I plan to start adding family members here soon again to these pages. I've been working diligently at my maternal family lines and am nearly through with those. I have come across some fascinating individuals who have really captured my imagination. I look forward to sharing what I've been able to piece together of their lives and stories.
But goodness gracious, I have had so many stumbles along the way. I thought I'd share what my experiences as a very inexpert genealogy buff has taught me along the way.
1. Naming patterns can be very confusing! The Scottish naming pattern was widely in use even among the English relations and that propensity to honor relatives by naming children after them can be very confusing!
While you see it in most immediate families (among brothers and sisters), it gets more complicated if a parent followed the same pattern and all of their siblings and sisters did too. If you have six or twelve siblings and they all use family given names, and then all of the children of all of those family members do the same, as do all of the immediate family line with their children, you can just imagine how tangled family lines can become! Sometimes a middle initial may change. Sometimes two relatives share the same name and the same birth year.
Sometimes I will get so overwhelmed with trying to sort out names, parents, birth years, marriages, children that I have to walk away from the pages for a few hours or a few days and come back with fresh eyes and a clearer head.
2. Naming trends have been a thing for a long time. Scottish naming patterns aside there are other issues you can run into with names. It's easy to think that they didn't follow naming trends before the 1900's. But certain names have known a spell of popularity, and you will see them repeated until the next trend comes along.
In one of my 11th grade classes there were no less than six individuals of both sexes named Terri/Terry/Teri. In the 1950's, this was a common name for girls and boys. The spelling might be slightly different (ending in an 'i' for girls, but not always). So too will you see in censuses quite a few Marys, Marthas, Elizabeths, Johns, James, especially in the 1800's. While these names might have been family ones, they also were Biblical and therefore popular. Another popular name was Francis/Frances. Typically spelled with an 'i' Francis denoted a male, while the spelling with an 'e' was used for females. There were several young men within my own family named after a president and any number of relatives picked that up and used it for a young man in their own family branch. Jane and Ann became popular middle names for girls. In the late 1800's and very early 1900's there were a whole lot of Belles. Anna Belle, Katie Belle, Cora Belle, Willa Belle etc.
Families often chose these sorts of popular names, and they would pop up again and again within the same family lines. So, this too can become a confusing factor.
3. Not all families leave records that are easily followed. If you have looked at 1700 and early 1800 censuses only heads of households are listed. They did list the female if she were truly the head of household or property owner but occasionally only the name of the Overseer or agent in charge of the property might be listed. If we have a list of children we might well be able to sort of assign them a position in the enumeration/age methods used at the time, but in one family line, I can count 8 household members and I'm positive of the names of only two, the mother and the youngest daughter. However, this might well be the only record of a family you can find: a head of household, in the right location, but with no clue as to who they married, how many children they had and what the names of those children were.
Why is this so? I think the later censuses targeted this problem in several ways. Starting in the 1850s censuses began asking various questions with each census. It is the answers to those questions that can help to untangle a great deal of the problems we might experience in research.
Some of the questions asked in various years was "Where were you born?" While the district in which they were born is missing, sometimes just having the state of origin can be a help in continuing research. One very helpful census asked the census taker to notate if the household members, could read or write? Surprisingly few people were literate, even in cities and towns where schools were most likely to have been. That clue may well be why your relative didn't leave a written record in a family Bible or write letters or diaries that might well become a source of information, as some families did.
Some more census questions will give us clues to our relatives' lives. What is the value of land/personal assets? If those weren't listed or were low, there likely was not a will recording who might inherit land or property. How many children were birthed and how many were still living? I knew full well one great grandmother had to have more children, but I could only locate seven. Thanks to a census notation I found she had indeed birthed 10 children, but only seven survived. What is your occupation? How are you related? How long have you lived in this home? How many years in this county?
Unfortunately, not all of these questions are asked on every census.
4. Not reading the actual census pages. I do suggest that rather than simply take a transcribed census at face value, you go look up the actual handwritten census and read it for yourself. Doing this has led me to individuals that the transcriber deemed unimportant such as a boarder, a laborer who wasn't related, or even a relative that they were unable to determine how they fit the family.
