Avoiding Ancestor Identity Mix-Ups

Let’s face it—it can be hard to tell your ancestors apart from others with similar names, ages, and residences. It’s especially hard when all you have to go on is a single record, a short listing in an index or database, or a name in someone else’s online family tree.

In fact, it’s kind of like picking your suitcase out from a long line of similarly sized and colored bags on the baggage claim belt. How can you be sure you’ve got the right one?

That’s a problem every genealogist faces at some point. So it’s good to have a few strategies up your sleeve. After all, who wants to waste time tracking a false lead, or have to go back and prune stray branches off their tree later?

Which is precisely the reason I wrote my latest article, “Mistaken Identities,” for Family Tree Magazine. In it, I offer seven strategies for making sure the records you claim actually belong to your ancestors.

All seven strategies are easy to implement, and can help you keep your genealogy hunt on track. I talk about:

• the best way to use online family trees
• how to see what’s behind an index or database listing
• how tools like charts and timelines can help
• what a map can show you
• why you should get to know your ancestor's network
• the danger of making assumptions
• how to play devil’s advocate to settle tricky questions

The article is filled with details and examples. You’ll find it in the January/February 2016 issue of Family Tree Magazine. For a little preview, check out my interview with Lisa Louise Cooke in this newly-released podcast. It was a real thrill for me to talk with Lisa, who I’ve admired for a long time.

The current issue of Family Tree Magazine has a lot of other great articles too, all aimed at being “Your 2016 Genealogy Discovery Guide.” Authors include Sunny Jane Morton, Harold Henderson, David Fryxell, Karin Berry, Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, Denise Levenick, and Maureen Taylor. If you’re not a subscriber, you might be able to find a copy at your local bookstore (my Barnes & Noble’s carries it), or see the Family Tree Magazine website to order one. You can also get it as a digital download if you prefer.

I hope you find the article helpful and inspiring. I’d love to hear your feedback, as well as any other tips you might have for avoiding mix-ups. Here’s wishing you a successful year of finding your ancestors!

--Shelley

Photo of flight baggage by skeddy in NYC, used under terms of Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license

Finding Ohio War of 1812 Soldiers: Tuesday's Tip

Do you have an male ancestor who was born between 1762-1799, and might have been living in Ohio by 1814? If so, you may want to check the Roster of Ohio Soldiers in the War of 1812 to see if he served in the Ohio Militia during that conflict.

The Roster, compiled by the Adjutant General of Ohio in 1916, is a unique resource for identifying a potential War of 1812 soldier. Required by an act of the state’s General Assembly in 1915, the compilation includes the names of 1759 officers and 24,521 enlisted men.

Militia companies in the War of 1812 were organized by the name of the captain or lieutenant, rather than by a regiment number (as was customary during the Civil War). Most militia units were raised within a particular county, so if you find your ancestor’s name, you might also discover what county he lived in. Or if you know the county but are dealing with a common name, you can see if there's a potential match.

Here’s a sample listing of a unit I'm interested in. This is Capt. William Kendall’s Company, a cavalry unit from Scioto County: (by the way, that’s pronounced “sci” as in “sci-fi”)

Image from: Adjutant General of Ohio, Roster of Ohio Soldiers in the War of 1812
(1916; reprint, Westminster, Maryland: Heritage Books, 2007), p. 148.

The Roster of Ohio Soldiers in the War of 1812 has been reprinted in handy paperback size by Heritage Books. I have it, and like being able to browse through it in print. Most libraries with a large genealogical collection, including main county libraries in Ohio, should have it or the original hardback edition on their shelves. But for those with a subscription, it’s also available as a searchable database on Ancestry.com, with images of every page. It's nice that there are multiple ways to access the information.

