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Beginning
Genealogy Lesson #4
Home Sources
DearREADERS,
This entire month you've been collecting family history documents from
various nooks and crannies in your own home and from relatives. Just so you
don't miss anything, don't forget that in addition to the normal birth,
marriage and death certificates you are likely to find the following:
- military service & discharge papers
- naturalization records
- newspaper clippings - society page, obituaries
- funeral cards
- journals
- letters
- diaries
- scrapbooks
- year books
- church membership telephone lists
- photos
- family bible (check the middle, as well as the front and back pages)
- cassette tapes
- old movies
- videos
Don't forget to check great-grandma's old secretary desk. I found two sales
receipts for hand hooked rugs purchased by one of mine at the end of the 19th
century! A sales receipt puts someone in a specific place at a specific time.
It never occurred to me to look for a marriage record in that adjoining
county, until I found she had lived at an address for delivery of said
carpets. That clue led to a BINGO!
I found the certificate we hadn't been able to locate since the mid-1950s when
we began looking! I also have a "priceless to me" Gregg
Shorthand Manual, with some practice pages in my Grandmother
Frances' struggling adolescent pen. Check the old family cookbook, too. When
times were rough, people used whatever precious book they had on hand to
record names and dates of births, marriages & deaths. This is quite common
in the US Civil War time period, and on the emerging 19th century western US
territories.
Think again hard. Leave no stone unturned! Next, we'll be discussing the
calendar with a few quirky things you'll need to know about converting
dates.
For Further Reading:
GenTutor's "Where to Look for Family Records" by Beverly Whitaker,
CGRS. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/%7Egentutor/tips.html#family
Happy family tree climbing!
Myrt :)
DearMYRTLE,
Your friend in genealogy
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