Month: April 2019

Just Letting the Government Know about that “Pension:” Part V

As we delve further into his pension file, there are some other irregularities with Thomas Graves. Thomas Graves responded to the 15 January 1898 circular from the Bureau of Pensions asking for information on his family. This circular is one of the best documents in a Union Civil War pension file–assuming the veteran was receiving […]

Share

Just Letting the Government Know about that “Pension:” Part IV

In his letter of 15 December of 1914 , C. M. Stewart of North Liberty, Iowa,  indicated that if the Pension Department needed additional information about the marriages of Civil War veteran Thomas Graves and the fact that his widow Sarah Graves was not his legal widow, that those details could be obtained from Mrs. […]

Share

Bernard Becomes Benjamin

This is part of a newspaper article that appeared in one of the Quincy, Illinois, newspapers after my great-great-great-grandparents celebrated their 50th anniversary in Coatsburg, Adams County, Illinois in 1856. Interestingly enough, the article did not mention any of the children by name, but did name the men who provided the musical entertainment. Had I […]

Share

Why Your DNA Results are “Wrong”

They say “DNA never lies,” but according to messages on some message boards and social media it does. The DNA does not tell “lies” but the results can be confusing. There are many reasons why results can be confusing, but they often include: incorrect parental assignments because family never let out “the truth”–in other words, […]

Share

Mary, Mary, That’s not Contrary

This document comes from the guardianship of Mary Brown in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The mother and daughter are requesting that the court appoint a local man as the daughter’s guardian. [begin transcription] [For it?] my Desier and my Daughter Mary Browns that Deacon Stephen Gipson Should be put in Garden for Mary Mary Brown [end […]

Share

ThruLines Is Claiming There is Data in Your Your Tree That’s Not

  (slightly edited on 7 pm eastern time 25 April 2019). There are reports that ThruLines at AncestryDNA changes data from your tree before it displays it in your ThruLines. It does. It doesn’t change what’s in your tree. Information in the white boxes in the ThruLines report is “supposed” to be pulled from the tree […]

Share

Assumptions

The  Standards Manual written by the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) talks about assumptions and on pages 27 and 27 classifies them according to the following structure: fundamental, valid, and unsound Fundamental assumptions are generally accepted without additional documentation or evidence and are usually the result of an entity being a human living on the planet. Most of […]

Share