| Slaying Research Dragons |
Dragons lie in wait as we venture into the uncharted waters of genealogical research. The biggest one is the Old Spelling Dragon, who can sidetrack you for years. Another ornery creature is called Assumption, and you must watch out also for the Leap Frogger.
Most of us have some stubborn ideas about the spelling of OUR surname, and we refuse to look at other possible spellings. SAY your surname aloud, then write down all the ways it might be
spelled or has been misspelled. It is usually the vowels that trip us up. The Old Spelling Dragon tosses in an extra ``e'' or throws out a "u," and we can't find our ancestors in a census
index. If your surname begins with a vowel, look for it under all the vowels as well as under "H."
When you are unable to find any listing for your surname in the indices, such as censuses and marriages, it should raise a red flag that there is spelling problem. Look for variants. Switch
the vowels around. Toss them out. Use the Soundex codes when possible. To convert your
surnames to Soundex code, go to:
http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/Genea/soundex.sh?
For a detailed explanation of this coding system, go to Soundex for Dummies:
http://sparc.hpl.lib.tx.us/hpl/sx002.html
and read an article by Joseph P. Wolfe.
The Assumption Dragon is a sly one that can trip you up at every corner of your research. Have you assumed that your grandfather was born in Wheeling, W.V.? Perhaps it was in Wheeling, Mo. There also are Wheelings in Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota and Ohio. Are you looking in Orange County, N.C., when your ancestor was from Orange County, Va.?
Check out the names of localities where your ancestors supposedly lived. Don't assume you know where they were from. Use a good atlas, gazetteer or The Ultimate Locator Locus (the latter widely available in libraries) to learn about other localities with the same name.
Leap Frogger is the dragon that leads us down research paths too quickly, skipping over time periods and localities, and eventually slamming us into the proverbial brick wall. Learn to
work backward in time methodically, and resist the temptation to jump back to your ancestors' birth places until you have explored the records of all the localities where they have lived along the way.
When you get stuck -- and we all do -- go back and look at your research notes. You'll probably find information you overlooked or something that didn't mean anything to you at the time you
found it, but now will. Another way to work through problems is to write a genealogical report to yourself -- prepare it as though you were a professional genealogist writing to a client
about what research has been done, the results, and what needs to be done. You may be able to resolve research problems by focusing on the siblings and in-laws of your ancestor. Perhaps the
information you need can be found by tracking down records generated by or about them.
Most of us make many research mistakes and still find many of our ancestors. However, we can spare ourselves time, effort and money by being aware of and learning to avoid those dragons.
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(c) 1998, Los Angeles Times Syndicate
In addition to her weekly column, which is in syndication by the LA Times Syndicate, Myra Vanderpool Gormley and Julie Case are co-editors of Missing Links, a free weekly genealogy ezine. To subscribe, send your request to:
Julie_Case@prodigy.com
This address is for (free) subscriptions only.
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