Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 18 June 2016.<\/p>\n
Last time I blogged about the discovery of one of my husband\u2019s great great grandpas wearing some type of insignia in an old photo I had not previously noticed.\u00a0 I intended to work towards identifying it this summer when out of the blue, a descendant of that two times great grandpa emailed me.<\/p>\n
The cousin believes it may be Masonic so I\u2019ll be exploring that angle soon.\u00a0 In the meantime, her email had me in a tizzy!\u00a0 Cousin wanted to know if I was the Ancestry tree that had placed the same grandfather\u2019s first wife as the sister-in-law of his second wife.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t my tree that she was referring to but when I investigated the owner of that tree I noticed he had borrowed the photo I was now hanging on my office wall and a Bible page that I had posted.\u00a0 There were no source citations as to the marriage.\u00a0 I emailed him and although he\u2019s had a tree for a number of years and was on the site recently, he didn\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t researched that line in at least 6 years so I went back over my own notes and realized that I had come to the same conclusion he did. \u00a0(Well, maybe he didn’t reach that conclusion and instead, borrowed it, whatever!) \u00a0Thankfully, my notes were clear as to where I got the information \u2013 from a transcription of a letter written by the granddaughter of the couple.\u00a0 It was the only record of the marriage from upstate New York in the early 1800\u2019s that has ever been found.\u00a0 I emailed the cousin a snippet of the letter.<\/p>\n
Her response was not what I expected; she snipped a copy of a letter authored by the same person that had completely different information!\u00a0 It stated that the grandfather\u2019s first wife had been the sister of the second wife.<\/p>\n
Neither letter was dated but the letter I had a copy of displayed shaky handwriting, punctuation was lacking and there was many misspelled words.\u00a0 The letter she had a copy of was well written and clear.<\/p>\n
I received my version of the letter from the cousin\u2019s now deceased mother who never told me about an earlier letter.\u00a0 The cousin had gotten her letter also from her mother and wasn\u2019t aware of the older letter.\u00a0 All of the mother\u2019s genealogical information resides with a niece who planned to carry on researching. \u00a0\u00a0Why we each only got half of the information I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Why the information conflicts I can\u2019t explain, either.\u00a0 Was it faulty memory of an elderly relative or a correction to an earlier mistake?\u00a0 Whatever the reason, this definitely confirms you can\u2019t believe everything you read and the importance of seeking out more than one source. I will now ask, “Is that all?” when meeting with family and clients to make sure I have everything that is available.<\/p>\n
All I know for certain is that I\u2019m thankful I kept notes and citations.\u00a0 Originally, I had transcribed the word \u201cher\u201d as \u201chis\u201d and had come to the same conclusion as the cousin.\u00a0 I looked at the letter several years later and re-transcribed it.\u00a0 The second time, however, I had scanned and blew the letter up to 200 times when I made the transcription.\u00a0 It was then that I determined that \u201cher\u201d should have been \u201chis.\u201d\u00a0That small difference provided me a different maiden name for the first wife and through that, I was able to identify two other siblings who connected with this family in two different states.<\/p>\n
Last blog I mentioned how valuable it is to take a look back at your old photos. \u00a0I’d add it’s equally important to take another look at other documentation you may have. \u00a0You might be able to break through a wall with information that is in front of you all along.<\/p>\n
Just two little letters can make all the difference and change the direction of \u00a0your research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 18 June 2016. Last time I blogged about the discovery of one of my husband\u2019s great great grandpas wearing some type of insignia in an old photo I had not previously noticed.\u00a0 I intended to work towards identifying it this summer when out of the blue, a descendant of that … Continue reading “Just Two Tiny Words”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[314,315],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcribing","tag-letters","tag-transcription"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}