Beyond the Index
Where Do I Find It?
by Michael John Neill

The key to locating many genealogical records is location. The location where an event took place, the location where any events were recorded, and the current location of those records are all key factors in proving that an event took place. This week we discuss some ways to determine where records of vital events might have created.

Marriage Records
Civil records of marriages are usually a local responsibility, either at the county, town, or city level. The laws governing marriage are typically determined by the state. Consequently records within a specific state are relatively uniform, although there can be differences from one county or town to another. As a marriage is usually a contract between two individuals, records of marriages typically begin before records of births and deaths. A record of a marriage puts a man and a woman in the same place at the same time. The record may also provide additional information about the couple including their age, residence, and religious affiliation. Later materials may be even more detailed.

Locating where a marriage took place can be difficult in some situations. There are several things to think about when trying to find where your ancestors got married:

• Did they get married in the county in which they lived?
• Did they marry in an adjacent state that might have had marriage laws that were more lax?
• Where was their first child born?
• Did they marry where the bride was from or where her parents were living?
• Did they take the train and ride to an adjacent county (or a county a few counties over)?
• Were they married by an itinerant minister who left no records?
• Might they have gone to a nearby county to find the "right" church?
• Did they elope in a county where no one would know them?
• Were they ever "officially" married?

Marriage records may come in many forms and will vary from one time period and one locality to another. Some records created at the time of the marriage may include:

• Marriage contracts
• Marriage bonds
• Marriage licenses
• Banns
• Church records
• Announcements in newspapers

Keep in mind how your ancestors likely met. They may have been neighbors or they may have attended the same church. They might have been members of the same ethnic group or had parents of the same social class. A couple often met because they had something in common. Determining that commonality is the difficulty.

Other records besides marriage records may provide information about the marriage even if the records are not technically marriage records and even if they were created years after the marriage took place. These secondary sources of marriage information should be compared with other known information to determine if the information is consistent or not.

Other records that may document a marriage include:

• Pension papers
• Inheritance papers
• Death certificate
• Court papers

A question to ask: Did anything in my ancestor's life require them to prove their marriage? If so, are there records of that proof?

Birth Records
The civil recording of births in the United States typically began in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the early days of recording these events many were not recorded, and slowly the proportion of events recorded increased over time. Birth records are recorded in the jurisdiction where the birth took place, not necessarily where the mother was living (especially if the bride returned "home" to have the baby). And a birth in specific location proves only that the mother was in that location on that date.

Some questions to ask when trying to locate a birth record:

• Did the family move frequently?
• Are you certain of where the family lived?
• Did the family live near the county line?
• Would the family have cared if the birth were recorded?
• Might there be a church record of the birth?
• Is there a pension record that might prove the age?
• Is there a guardianship or other estate record that might provide information on the person's age?

Again, if you cannot find the record, might your ancestor have had to prove his birth at some later point in his life? If so this record might assist you in locating birth information. If a delayed certificate of birth was filed, it probably was filed where the event took place but might have been filed where the individual resided at the time the record was filed.

Death Records
Determining where your ancestor died is usually the first step in locating a record of his death. When the record is not in the obvious location, consider:

• Did the ancestor die while en route to a new location?
• Did the ancestor die in an adjacent county?
• Did the ancestor die at a hospital, state home, or veterans' facility a distance from his actual home?
• Did the ancestor move in with a child and die in that location?

Other records besides the civil record of death may provide death information. These records could include:

• Pension records
• Newspapers
• County histories
• Estate or probate records
• Cemetery records or tombstone inscriptions
• Land sales of property after the death may list the ancestor as "deceased."

Wrapping It Up
There are many sources that might provide the information you need. Ideally a primary source will be located, one that was created relatively close to the time of the event by someone who logically had firsthand knowledge of the event.

When primary sources cannot be located, secondary sources must be used. These secondary sources may be in records or documents filed hundreds of thousands of miles from where the event took place. For example, if you are looking for the birth of Johann Schmidt, ask yourself where that date or location could be written. It could appear on:

• Johann's death record
• Johann's obituary
• Johann's children's death records
• Johann's children's biographies
• Johann's manifest listing when he came back from a 1912 return trip to Europe
• etc.

Expand your circle and you may end up snaring the information for which you are looking.

Michael John Neill is the Course I Coordinator at the Genealogical Institute of Mid America (GIMA) held annually in Springfield, Illinois, and is also on the faculty of Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg, Illinois. Michael is currently a member of the board of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) www.fgs.org. He conducts seminars and lectures nationally on a wide variety of genealogical and computer topics and contributes to several genealogical publications, including Ancestry Magazine and Genealogical Computing. You can e-mail him at mjnrootdig@myfamily.com or visit his website at www.rootdig.com, but he regrets that he is unable to assist with personal research.

Michael will be presenting at the following seminars over the next few months. Links to additional information can be found at www.rootdig.com/schedule.html.

