Michael John Neill's Genealogy Website
I enjoyed giving presentations at the Colorado Chapter of the Palatines to America seminar this past Saturday. Presenting always causes me to notice things in my own research that I’ve overlooked or need to follow up on. It’s also nice to meet people with whom I’ve only had an email or online correspondence. Even though […]
[note: I’ll have an update here if warranted. I’m not holding my breath.] Good genealogy methodology requires the citation of sources and the acknowledgement of where information has been located. One can’t analyze what has been found if one does not know from whence it originally came. Online images dished up like manna from heaven […]
An attendee asked me during a seminar on Illinois land records about recorded copies of leases and rental agreements. For those of us with land-renting relatives, there just are not as many records available. It may be possible that a lease or rental agreement gets recorded in a miscellaneous volume of records in the Recorder’s […]
During a recent presentation on land records, I was asked if the courthouse typically had copies of leases or rental agreements for those farmers who rented their farm ground instead of owning it. Typically these documents are not recorded, largely because they don’t alter the title to the property. There was a time when there […]
In part I of this series, we saw that Christian Troutfetter’s Thomas County, Kansas, homestead claim was delayed due to his lack of citizenship. We also saw that Troutfetter initially claimed that he was naturalized at the time he started his claim and that he later naturalized in Thomas County shortly before his claim was […]
To turn a political phrase into a genealogical one, “it’s the sourcing, stupid.” And it really is about the sourcing. I source my own genealogical records to keep myself from making stupid mistakes. There are several reasons I make stupid mistakes in my genealogical research. One of the biggest reasons I’ve made stupid mistakes is […]
Land records can contain significant genealogical clues. These records can also be confusing for researcher who is unfamiliar with their structure, purpose, terminology, and organization. Starting on 26 October, we’ll be hosting a 5 session class on using and interpreting land records in the United States. I’ve used land records extensively in my thirty-some years […]
Genealogists use documents to estimate dates on a regular basis. It is not unusual for a document to make a statement about a person and not specify a specific date on which that event took place. Such is the case with the 7 May 1885 affidavit made by Christian Troutfetter in his homestead application for […]
Clues can be anywhere on a document, including an 1893 newspaper notice. Part of the homestead process was taking “proof” and public notice of that “proof-taking” had to be given. And there had to be “proof” in the homestead application file that notice had been given. That’s the reason for this document. Normally I […]
“dirigio” from the Latin, meaning “to direct.” Sometimes I’d like to give some “dirigios” to people creating databases. And yes, I realize that’s not proper usage. FamilySearch recently announced an update in their Louisiana, New Orleans Passenger Lists, 1820-1945. The database links to actual images of the ship manifests made from National Archives microfilm copies […]
