calvert, Calbert, Calhoon, and other variations, all without success. I next did the same search with different spellings of the surname, including Minton. I had made the assumption that "Cal" was a man's name. I soon realized that the custom of the time was that a married woman used her husband's first and last names, and that a widow used her own first name and the surname of her husband. Mrs. Cal Menton, as it later turned out, was the widow of William Martin Minton. "Cal" was a nickname used for Caroline. As a widow, she went by the name of Mrs. Caroline Minton. When I later located her, it turned out that she was the daughter listed variously as L. C. Swords or Lydia Swords; her full maiden name was Lydia Caroline Swords. This is an example of why it is important to know first and middle names, _as well as nicknames_ , and to search every variation you can conceive.

"Mrs. George Black of Cedartown," a town south of Rome in Polk County, Georgia, was easier to locate. I visited Cedartown, the county seat of Polk County, to search for a marriage record and probate records for Mr. and Mrs. Black, but without success. I returned to Rome, the county seat of Floyd County, to perform similar searches. I examined the marriage book in which Green Berry's marriage was recorded. Just beneath that record was another for the same date in December 1866, this one for George Black and Martha Ann Swords. The surprise was that the two sisters had been married the same day. Perhaps it was a double ceremony. A search in the Floyd County probate records also revealed a probate packet for George S. Black that specifically mentioned his wife, Martha.

Take Another Look at Census Records

I went back to look at the census records again. In the 1860 census, two other daughters of J. N. and Rebecca Swords are listed: M. A. Swords (age 20) and L. C. Swords (age 17).

Next I went to the 1850 census and, based on the 1860 census and the ages of the children born in Alabama, I worked with census indexes. I found the family in the 1850 census in the 27th District, Cherokee County, Alabama. The parents were listed as John N. Swords and his wife, Rebecca. Among the children listed, I found a seven-year-old daughter named Lydia, an eight-year-old daughter named Nancy, and a ten-year-old daughter named Martha, all of whom had been born in Alabama (see Figure 3). I'd found the right place, the right people, and the right person. The name "Nancy" in the 1850 census corresponded with the same name in the 1900 census and was certainly similar to "Ansabell" and "Annie" in other censuses, and the names of the sisters were correct. I had the correct family and the correct individuals.

Figure 3. Detail from the 1850 U.S. federal census, Cobb County, Georgia

Contact Other Courthouses

I still had that nagging question about the surname of Sanders (or Sauders) that was on the document in the Floyd County Marriage Book. I considered that it was possible that Ansibelle Penelope Swords might have been married prior to her 1867 marriage to Green Berry. Therefore, I wrote the courthouses in the counties of Cobb and Floyd, and the counties in between—Bartow, Cherokee, Gordon, Paulding, Pickens, and Polk—to request that they check the bride indexes in their marriage books between 1860 and 1867 for a woman with the surname of Swords and a forename of Ansibelle and/or Penelope, or with the initials A. P. All the responses indicated that no such names appeared in their marriage indexes. Remember that sometimes _not_ finding something you are looking for may be as good as finding something.

Other Information Discovered Along the Way

The appointment with the cemetery administrator in Rome reconfirmed dates of death and interment for Penelope Swords Holder in the Myrtle Hill Cemetery Interments ledger. The ledger is a daily record of the interments in that cemetery. It usually lists the date, name, and lot and plot where the remains were placed. It typically also includes the cause of death and, in the case of my great-grandmother, the entry recorded the cause of her death as pneumonia. There also was an entry for Green Berry Holder in June of that year.

I also learned that their daughter, Emma Dale Holder, sold three spaces in the family cemetery lot in 1956 to the owners of the adjacent lot, the family of George and Martha Black. It turns out that Ansibelle Penelope Swords Holder and her sister Martha Ann Swords Black were buried toe-to-toe in the cemetery.

I obtained the marriage entries from the Floyd County Courthouse for all of my great-grandparents' children who married there, as well as copies of death certificates for eight of their children. I located the graves of all eight of those children, including Edward E. Holder, who was widowed and then remarried, and who was buried in a cemetery other than the one in which his original, pre-inscribed tombstone had been placed.

In the Floyd County Courthouse, a clerk's preliminary search of land and property records showed more than 38 pages of entries in their grantor and grantee deed indexes for G. B. Holder, A. P. Holder, Ansibelle Penelope Holder, Penelope Holder, and for their sons, Edward, William, Scott, and Luther Holder. I have reserved an entire future trip to concentrate specifically on the actual land and property entries. I then plan to locate each property on county maps and discover what they can reveal to me.

