As you get to more "current" relatives (yet, maybe more distant), you probably will find yourself against more brick walls due to privacy reasons of possibly living individuals. You may not be able to get your hands on marriage records as easily..birth records as easily, etc.
There are ways to attempt to get the information by going in windows versus the doors.
I just did it and here is my example.
My great-grandfather is Arthur R LeMieux. He died in 1977. His father was Albert LeMieux. One of his brothers was Wilfred. Because of census records, I know that Wilfred had at least one son by the name of Robert with birth year of around 1913. Because of public records (I think they currently only show through 2000), I was able to determine his birth DATE of April 24th, 1913. Because of that information, I was able to match his death date of November 1995.
What I didn't have was a spouse for him. Unless I were to go to the Library of Michigan and pull newspapers from around the date of death for a possible obituary to get information (which, I could, but it's not very convenient with two kids under 6 and the library's banker hours), I had to get creative.
I knew from public records that he had lived on X Street in XX city. I did a basic search on ancestry.com for LeMieux in XX city.
BAM! One of the first couple of search results showed a Dorothy LeMieux in XX city. Once I clicked on her name, I found the answer I was looking for. Dorothy shared the same address AND her birth year was consistent with Robert's. Granted, I don't have CONCRETE evidence screaming: DOROTHY WAS MARRIED TO ROBERT, but it's pretty safe to assume she was married to him. Robert did not have a sister by that name and truly not one that was born within MONTHS of his own self.
I plugged in Dorothy's birthdate as shown by the public record and was able to obtain her death information, as well.
What I didn't have was a maiden name. Hm.
I went back to Robert's name, did a search, opted for others' "family trees" and saw someone that shared Robert in their tree, as well. I was able to obtain a possible maiden name.
But why couldn't I have just gone that route and swiped someone else's information and saved myself the trouble I mentioned above? Firstly, the person whose tree I saw did not provide a first name with the maiden name. Many times, by default, software will "hide" a person that could potentially still be living (especially if the person does not have a death date attached to them). In this case, Dorothy was simply listed as a "LIVING X MAIDEN NAME"
SO, I could've called it good, taken the maiden name at what was listed, and been done. But that brings us to SECONDLY. Secondly, you just really shouldn't take someone's information for truth. How do you know it's correct? How do you know research has been done on it and not just simply swiped from someone else?
I then went to familysearch.org (AMAZING website, in case I haven't given it mucho kudos prior), plugged in her first and maiden name along with the city/state of the area her and Robert lived in (that generation doesn't always stray far from where they were born and raised).
BOOM. Enter a census record from 1930 with the matching name and matching birth year in the SAME CITY.
Can I say FOR CERTAIN it's the same person and that what I've gotten is a 100% match? No, however, remember the if a=b and b=c then a=c theory. I am 99.9% certain this is accurate information for Robert and his spouse.
The next steps I could take to verify? I could go pull newspapers for obituaries for one or both of them to get survivor info. I could call cemeteries (chances are for the LeMieux family, they are in the local catholic cemetery) and see if they could give me maiden name information for Dorothy. I could visit the cemetery and see if there are family members of Dorothy (that match her maiden name) in the same cemetery...and, if they are in the next lot, for example, then I know.
Happy hunting! :)
Cool Link ALERT for Grand Rapids, MI
Now HERE is a link I JUST came across and COMPLETELY wish I would've had a LONG time ago when tracing some Dutch roots for my step-father. Online-Cemetery records for burials in Grand Rapids, MI cemeteries!! That DOES NOT include privately owned cemeteries or those affiliated with a church. It is those owned, maintained, etc by the CITY of Grand Rapids :)
Use it. Cemetery records are AMAZING tools:)
Grand Rapids Burial Records
Use it. Cemetery records are AMAZING tools:)
Grand Rapids Burial Records
The "LOST" Census
I guess I should have some "order" in the blog/tips, but quite honestly, I think if I don't post my "ah HA!" moments when they happen, they may be lost out there forever.
My latest "AH-HA!" moment just happened a few minutes ago.
