WHERE did you find that? Sources

The answer to this question is referred to as  the source  of my information.  Another family member may want to know where you found something, a distant relative might be interested in looking at your branch of the family and its information, or you could even want to recheck your data at a later time.  Whatever the case, it is important to have sources for those facts you record about your family.

Sources can come from many places.  Here are just a few.

• Official records such as census records, vital records (birth, marriage, death), deeds, wills, military records, church and baptismal registers, etc.
• Photographs, videos and DVDs of individuals, places, or events
• Letters, e-mails
• Notes taken while interviewing someone
• Newspapers, magazines, journal articles
• Books and similar holdings of libraries, research centers, and museums

I deliberately didn't list the Internet as a source.  The Internet is just a means of locating sources, like visiting a library, but is not a source in and of itself.  That brings up another frequently used term, repository.  The repository is the place where the source actually is maintained.  I've found a family history book digitized online on the HeritageQuest web site.  This book  is also available through GoogleBooks and at several public libraries, all different repositories for the same source.

Genealogy.com's Genealogy Glossary defines source as "the document, record, publication, manuscript, etc. used to prove a fact".  Attaching sources of information to our family history conveys that we are interested in recording facts, even if they aren't what we expected.  Sources also help us and others distinguish facts from family lore or speculation.

Who ARE these people?

Perkinson Family, Christmas 1926
MPN personal collection

Some years ago my mother gave me a copy of one of those family pictures filled with aunts, uncles, cousins, all sitting on my father's Grandmother Perkinson's front porch.  I could spot my dad, aunts, and grandparents.  My mother recognized most of the people, but my left-to-right list of the family still had some blanks.  Thankfully, one of my aunts was able to identify everyone and even set the date (Christmas 1926).  I love that picture, especially when I come across information about these same aunts, uncles, and cousins.  It is great to be able to put a face with a name.

If you have similar pictures, see how completely you can identify the 5 Ws, the who, what, when, where, and why of a picture.  Recently my husband came across a picture of his mother with her brothers, sisters, and some in-laws.  It was wonderful to finally get all the names recorded and put together with that picture.  Sometimes, sadly, there is no one who actually recognizes those in a photograph, but it will help people now and in the future if we at least try. 

Sharing some "Who ARE these people" photos with other family members may reap rewards because rarely does one family member have all the information.  It is also just as helpful to identify people in similar pictures we take today.  No one wants a family picture taken at our child's wedding or the group shot of a cousins' fishing trip to fall into the "Who ARE these people" category years from now.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes without names and other basic information, it may not be nearly so great a story.

Census Tips - We're Only Human

We use census records for a lot of basic information about our ancestors and relatives, but sometimes what we find leaves us with more questions.  I found one relative whose birth date seemed to change with each census!  On several census records, he had different birth years recorded as well as an age listed that indicated yet a third possible birth year.  Another person I was researching, according to different census records, was born in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, more questionable data.

How can we analyze conflicting data in an official government record?  First, notice who gave the information to the census taker.  Some records indicate an (X) by the name of the person supplying the information for the census.  Maybe Uncle Jim thought his sister-in-law who lived with them was born in North Carolina rather than South Carolina, and that was how he answered the census taker's question.  An answer of "Carolina" or "Dakota Territory"  could be recorded as different states.  Other errors could come if the census taker used ditto marks for the birthplaces of family members, perhaps assuming that everyone was born in the same state or country.

Variations in the spelling of names could reflect the literacy of the person giving the information or just be the way the census taker heard or spelled a name.

Some discrepancies in birth dates are really based on when the census was recorded. Not every US census has been in April of the enumeration year. Perhaps what looks like a difference in a person's age is really based on when her actual birth date was and when the census was recorded.

Finally, there's the matter of handwriting.  Bless those census takers who had neat, precise handwriting.  Others obviously did not.  A 9 can look like a 4 or an 8, a 7 like a 2, all of which can cause problems if I only look at one census year.  For several years I have done volunteer transcription of census and other genealogical records for free database projects.  Transcribers attempt to record data as accurately as possible, but we realize that what is seen by us might not be what was actually written.

After all we're only human - information givers, census takers, and transcribers.  It makes for one more reason to look for information in a variety of sources.

Census Tips - Reading Before and After

We can learn a lot about an individual by reading everything recorded on his census line.  We might also learn more by glancing at the rest of the names recorded on the census page listing your relative.  As your list of family names grows, you may find names of children listed near GreatGrandfather Jones as they married and started their own families or adult childen who began farming on part of the family land. 

In some of the research I've done, I discovered that a widow lived with a different family member as each census year came around.  And be sure to check the previous or following page of census records if your ancestor's record is at the beginning or end of a census page.  You might just find more family members on these pages.

While you are at it, browse through a few pages before and after your ancestor's census listing.  You may find other family members living in the area.  Doing this helped us learn a lot about my husband's Grandfather Padgett.  In the space of four census pages covering 35 families in the late 1800s, I found his teenage grandfather living with his widowed mother and the names of his brother and sisters, his first wife-to-be living with her family, his second and third wives-to-be (sisters) living with their parents, and the future first husband of his third wife.  All of this was before the days of texting, facebook, and the Internet, so your neighbors were your primary social circle.  When deaths occurred, as happened in the grandfather's life, his personal support was living close by.  Without looking at some extra census pages, we might not have had the same insight into the Padgett branch of the family tree.