TIP OF THE WEEK –
FIND AN ANCESTOR’S NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE CENSUS, EVEN IF THEY DIDN’T OWN PROPERTY

If you have an ancestor who didn’t own property and whose location isn’t clear in the census records — maybe the township or division no longer exists, and no census maps are available for that time period. One way to narrow down a location is to look for landowners listed next to your ancestor in a census. See if you can find the location of the neighbor’s land. Since census records were often taken door to door, these people likely lived nearby. Cross examine multiple neighbors property locations through plat maps, deed records and patents to find an estimated location for your family.

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TIP OF THE WEEK –
GET THE MOST OUT OF FIND A GRAVE

Find a Grave — the crowd-sourced cemetery website — is a wonderful resource for genealogists and history buffs alike. But like any crowd-sourced material, such as the FamilySearch tree, it is important to verify the information found there.

Slate recently delved into the history of the site. Senior editor Tony Ho Tran talked to active users and discussed recent controversies. He also explains how he used the site to help solve a family mystery.

There is so much to explore on Find a Grave. One underused feature they offer is the ability to create virtual cemeteries for people of interest to users! Create a free account and start adding memorials to a virtual cemetery! 

TIP OF THE WEEK –
YOUR ANCESTOR OWNED NO LAND?
FIND APPROXIMATE LOCATION WHERE LIVED

If you have an ancestor who didn’t own property and whose location isn’t clear in the census records — maybe the township or division no longer exists, and no census maps are available for that time period. One way to narrow down a location is to look for landowners listed next to your ancestor in a census. See if you can find the location of the neighbor’s land. Since census records were often taken door to door, these people likely lived nearby. Cross examine multiple neighbors property locations through plat maps, deed records and patents to find an estimated location for your family.

TIP OF THE WEEK –
ACCESS PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF WEBSITES

Remember back in the olden days when you could see the cached version of a web page from the Google search results? This was especially helpful if the page was no longer accessible or had changed and no longer included the content of interest to you. Google sunsetted that feature earlier this year, but there’s good news! They have partnered with Internet Archive to add links directly to archived page crawls from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine! Read more about it.