Finally, after all of the census research, it dawned on me where the nickname for my great-aunt, Ella Edna Holder, had come from. My mother and her sisters had always referred to her as "Little Annie." I now learned that she earned that family nickname because she always scurried around taking care of her siblings the same way her mother took care of them.

From the clues obtained along the way in my search for Ansibelle Penelope Swords Holder's family, I was able to significantly expand my knowledge and documentation of the entire family unit's genealogy. However, the clue that John N. Holder's and his wife, Rebecca's, parents were both born in South Carolina carried me back to both their families. In addition, I've since been able to locate copious amounts of documentation about John N. Holder's siblings and their parents, a Revolutionary War soldier named John Holder, and his wife, Eleanor Swancey, both of whom are mentioned in other parts of the book.

My search to learn more about the family has continued. My investigation into the son Brisco Washington Holder has led me from Georgia to locate records of him in five other states and Canada. I located his death certificate in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, and his burial spot in St. Louis County, Missouri. I arranged for the placement of a gravestone on his grave.

Genealogy research has taken me through an exciting adventure of discovery. Ansibelle Penelope Swords Holder presented a formidable brick wall but, using a variety of record types and some well thought-out methodology, more doors were opened.

Index

**A**

A2A (Access to Archives)

AAA (American Automobile Association)

ABMC (American Battle Monuments Commission)

abstracts

academic libraries

Access to Archives (A2A)

accounting reports

Adams-Onís Treaty

address books

administrators

adopted children

adoption

as cause for migration

records

African ancestry

AfriGeneas website

DNA testing

South African War

African-American ancestry

AfriGeneas website

slave data

AfriGeneas website

Age Search group

agricultural schedules

airplane travel

Alaska

albums, photo

Alien Registration Act

Alien Registration Card

alumni lists

ambrotypes

American Automobile Association (AAA)

American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC)

American Revolutionary War

America's GenealogyBank

America's Obituaries & Death Notices

ancestor family chart

Ancestor Hunt website

ancestors. _See also_ family members

brick walls/dead ends

in context

culinary styles

determining place of origin

DNA research

family customs

immigration. _See_ immigration

naming patterns

people finders

person has vanished

physical traits

proof of relationship

unable to identify parents

unable to identify residence

unable to link with relatives

wrong names/dates

ancestral charts

_Ancestral Trails_

Ancestry.com

ancestral charts

census records on

charts/forms

derivative sources

Family Group Record

Family History Wiki

historical books

indexes

instructional videos

message boards

newspapers

online databases

overview

Search page

ships' passenger lists

subscription services

webinars

ancient era

ANZAC Memorial

APG (Association of Professional Genealogists)

APGI (Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland)

appraisal, estate

ARC (Army Records Centre)

archives. _See also_ libraries

books/periodicals

considerations

indexes

manuscripts

maps

newspapers

obtaining help from

online catalogs

online resources

provincial

starting research with

state

using

websites

armigerous status

Army Museums Ogilby Trust website

Army Records Centre (ARC)

arpents

Ask.com

Association of Professional Genealogists (APG)

Association of Professional Genealogists in Ireland (APGI)

Atlas of Canada

atlases

attestation forms

auction records

audio programs

aunts/uncles, researching

Australian ancestry

archives

census records

civil registration

Geoscience Place Name Search facility

history

immigration records

military records

National Archives

online databases

prisoners

researching records

ships' passenger lists

Australia's Fighting Sons

autobiographies

autosomal DNA test

**B**

baby books

baptismal records

Barge Office

base line

Battle of San Jacinto

BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems)

BCG (Board for Certification of Genealogists)

beneficiaries

Bibles

citations

entries made in

personal/family

bibliographic citation standards

bills

Bing search engine

biographical resources

biographies

birth announcements

birth certificates

alternative proofs

amended

considerations

delayed

evaluating

example

formats

information on

limited/refused access to

obtaining

overview

birth documents

birth records

BLM (Bureau of Land Management)

BLM-GLO (Bureau of Land Management General Land Office)

Blogger

blogging services

blogs

Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG)

Board of Land Commissioners

bondsmen

books

address

archives

baby

Bibles. _See_ Bibles

citations

condolence/funeral

county heritage

Google Books

historical

marriage

reference

for research

scrapbooks

yearbooks

borough-English

bounty land

Brigham Young University Family History Archive

brightsolid.com

British ancestry. _See_ United Kingdom

British genealogies

"British Isles"

