2021-05 May - Connecting the Dots

May 7, 2021 family history pattern recognition

Hello from your Ward Temple & Family History Consultants:

Family history is often connecting the dots.

For example, in our line Stephen had three daughters, Virginia, Nancy, and hmmm?. That last daughter had different people writing different names in Family Search. Which name was right? One census taker wrote Pamela. One person added a fourth daughter with a name starting with “P”, but had zero evidence (sources). All the other data shows only three daughters. Is the fourth name an alias or a misunderstanding of the third daughter’s name? Next, my Dad found Stephen’s will and he clearly wrote “Permila.” He signed his will BEFORE his death, and it was his daughter. He knew her name. It is unusual, but is her name. Yet indexers of other records had typed Pamela too. Yet when her father wrote Permila and you go back to the images of the indexed records, you can see in the cursive handwriting that some records wrote “Permila” too that were mistaken for Pamela. Consider also that Census takers often went door-to-door back then (no mail in Census forms 100+ years ago). Tambra was a Census taker in Texas and went door-to-door too. Anyway, a census taker hears a name spoken and unless they asked the family to spell it, they may have filtered what they heard through their experience and Pamela is what they thought they heard. Yet without the other dots (the will) the connection is harder to make.

Another instance of connecting the dots is noticing information on various records. For example, on a WWII Draft Registration card, the person’s wife may be listed. Or perhaps she was the “informant” on the death certificate. Perhaps your family’s tradition says a different wife’s name. Then you notice that Susan had five children and died before Polly. Then you find other records of Polly, like a marriage record, and notice that the marriage to Polly was four years after Susan’s death. I have often found multiple spouses, yet sometimes the family only talks about the one wife because the second wife was later in his life and perhaps they had no children. So the family tradition is passed down through the children and only describes Susan. By connecting the dots, you help ensure Polly is identified for ordinances too.

Another connect-the-dots example is searching for information in a small town. Sometimes by reading the newspaper of that small town in dates that your ancestor or relative (cousin) lived there, you’ll find references to your relative’s spouse in a social activity in the paper. Often in the old USA papers the wife is called Mrs. J.E. Foster, rather than Susan. The newspaper was the social media of our ancestor’s times. These social references can shed light on who the family knew. Sometimes by tracking down more on their acquaintances, you may find a piece of information indirectly that you can connect to your relative.

Obituaries often will tell you that Mrs. J.E. Foster attended the funeral and is a sister. Connecting the dots, you now know that Tom Smith had a sister and she married a man named J.E. Foster. You can enter that into Family Search.

Sometimes a Census will show an older woman and call her “Mother in Law”, which may give you the parent of the spouse.

I tell you that I have very often found a cousin or nephew or niece while looking for sources for someone else. These people were lost to me before I noticed two or three small details that led me to them. When you connect the dots too, you may find people that had been unknown to your family until now.

Connecting the dots is indirect, but we’re especially good at it compared to the algorithms used by Ancestry and Family Search. They might find a promising possibility, but they ask us humans to confirm and link the source. Also, as we pray for divine assistance, sometimes the Lord blesses us to see connections we had passed over without recognition previously. Ask for His assistance in this, his work.

HERE A LITTLE, THERE A LITTLE - Feel better by doing small & simple things. Great things come to pass over time, so don’t give up.

Your Ward Temple & Family History Consultants