Brickwall Resolutions

It’s a New Year and time to look at genealogy resolutions. Every year I go through what I’d like to accomplish with my family history research and then, when I review it in December – well, you know. What I’m going to do this year is be more realistic. Instead of saying “I’m going to solve some brick walls.” I will focus on one family.

I’ll take a look at the Beach family in New York City in the mid 1800’s. I’ll identify the siblings of my brick wall – Charles E Beach 1830-1889. I’ll find all the Federal and State Census records for his lifespan. I’ll record his address and look at historical maps (search www.Mocavo.com for historical maps) for churches in the area that may have records. Some school records are also available.

The Mocavo.com search produced an unexpected treasure trove of online historical maps from a special collection at the University of Texas – Austin library. When I tried the search from the library’s website I was stumped but Mocavo drilled right through the system and brought me to this page with lots of information.

Some of the maps online from Texas University Library

I’ll look at his occupation since many occupations are handed down from generation to generation. City directories list occupations, also. I use www.Cyndislist.com  to help find websites with these after I check www.ancestry.com.  I’ll look at his children’s records, also, since many of these records may mention family. Www.Ancesty.com  has yearbooks online, too. I’ll search newspaper records for the area he lived and the area his siblings lived using www.genealogybank.com. I was surprised to see that visits from relatives were newsworthy in Fulton County New York’s papers www.fultonhistory.com.

I’ll see if I can figure out which Charles E. Beach was a Civil War Veteran and which one was a deserter using www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/ or www.fold3.com . I’ll find obituaries for the siblings and children; maybe one of them mentions a hometown.

I’ll refer to the state guides from Family Tree Magazine www.familytreemagazine.com either from each magazine, the CD for state research, or the 10 year annual magazine collection. Good state resource lists are available in other books and publications, too: www.rootsweb.ancestry.com, www.researchguides.net/census/state.htm , and The Red Book (included on some of the Family Tree Maker resource CD’s.) I won’t neglect county records and historical societies in my research.

Some of the state projects at Rootsweb

So, I wish each of you success in breaking through at least one brickwall this year. Break the project down in to manageable pieces and fill in the blanks as you go. Don’t spend all you time on one project but do allocate some time for a specific piece of the project.

There are many other brickwall techniques and step-by-step guides and I’ll provide more here as we go along.

Happy Hunting!

One Search - Different Results

If you search two databases for the same information why are the results so different?

I have ancestors buried at New York’s historic Green-Wood cemetery and have used their website http://www.green-wood.com/burial_search/ to complete the research. One of the surnames I search for is “Stearns” and the non-date limited search on the cemetery’s site yields 56 burials. There is a disclaimer that all records are not indexed and some records are incomplete.

Well, the “same” database was just brought up on Ancestry.com and there are 774 Stearns. WHAT????? So – I tried it again with the same results. At that point I went back to the Ancestry.com results and clicked on the about this database prompt shown below. This is a good place to look for details about a specific database. This time there was even a link to the originating database at the cemetery which was really handy but did not clear up the issue.

So what caused it? Bad data?  Lazy indexing?  Bad Karma? NOPE – The issue is how the records are indexed!

Those of us that are used to the big (Ancestry, Rootsweb, FamilySearch, etc.) websites commonly enter a surname search and trust that the results will include similar sounding names (SOUNDEX) to be included in our results. We (I) forget that most websites just search for what you asked for. Since spelling is a fluid thing and indexing is a human thing, it’s a good idea to keep track of what type of indexing the site uses and when you should expand the surnames for which you are searching.

Note: to those of you unfamiliar with SOUNDEX  or need to check a SOUNDEX code: http://searches.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/Genea/soundex.sh

Also, thanks for the prayers regarding Hurricane Irene. It looks like she’ll miss most of Myrtle Beach and now we pray for those in the Outer Banks – she could scrub those lovely barrier islands and change everything.

A Brick Wall Strategy – Census Records

Did you know that the census records can reveal different information depending on where you find your information? Yeah, I was surprised, too. Let’s just talk about four different sources. One is free, one is paid for by your local library, and two are available with subscriptions or through local libraries or family history centers.

At issue is who scanned the material and when and then who indexed it. The four sites are http://www.Familysearch.org – free, http://www.HeritageQuestonline.com – library based, http://www.Footnote.com – subscription, and the 800 lb gorilla – http://www.Ancestry.com – also subscription based.

Over the years I’ve found that the best quality census records came from Heritage Quest. They also have the best search capabilities for census information. I finally found a missing ancestor by searching for the given name and country of birth instead of searching for the surname. Heritage Quest brings up a list of results by state and finding my ancestor was much easier.

Ancestry.com has upgraded their images recently and FamilySearch.org has wonderful tools for showing other names on a page with links to images which may include Footnote.com. Footnote.com has very high quality images and good tools for inverting from black on white to white on black at high quality.

The other thing if found out about census records is that not all holders of these census records have indexed all years and all people and all states! Don’t just assume that the site has done this work. Check the “about this database”  or "What's new" notes before you enter a search. You may be looking for information on a site that they have not even indexed, yet. Heritage Quest recently completed indexing the 1930 census but recently they only had Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Texas, and Virginia indexed and online. No wonder I could not find my Pennslyvania ancestors there in 1930.

So your ancestor may be hiding on another website’s index.

Happy Hunting!

A Brick Wall Strategy – Playing with Maiden Names

I’ve found a successful way of “guessing” maiden names and this technique broke through a 5 year-old brick wall. I was researching my husband’s line and took the information I was given as gospel: first mistake. So the first lesson is to check your assumptions. The maiden name we’d been using for five years yielded not one usable clue as to where this woman had come from. I was beginning to realize that something was incorrect.

My husband and I sat down and started talking about where the information had come from and why we thought the surname was Marlatt. We came to the conclusion that, in reality, we were not so sure of the information. So, while I was busy doing some given name advanced searches online, he started looking at collateral lines (siblings’ lines) for other surnames and middle names that looked like they might have been surnames in prior generations.

He also spent some time remembering who was at the dinner table at family gatherings and realized, in general, if it was a family gathering, then most of the people were, in fact, FAMILY!

The next step was to go online with alternate surnames and the original given name and a few known dates and locations but it can work without much additional information. We searched for Laura with the three alternate surnames and in less than 20 minutes had our solution: she was Laura Eckert.

How could we be sure? The records we found included the names of other family members who sat around the holiday table when my husband was a little boy. When we were young we did not always know how everyone was related, nor did we know surnames, so sometimes our research requires testing our assumptions.