Dorene Paul, the Graveyard Rabbit of Sandusky Bay, gave another good tip on finding more about the War of 1812 in Ohio in her recent post, “Battle of Lake Erie Bicentennial,” so I recommend you hop over and read it. And if you’re wondering where I got those birth years of 1762-1799 for the soldiers, I need to give full credit to Family Tree Magazine, which posted this cool graphic on its Facebook page awhile back:

That kind of gets you thinking, doesn’t it? Especially since military records can be fantastic sources of information. Could you have an ancestor who served in the Ohio Militia from 1812-1814? If so, good luck with your search!

--Shelley

Related posts:

200 Years Ago Today: The War of 1812 Begins

OGS 2013 Conference: Day Two

Finding Daughters by Searching on Father's Name: Tuesday's Tip

Last Friday night, the Twitter airwaves were busy with people sharing their tips for finding female ancestors on #GenChat. Jen Baldwin has compiled many of them into a Storify piece. One question that arose was: how do you find a woman in later records if you don’t know who she married, or where? If you don’t know her married name, you might not be able to find her death record, for example—and death records can be a particularly rich source of information.

There’s a little technique I’ve found helpful in some of these situations. It doesn’t work every time, but when it does, it’s a gem. Any online death index (or birth or marriage index, for that matter) that’s searchable by father’s name is a good candidate. Since I the use “Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953” database on FamilySearch.org constantly, I’ll use that as an example.

A few weeks ago I was searching for the death record of Rebecca Clark, daughter of George Clark and Rachel Orr. I had her name and approximate birth date from census records, but lost track of her when she left her father’s household. I turned to the “Ohio Deaths” collection on FamilySearch, and entered only her first name, Rebecca, leaving the space for the last name blank. Then I clicked on “Parents” under “Search by a Relationship.” I entered her father’s name, George Clark. I usually don’t enter a mother’s name unless I get too many results. I didn’t enter any geographic information, since I didn’t know where she was living when she died.

With that little bit of information—her first name and father’s name—I hit the Search button, and up popped a list of people whose death certificates show George or Geo. Clark as their father. Those named Rebecca were at the top, and the one I was looking for happened to be first on the list. Her married name was Cook, and just like that I discovered her birth and death dates (at least, as they were reported on this record). How easy is that?

Now, I admit this is a pretty simple example. You might ask why I didn’t just search for a marriage record—and in this case, Rebecca’s marriage record is also easy to locate. But sometimes you can’t find a marriage record, or a woman marries for a second or third time and becomes difficult to track. This little trick may be just what you need in those cases.

The same technique also sometimes reveals a child (male or female) who was born and died between census enumerations, and whose only record is on an old county death register. Many of the county death registers I’ve seen only put the parents’ names if the person who died was young. So if you try it, keep your eye out for an unexpected result.

So, just a little tip, a small tool to add to that ever-growing toolbox that each family historian depends on. Another of my favorites is Using Obituaries to Find Married Names. Gena Philibert-Ortega is doing a wonderful series this month on "Researching Your Female Ancestors" on her blog, Gena’s Genealogy, with a different resource featured every day. She’s giving me a lot of new ideas that I hope will help with finding and understanding the women in my family. And Lisa Alzo is encouraging bloggers to share their findings with “Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.” What's your favorite?

--Shelley 

Related Posts:

Polly Scheirer Comfort: A Fearless Female

Using Obituaries to Find Married Names

The Legacy of Mary Comfort Eberhard

Early American Roads and Trails: Tuesday's Tip

An old mile marker on the National Road near Hebron, Ohio

Have you ever wondered how your ancestors got from one place to another? Most families moved to a new locality within America at least once. Today I’d like to spotlight a resource that can help you figure out the migration path they might have taken. It’s a free website created by Beverly Whitaker, MA, called Early American Roads and Trails. Beverly, a professional genealogist in Kansas City, Missouri, has assembled individual guides to 18 of the most popular frontier migration routes.

