The abbreviation for Kankakee, Illinois, on this change of address card for a World War II draft card struck me as funny. Abbreviations are faster for the clerk, but they may confuse the researcher.

Investigative Case Files of the Bureau of Investigation 1908-1922 (located on Fold3.com) are not just about anti-American activities during the time period around World War I. While many of the files do center around German natives living in the United States, there are materials on other individuals and other types of actions. This screen shot […]

A Facebook follower asked for additional clarification about the entry for the Smith-Kile family’s 1870 census entry that was discussed in “What Did Ancestry.com Add and Automate to this 1870 Census Entry?” and wondered if somewhere on the census page there was a notation that Ancestry.com used to “break” the census entry apart. Nope. The entire […]

It’s the automation of the research process that can create confusion. If records were completely standardized, families always lived in the same structure, and no one “colored outside the lines,” research would be easier. But they didn’t color in the lines all the time. Records are not always standardized. Families can live in more than […]

Sometimes that which we find is not pleasant. Inhumane is an understatement in this case. I first learned of the 1811 slave murder when searching for references to my Sledd family on  Genealogybank. The vast majority of  Sledd references before 1850 in  Genealogybank refer to this murder–which was not what I was actually looking for. A search of GoogleBooks located the […]