Sourcing Your Genealogy

Comment

Comment by Liz Loveland on February 13, 2010 at 5:20pm

Posting in response to Richard I. Chesley's message to members:

I agree on the public trees. I've even found trees where families I've researched well are listed with the date for the wrong person - such that a child is listed as being born before a parent with the same name or some other similar thing. I've also found numerous errors in published genealogies. Any genealogical source is only as good as its own sources, in my humble opinion.

Comment by Terri O'Connell on December 19, 2009 at 8:56pm

Roberta, if you know where he was buried, you might contact the cemetery and see if what records they have. Contacting the funeral home the handled everything could be helpful as well. I would also try to get a copy of his death certificate if you know where he died.

Try googling the son and see what that gets you.

Comment by Roberta Baum on December 19, 2009 at 6:41pm

I am wondering if anyone can give me some pointers on finding my father's ancestry. I have his name and a picture of his headstone. I know the name of one of his children who lives in Argentina but I don't know how to contact him. My parents were not married to each other.

Comment by Katie Heitert Wilkinson on October 8, 2009 at 7:37pm

Old teachers die hard. Can't remember the number of times I told students, "your opinions are only as good as the facts you use to support them." That pretty much sums up how I feel about sourcing. I will admit, though, it's frustruating not to just jump on a fragment of information that looks or sounds promising.

Comment by JudithE.Davis on October 1, 2009 at 6:13pm

Hi all I know I did a comment about a week ago on sourcing but I have no idea where or to whom I sent it to. Cheezzzz.. But what I did say in a nut shell was that I get 90% of my information from Ancestry and whatever is good I just add to my person of interest at the time. I do print it out and it has on the bottom of the page when and where it came from. So that's part of my sourcing.

Comment by Amy Steen on September 27, 2009 at 9:58pm

Sorry for the delayed response Kate and thanks for the welcome!
Organization for me is pretty multi-faceted at this point. Depends on the need - my dad's father's family is all in one binder. Because there's only recent generations known, but lots of documents so it's easiest to keep them together. As far as things being found with them: Receiving the Naturalization papers for my great Uncle Jack - who never married - provided evidence that is was my Great grandfather who got him his first job. Also my great grandfather and his "brother" were orphan train children, many of us are familiar with the stories, however what blew me away was I was fortunate enough to have a census taker in 1900 Southwest Missouri who identified every adopted child in their area of coverage. In the Van Buren township of Newton County, Mo there are two districts comprised by 55 census pages. In those 55 census pages there were 22 children listed as "adopt" that year - yes I went page by page. Puts a whole new perspective to the orphan train deliveries for that town! There's nothing published for stories that I've found yet from that town, but evidently there should have been some just like countless other towns.
On my dad's mother's side everything is being tracked by locality at this point. Her families seemed to have traveled and lived/worked together. There is one exception (so far) for a multi-great uncle - he has his very own binder and e-file folder. Samuel Tullock was a fur trapper, little is written about him, but the more I read/research about the other more notable ones the more I find about my own ancestor either directly or indirectly. My most recent finds related to him are the fact that his brother requested to join an expedition to meet up with his brother - I got to read the hand written letter in the Mo History archive, the nugget of the letter is that he claims the fur trapper uncle has been absent for 12 years doing this. Now I have the time period for this section of his life expanded and know that his brother may have joined briefly in the trade. I don't think I ever would have found it if I hadn't wanted to understand the experience and others who were part of it.
As for the rest of her ancestor/families seemed to have traveled and somewhat lived/worked together for several generations. I can't search just one of the surnames for a county with them - I carry an index card with all the surnames - collect everything I can find only to return and while putting things together I find sisters marrying brothers, then brother/sister marrying sister/brother and then cousins marrying in one generation and again with their children in the next generation.
I would never suggest that non-traditional research and organization methods are always the answer, but be open to the possibilities. This is why being able to recreate the search is becoming just as important as the source to me. If I see similar neighbors and names popping up, I may yet find a link that ties them together and want to be able to return and expand the exploration as needed.
P.S. - I do still have a couple piles that continue to linger too!

Comment by Kate Steere on September 25, 2009 at 12:50am

Welcome Amy-
You sound like you are really trying to get at the people, really know them, not just the facts, which is great!:) Keep at it! Can you tell us how you organize your information? What are some things you've learned as you have worked on your research. :)

Comment by Amy Steen on September 24, 2009 at 8:26pm

Hello
Am I sourcing? - I'm working on it. I've been doing genealogy on and off for about 10 years more or less. The last two years I have been much more active and dedicated to being able to recreate how/where I find something. The early work still needs to be sourced and hopefully I will catch up someday. Instead of just wanting to know, I now want to know how and why as well as the what and where. Tying the history is and proving it to family or whoever else will listen is what changed my attitude and made my effort in sourcing better. :))
As for un-sourced genealogy - I take it with a grain of salt like any family legend. There may be a hint of truth in there, but I want to flush it through and be sure of what is what. It's great for leads and suggestions of where or what to try next, but in addition to the sources it's the other information that I find sorely lacking that ends up disappointing me. What did that person do, where - literally, not just state/county but street/route or district - did the person live, are there neighbors nearby worth noting? Especially ones who lead to new in-laws. So often times at least for me, knowing more of the circumstantial details will lead to the real gems. Sometimes I see it as personal challenge to see how many sources and documents I can find for a person, family or place.

Comment by CaryAnn Turner Hess on September 9, 2009 at 8:59pm

Welcome to all the new members. I’ve been on vacation, and unfortunately had an accident and will not be on much for a while (can’t really type). I appreciate all who contribute to the discussions and know we all are learning from each other. Please have fun and keep up the great discussions, Cary

Comment by Molly McKinley on August 22, 2009 at 9:29am

On Ancestry when you upload a Gedcom file it does not upload
your sources. If your upolad your Family Tree Maker file it does.
I uploaded my file through the program and it uploaded all the sources.
It is a weakness in the Gedcom file type. Maybe someone needs to update
the ability of this type of file to keep photos and sourcing.

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