My grandmother lived in a VERY small town of Holton. Actually, it's more of a township, I believe, though, it has a zipcode....it is considered "unincorporated". She was maybe 5 miles north of "town" on 80 acres of land her dad owned. Her dad also owned an additional 40 just north of the 80. Next to the 40, was an additional 40 that her mother's dad owned (her grandfather). That 40 was sold to the McGeever family. I knew there was a John born in '24 and Elizabeth born in 23. Elizabeth married a Wilke and they were friends of my grandma's.
I was curious to their roots so I did a search plugging in Elizabeth McGeever, her year of birth, and "holton, MI".
Nothing except for in Illinois. I know nothing about them in Illinois, as least at this point.
None even CLOSE to the Muskegon County area. Not Newaygo. Not Oceana County. NOTHING.
UGH.
You will have "UGH" moments. They are bound to happen.
Here is what I did to overcome mine (at least one of them).
I knew Elizabeth Wilke was in Holton Cemetery. I knew her maiden name was McGeever. How many McGeevers do YOU know?? Exactly. So any McGeevers in that cemetery HAVE to be related, right?
In Cemetery Transcriptions (AMAZING website, BTW), I found a Patrick and Elizabeth McGeever. The dates seemed to make sense to be parents of John and Elizabeth so I went with it. Thankfully, whomever did the transcriptions also had headstone pictures (did I mention that headstones DO NOT lie?? USE THEM!).
I found this:
Yep. See that KEY piece of information on the headstone??
Illinois. ILLI-FREAKIN'-NOIS! WOOOOOHOOOO!!!
I plugged in the same information and used ILLINOIS versus Holton.
BA DA BING:
OK..I have NO idea why the other half of the above picture is not showing, but you get the idea: THAT WAS MY MCGEEVER. When I opened the census record, John and Elizabeth were listed as kids. WIN!
If you can't find what you want in the way you are looking, completely try to go about it another way! :) I now know the McGeevers had lived in Illinois (Thanks to a little thing called a headstone :) ).
My latest "AH-HA!" moment just happened a few minutes ago.
My grandmother lived in a VERY small town of Holton. Actually, it's more of a township, I believe, though, it has a zipcode....it is considered "unincorporated". She was maybe 5 miles north of "town" on 80 acres of land her dad owned. Her dad also owned an additional 40 just north of the 80. Next to the 40, was an additional 40 that her mother's dad owned (her grandfather). That 40 was sold to the McGeever family. I knew there was a John born in '24 and Elizabeth born in 23. Elizabeth married a Wilke and they were friends of my grandma's.
I was curious to their roots so I did a search plugging in Elizabeth McGeever, her year of birth, and "holton, MI".
Nothing except for in Illinois. I know nothing about them in Illinois, as least at this point.
None even CLOSE to the Muskegon County area. Not Newaygo. Not Oceana County. NOTHING.
UGH.
You will have "UGH" moments. They are bound to happen.
Here is what I did to overcome mine (at least one of them).
I knew Elizabeth Wilke was in Holton Cemetery. I knew her maiden name was McGeever. How many McGeevers do YOU know?? Exactly. So any McGeevers in that cemetery HAVE to be related, right?
In Cemetery Transcriptions (AMAZING website, BTW), I found a Patrick and Elizabeth McGeever. The dates seemed to make sense to be parents of John and Elizabeth so I went with it. Thankfully, whomever did the transcriptions also had headstone pictures (did I mention that headstones DO NOT lie?? USE THEM!).
I found this:
Yep. See that KEY piece of information on the headstone??
Illinois. ILLI-FREAKIN'-NOIS! WOOOOOHOOOO!!!
I plugged in the same information and used ILLINOIS versus Holton.
BA DA BING:
OK..I have NO idea why the other half of the above picture is not showing, but you get the idea: THAT WAS MY MCGEEVER. When I opened the census record, John and Elizabeth were listed as kids. WIN!
If you can't find what you want in the way you are looking, completely try to go about it another way! :) I now know the McGeevers had lived in Illinois (Thanks to a little thing called a headstone :) ).
GREAT Cemetery Website for Iowa!
So, as I was plugging along on the information from my last post, I came across a website *HAVE* to share!
