Monthly Archives: February 2016

A Cautionary Tale: Reading Is Fundamental

This is a cautionary tale about reading what is there and not making assumptions.  Fortunately, in this case, I didn’t lose years of research or spend time randomly driving around York County, South Carolina.  Here is my confession:

My Martin’s are buried in Martin Cemetery in Cherokee County, South Carolina.

martin

I like to pinpoint the cemeteries on a map.  When I start to map their property it gives me a starting place on where to look, especially with family cemeteries.  I found this list of York County Cemeteries on Rootsweb:

rootsweb york county

Now, you the observant reader, probably notice that Find A Grave said Cherokee not York.  But the probates are in York and I got it in my head that it was York.  And I looked and looked in various maps of York and couldn’t find Highways 97 & 80.  I found 97, but no cemetery.

But somewhere around here, I suspect is the cemetery:

smyrna

I started pulling land records and found this tidbit:

state line

State line?  It’s on the state line? But if it is on the state line, it isn’t south of Smyrna.

Could I be wrong? Oh yes.  I turned to The Google and found this little tidbit: Martin’s Cemetery

piedmont

Which had all sorts of my people recorded as being there:

piedmont2

And it was on the NC/SC line.  I did some more searching on Find A Grave and found the Little Bethel Methodist Martin Cemetery in Cleveland County, North Carolina.  The directions led me to Rippy Rd, about 0.3 miles from the southern end.

actual cemetery

This is right in the area where a lot of others in my tree lived.  It is all starting to make sense now.  So much more sense.

So the cemetery isn’t in York.  And it isn’t in Cherokee.  It appears not to be in South Carolina.  It’s in Cleveland County, North Carolina. Now I know a lot of my ancestors lived on county and state lines.  But this appears to be across the state line!

So, first, I hang my head in shame.  No rushing!  Second, read what is there, not what you think is there.  Third, verify what you find.  One source is simply not enough.

And finally, I will be in the area in early April.  I am going to find this one.  More to come……

 

Sourcing Is An Art: Using Location For Organization

We all know that sourcing is an art, not a science, right?  And there is no one way to write a source. Lots of wrong ways, but also correct variations that allow you to find your source and the information it contains again. Also you allow others to assess where the evidence came from and how credible it might be.  Or might not be.

But I also use my sources as an organizational tool.  I’ll bet that you use Find A Grave in your normal genealogy routine.  When I write my sources, I start with the name of the cemetery:

Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery, Lexington, Rockbridge, Virginia,  James C Donald (1836 – 1899), Find A Grave (http://findagrave.com : accessed 16 Mar 2015), Find A Grave Memorial no. 34,346,979. Memorial by Thomas Daniels, photo by anne mitchell; photo and maker legible.

Now when I look at a listing of all of my Find A Grave entries, I can easily scan the list and see everyone in my tree who is buried in the same cemetery:

find-a-grave-sources

I also do the same thing for census records. It allows me to look within a county and district and see more or less who seemed to live near each other.  If I were going to publish a census citation, I would make it follow the Evidence Explained format, but for examining data to show people in relation to each other, this suits my needs.  And I can find what I need to write the full citation as needed, when needed.

census-sources

Usually you find people living near each other as expected, but sometimes you find people who surprise you.

Ready Cash and William Wallace appear on separate, consecutive pages in the 1840 census, but in a source listing, the “nearness” pops right out.  Charlton Wallace was very likely living in the household of William.  Martha Jane Cash was very likely living with her father Ready.  In 1842, Charlton married Martha Jane.  Wonder how they might have met!? 🙂

1840-source

Finding new ways to organize your data and use what you have, usually brings new insights.  And this one, is pretty easy to implement.

I’ll Be Speaking In Virginia on April 2nd!

WCGHA_LogoHighRes

Will you be in the southern Virginia area the weekend of April 2nd? The Family History Institute of Southwest Virginia will be held Saturday, April 2nd, 2016.

I’ll be presenting two sessions: Researching Women in the South and Proving Kinship with Land and Chancery Records.

You can register for the Family History Institute of Southwest Virginia on the Wythe County Genealogical and Historical Association site for $59.    I was there 2 years ago and it was a whole lot of fun!  Hope to see you there.

My Family Married Each Other a Lot and Other Musings from RootsTech

When an offhand remark from RootsTech ended up on Twitter, I knew I must have had the attention of a few people!

Four lectures in four days along with a few booth demos of Ancestry Academy left me pretty tired, but it was worth it. Great groups of people in all of my classes – I had a great time.

The more I teach, the more I am convinced, conference goers love methodology. Tell me how to do something! I’m including links for PDFs of all of my talks. And a pointer to the livestream of my search talk.

If you were in my classes, thanks for attending!