The joy of sleuthing

“Perhaps the most satisfying task is to assemble in chronologic order all those bits and pieces of information from all those varied sources and watch a life appear before our eyes...”

This anonymous quote from an old genealogy newsletter really resonated with me. It is a satisfying task (and can be nearly endless if you let it).  We never can really know all there is to know about another person, especially one who is long gone, but, oh, the fascination in seeing a personality develop from a complete blank to a recognizable image. It may stay somewhat faded and fuzzy around the edges, but does gradually come to life, like a photograph in a darkroom bath.

Another source of satisfaction comes in working on a specific puzzle. Sometimes, when the very “dailyness” of daily life just gets to be too much, it’s a pleasure just to sit down and tackle something completely different, like the question of whether Uncle Wally really had six wives, or who that mysterious person was in Grandma’s household, circa 1880.

And it’s so much easier to find answers now! You must have seen those endless ads for cable TV, with kids harking back to the “old days” when you couldn’t record four programs at once while watching something else. (My question is -- who on God’s green earth thinks there are that many programs worth watching, much less recording? But I digress.) We researchers of a certain age could do them one better, reminiscing about our “old days” in genealogy, when there was no internet, doing research in books often meant waiting weeks to get them from distant libraries, and one had to be a detective to even discover where specific public documents or books were likely to be found.

My earliest experience in trying to learn something about an 18th century ancestor came when I received, on inter-library loan, a book from San Francisco’s Sutro Library: The Calendar of Kent County, Delaware, Probate Records, 1680-1800, compiled by Leon de Valinger Jr. How thrilling to find an abstract of Thomas Cain’s will, made 20 October, 1799! Being such a newbie, I didn’t feel compelled to look for the original document until years later, but the book’s entry did give me some very helpful information, and confirmed much of what my grandfather had written down about what was his great-grandfather’s family. 

It was a thick old volume, so fragile I couldn’t take it home, but had to use it in the library.  Now, paperback reprints are available, and the work has been digitized so it is fully searchable online. Not only that, but an index to the original probate files can be examined at the Delaware Public Archives website, as an aid to obtaining copies of the original documents.

Carping about the so-called tribulations of early television-viewing  makes me snicker, but when I recall what it was like to do family history research just a few years ago, I am truly grateful for modern technology.

Background details

Seeking names, dates, places, relationships -- it’s the great fun of genealogical research. So much fun, in fact, we may forget that some background reading is in order now and then. No instant gratification here, so it is not easy to tear oneself away from the treasure hunt long enough to sit down with a book and notepad (digital or analog).

In writing up a narrative for my paternal line, descended from Thomas Cain who settled in Delaware in the 1700s, I wanted to fill out the picture with some details on living conditions, social life, and what the surroundings were like, so it became necessary to turn to just such background material.  Here is how you can do the same.

The first step of course is to learn what is out there.  In the old pre-computer days, one went to the library and looked for appropriate subjects in the card catalog. Even children’s books could be helpful (and still can) in explaining matters (besides, they have pictures).  If nothing came up, the next step was to ask the reference librarian if she or he could make some suggestions. Books not held locally could be borrowed on inter-library loan (ILL) though the process often took many weeks.  And it was necessary to know the exact title, not just a subject.

It is a lot easier now.  For one thing, there is WorldCat, the online catalog of the holdings of numerous public and academic libraries.  The researcher can inquire about books on his/her subject of interest without a precise title, and find records galore,  with information on where the items are held. Another place to search is the Family History Library catalog, also online, at FamilySearch.org.  They do not lend books, but … there are plenty of options. Your local public library may be able to find a copy from an institution that does lend. This is the old ILL procedure, but today many libraries enable that process online as well. At most, you may have to go to your local public library and hand in your request in person. In my experience, the turnaround times are much shorter now.

In all your searches for a “book” don’t overlook the possibilities of digitized works -- books you can read online.  With a tablet or laptop computer you can download whole volumes for reading whenever and wherever you choose.  Or you can simply read the books online as long a you are connected to the internet.

FamilySearch.org has a “Books” choice, at the top of the home page. Enter a title or keywords on the Books site and you will get a list of items.  Also, books that have been digitized will be so designated in the Family History Library catalog.

Google has a section named (at this writing) “Google Play.” More online books are found there, for reading online or downloading. And you can find other sources by simply typing in a book title or keywords such as "Delaware Kent history" (without quotes) on Google’s main page.  

But suppose your subject is too obscure or narrow to be covered by a whole book? Try PERSI, the PERiodical Source Index, which is an index of nearly 10,000 genealogical newsletters, magazines, journals and other publications. If your library subscribes to Heritage Quest you can search PERSI online for articles of possible interest (the index is just for title and subject, not every word), or you can search the same service via Ancestry, if you or your library subscribe.  Articles  may then be requested by mail.  

Did I say most of this is free?  Downloading older digitized books, from Google and other services, costs nothing. (They are clearly marked.) There may be a minimal fee associated with ILLs (though I have never had to pay one.)  PERSI requests have a basic $7.50 charge for up to five articles, and when the material is sent you will be billed an additional 20¢ per page. There is of course no charge for searching online catalogs or having the local public library’s reference person assist you. 

Who ARE these people?

One of the most enjoyable aspects of genealogy is its variety of research opportunities. Running into a blank wall where great-uncle Joe is concerned? Look for someone else for a while. (Maybe a married sister of his -- which might lead you back to him at some point) Tired of sorting out Joneses and Millers and Smiths? Take a break with a more unusual family name -- where searches are more likely to be rewarding.