But more than that, you can find the answers to those additional questions that appeared on various census forms, as well as the land district and dates the census was taken, etc. And all of that may help clear up a mystery that has been causing you to come to a full halt again and again in your searches.
Another thing I've come across time and again is that names can sometimes be spelled wrongly, hard to read, etc.
As a caveat, I urge you to read ALL of the census records, both those transcribed records you might find online at your favorite search sites and those unindexed images. There are a lot of people who search only for their family members and transcribes only that information. While that's nice if you happen to be related to them, you may well find your 'missing' relatives (or their children who died young) on those records that have yet to be indexed.
5. Assuming a census taker put down information correctly. While most census takers tried to make sure that the information was correct, some were sloppy, some seemed to be hasty in their notations, or they assumed that because a head of household was born in one state that all of the family had been also. Ages are sometimes incorrect, names are misspelled. The census taker might have failed to properly note relationships.
In more than one family I researched the census taker lumped all the children under the same last name, despite the fact that they were stepchildren with a completely different last name.
6. Assuming someone else has done all of the research. I have come across some glaringly obvious mistakes lately on some persons within my family line. One relative is repeatedly reported as dying in 1834 but she's on the 1870 census in her son's home and it's obviously her. Birthdate, age, state of birth, name all indicate that this is she. However, for many years I carried that same original death date, shortening her life by a good 36 years.
And then there are those who have confused family names because they followed Scottish naming patterns. Parents who do NOT belong to the children to whom they are assigned, or children who do not belong to the parents to whom they were connected.
7. Assuming that everyone knows all the information that you do. Some forums allow you to leave comments on individuals within a family line. Don't assume it's lack of research that led to mistakes you see and leave snarky comments.
Case in point is that recently I was researching a family line. I found an individual whose death date was way off. I don't know where this information was acquired but I knew for a fact it was wrong. I attended her funeral. I had even met the woman. I left a note informing the researcher of my knowledge and while I wasn't able to provide an exact date, I could at least give them a loose idea of about when she passed away. I was also able to tell them of my meeting with her and that the family called her "Leeza". Her name is incorrectly listed on censuses as "Eliza" when in fact she was named (oddly in my opinion), Eleazar. I have a photo of her as a young woman and her name is written above her head in the photo.
8. Not taking the time to do your own research. Verify, verify, verify. If you are unsure do NOT put it in your information just because someone else has used it, the name is the same, appearances might lead you to believe. It's quite all right to make a note somewhere listing your reasons for suspecting something might be true because let's face it, some are better detectives than others, and your suspicion might well be the spring board that causes another doing research to come up with proof that insures you both have accurate information, but don't include it as fact until you have looked into yourself.
9. Not noting the source where you found information. I'm not even talking about citations. I have yet to figure out how to mark those or notate them. I'm still too much of an amateur at this. But I would have saved myself a world of fruitless search hours if I'd only put down a note about what website, family tree creator, what document backed up the information I had on hand.
10. Starting your online family tree too soon. I have two family trees online that pop up now and then when I'm seeking information. Both were begun in the very early days of doing genealogy research. Both contain wrong information. I've been unable to go in and correct information on either one. I hang my head in shame that I am possibly the reason another person's family research has stalled or gone along the wrong rabbit trail!
Do yourself a favor and collect your information slowly. Get that family tree down on paper or a spreadsheet on the computer first. Take time to do the research and insure that you have the right information. Collect your sources and then go in and build your online true with factual information that can truly be a help to others.
11. Not sharing memories, photos, etc. Word of mouth information is a 'source'. Some sites allow you to put it in a section labeled memories or notes so that someone else can share that information. This is the place to share a cherished memory for the younger generations. This is where family letters that include nicknames or life events should be shared. Don't hoard those memories! The whole reason we are here is to find out who we are, and with any luck the generations coming after us will be glad to hear about great grandmother or grandpa as a living memory.
These are by no means the only mistakes I've made or will make. There are likely inaccuracies even in this information! I am fallible, we all are. But we're also learning as we go along. And that's quite all right.