Early American Roads and Trails gives a brief overview of each route, to help you determine which one(s) might be of interest to you. Once that’s done, you can download a free two-page PDF document that details the trail’s traffic, features, timeline, route, and map. Each document provides a gold mine of information to help put your ancestor’s move into historical perspective, and to use as a springboard for more in-depth research.

For example, my immigrant German ancestor, Johan Adam Rausch, signed his oath of allegiance in Philadelphia upon his arrival there in 1736. The next solid record I have for him is a land grant he received from Thomas Lord Fairfax for 400 acres in what is now Shenandoah County, Virginia, in 1773. How did he get from southeastern Pennsylvania to the Shenandoah Valley? The answer becomes clear in the PDF guide to The Great Valley Road, which brought hundreds of German and Scots-Irish families into the region during that time period.

In addition to the detailed trail guides, Beverly Whitaker offers some suggestions for further migration route research, and provides a link to her personal bibliography. Her companion site, American Migration Patterns, provides helpful links to a number of other websites and resources. Think your ancestors might have traveled by river or canal, rather than over land? Check out all the resources listed on yet another of her sites, American Rivers and Waterways. Trust me, you can lose yourself in this stuff for days at a time.

Together, Beverly’s websites can help you find the information you need to connect the pieces of your ancestor’s puzzle as he moved from place to place. Kudos to her for sharing these resources so freely.

What routes did your ancestors take in their journey through America?

--Shelley

Related Posts:

Social History Resources for Genealogists

Finding Historical Maps for Genealogy

Finding Historical Maps for Genealogy

Maps and history go hand in hand. While they may not be the first resource that springs to mind, maps and atlases are great visual aids to learning about your family history as well. While a current map or atlas will do, there’s nothing that compares to a historical map created around your ancestor’s lifetime. I’ve found that studying an old map can open my eyes and give me ideas about things I might not have thought about otherwise.

Historical maps can help you visualize where your ancestors lived, recognize the waterways and natural features of the area, and identify towns and cities where they might have left records. And maps are particularly crucial for understanding how an ancestor migrated from one place to another. On a map, it’s easy to see why rivers, creeks, and lakes were such important routes of travel, and how mountains stood as such formidable barriers to settlement. Some maps illustrate changes in county and state borders. Others show the routes of early roads, canals, and railroads.

So where do you find these gems? Libraries and archives, certainly, are great places to start. While almost all libraries have maps and atlases, some boast particularly impressive collections. But what if you live far from the area you’re interested in? Well, we live in a wonderful age. Many libraries and even private collectors have been busy digitizing their map collections and making them available online, free of charge. Long story short: the internet has made finding historical maps and atlases easier than ever before.

Some of my favorite map collections include:

David Rumsey Historical Map Collection:

www.davidrumsey.com

David Rumsey is a cartographer who has amassed one of the largest private historical map collections in the U.S., if not the world. Over the last decade or so, he’s created high resolution scans of about 32,000 of his maps and made them freely available on his website. The more time I spend exploring his site, the more treasures I find, like this map of the (then) Western States, published in 1832. The viewing tools are amazing. Best of all, you can export and print his maps for your own non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license. 

Map of the Western States, 1832, David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

Historical Map Archive:

http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps

Created by the University of Alabama in conjunction with other organizations, this collection includes maps indexed by state, region, country, continent, and hemisphere. Particularly helpful are maps organized by topics, such as the American Revolution, the Mississippi River, Native Americans, and railroads.

American Memory Map Collections:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml   

Developed by the Library of Congress from its Geography and Maps Division, this is a treasure trove of American maps. The maps are conveniently organized by topics and indexed by geographic location and subject. The collection includes searchable Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps (under the “Cities and Towns” tab).

Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection:

www.lib.utexas.edu/maps

This large online collection of world and U.S. maps has been created by the University of Texas at Austin. Historical city and state maps and topographic maps are some of the highlights for genealogists. All states and regions of the world are represented, although the collection is particularly strong for Texas.

