Roundtable Recap - Census Records

The February 6^th Roundtable topic of census records was a nice refresher as most of us have used census records often in our research. The question of where to find census records elicited the common responses of Family Search, Ancestry, My Heritage, the National Archives (NARA), and a couple of suggestions for international census records – Find My Past and the Danish Archives.

The Family Search Wiki is an outstanding source for census information. A quick search there on the general term ‘census’ brought up pages of hits for both the United States and international records and information. Census records can also be searched at the Wiki by choosing a specific location first then picking Census from the Record Types list.

Did you know there was a federal census taken in 1885? This census was not mandatory, and the states of Florida, Nebraska, Colorado and the Dakota and New Mexico territories were the only participants. More information about this census can be found at The National Archives. The 1885 census included four schedules: population, agriculture, manufactures, and mortality.

Other general notes from the Roundtable:

If the census copy located at one site is poor, be sure to check other sites. The scan quality can vary between websites. Likewise, if your ancestor isn’t found in the index at one provider, check with another as their name might be mistranscribed at one site and not the other.

Do not make relationship assumptions, even for the censuses that include relationship to head of household. The adult male and female may or may not be the parents of all or even some of the listed children. Early deaths often led to additional marriages and blended households. The children could be a mix of full, half, or step siblings, cousins or other relatives, or even neighbor children taken in after an unfortunate event.

The 1880 census for St. Louis, Missouri, was enumerated twice, once in June and then again in November. City officials of that time were unsatisfied with the June enumeration believing the population numbers were too low and demanded it be redone. Researchers will find inconsistencies between the two enumerations.

Mortality schedules were taken along with population schedules during the 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, and 1885 censuses. People who had died June 1^st through May 31^st prior to the census year were included. Deaths were not always reported in the past, so the mortality schedules are helpful to researchers. If you are fortunate to have had an ancestor listed on a mortality schedule, you will find a wealth of information similar to what is found on current death certificates.

Some websites are more comprehensive than others. A good one to check out is One Step Webpages by Steve Morse.

A helpful tool mentioned during the Roundtable and listed on the handout is the Narrowing Birth Dates Calendar offered for free at Genohistory.

Always review the phrasing of questions asked for each census. They vary by census and make a difference in how to interpret and record the information found. The questions may be found at various websites. The handout provided for this Roundtable also includes these questions and much more information as well as links to helpful websites.

A key thing to remember is that census records provide clues for further research but should not be accepted as actual facts without further documentation.

The February Roundtable – Census Records video is now available, along with the detailed handout provided by our President, Barbara Coakley. Members of Genealogy Friends should check their email for the link. If you are not currently a member and are interested in joining, please see the Genealogy Friends website.  

Roundtable Recap – Untangling the Lives of Individuals Who Share the Same Name

January 2, 2025

The topic for the January Roundtable was how to determine which individual is your ancestor when multiple people with the same name are found. The main take away from information shared by GenFriends members who have experience with this dilemma is to DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. Some people prefer a word document, but most like the greater versatility that a spreadsheet has to offer. The key is to use what works best for you to organize the found information in such a way that it can be sorted and analyzed.

A basic format for such a table could include a top row with each person’s name followed by a second row with column labels repeated under each person in row 1. The columns would include things like event, place, age, and comments. Additional columns such as street address, occupation, or religion can be added if research indicates they would be useful. It is helpful to include one column to the far left of everything that is labeled Year. A simple example, based on the multiple Thomas Bartons in my lineage, is shown below.

	Thomas Barton				Thomas Barton
Year	Event	Place	Age	Comments	Event	Place	Age	Comments

You can see how easy it would be to add an additional Thomas Barton. Inserting other labeled columns would also be fairly simple. It’s advisable to keep the years in chronological order to more easily track relocation to another area and to help assess which records might be missing. Additional year rows could easily be inserted. Using a fill color helps to quickly distinguish between different individuals. It’s okay to not have all the information to complete a row. For example, a headstone would provide a birth year but not the birth place. The headstone information should still be recorded, but further research would be needed to support the birth year and provide a location. The headstone would also need to provide additional information, such as the unique wife’s name, to know which individual it should be applied to. If a record cannot be conclusively assigned to a specific individual, it should be saved, but not entered on the spreadsheet, until more information is found.

The information added to the spreadsheet should be from actual documents, headstones, etc. Things like old family stories, unsourced data in someone else’s tree, and biographical sketches can provide leads to actual records, but they are not themselves concrete documentation.

Several GenFriends members recommend maintaining and adding to your same-name spreadsheet even after determining which individual is your ancestor. The spreadsheet data can help when assessing newly found records. There is also the possibility that you will discover in the future that the non-ancestor is part of a different branch of your tree, and it will be nice to have their data already sorted out.