But this opportunity for striking off in different directions can also be a drawback (or happy indulgence, if you prefer). A while back I wrote about my own fascination with the Hammond family in Indiana, all because my great grandmother, Nancy Jane Sherwood, had married a David Hammond in Bartholomew County in 1849. He died five years later in a gun accident, and she was left with two small boys. Soon after, she married my great-grandfather, Samuel Parker Howard. Within a few years she died, and her two Hammond sons died as well, with no known issue. In trying to pin down the exact dates, places, and causes of the boys’ deaths, I found myself looking for records for all 15 of David Hammond’s siblings and half siblings (his father married three times). This led to many tempting byways, but at some point I had to stop -- at least for the time being.

In my last entry I discussed my hunt for the elusive Els (Eliza? Elizabeth?) Andrew, named in the 1795 will of my ancestor, Thomas Cain (Caroline County, MD). Alas, it has led me to Smiths, since Thomas’s 1791 marriage was to a widow, Frances Smith. I found evidence that the Smith and the Andrew lines had connections going back at least to 1750, when a Levin Smith married an Ann, who had been administrator of the estate of a Richard Andrew. Not only are there at least five Levin Smiths, there seems to be at least one Richard Andrew in every subsequent generation! I find myself fascinated with the many Levins, exasperated by the Richard Andrews, and, so far, am no closer to discovering anything specific about Thomas Cain’s “daughter.”

BUT -- in trying to sort these people out, I have been reminded -- again -- of the importance of looking at every piece of evidence thoroughly. When wills or court cases are involved, you have to be sure to note any mention of lands. Names of tracts which show up over time can link families and individuals. Where ANY kind of document is concerned, take a serious look at the witnesses, bondsmen, or other signatories. These duties are often performed by kinsmen and, again, can help tie together otherwise seemingly unrelated facts. And remember, wills may be made (and dated) years before they go into probate. "Clues" to marriages may be dated long after the event itself, having been taken from sources other than returns.

And, of course, if you really want the most reliable, comprehensive background for information you find in a published compilation, GO BACK TO THE ORIGINAL. The actual documents-- whether they be wills, land records, court cases, marriage bonds, or anything else -- may provide nuggets of information the transcriber left out (or misread). Published works without citations to the original sources are, at best, mere clues, and should be treated as such.

A riff on research

WHEN blessed -- or faced -- with a substantial stack of genealogical research results, whether they are handwritten notes, photocopies of book pages, typed extracts or abstracts (what’s the difference? see below) of various documents, it is tempting to consider the work done -- after all, the research efforts were rewarded and here you have this great assortment of apparently relevant information. But of course that is just the beginning.

Now you need to analyze it all. First, ask yourself how reliable each source was -- you did make note of the sources, didn’t you? Did the paragraph come from a published, but undocumented, family history? Or was the note taken from a filmed copy of an original document -- or as near to the original as you can get? Was the set of dates taken from a tombstone transcription, which can be erroneous? Or from a photo of the tombstone itself (even the engraver may have made a mistake or been given incorrect information)?

So, with that dose of skepticism we must unfortunately carry with us, take a hard look at each of the items, and try to evaluate its credibility.

Then, arrange them all, as best you can, in chronological order. Did Jack Abernathy marry in 1867? And is he the same person whose DAR-transcribed Bible entry showed he was born in 1855? Not likely. Sometimes just simple arrangements like this can separate the identities of similarly-named individuals. Consider, too, whether a single man shown in the 1870 census for an Iowa county could be the same one who was enumerated ten years earlier in Connecticut with a young family. Possible, but is it plausible?

I was searching at the Family History Library last month for information on an elusive female named in my ancestor’s 1795 will, probated in Caroline County, MD. “Els” (probably Elizabeth) Andrew is named by Thomas Cain as “my daughter.” I know Thomas married a Frances Smith late in life, so for the sake of forming a hypothesis I presumed she was a second wife, previously married, with children from that earlier union. I thought that Elizabeth might have been her widowed daughter.

My goal was to find evidence of this previous marriage for Frances (I had already searched in vain for evidence of a marriage for an Elizabeth to a man with the Andrew surname). In this I was successful, determining from the orally-delivered will of a Frances Cain that she had a son named Matthew Smith. (It actually took more that just that will to prove the relationship.) I also found her previous husband had been James Smith, and that the Smith and Andrew families had been inter-related in various ways. Unfortunately, with such a common name to deal with, I have not yet solved the question of Elizabeth’s provenance. Though she was named by Thomas, she is not mentioned in the subsequent will of Frances Cain, who emphatically states that all she owns (except her “wearing clothes”) should go to Matthew.

Also, James Smith’s will did not name Elizabeth among his children, so why would her step-father choose to name her? Elizabeth might be Thomas’s own child, after all.

This search took me on all sorts of by-ways, of course. There seem to be Leven Smiths in at least four generations, starting in about 1750. They are heirs, guardians, authors of wills, and, in one case, the deceased spouse of a widow trying years later to obtain her “wright of dower.”

My thought for the day: genealogical research can often be frustrating, but it is always fascinating.

Here is the distinction between the terms “abstract” and “extract,” courtesy of the book From A to Zax, by Barbara Jean Evans:

An abstract is an abridgement of a document which gives the main points and deletes repetitive language.

An extract is simply a quotation from or part of a written document.

More on my research adventures next time (and some lessons I learned).