Check and...Check Again!

Today I want to talk about fixing our genealogy mistakes. We all have them and some are hiding better than others. It is so easy to find a record and grab a piece of information from it and start moving forward. I get excited! I have to remind myself to reign in the excitement and have patience. I came accross this blog post yesterday by Michael J. Leclerc. It is called Pedigree Analysis: Do You Have The Correct Answers?. He makes a lot of very good points. So yesterday I opened up my tree on ancestry and began at my fathers father. I kept a notebook next to me to record any new hints I might find. You could do this on paper or even on OneNote. Whatever works for you. First I checked the dates and made sure everything made sense. Then I re-viewed each census record I had attached for new clues. Recording what you don't know or didn't happen is just as important as recording what you do know. This is time consuming but once you begin it will amaze you how much you have missed. I find when you are reviewing the census records, it makes more sense to write down (or type) the notes about the whole family at the same time so you are not having to re-do what you have already done. I found mistakes in my tree right off the bat. Even better- I found new clues almost instantly. After reviewing a census for my 2nd Great Grandmother I caught that she had birthed 7 children and 7 were still alive. I knew that column was there but I must of skimmed over it or forgot to pay attention to it somewhere along the line. This led me to not only discover two new brothers that he had but also to trace them to Texas and back to Tennessee and fill in a huge gap I had in my tree. Don't forget to take every detail from each census or document. Things like street address, house number, post office, neighbors names, if they had a farm..those are all things to put in your notes. Then there are the more obvious things- Spelling of name, relationship, age, sex, marriage info, school info, were they a veteran?, occupation, trade and whatever else you find. I am still messing around with a few different ideas for creating a table/timeline for census clues. There are a few out there but they just don't seem to be very efficient. When you are recording census notes, many generations tend to overlap and you need something that can account for that. Also all the different questions they asked. It's something I am going to work on and see if I can come up with something that works. My vision is an easy table and or timeline that lets you plug in census clues by individual person as well as their family. This way you can fill in the gaps and it's easier to notice any discrepencies. I will let you guys know!! If you have any ideas, please share!