Monday, July 12, 2010

If you do it right, ITS HARD WORK!!!

I have been at it for a little bit now, managed to skip some of the potholes beginners fall into. (The operative phrase here is "some". (Yes I have made mistakes and ripped out whole branches).

It would seem I have a tendency to choose certain ancestors and somehow (and no, I don't know how) they become a favorite. Sometimes they end up with more source citations than others (either they were easier to find or I was more determined because I "liked" them, yet others in that same category may only have one source citation. I also like to work with a family unit at a time which I am told is a good thing.

Just a note, a source citation is usually a legal document. However, it is important to note, for example, that on a death certificate there is primary (name of the deceased) and secondary (name of parents) information. I had one where the ACTUAL name is Lewis Heald. On his SONS death cert it lists Jonathan Heald as the father. How can this be??? These are close enough I can even find them in the same census so who is right and who is wrong? In this case, neither was wrong. Looking closer, Lewis' middle initial was J. If his grandson (the one that provided the info to the coroner) had called him uncle Jonathan all his life, chances are he would think his name was Jonathan. (The J was for Jonathan). BUT you can see how misinformation that sends you down the wrong path could creep in...

I love getting my hands on death or birth certificates, newspaper articles, pictures of headstones, and of course pictures of individuals. Its the newspaper articles that give an individual depth and reality. Once again what started out to be short has the makings of a text wall, so I am off to dig some more...

Oh yeah, it may be hard work, but its fun and definitely worth the effort!