We reviewed a story about my great-great-grandfather Reuben Wesco. There is a lot of confusing information about his early life. His death certificate, obituary, and gravestone all say he was born in 1839. However, there are other records that show he was born in 1834 or 1835. To add to the confusion, his mother died when he was a baby and his father remarried very quickly. Depending on which date of birth is used, either woman could be his mother. Then his father died when he was about four years old. One more point of confusion is that he had two cousins who both lived in the area, were born about the same time, and both were named Reuben Wesco, after an uncle Reuben Wesco. All three of the Reubens also served in the civil war.
The question is how to figure out the correct information about my Reuben's date of birth, mother, and early childhood. Whenever we come upon a "brick wall" or difficult problem, the best way to figure out what to do next is to make a research plan. We talked about some of the steps we would need to take in order to resolve the questions about Reuben.
1 - Re-evaluate everything that has already been found. Lay out all the documents and pieces of information you already have - either by physically spreading it out and organizing it on a table or by doing the same on the computer, whichever works best for you. Look at every detail in each document to see if there are clues that you may have missed previously.
2 - Create a time line. We did time lines in this class several weeks ago. A time line will help us to see exactly what we have and where there are missing pieces or errors.
3 - Determine where to focus research. Based on those errors or missing pieces, formulate a plan about what needs to be done next. In this example, we decided that there were three areas that needed to be addressed next:
a. military service to see if those records shed further light on the problem. Since all three Reubens served in the civil war, we need to make sure we get the correct set of records, even if all three need to be sent for. Sometimes, there is birth information in military records. It would also be interesting to learn what he did during the war, which would help to fill out his life story.
b. birth information, particularly information about his mother and step-mother. By researching the women, we may find some additional clues about Reuben. We need something that clearly shows which is his birth mother. Since birth certificates are not available in 1835, we need to find other clues.
c. custody. Since both of his natural parents died when he was very young, learning who cared for him might help give clues as to his age, which would help to support the birth year. There are some court records already found that indicate that the stepmother was not given custody. That leads to some interesting questions and we would want the answers.
4 - Make a research plan. Decide exactly what steps need to be taken next in each of these areas. Some of the kinds of things that might be included would be:
a. Internet searches -
revisit the genealogy sites used previously to see if new collections are available or if something was missed;
additional sites to look at that have not been used previously, such as local historical or genealogical sites, online books, newspapers, etc;
different google criteria that might be used to search, including trying different search engines to see if different results are found
Descendancy research to see if there are descendants of the family still in the area who might be able to add information
b. On site visits -
court house (have a search list prepared so you know exactly what you are looking for)
local history or genealogy societies (many do not have their collections online and may have local experts who know lots of helpful things)
local libraries (often have local newspapers on microfilm, as well)
cemeteries
follow-up on any things you find, including visiting places where the ancestor may have lived
c. Visit the descendants found. They may have family stories, bibles, documents, etc., that they will share with you. You can use a portable scanner or your iPhone to take a picture of the document.
Every research plan will be a little different, but these ideas should help you figure out what needs to be done in your case. Make sure that everything is written out clearly and completely, so that you will not forget what you had in mind when you planned it out. Sometimes it may take years to complete all the possible research. By having the plans for each ancestor organized properly, it is easy to pull out some things to do when you get a chance to travel somewhere.
I would suggest using To Do lists. Have one for each ancestor and another for each geographical location. These are easy to do when kept on the computer. You can then easily pull up the list for a particular county, for instance, and see what ancestors have research plans prepared that need to be researched in that area. Pull up the ancestor research plan and you are all prepared to go!
REMINDER: This was the last class in this course. We will start a new class, probably in September. Watch the bulletin and Facebook to get exact information once it has been decided.
This has been a great class. I hope you have learned something of value. Our initial goals were:
1 - Submit names to the temple - CHECK
2 - Become acquainted with FamilySearch.org - CHECK
3 - Be a good steward of family history (correct & complete) - CHECK
4 - Tell the story - CHECK
5 - Catch the Vision! - CHECK, I hope!!!!
