Month: December 2018

It’s Probably Richard, But…

This letter comprises the “consents” on an 1839 marriage in Mercer County, Kentucky, between Edmund Beesly and Mildred Lake. Their apparent fathers sign the document. The father of Mildred is Richard Lake. However, that’s not what it looks like in this image. So, should it be transcribed as Ritchard or Bitchard?

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Will They Be Cleaning Mother’s House?

Years ago, I wrote a piece entitled “Cleaning Mother’s House.” The fictionalized piece was created from several real life snippets that have been passed along to me over the years. It still should give those who haven’t thought about what will happen to their genealogical materials a reason to pause. Preserving your materials is something […]

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Corelle, Photographs, FamilySearch Memories, and the Genealogical Lottery

I accompanied my daughter to an antique mall over the holiday season so she could pick up a few pieces of Corelle(r) [correction: it is actually Pyrex–thanks to the reader who pointed this out] dishware she was adding to her collection. While the golden pattern is the same one my mother had, I was just […]

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DNA Tests, Shoes, and Beer

It’s advertising. Plain and simple. The ethnicity estimates are a way for AncestryDNA to market their tests.  It’s marketing. It’s also how shoes and beer are sold. If you think it is a stretch to make beer “sexy,” try doing that for ethnicity results. The ethnicity estimates are not for your “immediate” ancestors, but for dozens of […]

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Which Copy Do You Have?

One of the necessary items of citing genealogical sources is what copy of a document was actually used. The image shown here is a handwritten copy of the Declaration of Intent for Rolf Habben, made out in Hancock County, Illinois, in 1886. This image was made from a photocopy of the copy which was contained […]

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That Line Above the “n”

In an earlier blog post, we mentioned lines above consonants being used as a short hand to indicate a double letter. The sample item in that discussion was from the late 19th century in Nebraska, by a pastor whose ethnicity was unknown, but was probably German. In this 1796 baptismal entry for Johann Michael Trautvetter […]

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