Blogger tells me this is a draft so I'm hitting the Publish button again. Scroll down for NEWS.
I research ALL my family lines: matrilineal and patrilineal. I also, out of necessity, sometimes have to research collateral families (mostly related by marriage).
I've been doing a lot more research lately. No, not because of the pandemic but because I rejoined WikiTree and it's opened up a lot of new paths for research and it's also taught me a lot. I highly recommend WikiTree. It's completely free.
In addition, all the well-known family history web sites, as well as many lesser known sites, add new data constantly. My Links page has links to most of them. It's a good idea to check all of them fairly regularly.
As I've been so frantically busy with all this new family history activity, I've noticed a lot of assumptions that I make in searching for ancestors. I've also noticed assumptions that most of these web sites also make. I've also noticed assumptions that family members make about our families.
Here are some:
1. The family name we now have was always the same.
First, if you could see the list of variant spellings I have for some of my families' surnames, you'd understand that this is a ridiculous assumption. My maternal grandfather's surname; spelled, in our family, BEISMER, has between 42 and 52 variant spellings; and I still don't have their origin. The Beismer spelling appears to have appeared in my family with my great grandfather, although I have no signature of his so I have no idea how he spelled his name. Before him, though, the name was spelled differently.
Second, spelling, in general, was not so well defined in the not so distant past.
Next, many of of ancestors, probably most, came from European countries where English was not the primary language and many who arrived did not read, speak or write English. Some changed their surnames to look and sound more English and to be understood, quite soon after arrival.
In addition, where you see documents for and about your ancestors, most were written by someone other than your actual ancestor. They wrote what they heard, in many cases; this resulted in errors; as well as the fact that some of those same "officials" who completed documents about your ancestors had terrible handwriting and later transcriptions exacerbated the situation.
NOTE: I have begun to collect signatures of my ancestors, when I can find them, in digital form for just this reason.
I am, shortly, going to begin two different one-name studies for surnames in my family where I'm at brick walls and can't find the next generation back. This appears, in some cases, to be caused by surname variants. If I have 20 variant spellings to check every time I need to find out something about an individual or his parents, it's very likely that I'll miss something in the process. News of those studies, which will be done though WikiTree and the Guild of One-Name Studies, will be posted here from time to time.
2. Our ancestors were married, formally, officially, in a church or by clergy.
My assumption, in contrast, is that, if I don't find an "official" marriage document (a legal document) or a church record, they were common law.
Most of my ancestors were in New York State at some point. Vital records for New York began to be officially required and kept in about 1880. Early compliance was not strictly adhered to and the maintenance of early records was, by experience, not the best.
Many of my ancestors lived in very rural areas. Some were quite poor. Getting somewhere to "be married" might have been difficult for some people.
3. In connection with the previous assumption, our ancestors were members of a church.
In most cases, yes, but we can be quite sure that not all our ancestors were religions or attended church. And, churches, as they do, are very determined to get everyone under their roofs somehow. Churches were and are very important historically as a central institution for the communities where they were located. But, like people today, everyone was not interested in religion and church.
NEWS
I have joined The Guild of One-Name Studies as part of the suggestions at WikiTree for conducting a one-name study. I'm conducting 2 one-name studies: The Beismer Name Study (with variants) and The Wormuth Name Study (with variants). There will shortly be web pages for each study at The Guild so you can see what's being done. You can also check on the studies at WikiTree by using the study links above. Remember, WikiTree is always free.
I will include news from WikiTree and The Guild from time.
