Tuesday, April 2, 2019

WHAT FAMILY HISTORY AND MINISTERING HAVE IN COMMON

Knowing something about your family that family history and ministering have in common. While your ministering families are alive and kicking, your FamilySearch family may not be. You might say that the old saying about catching them dead or alive applies.

The Riverton FamilySearch center is posted a timely tip of the week about the type of information we may find about our family in census records, christening records, and newspapers.

Tip of the Week

Use Census Records, Christening Records, and Newspaper Articles to find family.  Many people search census records of the United States to find their family and completely pass up other family members who may be neighbors to their parents or a close relative.

1.    Census Records:  When checking U.S. census records for family, find the person you are looking for and then see who the neighbors are.  The neighbors could be children or siblings of the direct line of family you are looking for.  This also can be done with the 1790-1840 census records where only the head of household is listed.
2.    The 1900 and 1910 census can be used to see how many children a woman had and how many of the children were still living.  To find children who were not living, you could check the “Find a Grave” or “Billion Graves” websites where you know relatives were buried to find other relatives.  Also check cemeteries in the area to find family members of the same name.
3.    The British census for 1911 also lists how many children a woman had and how many were living like the 1900 and 1910 census of the U. S.  There are people who might have married when the woman was 40 and you think she didn’t have any children.  If she was alive from 1900 to 1910 for the U. S. or 1911 for England check to see if she had any children.  My second great grandfather’s sister had one daughter when she was 41 and the daughter died.  It is always best to check and not let the child fall through the cracks.
4.    Christening Records:  When checking christening records for other countries it is always best to check the christening record to see if the child was named and then check the burial record to see if the child had died.  My second great grandfather had a brother who had six children that lived two weeks but were never named.  I found a mention of the child in the christening and the burial records.
5.    Newspaper Articles: Sometimes you may find a record of a child when you least expect it.  My husband put the names of his great grandparents on Newspapers.com to find them in the Detroit, Michigan area.  He found an article about a young son named Marion Heathcote Mann.  The given name was after his great grandfather and the middle name was a family surname.  There was no birth or death record listed.
6.    You can often find family information where you least expect it.  From County Histories to State Histories, from newspapers to military records.  Always pray about where you might find the information and then go to work searching!

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