F is for Facts & Fixed Format

Facts/Truths in genealogy can (and do) change.  Facts in genealogy are not "forever and always," but rather "with the evidence available currently, (and applying GPS), this is the best answer to the question asked, and therefore, for now, this is the answer, this is the fact."

Used to be that facts in the social sciences were squooshy, but facts in the physical sciences were solid, as in 2 + 2 = 4, always and forever more….

And then Einstein (before my time) changed the way the world was considered…

And then Pluto lost its Planetness… 

And extreme exploration adds new species and even new genus.  Go figure. Now both sides of the fence have flux. 

For me, the take away for genealogy is to "do your homework," hit the usual suspects, and any/all that are suggested from those, and consider everything carefully, using all the brains you are given, and come to some conclusions, and put those conclusions in a fixed format.  Notice that I didn't say "write a report," though that is my personal orientation.  This fixed format could be a collection of pictures, (of course with captions), or a recording of your conclusions, or any combination… as you wish.  The magic is a fixed format.  Why?  Because that fixed format can be shared with family, others researching the same, and also available to the you that you will be in 10 years from now when your genealogy travels have you circling back to these people or this place.  Additionally, with a fixed format, it is possible to broadcast your conclusions more widely, which could assist others in their research, who in turn could send you information/ their conclusions/facts which could open additional doors for you. 

Used to be that genealogical research was directed toward finding b,m,d, FACTS... and also, usually concentrated on following the male (surname) line.  After those dates/places were found, and verified (GPS), they were put on the pedigree chart and the family group sheet.  Up anchor, and on to the next person/family.

Today's genealogist certainly wants these bench marks, and/but is also very likely to be interested in the larger family and how they lived, so the information gathered is more diverse, as are the sources consulted, and that's a good thing. 

(My current all-time wonderful writing is "Water-Powered Grist Mills of Western Pennsylvania," an article found through PERSI, and offering great information on my ancestor Rentchler/Rengler.  Anyone out their related to them?)  

Honesty in blogging requires me to say that I have a lot more information out of fixed format than in.  However, that is changing... 

…for another time…

Facts that may start squooshy, and which may stay squooshy, and be ok.

Till next time,

Liz

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

2018 begins with an "ABC-darium," a walk through the alphabet expanding into short comments on matters genealogical.  Published on Tuesday and some Fridays, a letter may be visited more than once before moving on.  

© 2018, SE Ross

CENSUS FRIDAY - street number, dwelling number, family number

Primer time: (If you know this cold, jump to ***.) 

Directly to the left of the first name of each family enumerated, most of the census years carry 3 columns with numbers.  In order they are "street number," "dwelling number," and "family number."  (In the early census', there are 2 columns.)

Street number is the numbers part of the address; the street name is written vertically just inside the left margin.  Combine and "walla" you know their postal address.  No biggie, street addresses are understood, and still used for bills, birthday cards, and shipments from Amazon. 

  

Dwelling number and family number may need a bit of explanation.  When a census taker started on his/her area (as defined by the header at the top of the page) the first family contacted lived at dwelling #1 and is also family #1.  On to the next house.  That house is labeled dwelling #2, and the family is also family #2.   The next dwelling is a 2-flat. Now the census taker is looking at ONE building, so this is dwelling #3, but inside this building live two distinct families, who become families #3 and #4.  Next is another 2-flat: dwelling #4, families #5 & #6.  Rinse & repeat for each.
 

                NB.  Sometimes it gets interesting in those U-shaped apartment buildings in cities.  The building may have 5-8 doorways, all emptying out into the courtyard, which is the interior of a U or an L.  Often each door has a different address, with 6-8 families off that one doorway (3-4 floors, with one apartment on each side of the stairway rising from the street).   Sometimes this is enumerated as ONE dwelling with the street address of 102-122 Jefferson, and each family counted separately.  I have also seen it, however, where each doorway is considered its own dwelling, with each family counted.  This second makes it harder to keep track of who is really where, and what sort of neighborhood is really there.  I go to Google maps, and often the building is still there, but if that particular building has turned into a library, the neighborhood will offer suggestions -- comparing what you see on Google maps to how that next address with a U-courtyard was enumerated. 