Some other tips from GenFriends members:

Do not assume that the same-name Sr. and Jr. that you find are father and son. They could be uncle and nephew, cousins, or there might not be any biological link between them. It was fairly common when there were two men with the same name living in the same community for the older man to be called Sr. and the younger man referred to as Jr.

When looking at BLM records, always check records before and after those of your person. People often travelled in pairs or groups and their records would have been recorded at the same time. There might be a relative or a member of your ancestor’s FAN club in the records before and after his, and this could be useful in evaluating exactly who the BLM record belongs to.

Share your findings to help other researchers maintain accuracy. GenFriends members report they have notified managers and/or added text to Find a Grave memorials. They have also added Alert Notes to individuals on trees at Family Search. In Ancestry, GenFriends members have sent messages to other users providing the correct documentation, and they have also made sure their own tree is accurate and provides good sources. It can be helpful to save a note in a text file on your computer. That way it can be copied and shared as needed without having to retype everything. There was also a reminder to share your findings directly with other family members who are researching the tree.

References:

“Untangling the Lives of Individuals Who Share the Same Name” by Hannah Kubacak, STIRPES, June 2023, pages 38-42

“The Family Tree Problem Solver” by Marsha Hoffman Rising

Roundtable Recap – Church Records

December 12, 2024

Do you know what religion your ancestors practiced or which church, synagogue, etc., they attended? The December Roundtable Discussion Group provided many ideas for finding this information and the associated records which could lead to more details about our ancestors.

We often know the religion preferred by our recent ancestors, but what about those we are unsure of? There are a number of possible sources that can provide this information or clues to find it. Newspaper articles, including wedding announcements and obituaries, often mention the church or location of services, give the name of the minister, or even state the person’s religion. Personal Mention type articles could include publicity about church group meetings, such as a Women’s Aide Society, often listing the members or maybe a couple celebrating a special anniversary naming the church they were married at. A christening or baptism might even be mentioned. Civil records can also provide clues such as a death certificate listing the burial place which could be a church cemetery. Once the name of a minister or cemetery is found, further searching in city directories, newspaper sites, or even Google can lead to the specific church or religious affiliation. If you are fortunate to have an ancestor written up in a county or town history, you will probably find their religious affiliation mentioned. History of the local churches including founding members is also often found in these.

Once you have determined the religion your ancestors practiced, there are multiple ways to find records for the specific church or meeting place they attended.

The Family Search Wiki has a section titled How to find Church Records in the United States with advice on how to prepare for your search and where to look for records. Among other things, it provides a list of 50 major religions in the US with links to archive information and also a clickable list of all the states leading to Wiki articles for church records for each state.

A research guide, Church and Synagogue Records for Genealogists, is offered by the Library of Congress (LOC). It includes links to some external websites and databases in addition to search strategies for using the online LOC Catalog. A genealogist, Sunny Morton, shares her knowledge, tips and stories from her research using church records in a featured webcast located on the Introduction page.

Gazetteers can be used to find names of churches in specific areas during specific years. A good tool for this is OldMaps Online.

Colleges, especially those with a religious affiliation, likely have collections and archives possibly containing church records. Swarthmore College is an example, with its large collection of Quaker records.

Historical societies and other state and local organizations often have information, some of which is not available at the larger search engines.

ArchiveGrid includes over 7 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,400 archival institutions represented, ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies. A broad search for ‘church records’ brought up over 68,000 hits. The search can also be narrowed to a specific religion, location, etc.

A few specific sites for international records mentioned during the Roundtable are:

Archion – German church records

National Library of Ireland (NLI) – Catholic Parish Records at the NLI

Matricula – Church records from various European countries

Video options for those of us who like visuals and/or need some inspiration:

A quick search on YouTube for ‘church records for genealogists’ brought up many videos. The search can be refined for a specific denomination or location, too.

Legacy Family Tree Webinars offers webinars about church records, but a subscription might be required to view them.

Remember to check ConferenceKeeper.org for virtual seminars about church records.

Additional tips:

Also search for the maternal/maiden name. Records are sometimes recorded that way for different reasons.

When contacting a specific church and the person says there are no records available, watch for a change in the staff. A new person might be more agreeable to helping.

The records for a closed Catholic church should be available through that diocese.

Books are available to help with this research. One specifically mentioned was How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records: A Genealogist's Guide by Sunny Morton. It is easily found online both for purchase or for viewing at libraries including Haggard Library in Plano.

Genealogy Roundtable

December 12th from 7-9:00pm, virtual

Church records is the topic for the December Roundtable discussion. 

What problems can church records help solve?

What denominations have you found records for?

Where do you find church records?

Join us live via Zoom for this enlightening discussion. 

