Michael John Neill's Genealogy Website
The beauty of full-text searches is that it facilitates the finding of references that otherwise would take a great deal of time or simply be impractical. That’s the case with these entries for the Albers name from the 1882 Denver, Colorado, directory (from Corbett and Ballenger). All the Albers entries are related to each other. […]
[from 20 May 2015] I use the online trees for the occasional clue. However in reviewing many of these trees while searching for research leads this week, I was reminded that apparently not everyone is aware of the following: People do not marry after they die. People do not have children after they are dead. […]
My original genealogy database started in the mid-1980s when I began using Personal Ancestral File. I did not include sources in those early days. I’m not even sure that one could really cite sources back then, but I was careful to obtain information from “somewhere.” “Somewhere” was defined rather loosely, but it was made clear […]
When Tonjes Jurgens Ehmen wrote his will in 1864, it appeared as if his wife, Schwantje, was living in Germany. There was no clear reference in Tonjes’ probate paper indicating she immigrated to the United States. Apparently by late 1875 Schwantje was in the United States as she appears as the grantee on a deed referenced […]
Published in 1992, Ann Lainhart’s 1992, State Census Records, is an overview of what state censuses were taken, what information they contain, and how (as of 1992) to access them. It is not an index of all these records. Instead it is meant to provide an overview of non-Federal census records. As such, it’s a handy […]
The “name’s the same” can be a big problem–even when that name is not too common. There were two Menne Adens who lived in the Golden, Adams County, Illinois, area: Menne Hinrich Aden, born about 1865 in Adams County, Illinois. Menne Ehme Aden, born about 1867 in Adams County, Illinois. Both men were named for […]
There are times when I really wonder just how many genealogists are really involved in the construction of the website interface at Ancestry.com. This is one of those times. I was usingAncestry.com‘s “Illinois, Wills and Probate Records, 1772-1999” to look at the 1885-era Adams County, Illinois, probate file for Heinrich Mennen Aden. I was hoping to […]
Genealogists who have used Family History Library microfilm known that it is not unusual for items to be on a roll of microfilm that do not appear in the catalog entry for that film. Sometimes microfilmers film an unusual small book or a few pieces of paper that really don’t “fit” with the other records. Sometimes […]
My trip to Salt Lake in May/June 2017 is half full. We spend an entire week in Salt Lake–researching at the Family History Library, analyzing findings, and deciding where to go next. Our “social” time is minimal as we know people are there to research. For additional details on the trip, visit our complete post.