*** So why do we care about these numbers, dwelling and family, which seem to be something devised to give the census takers one more column to fill out?

• In the early census' and continuing in rural areas where there weren't street addresses, dwelling/family numbers signaled an extended family living in that one building.
• In areas with 2-3 families at one address, flares should go up to look for family connections between the different floors of the building.  In Chicago, easily through the 1980's, and even into the 2000's, generations were divided by floor.  The grandparents would live on the first floor (easier in and out), one of their children, with kids of their own, would be on the 2nd floor, and perhaps a cousin would be in a studio carved out of the basement.
• Looking at the spread between dwelling number and family number offers clues to the density of the area.
• If you think that your family was missed, you can go into micro mode, and plot the route taken by the enumerator by plotting the addresses as they were recorded.  It's a long shot, but when you are looking for straws…

Three columns, and absolutely not as interesting as the names and ages, and birth places, and all the other facts that you can slam into the pedigree charts and family group sheets, but when you are done with that, and ready to think about the less obvious relationships -- or when you are totally frustrated because everyone seemed to have gone to Mars -- have a look at those three columns.

Till next time,

Liz

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

2018 begins with an "ABC-darium," a walk through the alphabet expanding into short comments on matters genealogical.  Published on Tuesday and some Fridays, a letter may be visited more than once before moving on.  

© 2018, SE Ross

E is also for Extended Family

Chain migration, 3(or 4?) generation households, the maiden aunt in the back bedroom, the maiden aunt, or sister, or cousin, who stepped in to tend the household and the children when the wife died, the orphan children who joined the household when their parents died.  

1950-60 was all about the nuclear family - mom, dad & 2.5 kids, and now?  Propose a combination, and it will likely be found, not just one place, but many.   Current society may not want to label it as such, but the pendulum has swung and again, people are living in extended families - choice, economics, a combination of the two.

OK, back to historical genealogy.

Extended families, the ones genealogists are tracking, the historical ones, usually were the result of some sort of family connection.  Let your ears prick up at the outlier in the record, whether the pointer be difference in age, name, where born, or occupation, follow and make that picture, and you may well find another branch or collateral relations. 

Additionally, let your imagination roam a little.  People were (and are) where they were (and are) for a reason.  The reason may not be self-evident to us 21st century people, but the reason made sense to them (time travel time again). 

My husband's grandfather, Quill, married and moved in with family of his new wife; now two surnames in the household.  Quill also went to work for his new father in law, James, in his linoleum store (1930).  By the 1940 census, the store had closed and Quill was selling baskets (one up from apples?), but he & wife were still living with the in-laws, but now the two families in a two flat.  Probable reason? Quill's couple was now three (enter child).  James' couple was now also a three-some; James' mother-in-law, now widowed, AND the mother-in-laws mother, had both moved in with his family.  Now there were four surnames at the one address, and no apparent connection without the back story, but with the backstory, lots of places to look for husbands and more information.

Another ancestor of mine, Nathan Taylor, moved from eastern New York to northern Illinois between the 1860 & 1870 census.  I've not done much with that line.  I know the "what happened," and my TODO list includes developing a more specific time line, and hopes of information that suggests reasons for the move.

Why worry about extended families?  Often it is the clue to finding out about your direct line.   And you find some very good stories.

Till next time

Liz

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

2018 begins with an "ABC-darium," a walk through the alphabet expanding into short comments on matters genealogical.  Published on Tuesday and some Fridays, a letter may be visited more than once before moving on.  

© 2018, SE Ross

CENSUS FRIDAY - 1850 US Population Census

The 1850 US population census is a wonderful gift, a watershed in reporting that opened up that population and all those after it. Thank you US Government.

For those of you who may have stumbled onto this blog without being genealogically inclined, the 1850 census was the first census in which every member of the household was listed by name.  I can almost hear the discussions about the increased costs of taking the census in this manner, not only in hours spent taking the census, but also the greatly increased cost for massively more paper and ink. 

The 1840 census enumerates 29 or 30 families on one page. 

Three sequential pages of the 1850 census pages chosen at random and from Iowa, Clayton Co, Boardman Twp include, respectively, six, nine and eight households. Admittedly, the last household on the first page appears to be a boarding house; lots of different last names, but that happened.