Emerson Kent History Map Archive:

www.emersonkent.com/maps.htm

This international collection of antiquarian maps is indexed chronologically and by continent. The website also includes a number of historical documents and helpful history research tools.

Norman B. Leventhal Map Center:

http://maps.bpl.org

The Boston Public Library has made this impressive collection of U.S. and world historical maps available. Maps may be downloaded at no cost, or you can purchase high quality reproductions.

Historic Map Works:

www.historicmapworks.com

This collection includes antiquarian maps, U.S. property atlases, and Canada and world maps. Maps are organized geographically and by points of interest (such as cemeteries, hospitals, streams, etc.). While you can view an image freely online, you must register and pay to download or print a watermarked image. If you find your ancestor’s name on a township map, as I did, however, you may not mind the $1 print charge. Subscriptions are available.

While not technically map collections, no discussion of genealogical map tools would be complete without the following:

Atlas of Historical County Boundaries:

http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp

The Newberry Library in Chicago has developed an awesome tool for finding U.S. county boundaries through the years on this interactive website. After a quick read-through of the directions on their “Using the Atlas” page, you’ll be off and running. You can print the maps for your own use, and can download files to use with Google Earth and Google Maps.

Randy Majors Maps:

http://randymajors.com/p/maps.html

Randy Majors has also constructed a tool to show historical U.S. county boundary maps and world boundary maps in an easy-to-use interface.

Old Maps Online:

www.oldmapsonline.org

This U.K.-based site essentially serves as a search engine to find historical maps on your geographic area of interest. Collections searched include the British Library, Moravian Library (Czech Republic), National Library of Scotland, and the New York Public Library.

Wikimedia Commons Maps of the United States:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_of_the_United_States
A large number of public domain map images, useful for blogs and publications, broken down by categories. Maps of other countries are also available on Wikimedia Commons.

There are many more historical map collections available online, many of which specialize in a particular area. I love discovering new ones. Which are your favorites? Do you know of a map collection or map tool I should explore?

Related Posts:

My Favorite Genealogy Calculators

Social History Resources for Genealogists

Free Cemetery Databases

A Hatful of Irish Resources

Recently my pint glass inbox has been overflowing with posts about Irish records, resources, and databases. I felt compelled to scoop them up in one place so I can come back to them again and again. I’m hoping some of you might feel the same way. So in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here’s a collection of Irish research leads--with a grateful tip of the hat to the authors:

Blog Posts:

• Tracing Your Irish Ancestors by Lynn Palermo, The Armchair Genealogist
• 16 Top Web Sites for Researching Irish Ancestors by Kimberly Powell, About.com
• Put Some Green in Your Genealogy by Carolyn Barkley, Genealogy and Family History
• Ancestry Adds More Irish Records by Claire Santry, Irish Genealogy News
• Free Handouts from Irish Genealogy Talks by Claire Santry, Irish Genealogy News
• The Certificate Read ‘Place of Death: The Workhouse’ by Jennifer Geraghty-Gorman, On a Flesh and Bone Foundation
• Tips on Exploring Your Irish Family Tree by Diane Haddad, The Genealogy Insider

Resource Compilations:

• Finding Irish Family: Research Aids by Jennifer Geraghty-Gorman, On a Flesh and Bone Foundation
• Irish Genealogy Toolkit by Claire Santry, Irish Genealogy News
• Irish Research links by Donna Moughty, Donna Moughty’s Genealogy Resources

Databases:

• RootsIreland.ie
• FindMyPast.ie
• Irish Origins

Web Radio Shows:

• Geneabloggers Radio Episode 59: Tracing Your Irish Roots (now archived) and show notes (this was a wonderfully informative episode)

Education Announcements:

• Advanced Methodology for Irish Research at the 2012 British Institute in Salt Lake City, on Adventures in Genealogy Education
• An Evening with the Ulster Historical Foundation (March 23, 2012), by the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania
• Irish Research 201: Using Irish Genealogical Records (discount on course starting April 2) at Family Tree University. I'm signed up for this and looking forward to learning from Sharon DeBartolo Carmack.

