Month: July 2016

It May Be A Digital Copy of a Microfilmed Copy of a Transcription of the Actual Record

The database entry for Aquilla Jones and Lettie Cook, taken from “Tennessee, County Marriages, 1789-1837,” on FamilySearch indicates that they were married in April of 1798 in Davidson County, Tennessee.  The actual record page stated that the date shown in the index was actually an “issue date,” apparently of the license. A look at the actual page […]

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Why Can’t Ancestry.com Suggest the Joseph Who Never Moves?

Things like this are why I wonder about the search algorithms at Ancestry.com that generate search suggestions. In 1870 and 1880, Irish native Joseph Neill is living in Saint Albans Township in Hancock County, Illinois. His enumerations are fairly consistent and Ancestry.com has transcribed them faithfully. 1870-Joseph Neil, aged 27 (born about 1843), native of Ireland 1880-Joseph Neill, […]

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How Far Down the Chain Do You Go?

There are genealogists who attempt to trace every possible relative that they can find, no matter how distant they are and no matter how remotely related they are. I understand that. I understand the reasons for that. I get the desire to “search” and the excitement over “finding people.” Distant relatives can sometimes hold the […]

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He Backtracked, But Did She?

Not every immigrant stayed in their new country. That’s the apparent case with Gerd Behrens who arrived in the United States in 1858. What is known: Gerd and Trientje (Claassen) Behrens arrived on 28 August 1858 in New York City on board the New York. Their destination per the manifest was Illinois and listed directly after Gerd […]

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Getting Back to Reading

After having it for some time, I’m finally starting to read Staking Her Claim: Women Homesteading the West. My immediate homesteaders were married couples in Nebraska in the 1880s. Hensley’s book focuses on slightly later claims from slightly further west (for reasons she mentions clearly in the introduction). I have two female relatives that started homestead […]

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My Ancestors in Ships

Immigrant Challenge: I still have some blanks to go on my chart of immigrant ancestors. It is not complete in two ways: I have immigrants for whom I don’t have arrival information I have ancestors who were probably immigrants that are not on this list (particularly in my early New England ancestors) The name of […]

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