Margaret Lewis and CVGS Meeting 24 Feb 2010

We were privileged to have Margaret Lewis as our speaker and her topic was
"WRONG NAME, RIGHT MAN===RIGHT NAME, WRONG MAN".
She showed us that name spelling is not relevant in research in the manner one would expect. She had documents, yes official documents with duel spellings of the name on same paper. She presented this in more than one case or name.
She shared naming patterns that tend to be accurate in most research in America, though not all.
She discussed the use of our Chamber of Commerce which I also mentioned in January that so many tend to forget. She gave the example of what she garnered by using the Commerce for contact in her research.
She showed how the term Colonel can some times mean only a southern gentleman not a man of military office.

Her charts were easy to follow and she really had lots of people asking very good questions. Such as "What is a Delayed Birth Certificate?" Which she explained is a document issued by the state after the fact of birth. She related her family member needed one and they had to get friends, neighbors to verify that the incident happened on that date at that time and they were there. (My father needed one when Social Security took effect and he was in his 30's.)

She talked about sharing her time at the LDS Library in Mission Valley on Thursday evenings. She mentioned various trips to learn about family and the discrepancies that constantly kept showing up that had to be resolved, ie naming confusion, from first last name to only initials to mixed first name middle initials and last name. One ancestor she had, showed 6 different names for all the same person.

She stressed to never ignore a name that may fit the family. To look at the neighbor names on the census or documents because some times that is the answer to the confusion.

At times the information is more important in telling you the answers than the name you may be looking for. If the information looks right, it very possibly is correct.

Margaret thanks for such a well presented topic.

SusiCP@cox.net