I posted this quite a few years ago, but it has been updated with additional details of the marriage location of my parents through my great-great-grandparents. The only one I “know” was in a church was my parents’ wedding. The others who were married by a minister probably had it done at the parsonage or […]

If you subscribed to Casefile Clues after our recent offer, you should have received your back issues and a confirmation email. If you did not, please email me at the email address in your receipt (mjnrootdig@gmail.com). The offer is still good today for those who might have missed it (12 free issues). Casefile Clues strives to be […]

Years ago, I copied several records from the Bethany United Church of Christ in Tioga, Hancock County, Illinois. There were quite a few clues in those records–including the Bible verses on which funeral sermons were based. The image on this post is the death entry for Franciska Trautvetter, who died on 15 January 1888. The […]

How closely do you look for clues in the backgrounds of pictures? When the below was enlarged, there was a faint shadow as shown in the oval: Had I not known where the photograph was taken, the church would have been a clue. It is the Immanuel Lutheran Church east of Basco in Hancock County, […]

We’re excited that Casefile Clues is back up and running. Writing is a great way to improve your research (speaking just for me) and reading about records, analysis, interpretation, and methodology is great for readers. Subscribe by 30 July and we’ll send free 11 issues. Subscriptions normally start with the next issue, but we’ll send the […]

Indexes make some research faster and some research seemingly slower. In research, we generally only cite the index to a record when: the record is no longer extant and the index is all there is the index contains information about the indexed person that is not in the original record Even if there is an […]

We’re excited that Casefile Clues is back up and running. Writing is a great way to improve your research (speaking just for me) and reading about records, analysis, interpretation, and methodology is great for readers. Subscribe by 30 July and we’ll send free 11 issues. Subscriptions normally start with the next issue, but we’ll send the […]

Nancy Rampley fought repeatedly for a pension based upon her husband Riley’s service in Company D of the 78th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. That was bad for her, but good for her descendants in that a special examiner was sent out to obtain testimony from Nancy and several of her neighbors. Nancy’s sixteen-page testimony, given on […]

Searches at FamilySearch with the “exact box” unchecked will catch spelling variants. It is worth noting that the variants they catch may not be the ones you would think that they would. Sometimes the ones they catch are not the obvious ones. Sometimes the ones they miss are ones that are Soundex equivalent to the name being […]