Heritage/Family History

• Family Recipe Friday: Ready for St. Patrick’s Day? by Cheryl Cayemberg, Have You Seen My Roots? (sounds yummy)
• Fearless Females: A Revolutionary: Annie Magee and the Cumann na mBan by Jennifer Geraghty-Gorman, On a Flesh and Bone Foundation

As you can see, it's been a great month for discovering Irish resources. There are undoubtedly even more that I didn’t catch. If you wrote or read something that could be added to this list, please let me know. Where do you turn for help with your Irish research?

And finally, here's a wee Irish blessing for your St. Patrick's Day:

               May your pockets be heavy
               And your heart be light,

               May good luck pursue you

               Each morning and night.

Related Posts:

Irish is an Attitude

Using LibraryThing for Genealogy

I love books. Besides reading for pleasure—something I don’t have nearly as much time as I’d like for—I have a growing collection of genealogy books. I’ve got hefty reference volumes, guides to particular states and time periods, books on German and Irish research, citation and standards manuals, family histories, and books on writing and editing. Now I don’t know about you, but my memory isn’t up to maintaining a running inventory of what I do or don’t have. How do I keep track of it all? LibraryThing.

LibraryThing allows each member to create his or her own personal library catalog. Here in one place, easily accessed from any computer or smartphone anywhere, I can see all my books at a glance. It came in especially handy in September in the Exhibit Hall of the FGS Conference, as I pondered whether I had already purchased a couple of books (or had I just thought about buying them before?) All I had to do was pull the website up on my phone and check my catalog.

Using LibraryThing is simple. You’ll need to create an account with a user name and password to get started. Once you’re in, just go to the “Add Books” tab and enter a title, author, or ISBN number. In most cases the book will pop up in the right-hand column, and you just select it. You can search for the book in the Library of Congress, Amazon.com, or LibraryThing’s own Overcat directory. You can also tag the book with descriptive keywords. My tags include citations, family histories, history, maps, methodology, photography, resources, standards, technology, and writing, among others.

Best of all, LibraryThing (www.librarything.com) is free for accounts with up to 200 books. If your library exceeds that, you can choose an amount to contribute for a yearly or lifetime unlimited membership. You have the option of making your profile public or keeping it private.

There’s also a social networking aspect to LibraryThing, which I admit I haven’t used to its fullest. But it can be fun to see who has some of the same books as you do, and you might spot a title you want to check out on someone else’s list. You can make connections with other members, read or write book reviews, find recommendations, join groups, participate in forums, and more.

I’ve found that one key to using LibraryThing effectively is keeping it up-to-date. After spending the initial time to enter my books and tag them, I realized I had to make it a habit to do the same with each new purchase. So whenever I get a new book, I lay it beside my computer to remind me to enter it into my catalog. It doesn’t move until it’s in there. Works for me.

Now we’ll see if Santa delivers any new titles to add…

(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with LibraryThing in any way. I just like using their free service and think others might, too.) 


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My Favorite Genealogy Calculators 
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Social History Resources for Genealogists

Of all the myriad aspects of genealogy, I think I find social history the most fascinating. I love learning more about the times and places my ancestors lived, and the issues and events that shaped their lives. Whether they faced a flood or drought, endured war, traveled by canal boat, or raised a family on the frontier, studying social history can bring their times to life.

