Genealogy checklist: A list of sources – Part 2
Most of the sources listed in the first article are easily found, and generally follow the same format regardless of person. Nearly all genealogists will be able to find at least three of them or more per person, at least for their most recent generations.
But there are other documents that can require more thought, or that are less common or more difficult to find for one reason or another. But these can be equally useful to those looking into their family tree. Those records include:
Census records – as stated before, these can be difficult to understand at first, and even more so to find the information you need. But once you find that family you’re looking for, the information you glean is priceless. Names and ages may be slightly off—keep in mind census takers were human, and had difficulty discerning names through pronunciation, and usually were only given an approximate age.
City Directories – so long as you know the city your family was located in, these are great sources to confirm that, and to find the addresses they were located at. Some of the older ones include information like whether the person was single or not, and their occupation.
Legal documents – most families will have one or two of these, whether it be a will, a civil case, or something more. These are much more difficult to find, but can provide amazing amounts of information. Records to look into: wills, probate, lawsuits, divorce cases, criminal matters and escrow papers.
Letters or Journals – these can be amazing sources for knowledge, and quite likely to fill in gaps in your missing knowledge in ways no other records can. Unfortunately, these tend not to survive the years, but are invaluable when they do.
Newspapers – the previous article mentioned birth announcements and obituaries, but newspapers also offer many other sources of information on your family. Legal matters, community affairs, politics. Always worth searching for. And online archives are being added to every day.
Religious documents – family bibles, baptism records, marriage records, but also confirmation or bar or bat mitzvahs. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Before local and national records, this was where most records were kept—your community church.
Photographs – photos provide a wealth of information, particularly when someone was still alive, who attended a particular event, or when that event may have happened. These are great to use to start genealogical conversations with your family, too. Particularly those photos containing people you don’t recognize or remember well. Label the backs if you can. Place, date, and people in the photo—after all, you never know when that information might come in handy.
Other records you might come across may include: vaccination reports, passports, drivers licenses, employment records, baby books (a valuable source of information for early life), civil membership records (some of these are sealed, but you never know what you might find out there), and so much more. The ideas are endless, if you just look around and think about where your family has been.
Each person’s family will have different records, and each family branch will have more of one sort than another, but the lists in these two articles should give you a great start, at the very least.
And where should you start looking? Here in Seattle, checkout the Genealogy section at the Downtown Public Library, or go visit the Seattle Genealogical Society. Online, you can try Ancestry.com or Familysearch.org. All four places are only a small sampling of places you can go, but all can give you some better ideas where to look next.
Good luck!
