Check Your Source

Have you ever put a puzzle together where the pieces are very similar? Sometimes so similar that you accidently put two pieces together that don’t belong together?

This happens all the time in family history and genealogy. Sometimes you will find information that may fit with your puzzle, but isn’t the correct piece. Double check your pieces and double check the pieces that came stuck together (genealogy that has been done by other people). Ask the following questions:

What is the source?

Where did this information come from?

Who gave the information of the source?

Who recorded the information of the source?

Is there another source to confirm this information?

Did I find this information from an index?

Let me give you an example. My main ancestry line of interest is Marberger. When I first started doing genealogy, I remember receiving help searching census records. The ladies helping me suggested looking at some Marburger families. A simple one letter spelling change. NO WAY, I thought! My family’s name is Marberger and there’s no way someone could make that mistake. I know it was very naïve of me. But, some of my naïve thinking came from not knowing how the census was taken. My Marberger family originally came from Prussia (Germany), and settled in German communities within Pennsylvania. The census records were recorded by census takers. The census taker would go from house to house and simply ask for the information of the household. The census taker would just write what they heard. With this information in mind, I’m going to ask the above questions.

What is the source? Census record. (It helps to know about the source, we’ll learn about census records another time)

Where did this information come from? Who gave the information of the source? The person who answered the door, usually the head of the house. My ancestors weren’t always the head of the household. Some were “boarders”. If my ancestor was simple lodging with a family during the census, how well do you think the head of household knew my ancestor?

Who recorded the information of the source? Like I said earlier, my Marberger ancestors settle in German communities. There wasn’t a big need to learn English. If the census taker was not German, then it might have been difficult to understand and interpret a name like Marberger. Remember the census taker wrote what he/she heard.

Is there another source to confirm this information? Census records were taken every 10 years. I could check another census or I could check maybe a little more reliable source such as a birth, marriage, military, or death record.

Did I find this information from an index? If you have ever looked at a census record or any handwritten record, you might understand why you should ask this question. Indexers record what they see.  Handwriting can be difficult to read. An o might look like an e or a r can look like a n. It’s the indexers discretion. With this in mind, try to view the actual record, don’t always believe the index.

Through my research I have found the following variations of Marberger: Marburger, Marbarger, Morberger, Morburger, Morbarger, Merberger, Merburger, Mulberger, Mulbarger, and Mulburger. All these names descend from the same family. I have traced my “Marburger” family back to Prussia near the city of Marburg. Once the family came to America, it all got jumbled. When, where and why the name changed, no idea. The important part, if I hadn’t checked my sources, I wouldn’t have half the information that I have.

One last important, but uncomfortable question needs to be asked about your source: Did your ancestor lie? Here are just a couple of reasons an ancestor may have lied on a record. Age requirements: such as marriage and military. To cover up: by this I mean something like an illegitimate child. Yes, I actually have an ancestor who wrote in his bible that his grandson was actually his son. Although, I don’t know the real reasoning behind the incorrect information, it does appear my ancestor was an illegitimate child.

Here is another helpful article I came across this week about sorting fact from fiction. http://genealogy.about.com/od/family_legends/a/common_myths.htm

Double Check Your Source!!!

In Honor of Pioneers

The state of Utah has a state holiday this week, July 24th, Pioneer Day. It's to commemorate the day the Latter Day Saint pioneers arrived to the Salt Lake Valley. The first pioneers arrived July 24^th 1847. I have many LDS pioneers and I love to hear of their faith, courage, and devotion to the Lord. In honor of those pioneers, this post is to help us find our pioneer puzzle pieces.

This website is a database of the “Mormon” pioneers who travelled across the plains to Utah.
http://history.lds.org/overlandtravels/

Simply put in your ancestor name and search to see if and when they came across. Once you locate your ancestor in the database, you will learn the company and captain that your ancestor travelled with. You can learn more about your ancestor’s journey by reading about the captain or any journals from others that travelled in that company. If you have a link that says “Trail Excerpt” in blue letters, click on the link and it will take you to where others have written about your ancestor in their journals.

This website is a database of the “Mormon” pioneers who travelled overseas first and then had to make the additional journey over the plains. If you have ancestors from overseas, then chances are you will find them in both of these databases.
http://mormonmigration.lib.byu.edu/find

This last website is one of my favorite Utah resources.
http://digitalnewspapers.org/

The University of Utah has collected early state newspapers and has digitized them and made them available online for free! So you may be able to find an obituary of your ancestor. Or in the Deseret News you may find your ancestors arrival. You may find a marriage or birth announcement. Don’t give up after one search. Try many different ways of searching.