1 page of 1840 > 3 pages of 1850.  That's the ratio for this very unscientific comparison.  It would be interesting to find the statute stating how the 1850 census would be taken. 

And I wonder how and if this difference seeded or reflected the change in how each person considered themselves?  As a member of the family, certainly, but also an individual with personal rights and duties to themselves.  Horatio Alger was still 30 years in the future, but the Civil War only 10.  Future explorations for me, or if anyone would care to comment from their knowledge?

Additionally, for all of you who have gotten to 1850 and then cried "Uncle," do a little math and go again. 

• Everyone who was 10 or older in 1850 was alive in 1840.
• Everyone who was alive in 1840 should have been counted.
• Use maps (etc.) to determine where your 1850 family was in 1850.  Since farms don't move, and most of the country farmers, it's likely they are on the same piece of ground, even if the name changed. That can be a challenge.  (Hint: check county boundaries.)
• Look for matching last names.  Do the math, allowing for deaths, older children leaving the home…
• Celebrate -- or put the results in your "halfway" folder, as in "this is part of the answer, and I will get back to it."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

2018 begins with an "ABC-darium," a walk through the alphabet expanding into short comments on matters genealogical.  Published on Tuesday and some Fridays, a letter may be visited more than once before moving on.  

© 2018, SE Ross

E is for Era

E is for ERA – as in when did this ancestor live.  (Where is also a consideration, but for the moment considering only folks on the North American continent.) 

Bottom line: Just as in mysteries, follow the money.  The further back in time, the more you will depend upon records that concern MONEY, because those are the records that were preserved.  Within the last year I heard a lecture about a person in the 1770's.  Walking through the proof, the speaker tied in Y-DNA evidence and 127 off-line records, all but a few records having to do with land, tax, wills and probate. 

Remember, until 1850, even the census' only listed the name of the head of household, and the earliest census, 1790, is a full century plus from the first English arriving.  Land, tax, will and probate records were made as soon as "non-natives" arrived; one had to keep track of the money.  These same tax, land, will and probate records can supply the threads to tease out relationships; Michael Bates leaves only 6 silver teaspoons to his eldest daughter, Olivia, as she has already received her wedding portion, and begs that his son John will welcome Martha into his household for the remainder of her life (read wife/mother), and for this consideration gets an extra portion of land. 

A century later, in 1870, the full family will be on the census.  Names and activities can be verified with those wonderful county histories, as well as land, will, probate and tax records.  Fingers crossed that the folks you are researching had enough scratch that they made these records.  However, other changes in the 1870's impacting research in 1870 was the growth of newspapers, which, with the technology of OCR are now incredible sources for fleshing out family history, as well as finding the elusive facts. 

Happy finding…

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

2018 begins with an "ABC-darium," a walk through the alphabet expanding into short comments on matters genealogical.  Published on Tuesday and some Fridays, a letter may be visited more than once before moving on.  

© 2018, SE Ross

C is also for Context

Context -- everything that is around the document, which speaks to its veracity, including, but not limited to, where the document was found, who made it, and why, its chain of ownership since its making, and how it came to be where you, the genealogist is examining it. 

Past that, every document is also the product of a certain time & location, and therefore has invisible tendrils connecting it to all the conditions that caused it to be created, and not only all the people it speaks of, but also all the people who were involved in its creation.  Hence, for the genealogist, that ties our research into the law of that time, the societal norms of that time, the family structure of that time, the economics of that time, etc., etc.

Just this past week, I was researching pension records, and one particular application went through several cycles before being approved.  I noticed the handwriting change dramatically between an 1879 deposition and an 1888 deposition.  The former was more slanted vertical, the latter more rounded.  The former showed evidence of the ink running out; the latter not.  That led me to do a bit of research on the pens in use, wondering when fountain pens entered the scene.

I was quite surprised that there were many patents for fountain pens in the 1850's, when they were known as reservoir pens.  They were also a true luxury, selling for around $3.00 when a box of nibs (points) was around 25 cents.  This price difference kept dip pens in use in schools until the early 1900's. 

            And the leather insets in fancy desks, or the leather middle of desk pads, were originally there providing a sturdy yet giving surface to prevent steel nibs from piercing the paper.