A Roundtable Recap with information from the discussion, including links to helpful websites, will also be posted to the blog.

Roundtable Recap – Land Records

November 14, 2024

Land records were the topic for the November Roundtable Discussion Group. The discussion reminded all of us that land records can be found with a variety of other records, not just deeds.

Family Search is now offering a full text search as one of their experiments in Family Search Labs, and a link to it can be found as you scroll down the homepage after logging in. Images are being added all the time. Clicking on any of the buttons at the top of your search results will allow you to filter further down to more specific years, locations, and types of records. The summary of the document is helpful in deciphering the image and may also be downloaded. Video tutorials have been created since the full text search was announced earlier this year, but more recent videos such as this one from EasyGenie show the current search box.

It was noted during the Roundtable meeting that land records are mentioned in numerous types of documents including wills, probate, court records, etc., not just deeds. A brief full text search in Family Search gave me further documentation placing ancestors in specific areas at specific times. I also unexpectedly found in a court case that my GGGrandparents who had always lived in Illinois owned land in Comal County, Texas. The wife’s name was listed first in each mention indicating she possibly inherited the property, and now I have more clues to follow.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), General Land Office (GLO) records site is an extensive resource offering access to more than five million records including Federal land titles, land patents, survey plats and field notes, tract books, and others. In addition to their own records, GLO provides Resource Links for states and general research. Their Reference Center includes a glossary to help us better understand land related terms.

Other sources for land record information include:

Tax records – The Family Search wiki has some good information about tax records and includes links to articles about state-specific taxation records here. The Ancestry Family History Learning Hub also provides information about historical tax records in this article. Tax records can provide information about the location, value, size, and type of property our ancestors lived on, such as a farm or a home in town, and whether or not it was rented or owned.

Census records – The Federal census can provide a location and whether a property was owned or rented. Some states also had a state census every five years which can provide additional location and property records. Agricultural census schedules taken in 1850, 1860, 1870, & 1880 recorded information about farm value, livestock, and crops, but these did not include small farms. NARA offers some information about the Agricultural schedules and other nonpopulation census records. There is a list by state showing where some of these records can be found towards the bottom of the page. Some records are located at sites such as Ancestry and Family Search while others are only found at State Archives, State Historical Societies, etc.

Maps – Some of the types of maps we talked about at the October Roundtable are also helpful for finding land records. Plat maps list the owner of parcels of land. Gazetteers provide place names, some no longer in use, which can help us narrow down the location of our ancestors.

Old newspapers – Land transactions were often reported in the local newspaper.

Bounty land records – Family Search has a very informative wiki, United States Military Bounty Land Warrants, providing information and research links. A Google search also brings up free online resources such as Kentucky’s Revolutionary War Warrants Database and Library of Virginia’s Revolutionary War Bounty Land Claims. These are both national databases, not state specific. Update - NARA has partnered with FamilySearch to have AI extract all pages of the Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Based on Revolutionary War Service, ca. 1800 - ca. 1912. They are available in the National Archives Catalog.

State, county, and town records – State agencies such as a state archive, general land office, or historical society are all good resources. County and city level entities will also probably have some historical records. Any of these should also be able to tell you where to locate records that they do not have. Area universities often have historical holdings, too.

Road crew records – This source was new to me. A Google search for ‘historical road crew records Travis County’ brought up the article Early Travis County Road Records at the Travis County Archives explaining how the road crews were chosen from the residents in the area for work on those county roads. It also has links to records viewable on the Portal to Texas History such as this book which includes local road maps with property owners listed. Other searches I tried at the state and city levels turned up a variety of results. These records are definitely worth checking into especially if you know of a road with the same name as your ancestor who lived in that area.

Deed books – These are usually recorded at the county level, and most counties have some records online. The county website should have a link to the county recorder or register’s office. Greenville County, South Carolina, has a very efficient Register of Deeds Digital Archive site allowing me to easily locate and view deeds and other information for ancestors living there as early as the late 1700s. A different county in a different state offered a free search giving the number of results, but they were only viewable after paying a fee.

Laws – Each state has their own rules pertaining to how land is divided, bought, taxed, inherited, etc., and those laws can change over time. The Advancing Genealogist website has a tab, Law Library Index, with links to law information for many of the states, territories, and some special topics. This could be useful for trying to sort out an odd situation with your ancestor’s land.

Roundtable Recap - Maps

GenFriend members shared many suggestions for locating different maps to aid in our genealogy research and fill out our family stories during the October Roundtable Discussion Group.

Google Earth and Google Maps are well-known resources that offer much more than the current view of an area. Google Earth Outreach offers a Learn section with tutorials to create custom maps. A quick Google or YouTube search will bring up instructional videos, such as this one, on how to overlay historic maps. Current and historic maps can also be compared side by side in two different windows. It was noted during the Roundtable that these maps can provide some clarity if known locations are viewed in relation to county and/or state boundaries or other known landmarks. For example, the answer to why your ancestor always went to another state to give birth could be as simple as the nearest medical facility was closer to home but just over the state line.