Have fun searching and honoring your LDS pioneers. I hope you find some stories and learn from your ancestors faith and sacrifice.

Family Search

I promised last week, that we would start finding puzzle pieces this week. I feel we need to cover one more important thing, before searching for pieces. I’ll quickly refer to it this week and then move on to finding pieces, but next week we have to go back over it. Check your sources!!!! A couple of weeks ago we talked about “Family Tree”. I can already hear it…”It must be correct, I found it on Family Tree.” Family Tree is not a source. It’s guidance to the sources. PLEASE…Just because you find information on someone, doesn’t mean it is necessarily correct. So until next week, please think about the source behind the puzzle pieces that you start to find.

Family Search. What is Family Search? Is it different from Family Tree? Yes they are different. Thankfully new.familysearch.org was changed to family tree, but you still have to go through the familysearch.org website to get to family tree. Remember Family Tree is an organization and collaboration tool. To read my previous post about Family Tree, click here:  http://pieceyourfamilytogether.blogspot.com/2013/07/family-tree.html  

Have you ever heard of “indexing”? As mentioned in my previous posts, the LDS church is a big contributor to the preservation and sharing of historical records. They have thousands of microfilms, books, and microfiches that are accessible through their local Family History Centers (we’ll talk about this another time). The LDS church, has decided to index ALL of their records. This will take a lot of time and a lot of help. Thousands of volunteers from around the world have volunteered their time to look through images and index these microfilms. As each microfilm is indexed, it becomes available on Family Search. As of today, 1,033,339,449 records have been indexed. That’s a lot of puzzle pieces!!!! To learn more about indexing you can click here: https://familysearch.org/volunteer/indexing  

Follow these steps to search the 1,033,339,449 records indexed. Go to http://www.familysearch.org.Then at the top of the page, in the middle, you will see “Family Tree”, “Photos”, and “Search”. Click on “Search”. Now enter what information you know about the ancestor (corner) that you have chosen to work. Let me know if you find any puzzle pieces.

Family search also has records that are not indexed, but have been scanned and put online. Again…these records are not indexed. You have to “Browse” through them individually page by page. But, they are very beneficial because you can search through records from the comfort of your home, instead of having to go to family history centers and ordering the microfilm. To browse records, follow the instructions to get to “Search” and then scroll down and on the left hand side of the screen in blue letters you will see “Browse All Published Collections”. Click on it and then click on the location of your ancestor to see what resources are available. The ones that say “Browse Images” are the records that are not indexed.

Have a fun week of searching and hopefully finding at least a few more pieces to your puzzle. If you get frustrated and aren’t finding anything, don’t give up, leave a comment and I’ll help you. And don’t forget to check your source.

Don't Forget the Descendants - AKA your distant cousins

One of the most significant tips I can give you: Don’t ignore branches of your tree. Anyone who says “all the work has been done” is ignoring the small branches of their family tree. Most people work only on their main family branches. They work back in time. Their puzzle looks a lot like this.

They are missing these small but significant pieces. If you look at these two pieces, they barely have any “skin” on them. They are mostly “sky”. So when organizing and putting the puzzle together, they get left out.

The puzzle just isn’t complete without them.

This is the same as descendant research. Most people work on their main branches and go back as far as they can. The puzzle appears to be done. But, there are significant side pieces missing. If you are having a hard time picking your corner because it appears the corners have already been done, then check the smaller side branches. After all, my cousins are some of my best friends!

Descendant research also is a huge help in brick walls. Some of you may know what I mean by “brick wall”.  You just may find your missing puzzle piece after you connect with your cousins. Tracking down living distant cousins has helped me immensely in my family history. Not only do you make new friends, but they may have some information you might never be able to find anywhere else. (Such as family bibles, pictures, journals, family stories)

Don’t just look at the living distant cousins. Look at all your cousins. I have been able to find information for brick lines (place of birth, mother’s maiden name, and death dates) through siblings of my ancestors.

Please pick your “corner” by next week. Next week we will begin looking for the missing puzzle pieces. If you are still having a hard time picking your corner, think about these questions:

·         Am I drawn to a certain family name?

·         Do I feel a connection to one of my ancestors?

·         Do I want to work on the part of the puzzle where lots have been completed, or do I want to try a part of the puzzle where lots of pieces are missing?