• April 2, 2005
  Hands on Computer Genealogy Workshop in St. Charles, Missouri
• April 15, 16, 2005
  Four lectures at the Iowa State Genealogy Spring Conference
• May 18-20, 2005
  Three days of hands-on Genealogy Computer workshops in Dearborn, Michigan
• May 27-29, 2005
  Presenting three lectures at the Ontario Canada Genealogical Society Annual Conference

Be certain to introduce yourself as a reader of the Ancestry Daily News!

Copyright 2005, MyFamily.com.

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Ancestry Quick Tip
Pay Attention to Numbering in the Census
by Ellen Applegate

Make sure you pay close attention to the family and dwelling numbers that appear in columns two and three at the left-hand side of censuses taken in 1850 and later. A number of times I have found that pages have either been originally microfilmed out of order--or perhaps the order became confused when the pages were imaged for the Internet. Line numbers in censuses earlier than 1850 can also be important. Several times I have found that in these earlier censuses the page listing the names follows the page giving the totals and other information instead of preceding it like it should. Occasionally I have found that two pages have been displaced by several pages.

Family and dwelling numbers become critical in the later censuses especially when your family appears at the top or bottom of the page. You may miss family members listed on the previous or following page. Even worse, you may add children to the family that do not belong to it if, as is true in many cases, the enumerator did not rewrite the last name on the following page. At the very least, you may get wrong information about your family's neighbors.

Sometimes the microfilming or imaging process may even place pages belonging in one township in a completely different township. This commonly happens when the enumerator did not start a new page when beginning to enumerate another township in the district. It also happens when the imaging process attempts to separate an incorporated area within the township and place it in a separate indexing entity.

A number of times I have also seen where two or more townships are imaged together and then listed under only one indexing entity; a hypothetical example would be if Big Grove Township, Monroe Township, and Cedar Township in Johnson County, Iowa, were all listed under Big Grove Township. (This is becoming less common as the indexes are being continually worked on.)

Happy hunting!

Thanks to Ellen Applegate for today's Quick Tip! If you have a tip you would like to share with researchers, you can send it to ADNeditor@ancestry.com.

Quick Tips may be reprinted, with credit to the submitter, in other Ancestry publications, so if you do not want your tip included in a publication other than the Ancestry Daily News and Ancestry Weekly Digest, please state so clearly in your message.

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Clipping of the Day
Ice Flood
From The Ohio Repository (Canton, Ohio), 30 March 1832, page 3

The Hudson and Mohawk rivers and their tributaries rose on the 13th and 14th to a great height, broke up the vase accumulations of ice, and caused extensive overflowing of the bottom lands and a great destruction of property. In places new channels have been cut and towns have become surrounded by streams of water. At Schenectady several houses have been destroyed and two children drowned in one of them. Barns, filled with hay, stacks of grain, fences, Dwelling and out-houses, Canal Boats, &c. floated over the flats, and the Canal and Rail Road embankments were seriously injured. At Greenbush and its vicinity, many houses were destroyed or seriously injured--the farms on the river swept of fences, buildings, &c. At Albany, several large warehouses were demolished by the ice and flood, & bridges destroyed. A large part of the city was inundated. The buildings on the island opposite, as well as on that 4 miles below, have been swept off. The damage is variously estimated at from $30, to $120,000. At Coeyman's almost every Warehouse on the wharves have been swept off--Many of them were filled with wheat and other grain. The Light House on the Kinderhook Flats, has been demolished, and 4 out of 10 persons in it killed, and several of the others injured. At Troy most of the town was inundated, but no serious injury was sustained. At New-Baltimore 3 buildings were carried away. Scarcely a bridge remains.

Subscribers with access to the Historical Newspapers Collection can view this clipping.

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Fast Fact
Free Search--U.S. House of Representatives Private Claims

Responsible for the allocation of federal funds, the U.S. Congress received thousands of claims for money, land, or aid in the first seventy-five years of the Union.

Ancestry.com databases include three volumes of claims to the House of Representatives in the early nineteenth century. They contain a variety of claims, including applications for pension benefits, compensation for services provided to the government, land, and change in pension benefits. Each entry provides the claimant's name, nature of the claim, and the action taken by the House. In some entries, a residence is listed. Although most of the records are for claims in the first half of the nineteenth century, a few can be found from 1799. Including the names of nearly 20,700 men and women, this can be a useful source of information to researchers of early Americans.

This database is free and can be accessed at:

• Volume 1
• Volume 2
• Volume 3

Or by record type through the main Court, Land and Probate Records page by clicking here.

$10 Product Pick of the Week
Names, Names, and More Names

		Names, Names, and More Names: Locating Your Dutch Ancestors in Colonial America, by Arthur C. M. Kelly This book is the result of more than thirty years of research of the Dutch patronymic naming system. In it, Arthur C. M. Kelly offers a comprehensive treatment of Dutch patronymic surnames, their variations and origins.

Thought for Today
Bernard Meltzer

"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked."