Genealogical Chatting

Today was interesting and two people shared research thoughts and ideas and concepts.
 Her last name is a family name though it appears not related.  But her family name jumps up all over the areas that I am doing research in.

 We discussed research.  What to look for, and where and how.  Lucky her she has been to the Pittsburgh Carnegie Library. It was closed the day I was there.

 As she discussed her roadblocks we exchanged concepts.  When dates do not match for births and deaths, is it because of the change of calendar dates?   When you find some one in an area under one county name, do you look to see when the county boundaries changed and/or the county was split?

Many times, names evolve, some times minorly some time majorly. Early Mid Atlantic there is a lot of y used that today uses e.  There are others that morph also.  B & P, can be misunderstood with a
person with a brogue or slur when speaking.

Language is a fascinating thing. One some times, needs to study the language spoken at the time to comprehend what is spoken.  Being fortunate to have a person of a foreign country as a neighbor I could bounce the pronounciation of a word or name off her for authenticity of what it really sounded like spoken by a person of that nationality.  Alas I lost her this fall. A very dear beautiful woman.
She was my Sister in law's mother.

At one time I had access to a family of Indian heritage that could tell me what some names were in the native tongue and the translation to American English.  Some did not translate. Not all words do translate. Something to remember.

Blessed with some Latin background it helps to break down words one is not always sure what it implies.  Again remember that what a word meant in 1700's was different in the late 1800's and definitely different into the late 1900's.

Remember to keep track of the collateral kin, later down the road if you get a brickwall or major puzzle,  you may need to check for other family members of the ancestor you are researching.
DNA is one reason for you to do this.

Remember not everyone remembers an event the same way. Nor do they experience the same reaction to events that you do.

Having spent 3 weeks with distant kin and sharing their words of what the family did or did not do
was fascinating to compare to my Grandfathers account of some of the events.

Surprisingly, it was brought home with the gathering of three different lines gathering in a living room and sharing their concept of various event.  I was the fourth line and a generation down from them.

The joy of all this is it brought out stories and memories people had forgotten and were able to reshare with others who had no knowledge.  Of course the kept letters, pictures, newspaper clippings, and articles retained by members made it even more memorable.

That is why I feel a yearly newsletter is needed for families to share.

Do you know that after and probably before the Civil War. When family moved away that letter was transferred from one member to another and more data added to it as it was passed around, many times.

So think on it when your doing research, all these things can have bearing on your research and results.