British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa

The British Library

BritishIslesGenWeb Project

Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs)

bulletin boards. _See_ message boards

Bureau of Immigration

Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

Bureau of Land Management General Land Office (BLM-GLO)

burial permits

Burke's Peerage and Gentry

BYU Family History Archive

**C**

cabinet cards

calendar converters

calendars

calling cards

calotypes

cameras, use of

Canadian ancestry. _See also_ Library and Archives Canada

census records

civil registration

French-Canadian research

Home Children

immigration records

land/property records

maps

military records

researching records

ships' passenger lists

taxation/duty records

Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF)

Canadian Genealogical Societies

Canadian Genealogy & History Links

Canadian Merchant Navy War Dead Database

Canadian Virtual War Memorial

card catalogs

carte-de-visite

Castle Garden

casualty lists

catalog records

CEF (Canadian Expeditionary Force)

cemetery canvasses

cemetery deeds

cemetery lots

cemetery markers

cemetery office

cemetery records. _See also_ death records

CenEuroGenWeb Project

cenotaphs

census indexes

census records

additional information on

Ancestry.com

Australia

Canada

considerations

Genealogy.com

Germany

immigration records and

Ireland

on microfilm

overview

population schedules

searching

United Kingdom

United States. _See_ U.S. census records

Certificate of Arrival

Certificate of Naturalization

Certified Genealogical Lecturer (CGL)

Certified Genealogist (CG)

CG (Certified Genealogist)

CGL (Certified Genealogical Lecturer)

Channel Islands

_The Chicago Manual of Style_

children

adopted

evacuated during wartime

guardianship documents

Home Children

indigent

orphaned

poor

Chinese ancestry

christening records

church membership rolls

church minutes

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS)

accredited genealogists

Family History Centers

Family History Library

FamilySearch. _See_ FamilySearch website

immigration records

library

Personal Ancestral File program

software programs

citation style guides

citations. _See_ source citations

Citizenship and Immigration Canada

city directories

civil marriages

civil offices

civil records

limited/refused access to

overview

civil registration

civil unions

Civil War

Civil War Era Records database

Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System

clergy names

codicils

collaboration

College of Arms

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

compilation sites

Ancestry.com. _See_ Ancestry.com

Canadian Genealogy & History Links

Cyndi's List

GENUKI website

JewishGen

Linkpendium

RootsWeb

USGenWeb Project

using

WorldGenWeb Project

computers

laptop

remote access

research and

using during interviews

viewing webinars on

condolence books

conferences

context

Continental Army

conveyances

convicts. _See_ prisoners

copyhold

coroner's report

correspondence. _See also_ letters

document request forms

keeping track of

ordering record copies by mail/email

organizing

overview

SASE

uncovering details with

correspondence logs

county heritage books

county histories

County Record Office (CRO)

court martials

court orders

courthouse indexes

_Courthouse Indexes Illustrated_

_Courthouse Research for Family Historians_

cousins, researching

crematory records

criminal incarceration/deportment

critical thinking

CRO (County Record Office)

crop failure

culinary styles

customs collectors

customs passenger lists

Cyndi's List

**D**

daguerreotypes

data. _See_ GEDCOMs; genealogical data; records

databases

Ancestry.com

BLM-GLO

Canadian Merchant Navy War Dead

census

Civil War Era Records

Family History Library

FamilySearch. _See_ FamilySearch website

Fold3.com

GEDCOMs

genealogy-specific

governmental agencies

HeritageQuest Online

Historical Manuscripts Commission

indexes

Library and Archives Canada

National Archives

newspaper

Public Record Office

research log form

Social Security

dates

format for

on markers

recording

vital

wrong

David Rumsey Map Collection

Dawes Packets

death certificates. _See also cemetery entries;_ death records

considerations

described

evaluating

example

information found on

locating

death notices

death records. _See also_ death certificates

burial permits

cemeteries. _See cemetery entries_

condolence/funeral books

coroner's report

evaluating

information found on

interment information

locating

memorial cards

military death/burial records

mortality schedules

obituaries. _See_ obituaries

overview

prayer cards

public notices

social security

transit permits

websites for

wills

death registration

decedents

Declaration of Intention

deed of gift

deeds

Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent classes schedules

Defence Forces site

Department of Homeland Security

Department of Justice (DOJ)

derivative sources

descendent family chart

deserters

Dewey Decimal Classification system

diaries

dictionaries online

digital readers/printers

directories

city

ipl2

telephone

types of

discharge papers

divorce records

DNA research

DNA surname projects

DNA testing

document repositories. _See_ repositories

document request forms

documentary evidence

documentation. _See also_ genealogical data

family trees

limited/refused access to

ordering copies by mail/email

organizing

quality of

reexamining

source. _See_ source materials

storage of

where to look for

Dogpile search engine

DOJ (Department of Justice)