Iowa WPA Graves
If you have roots in Iowa, this is a MUST BOOK-MARK website. Supposedly, these are pretty complete records...more than what you will find a Find-a-Grave, etc...and so far, I've had a TON of luck!! Just plug in whatever information you know and hit search! If there is a match, the results will come back giving you full name (on record), dates of birth/death, cemetery, and location. That is awesome! I've even seen a few records where people can put sticky-post-it notes!
Bookmark it....do it now! :)
Iowa WPA Graves
If you have roots in Iowa, this is a MUST BOOK-MARK website. Supposedly, these are pretty complete records...more than what you will find a Find-a-Grave, etc...and so far, I've had a TON of luck!! Just plug in whatever information you know and hit search! If there is a match, the results will come back giving you full name (on record), dates of birth/death, cemetery, and location. That is awesome! I've even seen a few records where people can put sticky-post-it notes!
Bookmark it....do it now! :)
Obituaries, Headstones...and how they can work for you!
As I was sitting here working a line for a friend of mine, I came across a situation where I had to "think outside of the box" a little bit to get the information I needed.
I knew from a marriage record that the main person I was working on was married once, but didn't know about a second marriage until I came across his headstone as his headstone does reflect a different spouse.
That is why you've GOT to love cemeteries. They do NOT lie.
Headstone:
With that in mind, I decided to do a search for Mary L. Brand.
VOILA. Because the dates matched the headstone, I knew I had the correct person:
Mary Louise Brand, 97, of Oskaloosa, formerly of Fremont, died Saturday, Dec. 20, 2008 at Crystal Heights Care Center.Open visitation will be at the Fremont Funeral Chapel 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday. Funeral services will be 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Fremont Funeral Chapel, Rev. Todd Holman officiating. Interment will follow at Cedar Township Memorial Cemetery (South) in Fremont. Memorials may be made in her name to the Fremont Fire and Rescue.Mary was born May 21, 1911 in Kirkville to William Boyd and Mary Elizabeth Walker Nash. She graduated from Fremont High School in 1929 where she held the honor of being Valedictorian, a title she maintained for several years.She was united in marriage to Carl Anderson May 21, 1930 in Eddyville. He passed away in 1952. In 1952, Mary started working at the telephone company in Fremont as a switchboard operator and was employed there until retiring when the business closed. She also helped at the Fremont Funeral Chapel for many years. She was united in marriage to Vernal Brand in 1964. He passed away in 1983.Mary enjoyed gardening, building doll houses, raising fowl, reading, word puzzles, current events and college basketball, especially the Cyclones. She never missed attending the Fremont School Alumni Banquets until her health prevented her from going.She is survived by her sons, Rex (Dee) Anderson of Rose Hill, and Clair Anderson of Albany, Ore., 12 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents; both of her husbands; a son, William Charles Anderson; a daughter, Joy Lee Anderson and two grandsons, Allen and William Todd Anderson.Fremont Funeral Chapel in charge of arrangements.Obituary may be viewed at: www.legacy.com/ottumwacourier/Obituaries.asp
Look at ALL of that information in that obituary!!!! It's CHUCK FULL of good stuff!
We know Mary's parents (and her mother's maiden name). We know where she was born. We know where she went to school. We know she was married previously and we know her kids from her previous marriage!
Utilize cemeteries if you are able to. Most cemetery offices are very willing to look up a person for you. If you aren't able to find cemetery information, call the funeral home. If you don't know that, call more than one. It isn't like there are hundreds of funeral homes in any given city, realistically. :)
The information *IS* out there to be found :)
I knew from a marriage record that the main person I was working on was married once, but didn't know about a second marriage until I came across his headstone as his headstone does reflect a different spouse.
That is why you've GOT to love cemeteries. They do NOT lie.
Headstone:
With that in mind, I decided to do a search for Mary L. Brand.