Happily, and bitter sweet, as in all good quests, every answer produces several new questions.  My personal TODO list now includes finding a pen with a flexible nib.  It seems that dip pens ALL had a much more flexible nib than any current standard reservoir/fountain pen, and I am interested in seeking out one to do some experimenting of my own in writing in the old style.  

Should you be interested in your own exploration of reservoir pens, googling "history of fountain pens" or some variation of that can have you reading for several hours -- and then you can progress to the pen stores!  Write me if you wish about your favorites... I favor LAMY pens.  

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

2018 begins with an "ABC-darium," a walk through the alphabet expanding into short comments on matters genealogical.  Published on Tuesday and some Fridays, a letter may be visited more than once before moving on.  

© 2018, SE Ross

D is for Death... Certificates

"the only thing sure in life is death and taxes"

Everyone dies, and fortunately, or unfortunately, the death certificate is the one document (in the US since 1903/6) which has lots of spaces that invite information.

The doc is there and gets date and time of death right, but there are a lot of other blanks on the form, and there is no requirement that the person giving this information really knows. 

Usually reliable, due to coming from driver's license, credit card and doctor:

… the name given, though it is always good to consider nicknames, initials that have turned into a name, or a total alias (those are the truly fun ones)

… the date of death, the cause of death, and the doctor in attendance.

... last residence  

… how long sick before death.

Usually reliable because happening right then, or based on a record accepted as true by the state.  

The evidence wiggle enters with all those other blanks that just beg for information, and that information can be given by almost anyone.  Sometimes info is from close friend or family, and sometimes by the clerk who met the ambulance.

This little vagary in the information collection does not mean that death certificates should be downplayed.  Death certificates are truly wonderful wonderful records, with lots of facts to plug into our family tree, but sometimes also  contain, along with the true, the probably, the possibly and sometimes the "huh?"

A lot depends on context (remember that letter? -- oh yeah, it's coming on Friday).

You got the medical stuff - and name and date.  Now look down at the bottom of the form.

Have a good look at the name of the informant. Every death certificate that I have seen has this line down near the bottom, and the tendency is to disregard this name.  Please don't.  This name is working very hard to tell you the source of the information past the "medical-at time of death" stuff.   When the informant is close family -- spouse, parent, sib, or child -- the information tends to be good/valid/true; the family knows brother/father/grandad Brian's birthday & year; they celebrated it.  His sibs would know the name of Brian's father and mother, that's grandpa or grandma.

At the other end of the reliability scale is the often noted "hospital registrar," who got their information from the next door neighbor of the now dead guy.  The exception to this rule is a small town hospital, where the registrar has known everything about everyone in the town since they were born, and if the registrar doesn't know, his/her auntie will know, and the registrar will call her with any questions before finishing and filing the certificate.

Another context to consider is how the person died.  A traumatic death of a child may result in errors even from a parent, specifically because they are the parent.   My grandmother misspelled her own name on the death certificate of her daughter who died at 2 months.

My bottom line is to put the information in -- but possibly not in ink.  

Other stories to enjoy and consider: mine and second-hand.

• The death certificates of four brothers, all long lived, outliving their spouses and children, and not living near each other, did not agree on the names of parents or their birthplaces.  It was clear that the information was coming from friends or neighbors; there was no family.  The solution, and definitive information came when the death certificate was found for the fifth son, who died young, and was buried by his parents.  Did they know their names, her maiden name and the towns they were born in? Absolutely!  Case closed. 

• My death certificate in my family has the father's name as Arthur Oakley Lucas.  Nice name, only problem is that Oakley was the street where father lived.  A family member (like me) reading this will recognize the error and it will not enter the codex of on-line family trees, but if others start with that death certificate. ???

•  Also, a European town of birth may only and always have been heard by the children.  In my family, one side came from Bruneholdshime, in Germany.  I had much better luck when I went phonetic, and looked for Brunnholzheim.

               Ditto for mother's maiden names.

Cheers -

Liz

Ps - death certificates are also very handy for lineage societies!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

2018 begins with an "ABC-darium," a walk through the alphabet expanding into short comments on matters genealogical.  Published on Tuesday and some Fridays, a letter may be visited more than once before moving on.  

© 2018, SE Ross