My post on “Writing A Proof: Another Take” contained the phrase “Conduct a complete search of all relevant records that an experienced researcher would expect.” I’ve been thinking about that phrase, what it really means, and what I meant by it. The Genealogy Proof Standard (from the Board for Certification of Genealogists’ Genealogical Standards Manual) uses the phrase “exhaustive search” when […]

Personally I think too many people “stress” about writing a proof argument. And I think that there are a number of people who want others to think that they have discovered the “magic” formula. There is no magic formula and it’s not as difficult as one thinks. It takes practice and more practice and little […]

Tamara Jones’ article on “Dutch Naming Myths” is a good, short, to-the-point read. Those whose ancestry is pretty much English speaking with a dash of Dutch thrown in for good measure (typically because the person has 17th or 18th century ancestry in what is now the United States) would do well to read it because […]

There are several reasons why errors appear in records. Have you ever thought while filling out a form: I have too much to do and I really don’t care information I put on this form. A “they really don’t need to know this” may be added for effect. The older I get and the more […]

The ledger of my Grandfather Neill’s farm expenses only covers a few years in the early 1940s. Aside from the initial novelty of World War II era prices, it’s an interesting insight into his life. Transcribing it when I get to that point will be a slight challenge. However I do have some advantages. I […]

It can be easy to get stuck in a rut even when one is solving problems, finding answers, and making progress. One approach will not guarantee a solution to every problem. One of my go-to solutions when a person seems to appear from the sky in a new location is to consider that they’ve been […]

Regular readers know that my family tree is full of relatives who are related to me in multiple ways and with relatives with whom I share relatives through connections they have with each other but do not have with me. It’s confusing when a significant proportion of your tree came from a handful of areas […]

Years ago, early in my research I was having difficulty interpreting a phrase in an old document and was corresponding via regular mail with a distant relative about it. They told me what the phrase meant and included a phototopy of a page from a typewritten list of legal phrases and their meanings as their […]

One is not always this fortunate. This record is from the guardianship of Francis and Louise Bieger, daughters of Peter Bieger. This wonderful document gave me the dates of birth for Francis and her sister. The only drawback for the family was that the father had to die for the record to be created. How […]

It can be a good problem-solving approach: asking yourself “where did they get that?” The “that” can be anything. It can be a piece of information. It can be a piece of family history ephemera. It can be a genealogical record. Sometimes the “where” can be on multiple levels, depending up on the item and […]