VOILA. Because the dates matched the headstone, I knew I had the correct person:
Mary Louise Brand, 97, of Oskaloosa, formerly of Fremont, died Saturday, Dec. 20, 2008 at Crystal Heights Care Center.Open visitation will be at the Fremont Funeral Chapel 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday. Funeral services will be 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Fremont Funeral Chapel, Rev. Todd Holman officiating. Interment will follow at Cedar Township Memorial Cemetery (South) in Fremont. Memorials may be made in her name to the Fremont Fire and Rescue.Mary was born May 21, 1911 in Kirkville to William Boyd and Mary Elizabeth Walker Nash. She graduated from Fremont High School in 1929 where she held the honor of being Valedictorian, a title she maintained for several years.She was united in marriage to Carl Anderson May 21, 1930 in Eddyville. He passed away in 1952. In 1952, Mary started working at the telephone company in Fremont as a switchboard operator and was employed there until retiring when the business closed. She also helped at the Fremont Funeral Chapel for many years. She was united in marriage to Vernal Brand in 1964. He passed away in 1983.Mary enjoyed gardening, building doll houses, raising fowl, reading, word puzzles, current events and college basketball, especially the Cyclones. She never missed attending the Fremont School Alumni Banquets until her health prevented her from going.She is survived by her sons, Rex (Dee) Anderson of Rose Hill, and Clair Anderson of Albany, Ore., 12 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents; both of her husbands; a son, William Charles Anderson; a daughter, Joy Lee Anderson and two grandsons, Allen and William Todd Anderson.Fremont Funeral Chapel in charge of arrangements.Obituary may be viewed at: www.legacy.com/ottumwacourier/Obituaries.asp
Look at ALL of that information in that obituary!!!! It's CHUCK FULL of good stuff!
We know Mary's parents (and her mother's maiden name). We know where she was born. We know where she went to school. We know she was married previously and we know her kids from her previous marriage!
Utilize cemeteries if you are able to. Most cemetery offices are very willing to look up a person for you. If you aren't able to find cemetery information, call the funeral home. If you don't know that, call more than one. It isn't like there are hundreds of funeral homes in any given city, realistically. :)
The information *IS* out there to be found :)
Abundant Resources
The gastro-virus crud hit our house over the weekend so I am rather behind on posting. One thing I realized I DIDN'T cover, that is rather important, is WHERE to get the information (such as census records). I can sit here and post about using census records, but it would be nice to know WHERE you can get them, right??
Many libraries do offer a section on genealogy. Since I am in a capital city, I do have the state library 10 minutes from me....which is REALLY nice and a WEALTH of any information you could want. Granted, they specialize in more specialized state-related material, but they also have subscriptions to certain pay-for websites that can give you more information nation-wide.
SO.....a library is one place to start.
I, myself, reluctantly joined ancestry.com. I say reluctantly because it's not the cheapest thing in the world, but at the same time, there *is* a ton of information there. Add on to the convenience of not having to leave your home.
HOWEVER, I have found that there are MANY MANY things I *CANNOT* get at Ancestry. Although they do add new bits of information frequently, I still have to utilize other websites (that are free, thankfully) for things.
Census records can also be snatched at Heritage Quest
The above is "kind of" free. I access it via my driver's license number through our state library's website. I know many libraries do offer this with a login using a library card ID, state ID, etc. If you can gain access to it, search by head of household name (I've found that to be the most reliable) and then pull up the original document to see every member of the house.
I think one VERY VERY overlooked resource: CEMETERIES. How can a cemetery help you?? A cemetery can give you accurate dates, family members, etc. Think about it: if you know that John Doe is buried at Smith Cemetery, you can hit the cemetery office, find the location of his grave and look around. What you may find when you find him: A spouse buried next to him you may not have known about. Other relatives on the same lot with other spouses, kids, etc. Cemeteries are GOOD. Cemeteries are AWESOME. Cemeteries don't LIE. Use them.
If you can't get to the cemetery you need, utilize Find a Grave . Although there are millions of entries from all over on this website, entries are entered by people like you and me. You may find what you are looking for; you may not. If you know where someone is, you can make an entry and then request a photo. A photo volunteer may take a picture of the headstone(s) for you! :) Voila.
Try a search, too, in Google or another search engine for cemetery records of the county, cemetery, etc you are looking for. I've seen websites that have an entire cemetery transcribed are more complete than Find a Grave.
Try searching for a county's genealogical society. I, myself, have a TON of roots out of Muskegon County (MI) and they have a VERY in-depth website including cemetery transcriptions, etc.