_Domesday Book_

Dominion Bureau of Statistics

Dominion Land Survey

dower line

dower release

draft registration records

drought

duty assignment orders

**E**

ecclesiastical courts

ecclesiastical records

economic problems

EDs (Enumeration Districts)

education/training

blogs

conferences

educational websites

online radio broadcasts

podcasts

webinars

electronic research materials

Ellis Island

email

citations

described

introduction of

ordering document copies via

overview

spam

email addresses

employment records

engagement announcements

English ancestry. _See also_ United Kingdom

census records

researching records

English Civil War

English Civil War Society

English parish records

enlistment records

Enumeration Districts (EDs)

estate inventories

European ancestry. _See also individual countries_

boundary changes and

migration

eVetRecs site

evidence. _See also_ genealogical data

reevaluating quality of

reexamining

executor

eXtracts Online system

**F**

Facebook

face-to-face interviews

family albums. _See also_ photographs

family artifacts

family customs

family gatherings

family group sheets

family historian

family history. _See also_ history

adopted children

civil unions

considerations

described

divorces/remarriages

local histories

multiple family units

same-sex unions

scandals

secrets

vs. genealogy

wills/probate records

Family History Archives

Family History Centers (FHCs)

Family History Library (FHL)

Family History Wiki

family information. _See_ genealogical data

family members. _See also_ ancestors

adoption records

brick walls/dead ends

children. _See_ children

culinary styles

DNA research

family customs

immigration. _See_ immigration

interviewing. _See_ interviews

naming patterns

people finders

person has vanished

physical traits

proof of relationship

switching to alternate member

unable to identify parents

unable to identify residence

unable to link with relatives

wrong names/dates

_Family Tree Magazine_

Family Tree Maker program

_The Family Tree Sourcebook_

family trees

FamilyPedia wiki

FamilySearch catalog

FamilySearch Centers (FSCs)

FamilySearch Research Wiki

FamilySearch website

books/periodicals

census records

described

FamilySearch Centers

indexes

message boards

military records

using

famine

fan chart format

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Federal Land areas

Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS)

Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS)

ferrotypes

feudal systems

FFHS (Federation of Family History Societies)

FGS (Federation of Genealogical Societies)

FHCs (Family History Centers)

FHL (Family History Library)

fiats

Filby, P. William

filing systems

final estate distribution

final papers

Find A Grave website

finding aids

findmypast website

First Indian War

first papers

Five Civilized Tribes

Florida

FOIA (Freedom of Information Act)

Fold3.com

census records

described

immigration records

indexes

military records

newspapers

online databases

formatting

considerations

dates

family trees

locations

names

FreeBMD Project

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

French ancestry

historical events

online databases

_French-Canadian Sources_

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

FSCs (FamilySearch Centers)

funeral books

funeral home records

**G**

Gazetteer for Scotland

Gazetteer Map Service

gazetteers

Gazettes Online

GEDCOMs

GeneaBloggers

_GeneaBloggers Radio_

genealogical data. _See also_ documentation; source materials

analyzing

considerations

correspondence. _See_ correspondence

family artifacts

family trees

limited/refused access to

organizing

pedigree charts

photocopies

primary sources

quality of

records. _See_ records

reexamining

reproductions

secondary sources

source citations for

sources of

where to look for

Genealogical Institute of the Maritimes

genealogical researchers

genealogical societies

benefits of

books/periodicals

contacting

county/local histories

Federation of Family History Societies

Federation of Genealogical Societies

heritage/historical

overview

state/provincial histories

webinars

genealogical subscription services

genealogical websites

charts/forms

compilation sites

educational sites

"how to" sites

online databases

reference sites

genealogists, professional

genealogy

beginning research

described

popularity of

reasons for doing

vs. family history

vs. genetics

Genealogy Blog Finder

_Genealogy Gems Podcast_

_The Genealogy Guys Podcast_

genealogy message boards. _See_ message boards

genealogy videos

Genealogy Wise

GenealogyBank

Genealogy.com

General Land Office

General Register Office (GRO)

General Register Office for Scotland (GROS)

General Register Office of Ireland

Generations website

genetic genealogy

genetic profiling

genetic testing services

genetics

GenForum

GENUKI website

Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)

geographical boundaries

geography

geopolitical boundaries

Geoscience Australia Place Name Search facility

German ancestry

census records

emigration to U.S.

online databases

ships' passenger lists

_Germans to America_

GNIS (Geographic Names Information System)

Google Books

Google Language Tools page

Google Maps

Google Plus/Google+

Google Reader

Google search engine

governmental agencies

indexes in

online databases

grandparents, researching

grantee

grantor

grantor index

grave markers

gravestone transcription projects

Great Britain. _See_ United Kingdom

Great Depression

Great Poor Law Act of 1601

Gregorian calendar

GRO (General Register Office)

