Michael John Neill's Genealogy Website
What’s on your genealogical Christmas wish list? My membership to American Ancestors is one of my annual Christmas presents. There’s a few books on my list, but that’s about it. There’s a few ancestors I’d like to find, but that’s hard to put on a list for someone actually get and wrap. If you’d like to […]
Pension updates for Civil War veterans were regularly published in certain newspapers throughout the United States. In some cases these names may have been published a significant distance from where the individual lived. This item from January of 1890 comes from an Indianapolis newspaper and contains a list of Illinois and Indiana residents who had […]
It was probably one of the first guidebooks I ever read and it’s one of the best. But it’s not one with quick answers, fancy images, and little sidebars to keep readers entertained. Genealogy research isn’t filled with any of those things either. Most of my genealogy research skills are self-taught. I didn’t attend seminars, […]
It’s not often that I encounter a marriage record for someone’s fifth marriage. This 1883 marriage between Emma Pollard and David Snavely in Cromwell, Iowa, was Emma’s fifth. It is mentioned because this was an excellent place for me to obtain the names of her parents, Clark Sargent and Mary Dingman. Every marriage record of relatives […]
“Next time, the people will let Mr. Sledd slide.” February of 1861 saw the United States on the cusp of the Civil War and apparently Nelson Sledd was “misrepresenting” the intentions of the citizens of Nicholas County, Kentucky–at least according to the Paris [Kentucky] Citizen as quoted in the Greencastle [Indiana] Banner in February of 1861 Nicholas All Right.—On Monday last, […]
The “record” for Johann Friederich Janssen in Ancestry.com‘s “Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1519-1969” makes him the poster child for reviewing the original record before doing anything with a transcription someone has made of a record. Ancestry.com has the following things wrong in Johann’s entry: His date of birth His date of baptism His place of […]