I turn to social and topical history websites frequently, particularly when I’m trying to write a biographical sketch for an ancestor or put an event in perspective. So I thought a list of some of my favorite go-to social history sites would make a good addition to my Research Tools (see tab above). Here they are:

American Heritage (by American Heritage Magazine, with articles on time periods, topics, and historic travel):

http://www.americanheritage.com/

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers Project, 1936-1940 (oral histories and narratives compiled by WPA):

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/

American Memory, The Library of Congress (a huge assortment of collections on all aspects of American history):

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/index.html

American Women’s Letters and Diaries (a bibliography of resources on women’s experiences):

http://frank.mtsu.edu/~kmiddlet/history/women/wld.html

GenDisasters (articles and photos on “events that touched our ancestor’s lives”):

http://www3.gendisasters.com/

Genwriters (a great site with information and links on social history and writing resources for genealogists):

http://www.genwriters.com/index.html

HEARTH Home Economics Archive (Cornell University’s fantastic collection of materials on home life, cooking, child rearing, and more):

http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/h/hearth/index.html

19^th Century American Cultural History (short overviews with links by Lone Star College Kingswood Library; 20^th Century also):

http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/19thcentury.html

Ohio Memory (a growing collection of Ohio images and artifacts):

http://www.ohiomemory.org/

To be honest, this list just scratches the surface of the vast amount of social history material out there. There are countless specialized resources on topics such as the Civil War, railroads, immigration, and more. I often start by looking at the links that Cyndi has compiled on Cyndi’s List—a terrific resource for any aspect of genealogy. For information on a specific locality, I’ve had good luck finding old county histories on Google Books.

If you can find it, I highly recommend Bringing Your Family History to Life through Social History, by Katherine Scott Sturdevant. It’s inspiring, motivating, and educational, and I absolutely love it. It’s been out of print for some time, but you might be able to find a copy in your local library, or through Amazon.

I’m sure there are many more resources I could add here. If you have a favorite you’d like to share, let me know with a comment below. Just one word of caution: it’s awfully easy to lose track of time when browsing through social history sites (or maybe that’s just me)!

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Photo of log cabin, Portage County, Ohio, c. Shelley Bishop, 2011.

My Favorite Genealogy Calculators - Tech Tuesday

Just like their physical counterparts, online genealogy calculators can save time and reduce errors. Need to figure a birth date from a tombstone that gives the deceased’s date of death and age in years, months, and days? There’s a tool for that. Curious to figure out how much an estate valued at $1500 in 1870 would be worth today? No sweat. Need to find out when Whitsunday fell in 1796? (I did, to determine a death date.) Done in a flash.

Below are some of my favorite sites offering free genealogy calculation and conversion tools. They will be the first resources listed in my new Research Tools page, which you can get to by clicking on the tab above. I’m hoping these tools will help make your research faster, easier, and more productive.

Ancestor Search Genealogy Calculators & Calendar Tools: http://www.searchforancestors.com/utility/  (12 easy-to-use conversion utilities)

Birthdate Calculator by Olive Tree Genealogy: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ote/birthcalc.htm   (figure a birth date from a death date and age)

Birth Year from Census Age: http://www.wdbj.net/gen/birthyear/cenindx.html (figure a birth year or range of years from census information)

Date of Easter: http://www.cactus2000.de/uk/unit/massost.shtml (find dates of 5 spring church holidays since 1583)

Historical Currency Conversions: http://futureboy.us/fsp/dollar.fsp (a simple utility for determining today’s monetary value)

Rosetta Calendar: http://www.rosettacalendar.com/ (convert between Gregorian, Julian, and Hebrew calendars)

TimeandDate.com: http://www.timeanddate.com/ (handy calendar, time zone, full moon, and distance finders)

U.K. The National Archives Currency Converter: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/default0.asp#mid

(find relative values of old British money—particularly helpful in Colonial and Revolutionary-era research)

I hope these will help you find some quick answers to some of your questions regarding dates, calendars, and monetary values. Happy hunting!

(Note: I am indebted to Thomas MacEntee for the idea of creating a Research Tools page. His excellent Research Toolbox can be found on his blog, Destination Austin Family. You can buy a CD of his recent webinar, "Building a Research Toolbox," produced by Legacy Family Trees, here. I have no affiliation with Legacy Family Trees, other than as a consumer who enjoys their webinars.)