Tracing individuals with similar names can be challenging. This session explores methods to tell various individuals apart, using examples from online profiles and ancestors from the New England and Midwestern states.
Just so excited to watch this. You are making me realize how I have grown in researching clues for identifying my ancestors. Thanks for this wonderful talk. I have a senior and jr example. In my case, the Senior was the uncle and the Jr was the nephew and both were landowners. I recently found a double enumeration which actually ended up giving me another child's name. A woman visited her daughter and was enumerated with that daughter and granddaughter. She returned home after the visit and was once again enumerated with the rest of the children. So cool to find it.
Very informative. I have an appointment at a Family Search Center for this very reason. How many James Clarks could be married to a Winifred Rountree around the the same time in NC? The answer is at least two. I managed to sort out 6 generations of Richard Joyces, all married to a Mary and that took 9 years. But these Clarks are making me nuts. And yes regarding same names in family. My grandfather was the youngest of 14. 6 died in infancy and later children were given the name of the deceased sibling.
Very edifying. However, I have a 2X Great Grandmother named Elizabeth Smith, with only two sources available for her, both are census records for her with her husband and children. There is no birth record for her, the census before her marriage (1850) is missing the district in which she likely would have been with her parents, no marriage record exists (for many years I have exhaustively searched many, many counties and states around her area), no birth record or death record is extant, her husband is buried with his first wife and I can find no record for where/when Elizabeth is buried. I've traced her children and grandchildren with no further success. I know which group of Smiths she descends from, because of DNA matches, but, cannot determine which father might be hers, as no Elizabeth Smith shows up in any of their records (or those of any other Smiths in the are) for the time period. I have even tried considered the possibility she was illegitimate or had a previous marriage, but to no avail. Where should I look now? Thanks for your wonderful and informative presentation.
Funny that you mention parents naming 4 sons 'John'. My father in law was John, and he had a brother who was John Jr because their father was John Sr. When I met my husband, his grandmother had dementia and she wasn't able to answer why the heck she and her husband named 2 sons 'John'. Then my father in law named one of his 5 sons John... but only one, lol. My father in law was NEVER called John, however. He went by his middle name of Elton (he was much older than Elton John, so no, he wasn't named for him, haha).
I really enjoyed this ~ passionate, informative and thorough. You put me to shame as a 'genealogist'. :) I just want to add - now that it's been introduced Ancestry DNA Pro Tools! Look at your shared matches and then investigate them, honing in on first, then second, then third cousins. Identifying the correct lines and how we all match up is such a useful tool. I know when it gets back there it's more difficult, but by identifying our cousins at different levels and showing the paper relationship between siblings at each level, we might end up at Our John Smith.
An absolute goldmine of information that i am currently struggling with in my husband's family tree. Thank you so much for your professionalism and clarity Dr Taylor!
Haven't watched the whole presentation yet, but definitely needed. Just this week it was crazy how aligned two different individuals appeared, to the point it seemed there was only one person somehow straddling life between PA and NY. Agostino Nuccetelli G2TB-YQ1and Agostino Nuccitelli G5HG-ZJ8 both had the surname spelled the same in many records, including their individual records until doing more research. They both were born only two days apart in a the same area of Italy. And both died only one day apart, one in PA and the other in NY. If you aren't looking closely at records, relationships, etc. and doing the research, these two individuals might have been merged. Now that I worked through that, having a lot of common surnames in my own family tree and those mostly being from England, I will need to get back to learning from this presentation how to build up confidence in sorting out sometimes hundreds of records that all seem to align to the one individual I'm working to identify as * the * same person in my own ancestry line.
I'm researching who I believe are two families but I'm not sure. The husband AND the wife's name are the same and each has a son named Dunbar. Lived in two neighboring counties. Might be the same family and just moved during the census time. Very similar ages for everyone
What a wonderful talk. I can feel your pain re your own family examples as I have been there myself and have some horror stories of my own that spanned decades. I could listen to you all day. Greetings from Melbourne, Australia.
Between 1865-1872 in Allen County, KY, there were 3 cousins all named William. They were called "River Will" (lived near the river), "Log Will" (he was a logger by trade_, and "Lying Will". The lady from Hart Co KY - my home place, but the speaker was ironically correct - there are many Hubbards in that County. My mother is from Macon Co TN - that county courthouse burned 3 times. In ancestry, the only person who can change a tree is the creator, unlike FamilySearch where anyone can change the tree.
I trace back to Charlemagne on many paths. All in USA might have a path for this but is it available. I just keep on adding until I fade to my destiny....😮