·         Is there a family name that isn’t as common? (Example: the surname Smith or Roberts may be a lot more difficult than surnames like Marberger or Delahunty)

·         Are you more familiar with a certain country or state or place of one of your ancestors?

·         I’d suggest starting with the easiest line, but this isn’t absolutely necessary. I started with a “brick line” and that is how I learned about all the different resources.

·         Have you looked at descendant research?

·         Do you know anything about your ancestors who’s already been researched by others? (You may want to start with an ancestor who has already been done by others, you never know if others have skipped over that small but significant piece?

·         Do you have a line that isn’t researched very far back? (The most recent, the more records available)

Family Tree

Hopefully by now, you have been able to register for Family Tree and explore through it a little bit. So, what is Family Tree? Family Tree is an online program created by the LDS church. The LDS church is a huge advocate of Family History and Genealogy. If you want to know why, click here: http://mormon.org/values/family-history. Because genealogy is such an important work within the LDS church, they are always updating programs and making it easier for people to do their family history. Family Tree has several functions.

1.       It is a free online organization tool. It is where you can store all your information. You’ll never have to fill in a 5 generation pedigree chart again. With it being online, you will have access to it as long as you have access to the internet. Trust me when I say your information will not be lost! The LDS church backups all their stuff. The reason we have a lot of records that we do today, is because the LDS church went in and microfilmed all these records and backed them up.

 

2.       It is a database of thousands of names (probably even millions)! Back in the day, people could submit their ancestry through Ancestral File. The LDS church also extracts records and submits this information into the large database (Formerly called the International Genealogical Index or IGI). There were also 2 or 3 other resources, but I can’t remember the names. All these resources were combined together and put into the new program: new.familysearch.org. The idea of new.familysearch was to get everyone to work together and combine all the multiple records. Some people were in the database at least 50 times. Meaning 50 people submitted the same name, or they came from the other records, such as extractions. People were duplicating work that had already been done 50 times!! So for the past several years, people have been combining these records on their pedigree charts. Not all names are combined. The problem with new.familysearch.org was that you couldn’t change the information that was in there unless you submitted the information. You could add another opinion and we all know how everyone has their own opinions. So new.familysearch was getting overcrowded. Family Tree allows anybody to change information, but you have to put in your source and the reasoning for the change.

 

3.       Mentioned above, Family Tree functions as a way to all work together and correlate information. If you click on individuals in your pedigree, you will see all the changes that have been made on the right hand side and who made those changes. You can click on the name of the person who submitted the information and contact them. Why piece that part of your puzzle together, if someone else has already done it for you? You can also choose to “follow” an individual in your pedigree. That way, when any changes are made, you will be notified.

 

4.       This last one applies only to those with an LDS account. It functions as a way to submit your family names for temple work.

The goal for the week is to fill in as much of your puzzle (pedigree) as you can. Some of you may already have all your corner pieces (tree branches) filled in for you. Some of you will have an empty puzzle. This may require you to call your family and get all of the information. Remember, this will be the last time filling in a 5 generation pedigree, because you are going to enter the information into Family Tree. It’s not the most fun task, but do it! If you know some of the information but not all the details (like dates) then try these before you make the phone calls.

1.       Log on to Family Tree. Go to http://www.familysearch.org/ click on “Family Tree” and enter your user name and password. Once in Family Tree, if you have an empty spot, it will say “add husband” or “add wife”. Click on “add husband” or “add wife”. Enter all the information that you do know and click “Find” at the bottom. A list of possible matches will come up. You will probably find a lot of information is already in the system, you just need to connect them to your pedigree. If you find a match, click “select”.

 

2.       If you have a few generations already in Family Tree, but need help getting to at least 5. You can try looking for duplicates. Click on an individual and a box will open, click “person” located at bottom of the box. It will then go to that person’s individual page. On the right side in the middle of the page, there’s a box that says “Tools”. Click on “Possible duplicates” within that box.  A page will come up with a list of possible duplicates or it will say “no results found”. If you find a match click on the match and “merge” the duplicates. If you are LDS, you must always look for duplicates before submitting names for the temple. When you merge duplicates, three columns will come up. One column will be what you have in your tree, the 2^nd column will be what information the duplicate has, and the 3^rd column is what information you will have when the first two are merged. So the 3^rd column is the important one to look at.

Are you getting eager to move pass “getting started”?  Think of these first few steps as organizing your puzzle. Before you begin, you need to turn over all the pieces and sort out all the sides and similar pattern pieces.  Remember our goal for the month: Pick a corner of your puzzle