{"id":1186,"date":"2013-08-30T17:48:06","date_gmt":"2013-08-31T00:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/?p=1186"},"modified":"2013-08-30T17:51:48","modified_gmt":"2013-08-31T00:51:48","slug":"a-research-strategy-for-american-genealogy-research-before-1900","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/2013\/08\/30\/a-research-strategy-for-american-genealogy-research-before-1900\/","title":{"rendered":"A Research Strategy for American Genealogy Research Before 1900–"},"content":{"rendered":"

Extract onto family group worksheets, everyone<\/span> with your surname of interest.\u00a0 Get them all out of the records at the county<\/strong> level, where they can be compared for fit and match.\u00a0 You can do this manually on paper charts or digitally on charts included in your genealogy software.\u00a0 Major rule:<\/strong>\u00a0 One<\/span>—one family<\/span> per chart, one source<\/span> per chart,<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Search the marriages first<\/strong>.\u00a0 Watch for names of men who marry the daughters.\u00a0 Start\u00a0 tentative family units, by extracting each marriage on a family group worksheet–each marriage as the beginning of its own family unit.\u00a0 Sort by census year so each married couple can be located in the next census after the marriage and followed each census year.<\/li>\n
  2. Search census records next<\/strong>.\u00a0 Extract all the entries for your family surname from the\u00a0 census records–census decade by census decade.\u00a0 Extract all the men who marry the daughters–so you add to<\/strong> and build<\/strong> the family units as you go.<\/li>\n
  3. Interim Analysis<\/strong>–identify the re-marriages<\/span>, especially for the women. Which families appear to move away?\u00a0 Which ones stay in that locality?\u00a0 Look for “Gretna Green” marriages.\u00a0 Spot middle names which are surnames.\u00a0 Identify unusual given names–Permelia, America, Europe, Cinnamon, Trauma, and so on.\u00a0 Watch for given names that are repeated in each family unit or each generation.\u00a0 Identify other families who marry into your family units.<\/li>\n
  4. Set aside<\/strong> family units which clearly don’t fit for later consideration.<\/li>\n
  5. Plan follow-up searches<\/strong>–in the marriage for those re-marriages you spot.\u00a0 In the probate records–if the head of house is elderly, look for a will, inventory, or estate settlement.\u00a0 If the head of house is a farmer, look at the deeds–what lands did he own or farm?\u00a0 Where are the lands located?\u00a0 How did he acquire his lands?\u00a0 If there are young males in the household, search the tax rolls.\u00a0 If there are males age 16-18 years old in 1820–check the militia lists.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This strategy works every time<\/strong>.\u00a0 It will separate out for you where there is more than one family or person by exactly the same name.\u00a0 Multiple people combined into the same person or family is the most common problem in genealogy–in the past and today.\u00a0 Break your losing streak!\u00a0<\/strong> Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/arleneeakle.com<\/p>\n

    PS\u00a0 Check my speaking schedule for updates posted this week.\u00a0 And plan to attend one or more event.\u00a0 Some exciting things on the agenda!<\/p>\n

    PPS\u00a0 I used to have a computer\/digital phone.\u00a0 But, I live at the end of the world–where electric service is interrupted easily.\u00a0 So when the power was off, I could not communicate.\u00a0 I have replaced that phone with a land line (in a world where many people are getting rid of their land lines) so if the power goes off, the phone still works.\u00a0 You can reach me by email, by postal mail, by phone, and by FAX.\u00a0 Check Contact US on the menu on my home page http:\/\/arleneeakle.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Extract onto family group worksheets, everyone with your surname of interest.\u00a0 Get them all out of the records at the county level, where they can be compared for fit and match.\u00a0 You can do this manually on paper charts or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1186"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1189,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186\/revisions\/1189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}