Maybe not—Conrad Haase's 1904 probate failed to list a daughter Frances. While Frances was already dead, she did leave heirs who should have been mentioned in the court document that listed all the heirs (an "Order Finding Heirship" is typically found in probate records in this area during this time period). A further analysis of the marriage and death records for Frances' children turned up several variants of Bieger as Frances' maiden name. Marriage records for Frances' "parents" indicated that Barbara was Mrs. Barbara Bieger when she married Conrad Haase in 1859. Further research indicated Frances was actually the daughter of Peter and Barbara Bieger. Peter died at a young age and Barbara later married Conrad Haase. I didn't find a formal adoption or change of name. If I had stopped my search with the records mentioned in the first paragraph I might have spent years researching a man who was not actually my ancestor.

Not all genealogical research is this convoluted. However, it often is and many times is even more complicated than the scenario just outlined. Where possible, researchers should exhaust all resources available. The reason is not just because some records might be incorrect. It's also possible that other records might contain information never suspected by the researcher.

I was once desperately researching for information on the Swiss origins of one of my wife's ancestors, Maria Cawiezell who died in 1893 in Davenport, Iowa. I only had a few hours in the library and was seeking those sources that I believed had the best chance of providing her birthplace. The death record and obituary were uninformative. Time was running out and it did not look good. Probate records were on microfilm at the library, but Maria had only a small estate and as all her heirs were living in America. So I decided to forgo the probate record. But this little voice in the back of my head kept telling me "look at the probate . . . look at the probate . . . look at the probate" And since nothing else was working , I went ahead and looked at the probate.

And what a gold mine it was. In the petition for letters of administration was Maria's birth date and birthplace in Switzerland. It even included the birth dates for most of her grown children. I nearly screamed, but was afraid I'd break the microfilm lens before I could make a copy of the record. All this information was new to me and was not what I expected to locate in her probate file (for the record, the genealogist would not expect to locate such information in a probate record). Never in a million years would I have thought to find such information in a probate file. And there it was. While it's a secondary source for such information, it was a significant help in researching this family. In this case, my research would have benefited by refocusing on Maria's life in the United States before researching her European origins.

Was it luck? The longer I do genealogy, the less I believe in luck and the more I believe in hard work, diligence, and patience. Looking at Marie's probate was not luck. It would have been a part of any good research design to exhaust all local sources for information.

I was stymied in locating information on my great-grandmother's half-sister. She dropped off the face of the earth after 1910 and putting "abducted by aliens" was not really an option for my family group chart (although most genealogical software packages could be forced to accept an extra-terrestrial death place). I had not researched the family in several years and moved on to other things. I then married and began researching my wife's lines. We went to the county courthouse and began researching in for my wife's family. I was looking for court index entries in the 1870s in order to locate a certain family. Flipping through the index to get to the correct section, I was using the bottom entry on each page as a guide to where I was in the index. The last entry on one page caught my eye. There was my great-grandmother's sister and her husband getting a divorce in 1921. How fortunate that I turned to that specific page. We were nearly one hundred miles from where the aunt had last lived.

Was it luck? I don't know. I'm glad things happened in the order they did. If I had researched my wife's lines before I ever worked on mine, I might never have located the record. And if I had not married my wife, I might never have located the record either!

A few years later, I was presenting a lecture on land records. I had reviewed my notes and my overheads in preparation. A few hours before the lecture, I found a few old overheads I had used for a similar lecture several years before. They were fairly typical records and I placed them on the bottom of the stack as additional examples to analyze if there was time. Toward the end of the class, I used the first recently discovered overhead and stared at it and then said "Oh my goodness!" The students looked at me in astonishment, the deed looked like several they had just seen. There was no noticeable difference.

But there was.

The deed was drawn up when my 3rd great-grandfather purchased some property in Illinois. When I first copied the record, I knew nothing of his birthplace, origins, or other relatives, and promptly filed the deed with his other records. However, in looking at it with my class, I now recognized the seller as his first cousin, who was "lost" after about 1850 in Maryland. Further research confirmed it was one and the same person. It pays to read your files. However, you should never assume that two individuals with the same name are the same person. I've even had two students in one of my classes with exactly the same name (middle name included). Talk about confusing.

Never just research a "few" of the records if it is possible to do otherwise. Random sampling may be good statistics, but it is not good genealogy. Keep your eyes open. Once in a while you are the recipient of a "random act of genealogical kindness." Count your blessings and move on and do not expect it to happen continually. And re-read what's in your files. It might contain the answer to the very question you are trying to answer.

Good Luck.

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 the Web columnist for the FGS FORUM and is on the editorial board of the Illinois State Genealogical Society Quarterly. He conducts seminars and lectures 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 mneill@asc.csc.cc.il.us or visit his Web site.