GROS (General Register Office for Scotland)

guardianship documents

**H**

handwriting

_The Handybook for Genealogists_

haplogroups

haplotypes

hashtags

Hathi Trust

"help" resources

heritage societies

HeritageQuest Online

highway maps

historical books

historical era

Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC)

historical maps

migration and

online

researching with

historical newspapers

historical resources

historical societies

historical timelines

history. _See also_ family history

becoming student of

considerations

country

local

migration

military

national

provincial

repositories

ships' passenger lists

world

HMC (Historical Manuscripts Commission)

Home Children

home source materials

hourglass tree family chart

household items

"how to" websites

HTML code

human trafficking. _See slave entries_

**I**

IAF (Internet Address Finder)

ICA (Immigration & Checkpoints Authority)

ICAPGen (International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists)

identification documents

ILL (interlibrary loan)

Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild (ISTG)

Immigrants to Canada website

immigration. _See also_ migration

Australia

Bureau of Immigration

Canada

Castle Garden

census records and

Ellis Island

LDS resources

means of travel

NARA resources

naturalization process/records

overview

photographic images

reasons for migration

United States

visas

Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA)

Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)

immigration list indexes

immigration papers

immigration processing centers

indentures

indexes

Ancestry.com

archives

categories of

census

courthouses

described

Fold3.com

government facilities

HeritageQuest Online

immigration lists

land/property

libraries

marriage records

online databases

probate records

search engines

ships' passenger lists

using

wills

Indian Removal Act

Indians, American. _See_ Native American ancestry

industry schedules

information. _See_ genealogical data

inGeneas website

inks, evaluating

INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service)

instructional videos

interlibrary loan (ILL)

interment information

International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen)

Internet

Internet Address Finder (IAF)

Internet maps

Internet Public Library. _See_ ipl2 directory

Internet search engines. _See_ search engines

Internet-based resources

additional resources

biographical resources

blogs

calendars

dictionaries

Facebook

FAQs

Genealogy Wise

Google Plus/Google+

help facilities

historical resources

language translations

latest

mailing lists

main categories

message boards

Myspace

online map resources

overview

podcasts

radio shows

social media resources

social networks

Twitter

videocasts

webinars

wikis

interviews

equipment for

length of

overview

preparing for

questionnaires

questions to ask

recording

relatives

requests for corrections

scheduling

setting tone of

thanking interviewees

types of

unwilling interviewees

virtual

intestate

inventories, estate

invoices

ipl2 directory

Irish ancestry

census records

emigration to U.S.

Irish Family History blog

military records

National Archives of Ireland

Potato Famine

professional genealogists

reference books

researching records

Irish Family History blog

_Irish Roots Cafe_

Isle of Man

ISTG (Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild)

Italian ancestry

iTunes

**J**

jewelry

Jewish ancestry

JewishGen

journals

Julian calendar

**L**

LAC. _See_ Library and Archives Canada

land grants

land patents

land petitions

land records

land titles

land transfer process

land warrants

land-entry case file

land/property records

Canada

census records and

considerations

indexes

locating online

Native American lands

overview

references

tax bills

United Kingdom

United States

will/probate information

language translations

law of primogeniture

Law of Property Act

LC. _See_ Library of Congress

LDS. _See_ Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Legacy Family Tree webinars

letters. _See also_ correspondence

of authorization

determining family origin via

document request forms

keeping track of

mail merge

mailing labels

overview

permission to access

SASE

templates

testamentary

uncovering details with

librarians

libraries. _See also_ archives; _specific library names_

academic

biographies/autobiographies

books/periodicals

card catalogs

catalog records

considerations

country/provincial information

historical accounts

historical documents

indexes

interlibrary loans

links to

manuscripts

maps

newspapers

obtaining help from

online resources

overview

provincial

public

requesting photocopies from

special collections

starting research with

state/provincial information

using

websites

Library and Archives Canada (LAC)

census records

described

immigration records

land/property records

libraries/archives

libraries/catalogs

military records

online databases

Library of Congress (LC)

classification system

Geography & Map Division

online catalog

LibrarySpot.com

lineage societies

Linkpendium

live online radio broadcasts

LiveJournal

local histories

locations, recording

Louisiana Purchase

Louisiana Territory

**M**

magazine articles

magazines

maiden surnames

mail. _See_ email; postal mail

mail merge documents

mailing labels

mailing lists

Mamma search engine

manorial courts

Manorial Documents Register (MDR)

manorial records

manorial system

manors

manufacturing schedules

manuscripts

_Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses_

maps

AAA

archives

changes to

considerations

Enumeration Districts

gazetteers

Google Maps

highway

historical. _See_ historical maps

on Internet

methodologies for

for multiple purposes

online resources

proper use of

as research aids

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

tips for

types of

Mariners Mailing List

Maritime Collections Strategy website

marriage announcements

marriage banns

marriage bonds

marriage books

marriage certificates

marriage laws

marriage licenses

marriage records

clergy names

divorce documents

indexes

maiden surnames

overview

websites for

marriage returns

marriages

civil

divorces

remarriages

same-sex

matrimonial registers

MDR (Manorial Documents Register)

medical records

melainotypes

memorial cards

memorial markers

memorial plaques

meridian regions

meridians

mesne lords

message boards

meta tags

MetaCrawler search engine

metasearch engines

metes and bounds survey method

Mexico

microcards

microfiche

microfilm

described

Family History Library

newspapers on

U.S. census records on

Microsoft Network (MSN)

midwifery

migration. _See also_ immigration

historical maps

historical publications

means of travel

photographic images

population schedules

ports of entry

reasons for

references

ship passenger lists. _See_ ships' passenger lists

migration path

migration routes

Military Historical Society of Australia

military history

military magazines

military medals

military museums

military muster rolls

military records. _See also_ wartime

American Revolutionary War

Australia

Canada

change of station orders

Civil War

commissions

Continental Army

court martials

death/burial records

deserters

discharge papers

draft registration records

duty assignment orders

education/training

enlistment records

eVetRecs

examining examples of

identifying sources for

Ireland

muster rolls

overview

pay records

pension files

post–World War II

promotions

reference books

separation records

types of

Union veterans and widows schedule

United Kingdom

United States

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall

V-mail documents

War of 1812

World War I

World War II

military reenactment groups

military service papers

military station

military-related heritage societies

Ministry of Defence

Miracode system

mitochondria

MLA (Modern Language Association)

Mocavo search engine

modern era

Modern Language Association (MLA)

mortality schedules

mortgages

mortuary records

most recent common ancestor (MRCA)

MRCA (most recent common ancestor)

MSN (Microsoft Network)

mtDNA test

museums

muster rolls

mutations

_My Society_ radio program

MyCanvas tool

Myspace

**N**

NAA (National Archives of Australia)

names, formatting

NARA (National Archives and Records Administration)

census records

document request forms

immigration records

libraries

military records

NARA Regional Archive

National Archives

Australia

Ireland

online databases

seeking help from

United Kingdom

National Archives and Records Administration. _See_ NARA

National Archives Building

National Archives of Australia (NAA)

National Archives of Ireland

National Archives of Scotland. _See_ National Records of Scotland

National Genealogical Society (NGS)

national history

National Institute for Genealogical Studies (NIGS)

National Personnel Records Center (NPRC)

National Records of Scotland (NRS)

Native American ancestry

census records

forced relocation

land/property records

natural disasters

naturalization process

naturalization records

Naval & Military Press

NEHGS (New England Historic Genealogical Society)

New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS)

New Model Army

New Netherland

The New Ultimates

New York City

NewsBank

newspaper announcements

newspaper article citations

newspaper clippings

newspaper databases

NewspaperARCHIVE.com

newspapers

digitized

historical

online

recent

shipping news

NIGS (National Institute for Genealogical Studies)

Nominal Roll

notes

NPRC (National Personnel Records Center)

NRS (National Records of Scotland)

Numerical Identification System (Numident)

Numident (Numerical Identification System)

**O**

Oath of Allegiance

obituaries. _See also_ death records

America's Obituaries & Death Notices

components of

described

dissecting

evaluating

example

locating records via

obtaining information from

officiating clergy

OCLC (Online Computer Library Center)

OCR (optical character recognition)

Online Birth and Death Extracts Application System

online card catalogs

Online Computer Library Center (OCLC)

online databases. _See_ databases

online map resources

online message boards. _See_ message boards

online radio broadcasts

online resources. _See_ Internet-based resources

OnlineNewspapers.com

Open Directory Project

optical character recognition (OCR)

original sources

Origins.net

Orphan Trains

orphaned children

**P**

PAF (Personal Ancestral File) program

palaeography

paleography

parents

name on birth certificates

researching

unable to identify

parish records

parish registers

parishes

_Passenger and Immigration Lists Index_

passenger records. _See_ ships' passenger lists

passport records

Patchwork System

paternity tests

pay lists

pedigree charts

pedigrees

penal colonies

pension files

people finders

PeopleSearch.net

PeopleSpot service

periodicals

Permanent Change of Station Order

perpetual calendar

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection

Personal Ancestral File (PAF) program

personnel records

Petition for Citizenship

Petition for Naturalization

photocopies

photograph albums

photographs

dating via clothing/hair

determining place of origin via

in local histories

organizing

storage of

types of

using

photography, history of

physical traits

place name dictionary

PLSS (Public Land Survey System)

podcasts

Polish ancestry

political boundaries

political turmoil

population schedules

migration and

working with

population settlements

ports of entry

postal mail

postcards

postremogeniture

Potato Famine

prayer cards

primary information

primogeniture

Principal Probate Registry

prisoner ship's records

prisoners, Australia

privacy issues

PRO (Public Record Office)

probate

probate court

probate court minutes

probate packets

probate process

probate records. _See also_ wills

professional directories

professional organizations

professional researchers

programs. _See_ software

PRONI (Public Record Office of Northern Ireland)

property records. _See_ land/property records

ProQuest

census records

HeritageQuest Online

historical newspapers

provincial archives/libraries

provincial histories

Public Domain Land states

Public Land Survey System (PLSS)

public libraries

Public Record Office (PRO)

Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)

**Q**

questionnaires

**R**

RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force)

radio broadcasts, Internet

Railroad Retirement Board (RRB)

RAN (Royal Australian Navy)

ranges

receipts

records. _See also_ genealogical data

adoption

alternative

auction

birth. _See birth entries_

civil. _See_ civil records _and_ civil registration

considerations

current location

death. _See_ death records

destroyed

divorce

ecclesiastical

employment

errors in

family group sheets

identifying

land/property. _See_ land/property records

limited/refused access to

marriage. _See_ marriage records

medical

military. _See_ military records

missing/lost

naturalization

obtaining from repository

ordering copies by mail/email

original

passport

permanent

private

probate

proof of relationship

reevaluating quality of

reexamining

religious. _See_ religious records

school

substitute

temporary

vital. _See_ vital records

voter registration

wills

Rectangular Lot System

_Red Book_

reference books

reference librarians

reference websites

regimental histories

relatives. _See_ ancestors; family members

religious affiliations

religious institutions

religious publications

religious records

baptismal records

Bibles. _See_ Bibles

christening records

church bulletins

church membership rolls

church minutes

evaluating

gaining access to

historical information

limited/refused access to

locating

meeting minutes

membership records

overview

types of

remarriages

repositories

contacting

history

locating

naturalization documents

obtaining records from

working with

reproductions

requests for corrections

research

alternative strategies for

biographies/autobiographies

blogs

books. _See_ books

brick walls/dead ends

compilations. _See_ compilation sites

considerations

DNA

documentary evidence

electronic

finding aids

Freedom of Information Act and

historical books

home source materials

indexes. _See_ indexes

Internet. _See_ Internet-based resources

keeping track of

libraries. _See_ libraries

mailing lists

manuscripts

maps. _See_ maps

message boards

newspapers

online. _See_ Internet-based resources

overview

people finders

periodicals

podcasts

problems

quality of sources

radio broadcasts

reexamining evidence

references

repositories. _See_ repositories

researching yourself

searches. _See_ search tools

subscription services

switching to other family member

traditional

via email. _See_ email

via postal mail

videocasts

webinars

websites for

where to search

research calendar

research facilities. _See also_ archives; libraries

research logs

research path

researchers, professional

returns

River Lot System

RootsMagic program

RootsWeb

RootsWeb Guide to Tracing Family Trees

Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF)

Royal Australian Navy (RAN)

RRB (Railroad Retirement Board)

RSS feeds

Russian ancestry

**S**

same-sex unions

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

SASE (self-addressed, stamped envelope)

SCAN (Scottish Archive Network)

scandals

scanners, use of

school records

Scotland Online. _See_ brightsolid.com

ScotlandsPeople.com

Scottish ancestry. _See also_ United Kingdom

census records

General Register Office for Scotland

maps

military records

National Records of Scotland

reference books

researching records

wills/testaments

Scottish Archive Network (SCAN)

Scottish Military History Website

scrapbooks

search engines

advanced techniques

Ask.com

Bing

considerations

described

Google

indexes

language translations

metasearch engines

Mocavo

researching records

searching for similar pages

vs. directories

search tools

directories

metasearch engines

overview

search engines. _See_ search engines

tips for

secondary sources

secrets

sections

self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE)

serfs

settlement certificate

ship travel

shipping news

ships' passenger lists

Australia

Canada

customs passenger lists

described

history of

indexes

prisoner ship's records

references

United States

siblings, researching

"Sidestep Genealogy"

slave data

slave schedules

Smith Act

socage

social media

social media resources

_Social Networking for Genealogists_

social networks

Social Security Act

Social Security Administration (SSA)