The Library of Michigan has also made their death records through 1920 available online at http://seekingmichigan.org/. You can check to see if your library has followed suit.
How can death records help you?? Death records ROCK (as morbid as it sounds. Death records can give you parental names of the deceased (more times than not), birth dates, death dates, marital status at the time of death, how many children the person had and how many are living, occupation, burial location, etc.
If your library doesn't have those online, utilize Family Search through LDS I am not a fan of the original LDS search pages as I think they are WAY too complicated, but this nifty site they've done is AMAZING. It is the SECOND one I use to ancestry.com and probably the next thorough. What ancestry doesn't have, this one generally does. From a Michigan standpoint, this website has marriage records GALORE. Marriage records also give you a bride's maiden name and after a certain date, the records show parents for both parties. :) But, they also have information to various levels for every state and even other countries. You never know what you will find on this website. Use it. Use it regularly. It *WILL* give you more information than ancestry does.
Don't be afraid to consult funeral homes, as well. Many funeral homes have records dating way way back and can give you, in many instances, a wealth of information. On one instance, I had a mysterious person I just couldn't find ANYWHERE. I utilized the county (out of state), a church he was a pastor at, cemetery records, funeral homes, etc. Granted, I never found him, but I think my case is the exception to the rule.
There are websites, as well, that contain "trees" that other people have put up. They can be helpful, but I would NOT...NOT NOT NOT take any information without being able to verify things yourself. How do you know that information is reliable? I, myself, have taken a person from it to get a lead on the rest, but I don't copy anyone else's AT ALL for the reason I listed above: reliability. I've seen trees completely botched with mis-information and you can totally tell other trees were copied from each other because the SAME information/spellings/etc are exact. Had I not researched to know differently, I, too, may have had misinformation.
And by ALL means: when you find information, DOCUMENT it. I don't care HOW you do it, just do it. You can have information, but if you can't prove it, it means nothing. I like to copy and paste records from Family Search. Census records are pretty explanatory, but when it comes to maiden names, death dates, birth dates, how you came about parents names, or even any other neat bits of information, DOCUMENT where you got the information from.
Many libraries do offer a section on genealogy. Since I am in a capital city, I do have the state library 10 minutes from me....which is REALLY nice and a WEALTH of any information you could want. Granted, they specialize in more specialized state-related material, but they also have subscriptions to certain pay-for websites that can give you more information nation-wide.
SO.....a library is one place to start.
I, myself, reluctantly joined ancestry.com. I say reluctantly because it's not the cheapest thing in the world, but at the same time, there *is* a ton of information there. Add on to the convenience of not having to leave your home.
HOWEVER, I have found that there are MANY MANY things I *CANNOT* get at Ancestry. Although they do add new bits of information frequently, I still have to utilize other websites (that are free, thankfully) for things.
Census records can also be snatched at Heritage Quest
The above is "kind of" free. I access it via my driver's license number through our state library's website. I know many libraries do offer this with a login using a library card ID, state ID, etc. If you can gain access to it, search by head of household name (I've found that to be the most reliable) and then pull up the original document to see every member of the house.
I think one VERY VERY overlooked resource: CEMETERIES. How can a cemetery help you?? A cemetery can give you accurate dates, family members, etc. Think about it: if you know that John Doe is buried at Smith Cemetery, you can hit the cemetery office, find the location of his grave and look around. What you may find when you find him: A spouse buried next to him you may not have known about. Other relatives on the same lot with other spouses, kids, etc. Cemeteries are GOOD. Cemeteries are AWESOME. Cemeteries don't LIE. Use them.
If you can't get to the cemetery you need, utilize Find a Grave . Although there are millions of entries from all over on this website, entries are entered by people like you and me. You may find what you are looking for; you may not. If you know where someone is, you can make an entry and then request a photo. A photo volunteer may take a picture of the headstone(s) for you! :) Voila.
Try a search, too, in Google or another search engine for cemetery records of the county, cemetery, etc you are looking for. I've seen websites that have an entire cemetery transcribed are more complete than Find a Grave.
