I took the big financial dive and purchased a copy of How Much Is That In Real Money? by John J. McCusker and published by the American Antiquarian Society in 1992. I’m hoping to use it to analyze some amounts from estate inventories and deeds. I’ll do so keeping in mind that any such analysis […]

According to an email I received from NEHGS (New England Historic Genealogical Society) today, they will let you know “with absolute certainty” if a lineage is correct. They will not check your entire tree for the $500 fee, but they will check one line of descent. Many genealogical conclusions, particularly ones involving individuals born before […]

It is important to constantly remember when using AncestryDNA’s ThruLines that it only does part of the work and that “work” is partially based on user-submitted trees. Those are trees over which you have no control. I’m not going to even dip my toe into a discussion of the programming that probably takes place to […]

DNA does not lie. Other records are open to debate. I see postings online where individuals refer to ThruLines as “proof.” No. That is not what ThruLines is. It is a way to help those who use AncestryDNA to analyze their results faster since it shows the probable connection to a DNA match using user-submitted […]

Instead of death certificates, obituaries, links to relatives, and other information in the “memorial” on FindAGrave, I would rather see links to adjacent stones or information on which stones are in close proximity to the stone for which the memorial was created. That would be helpful and that would information that would be really lost […]

We’ve made some headway on the identity of the man with the last name of Sledd who murdered an enslaved woman in the general area of Bedford County, Virginia, in 1811. As mentioned in other posts my discovery of the case was made because an individual from the Sledd family was involved in it. While […]

The name was Barksdale Sledd. Unique first names are great as they help distinguish the individual in records and make identification easier–usually. One should not assume that there are no contemporaries with the exact same unusual name as often names of this type are passed down from one generation to the other. Unusual first names […]

The image is of an 1831 tax list for Jackson Township, Coshocton County, Ohio. I’m working on creating a list of just what all the columns are for. This set of “answers” will be updated as needed. Feel free to post comments. 1-Owner Name 2-R[ange] 3-T[ownship] 4- 5- 6- portion of section/lot? 7-No. of Acres […]

There are a variety of things one can search for in newspapers besides the names of ancestors and relatives. If your ancestor had a street address consider searching old newspapers for that address trying “123 Lacon Street,” “123 Lacon St.,” etc. It is probably best to put the address in quotation marks and to keep […]

This post is a followup post to “A Shared DNA & Thrulines Question” that was posted in 2019. The question asked at the end of that post was “does a shared DNA connection between the descendants of four individuals who are thought to be siblings prove that they are siblings or could they have another […]