tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post4266756055177495699..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: GenealogyAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-5184732207744878982019-03-17T23:42:01.627-04:002019-03-17T23:42:01.627-04:00SJ, you forgot courthouses and cemeteries! Some co...SJ, you forgot courthouses and cemeteries! Some courthouses are friendly to genealogists, others definitely not. <br /><br />One memorable trip to a friendly courthouse was with my sister and our great-aunt. The clerks took us to a large table with comfortable chairs and brought the books to us to browse. Our goals were death, birth, and marriage certificates, but we got distracted by land records. While we left with the lineage records we wanted, it is my great-aunt's memories about relatives losing land during the depression because they didn't have cash to pay taxes on it that stays with me.<br /><br />Which brings me to my most memorable visit to a gravesite. On one tract of that land lost during the depression is the grave of one of my great-great grandmother's husbands (not my ancestor) that was rediscovered by logging crews working for Weyerhauser. It was quite a hike from the county road. Would it be serendipitous that not only was the grave well-marked and identified (stone & concrete), but also that one of the crew happened to be a descendant of this man? <br /><br />I'm more interested in the more "colorful" characters and how my family fit into the history of when and where they were. <br /><br />AVI - the Smith-Smith in my line probably are cousins. In the 1850 census, there are five Smith families living close together - household numbers 155 through 159. More research required! Now that I live less than 200 miles from this area, I might be able to do some. Donna B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/16771075314473811594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-49442958173124888212019-03-17T16:58:27.273-04:002019-03-17T16:58:27.273-04:00Genealogy can be quite the time-sink.
I've r...Genealogy can be quite the time-sink. <br /><br />I've recently gotten my hands on a genealogy that a relative of mine produced. He had spent some thirty years on it. (I might have run across an ancestor from Connecticut whose sister married a man named "Wyman", come to think of it.)<br /><br />My first thought is that genealogies used to require visiting lots of libraries, calling lots of funeral homes to find old obituaries, and other such things. Internet-era genealogy is easier. But there are lots of small (or big) mistakes in other people's records.SJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12043843405366080460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-66460519028419812512019-03-17T15:24:35.543-04:002019-03-17T15:24:35.543-04:00We also have a Smith-Smith. Also a Crowell-Crowel...We also have a Smith-Smith. Also a Crowell-Crowell and a Ring-Ring, deep in the colonial Puritan lines. There were limited choices for mates in small communities, and people were usually only aware of the 2nd-cousin, 3rd at most, in relationships.<br /><br />It's 1st cousin that carries the most danger, and after that, a community that is so saturated with 3rd/4th/5ths that even a 2nd cousin is too close. The latter occur the world over. <br /><br />I'm looking at one that may be a first-cousin marriage in the 17th C in the Bay Colony at this point. Can't say for sure. The Puritans were pretty strict about such things, but these are the Stephen Hopkins descendants, who may have run things more loosely.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-20962920095202756372019-03-17T09:41:14.841-04:002019-03-17T09:41:14.841-04:00One of the surnames we're researching is Smith...One of the surnames we're researching is Smith. While I'm grateful that none of my Smith ancestors married a Jones, one of them married... a Smith. Not exactly a brick wall but it made me want to bang my head against one.Donna B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/16771075314473811594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-29703041123461911372019-03-16T15:22:16.641-04:002019-03-16T15:22:16.641-04:00Duh. *proselytizing*Duh. *proselytizing*Murphhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11865623200954289332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-90802366758987110042019-03-16T14:27:14.686-04:002019-03-16T14:27:14.686-04:00Donna B., yup. And just when you think that you...Donna B., yup. And just when you think that you're confronted by nothing but brick walls, a new primary source appears that gives you another rabbit hole to disappear into.<br /><br />Mine just recently was a small 1897 probate notice in the Baltimore Sun archives, that led me to a 1897 Will, found in the Maryland State Archives, which had names that led me to newspapers dot com*, which gave me a couple of obituaries (composed in Fraktur** in Der Deutsche Correspondent, an early Baltimore German-language newspaper), which gave me enough location of origin info to commission a German genealogist to research relevant records in Bamburg, Germany.<br /><br />"The thrill of discovery; the agony of dead-ends." (with suitable apologies.)<br /><br />* subscription only, but the LDS Family History Centers offer free access to that site and many others (with no prosletizing) -- (I now volunteer there 'cuz then I can use their facilities outside normal hours -- bartering my volunteer time for their access: a great deal IMHO)<br />** there are Fraktur alphabet sheets online. I used those to recognize what letters I could, then substituted letters into the word box in Google translate until it offered a word that fit the context. Worked like a charm!Murphhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11865623200954289332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-86022287865084712782019-03-15T07:59:14.485-04:002019-03-15T07:59:14.485-04:00Tedious time-suck. Yep, that describes genealogy f...Tedious time-suck. Yep, that describes genealogy for me! <br /><br />I wasn't all that interested in it until my oldest daughter was assigned (in high school) to do a project involving research using original sources. Retrieval of documents, interviews, etc. She thought genealogy would be the easiest. She got a good grade, but 36 years later, we're still working on the project. <br />Donna B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/16771075314473811594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-40387320600361665732019-03-13T22:27:04.345-04:002019-03-13T22:27:04.345-04:00Is there a "conservation of respectability&qu...Is there a "conservation of respectability" law in there somewhere?jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.com