I’ve given you lot of different places to look for information about your ancestors.   Some people may think that once they’ve found the basics on a person, that’s enough.  It’s not.  Why should you want the details? Let me give you an example.  John Pliny Crysler lived in Williamsburg, Ontario in the early 1800s.  I [...]

If you had a birth record for a child that gives the date and place of birth and his parents’ names, would that be enough?  Would you stop there or would you look for other records?  I hope you said you’d look for other records and sources. If you had a birth record AND a [...]

Too many people see something about their family genealogy in print and they accept it for truth without questioning its validity AND too much genealogy in print is WRONG!  What we need is more people who approach research as if they were Clark Kent aka Superman.  These people have the analytical reporter’s eye of Clark [...]

Hopefully by now, you are thinking outside the box.  Rather than a narrow view of looking at one record and then concluding that you cannot solve your problem, you are looking at all possible sources including censuses, land, military, probate, etc., and are expanding your search to include siblings, in-laws, neighbors, and associates. Let me [...]

So now you know how to find a deed, the terminology in it, and the parts of a deed.   You should abstract and transcribe the deed.  Then, plot the location of the parcel along with the neighbors.  You may find the neighbors by reading the boundaries of the parcel in the property description.  Next, overlay [...]

In the movie “Far and Away,” Joseph (played by Tom Cruise) is at his father’s death bed.  His father dies and Joseph begins to mourn. All of a sudden, his father raises his hand and grabs Joseph and says, “Joseph, I’ve got something to tell you … Joseph you’re an especially odd boy.” Joseph responds [...]

If you’ve been doing research for any length of time, you’ve probably hit a spot where you’ve wondered where to go next.  Maybe you weren’t familiar with the locality or record type you needed to search. Where could you go for help besides reading my blog?  I would hope you’d read me first, then if [...]

One particular problem drove me crazy. Daniel Chaplin had married Minerva (—?—) in New York. For years I searched everything I could find. I searched land records, studied their neighbors, followed them to Jones County, Iowa, read about Daniel’s death, Minerva’s remarriage, land sales with her second husband, and her death, but her maiden name [...]

I was searching for Olive (Slade) Twogood’s parents and siblings.   I found her in the 1850 U.S. census, age 45, born in New York.   On the next page of the census but living next door is Gideon Slade Jr., age 38, also born in New York[1] I formed the premise that Gideon might be Olive’s [...]

Are you having trouble finding a woman in your family line? Most of you have at least one where you still don’t know the maiden name of some member of your family, or a daughter married but you don’t know her married name. You searched all the online sources you know about and still struck [...]