Monday, June 25, 2007

Ancestry Weekly Journal

from my email:-

Do you wait until you have concrete proof of a relationship to share a find with another family member? While you definitely don't want to pass off an unproven theory as fact, it's a good idea to share some of your hunches with other family members.
Let them know that you're still trying to prove a relationship, but share the interesting stories.
They may be able to help you prove or disprove your theory, and getting them involved in the hunt may spur their interest and inspire them to join you in your family history quest!

Watch Those Surname Prefixes
As a worker in the LDS extraction program, now called Family Search Indexing, I can corroborate John McCall's "Quick Tip" of May 21.
When recording surnames with prefixes they are always separated from the rest of the name and apostrophes are left out (i.e., McCall becomes Mc Call and O'Hara becomes O Hara).
Note also that given names were often abbreviated and they are recorded as they were originally entered into the census or other record. Therefore, "Wm" is recorded that way and not expanded to William, and "Elizth" is not expanded to Elizabeth.
Marilynn Boosinger Willits, California


AWJ Editor's Note: Excellent tip! Depending on where you search, it's a good idea to search surnames both ways.
With given name abbreviations, some searches, like those at Ancestry, will often associate them with the full name and see it as a match, but it's always a good idea to try variations.
And don't overlook initials in place of given names as well.

Watch the vowels, especially if your ancestor came from a foreign land. I have a relative named Ubbo in my family. When I searched Ancestry, I could not find him. I did, however, know when he was born, when he immigrated to the states (from Germany), and when he died. One day I decided to widen my search, and I found him with the first name Obbo.

It would seem that many entries in the U.S. census are very dependant on how the name was heard by the census taker, especially in older censuses.

If you have a suggestion you would like to share with other researchers, send it to: Juliana@Ancestry.com.

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