Month: October 2018

Stumbling Upon Things is Great…But

Sometimes it is difficult balancing genealogical research theory with the way in which some materials are often located. It is not often really addressed in the genealogical literature, but the research process of what we searched, why we searched it, and how we searched it is integral to our analysis. This is especially true if an exhaustive search does not include everything under the sun […]

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Time Stands Still for No Stone

I took this cemetery photograph several years ago at the Norwood Cemetery in Mercer County, Illinois not too far from my home. I’m really glad that I did. It’s one of those stones that weathers somewhat easily.  Facing west on the Illinois prairie, the winter weather probably doesn’t help the inscription to stand the test […]

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A Source Within A Source

Note: this post is originally from 2015, but we’ve moved it here and combined two posts into one. There are times when one has no reason to doubt the accuracy of some information one has received. But the problem is accurately tracking the actual source of the information. Such is the case with this picture. […]

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Why Original Versus Derivative Matters

On page 24 Elizabeth Shown Mills in  Evidence Explained (2015, Genealogical Publishing Company) defines the following terms: original sources as “material in its first oral or recorded form.” derivative sources as “material produced by copying an original or manipulating its content.” Reasonable researchers may slightly disagree about whether certain specific sources are original or derivative. And that’s ok. It really […]

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Wen the Adens Are Found

It is easy to see how this was indexed as “Habbe Wen” on Ancestry.com. It’s also easy to see how it can be read as Habbe Aden as well–which is what it actually is. The Hermann arrived in New York City on 15 March 1869–apparently with several Ostfriesian individuals on board. Habbe wasn’t really the person of interest […]

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Missing Images Fixed in ELCA Database–But Do You Always Check?

Note: These records appear to have been updated and the issues discussed have been corrected. However the post is still instructive and something that all users of digital images need to be aware of.  [all discussion was current as of 9 May 2015] I easily found the 1882 christening for Tjode Anna Goldenstein in Gothenburg, […]

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