This week’s tasks seem simple, but they aren’t a do it once and we are done type list. They are something we have to do with every document in our care (over 4600 for me so far) and we need to do it every time we add a new one:
Tracking Research
What I am working on is moving all my scanned images from my computer to Evernote. Then checking my cited sources for an ancestor against those images, I am making sure I have images for what I cite and cite what I have images for. I have nearly 3800 sources cited in TMG. I have 21 GB of images on my hard drive. This task is going to keep me busy for a while. 🙂
Genealogy Research Log
I have tried every type of research log known to man. They become time consuming, cumbersome, and messy very quickly. So about 6 months ago, I decided to give Evernote a try. So far it is working for me, because by using Notebooks as research projects and Tags to control what I search for within those projects, I am able to track research tasks and analyze documents easily and quickly. I can create tasks for a group of records, i. e. WWI draft cards, and keep track of that research by checking off ancestors as they are found and making notes about what was found in a research note. If I need to take a six month break, all my notes are right there in one spot.
Conducting Research
Finally! The fun part. Saturday I had some time to just research. I took a break from checking my sources against scans for each ancestor to go and look for something new on a line.
And I found this:
Name: Wm McAlpin
Gender: Male
Estimated birth year: abt 1785
Birth Place: Virginia, USA
Age: 75
Death Date: Apr 1860
Cause of Death: Lings
Census Year: 1860
Census Place: East Subdivision, Williamson, Tennessee
LINE: 6
Source Citation
Census Year: 1860
Source Information
Ancestry.com. U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules, 1850-1885 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. A portion of this collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors.
My fifth great grandfather, William McAlpin wasn’t found on the 1860 census. I haven’t been able to find a probate record for him. But I found this death information in the 1860 Mortality Schedules. Despite the typo, it seems he died of some disease of the lungs. (Lung cancer perhaps or pneumonia) Since I had his birth date as a range of dates based on the 1820-1850 census, it was nice to see it narrowed down more to 1785 on this record. That date may not be accurate, but it’s closer than 1775-1795. 🙂 And I now know I won’t be finding him on the 1860 census. Ancestry was having issues on Saturday, so I wasn’t able to look at the original image, so I tagged the note “Need Image” and went on.
My next place to look was: Wl 092 Williamson County, TN Will Books 12-13 Oct 1855 – Jul 1864 to see if perhaps he had a will or settlement listed. These are online at Family Search, making it easy to follow up on William to see if he had a probate. He did not. So my next step was to create a note to myself to look for William on the Williamson County, TN Taxlists. Currently these are not online, so this will have to wait until I can get to Nashville to the State Archives. But when I get there, I will already know that I have looked at his probate records and found him on every census from 1820-1850 (1810 was not extant). I won’t be retracing work that has already been done. I will also have notes pointing me to deed records that aren’t online yet and will need to look for William in all the Williamson County, TN books at our local library. That is research that will have to wait until another day, but will be ready to go when I am able to get to the research facilities because I will have reminder notes created in Evernote for when I get there.
Walk In Their Steps 