Try searching for a county's genealogical society. I, myself, have a TON of roots out of Muskegon County (MI) and they have a VERY in-depth website including cemetery transcriptions, etc.
The Library of Michigan has also made their death records through 1920 available online at http://seekingmichigan.org/. You can check to see if your library has followed suit.
How can death records help you?? Death records ROCK (as morbid as it sounds. Death records can give you parental names of the deceased (more times than not), birth dates, death dates, marital status at the time of death, how many children the person had and how many are living, occupation, burial location, etc.
If your library doesn't have those online, utilize Family Search through LDS I am not a fan of the original LDS search pages as I think they are WAY too complicated, but this nifty site they've done is AMAZING. It is the SECOND one I use to ancestry.com and probably the next thorough. What ancestry doesn't have, this one generally does. From a Michigan standpoint, this website has marriage records GALORE. Marriage records also give you a bride's maiden name and after a certain date, the records show parents for both parties. :) But, they also have information to various levels for every state and even other countries. You never know what you will find on this website. Use it. Use it regularly. It *WILL* give you more information than ancestry does.
Don't be afraid to consult funeral homes, as well. Many funeral homes have records dating way way back and can give you, in many instances, a wealth of information. On one instance, I had a mysterious person I just couldn't find ANYWHERE. I utilized the county (out of state), a church he was a pastor at, cemetery records, funeral homes, etc. Granted, I never found him, but I think my case is the exception to the rule.
There are websites, as well, that contain "trees" that other people have put up. They can be helpful, but I would NOT...NOT NOT NOT take any information without being able to verify things yourself. How do you know that information is reliable? I, myself, have taken a person from it to get a lead on the rest, but I don't copy anyone else's AT ALL for the reason I listed above: reliability. I've seen trees completely botched with mis-information and you can totally tell other trees were copied from each other because the SAME information/spellings/etc are exact. Had I not researched to know differently, I, too, may have had misinformation.
And by ALL means: when you find information, DOCUMENT it. I don't care HOW you do it, just do it. You can have information, but if you can't prove it, it means nothing. I like to copy and paste records from Family Search. Census records are pretty explanatory, but when it comes to maiden names, death dates, birth dates, how you came about parents names, or even any other neat bits of information, DOCUMENT where you got the information from.
Census Records
Probably one of the most popular resources for genealogy: CENSUS records. Census records will give you a TON of great information including all people in the household, their ages, their marital status, their relationship to the head of the household, their place of birth, parental places of birth, etc and so on. Census records are probably the most readily available and probably the best place to start.
One word of caution with census records: transcription errors. Census records are only as accurate as the person taking them. Watch for spelling errors. If you see SMYTH as a last name when you are looking for SMITH and all the residents names match, chances are that SMYTH really should be SMITH. You are ok to use that SMYTH record if everything else matches. This is a FREQUENT occurrence with immigrants' names coming from the Netherlands and Denmark!!! Just match all information before deciding if it's the same family you are looking for.
**AND...it wasn't uncommon to see MIDDLE names being used as FIRST names on census records. Your John D Smith may appear as Donald J. Smith on the census records!**
I've seen it previously, but because I ran into a CLASSIC example today with it, I wanted to make a point to address that this happens! My Loren Freguson was Archibald L. Ferguson, but because the parents and location matched, I knew Archibald=Loren and I discovered his middle name at the same time.
One word of caution with census records: transcription errors. Census records are only as accurate as the person taking them. Watch for spelling errors. If you see SMYTH as a last name when you are looking for SMITH and all the residents names match, chances are that SMYTH really should be SMITH. You are ok to use that SMYTH record if everything else matches. This is a FREQUENT occurrence with immigrants' names coming from the Netherlands and Denmark!!! Just match all information before deciding if it's the same family you are looking for.
**AND...it wasn't uncommon to see MIDDLE names being used as FIRST names on census records. Your John D Smith may appear as Donald J. Smith on the census records!**
I've seen it previously, but because I ran into a CLASSIC example today with it, I wanted to make a point to address that this happens! My Loren Freguson was Archibald L. Ferguson, but because the parents and location matched, I knew Archibald=Loren and I discovered his middle name at the same time.
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