Michael John Neill's Genealogy Website
This was a little thought exercise I undertook partially for my own entertainment and partially to remind me of what people could know–particularly information in county histories and other published materials written before they were born. My knowledge of any years of birth in this discussion are, by the very nature of time and the […]
It was December of 1799 and the family of Isaac Rucker, Senr., of Amherst County, Virginia, wanted to allot his widow, Mildred, her dower in his farm and allot to his children their proportion of the estate. Isaac’s widow and her children signed the document. Her sons actually signed the document. It was different for […]
We aren’t always able to get time frames when people die in locations and time periods when vital records are not recorded. In some cases, other records allow us to ascertain a specific date of death for an individual. The date a will was signed often can be a “last alive” date for an individual. […]
I have at least four copies of this photograph of my Ufkes great-grandparents taken around the time of their marriage in Hancock County, Illinois, in 1916, possibly more. It was not worth the time of going through all my photographs in order to see if there was one more copy in my collection that has […]
The pictures are not that unique or special. In fact, digital images of them were made to ask readers in another forum whether preserving every photograph in your possession was worth it. The first image (with only one block of typed text) was the one I used in my initial post. Looking at it later, […]
I am big on visualization–when it serves a purpose. I don’t like making charts, graphs, etc. just because I can and only because someone may be impressed with it. This chart, grouping my ancestry into what I’ve generally called “pools,” puts on paper what has been in my head for years. The pools are geographically […]
It always pays to read the details. Genealogical discoveries, large and small, are often obtained from thinking about the implications of everything written in a document. That’s true with the appraisement of the estate of Mimka L. Habben in Hancock County, Illinois, in the spring of 1877. Illinois state statute dictated what was to be […]