Social Security cards

Social Security Death Index (SSDI)

Social Security Death Master File

Social Security numbers (SSNs)

social statistics schedules

societies

genealogical. _See_ genealogical societies

heritage

historical

lineage

obtaining help from

Society of Australian Genealogists

software programs

Soundex Calculator

Soundex system

_The Source_

source citations

source materials. _See also_ documentation; genealogical data

abstracts

analyzing

authority

bias

criteria

derivative sources

errors in

extracting from

limited/refused access to

new/different sources

origin of

original

photocopies

primary

quality/accuracy of

reexamining

reproductions

transcriptions

where to look for

spam

spreadsheet programs

SSA (Social Security Administration)

SSDI (Social Security Death Index)

SSNs (Social Security numbers)

state archives/libraries

state census records

_State Census Records_

state histories

State Land States

State Library and Archives of Florida

stereographs

stereoscope

stevemorse.org website

Steve's Genealogy Blog

subscription services. _See_ genealogical subscription services

superpages.com

surnames

DNA surname projects

maiden

recording

surveyor's measurement conversion

Swedish ancestry

SYSTRAN site

SYSTRANBox product

**T**

tax bills

tax lists

telephone conversations

telephone directories

templates, letter

tenant-in-chief

tenures

testaments

testators

Texas

The National Archives (TNA)

Access to Archives (A2A)

census records

military records

online tutorials

overview

podcasts

repositories

_They Became Americans_

Timelines of History website

Times Archive

The _Times of London_

tintypes

TNA. _See_ The National Archives

townships

_Tracing Your Irish Ancestors_

_Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors_

"Trail of Tears"

train travel

training. _See_ education/training

transcriptions

transit permits

translation dictionaries

Treaty of Versailles

tweets

Twitter

typescripts

**U**

UGA (Utah Genealogical Association)

UK Maritime Collections Strategy website

UK Public Libraries site

ultimogeniture

uncles/aunts, researching

Union of 1707

Union veterans and widows schedule

United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada

United Kingdom (UK). _See also specific British countries_

Ancestry.com

British genealogies

"British Isles"

The British Library

BritishIslesGenWeb Project

census records

civil registration

GENUKI website

land/property records

military records

National Archives. _See_ The National Archives

online databases

reference books

United States (U.S.)

census records. _See_ U.S. census records

history

immigration records

land/property records

military records

online databases

population schedules

ports of entry

professional genealogists

ships' passenger lists

United States Constitution

United States Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office

United States Department of Justice (DOJ)

United States Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System (USGS GNIS)

U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

U.S. Bureau of Land Management General Land Office (BLM-GLO)

U.S. Census Bureau

U.S. census records

1790–1940 census

1885 census

1890 census

1940 census

additional census documents

on Ancestry.com

census finding aids

Enumeration Districts

on FamilySearch

on Fold3.com

history of

on microfilm

Native Americans

online databases

original vs. copies

overview

population schedules

on ProQuest

reference books

Soundex/Miracode systems

SSA and

state

U.S. Consitution

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

U.S. Department of State

U.S. Geological Survey

U.S. Railroad Retirement Board (RRB)

USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services)

Usenet newsgroups

USGenWeb Project

USGS GNIS (United States Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System)

Utah Genealogical Association (UGA)

**V**

VAC (Veterans Affairs Canada) website

Veromi service

vertical files

Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) website

videocasts

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall

villeins

virtual interviews

visas

visiting cards

vital records

birth. _See_ birth records

errors in

limited/refused access to

migration and

overview

vital statistics

V-mail documents

vodcasts

voter registration records

**W**

Wales ancestry. _See also_ United Kingdom

census records

researching records

War of 1812

warrants

warranty deeds

wartime. _See also military entries; specific wars_

American Revolutionary War

as cause of migration

children evacuated during

Civil War

records destroyed during

Web. _See_ Internet

web browsers

web pages

webinars

websites. _See also specific websites_

accuracy of

archives

compilation sites

for death records

General Register Office

help facilities on

libraries

for research

subsidiary content

weddings. _See also marriage entries_

Wikipedia

wikis

wills. _See also probate entries_

witnesses

word processing programs

WordPress

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

world history

World War I

World War II

World War Two Nominal Roll website

WorldCat website

WorldGenWeb Project

WorldVitalRecords.com

WPA (Works Progress Administration)

**X**

X chromosome

XHTML code

**Y**

Y chromosome

Yahoo! directory

Yahoo! People Search

Y-DNA test

yearbooks

Young Immigrants to Canada website

YouTube

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