The largest collection of Sanborn Maps is found at the Library of Congress. These maps were created for the fire insurance industry and provide information on the construction materials and size of structures in a particular vicinity. Each map will have a key on it explaining all of the symbols and colors used for that map. It’s advisable to read the “About this Collection” for further information. These maps can help us picture the homes of our ancestors and their neighbors along with other structures in the town. Sanborn Maps can also be found in many other places including regional collections, manuscript collections, and at historical societies.

The online Perry-Castaneda Library (PCL) Map Collection is a small part of the PCL holdings at The University of Texas Libraries. This is an extensive collection of many different types of maps from throughout the world and can be browsed by region, country, state, type of map, etc. Most of the links still seem to work, but there is a notice on the front page that the website is archived and no longer being updated. There are links for additional information.

USGS provides topographical maps of the United States, including a Historical Topographic Maps Collection and a Geographic Names search. These maps are useful for providing the historical names of creeks and other places that are sometimes mentioned in deeds and other paperwork. This can be very helpful in determining more exact locations for our ancestors.

Land ownership maps, known as plat maps, are another useful tool for locating the exact location our ancestors lived in a given vicinity. They show how the land was divided at the time the map was created. The surname of the owner of each tract of land is written in that property’s space. The owner’s name will sometimes include the first name or initial. If a widow owns the land, that is often indicated with Widow or Mrs. It’s a good idea to search for plat maps at any genealogy site you use as many resources have at least some for their area and maybe additional locations. HistoryGeo offers a searchable database and document images but is a subscription site.  Access to it is available through many public libraries, including the Plano Public Library, with your library card.

Several other large sites offering a variety of maps are Historic Map Works, the David Rumsey Map Collection, the Bureau of Land Management, Digital Public Library of America, and the National Archives. The Library of Congress also offers other maps in addition to Sanborn.

Other types of maps:

Cemetery maps similar to what can be found at Burial Search and the VA’s National Cemetery Administration. The specific cemetery of your ancestor might also have a plot map.

Transportation maps such as the Railroad Maps found at the Library of Congress.

Military maps of battles/locations where an ancestor might have served. The National Archives has Civil War maps, for example.

Migration route maps can be found at many websites via a Google search. The National Park Service offers some good information and maps about historic routes in America.

Sites helpful for understanding map information:

A United Kingdom website, MapServe, has information about Ordnance Surveys in other countries.

The Newberry Library offers an interactive website depicting historical boundaries for US Territories, States, and Counties.

Creating personalized maps:

Family Atlas is a genealogy mapping and publishing software available from Roots Magic for a modest cost. It’s a stand-alone product, not a subscription.

Many family tree programs provide some sort of timeline/map option. The timeline feature at Family Search, for example, is accessed on the profile page of a person in your family tree and includes a map.

There are many more sites to access maps useful for our family history research. In addition to the ones mentioned above, there are some older but still helpful options. USGenWeb is a completely free website that was created almost 30 years ago by genealogists and maintained by volunteers. The Internet Archive and Wayback Machine provide access to a wide range of materials and past versions of websites. County courthouses, historical societies, and local libraries can provide suggestions, if not actual maps, for possible locations where your ancestors might have been. State archives and college collections are another good source. A simple Google search with terms such as ‘historic map + (place name)’ or ‘(town name) + Sanborn map’ could yield new materials to research. GenFriend members also mentioned to search again at sites you have checked in the past as many sites continue to digitize additional records.

Serendipity often leads to genealogy finds. Many years ago, I was watching a genealogy show, probably Who Do You Think You Are, when a 1641 plat map of New Haven, CT, popped up on the screen. I was not related to the ancestor of the guest on the show, but my eyes immediately focused on two names, Joshua Atwater and David Atwater, as Atwater is the maiden name of a gggrandmother in one of my paternal lines. I had not yet researched her line, but I wondered if there could be a connection. It turns out that the David Atwater on that 1641 map is my 9x greatgrandfather! You never know what direction a map might lead you in your research, so they're always worth looking at.

 Roundtable Discussion Group

The Roundtable Discussion Group meets on the first or second Thursday of each month virtually via Zoom. We are trying a new format in October. Our discussion topic will be "Using Maps in Family History Research." We'll be talking about:

• What kind of maps are available?
• Where can we find maps?
• Why use maps?

There will also be time for asking questions to help break down a brick wall or get help with ideas on how to move your research forward. 

Zoom information is sent out to our email distribution list. To join the list email newsletter@genealogyfriends.org.