This is one of a series of posts that follow up on my Legacy Family Tree webinar called "Brick Walls: Cracking the Case of Nathan Brown's Parents." Use the Nathan Brown tag/label to view all the posts in the series.
During the research process it is inevitable that you will encounter secondary sources and information. If you don't pay attention you might not even realize when you are using them.
Secondary sources are resources that were not created at the time the original event occurred. These can include published genealogies, transcriptions and family oral history among others. There are many different kinds of secondary sources.
Secondary sources can act as a guide to help your research proceed in the right direction. They need to be supported, however, by primary sources that will confirm your findings. Secondary sources also need to be verified to prove they are accurate. Secondary sources, as in the case of published genealogies, that do not cite sources may not be accurate and can possibly lead you in the wrong direction.
Some of the secondary sources that I used while researching the Nathan Brown case include:
Transcriptions
To learn about the Brown family I used the book Vital Records of Swansea, Massachusetts to 1850 transcribed by Peter Rounds. Mr. Rounds was not the Town Clerk present at the time that the records were originally recorded. He was a 20th century researcher who published a transcript of the original records. Errors could have been introduced at the time of transcription. Using transcriptions, particularly for vital records, is not usually a problem because of access to the original records. Many original records have been microfilmed so that you can check them. In New England, you can also visit town halls and check the original records in person. Whenever there is a question about the accuracy of a transcription, the original should be consulted.
Indexes
When you search on Ancestry.com to find images of original documents you are using an index disguised as a search function. The index results are considered secondary sources because they are created by someone who was not at the original event. The transcriber who created the index is one level removed from the original documents and could introduce errors into the index. If you search on Ancestry.com and obtain results from the index but don't actually click through to view the original document image then you are using a secondary source. Only when you view the image of the original can you say you have consulted the primary source.
In the case of Nathan Brown, I used indexes on Ancestry.com to search US Federal Census records. When I scanned a page of Brown families living in Charlton, Massachusetts, I was viewing secondary sources. The same is true when I used the used the Worcester County Probate Records Index to identify possible family members for Nathan Brown. My analysis of the secondary source information then helped me target which original records I should view as my primary sources.
The Barbour Collection used either at the Connecticut State Library or on Ancestry.com are both secondary sources. The Barbour Collection, a state-wide compilation of vital records, was created from viewing the original town records. The Barbour Collection on Ancestry.com is one step even further removed from the original source because it is a transcription of the Barbour Collection index and not taken directly from the town records. Is the information incorrect? No, not necessarily but the further removed you are from the original the more importance there is in verifying the original source and the more likely there could be errors.
Published Genealogies
The most troublesome secondary sources are the published genealogies. They are so tempting to take at face value and incorporate into your family history research. The best rule of thumb is the older the publication is the more suspect it is. Another item to look at with published genealogies is the citations. Are there citations for each fact, each paragraph or simply each biographical entry? Perhaps there are no citations but simply a bibliography at the end. The fewer the citations the more likely you will need to verify everything you read pertaining to your research. Some genealogies are published in peer reviewed journals such as the National Genealogical Society Quarterly and the New England Historic and Genealogical Register. Genealogies published in well-respected, peer reviewed journals are more trust worthy than other published works and you will likely find they include detailed citations.
The published genealogies that I used when researching the Nathan Brown case included:
Boyer, Carl 3rd. New England Colonial Families Vol. 1, Brown Families of Bristol Counties, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, From the Immigrants to the Early Nineteenth Century. Newhall, California: Carl Boyer, 3rd, 1981.
Browne, William Bradford “Chad Brown and His Descendants”, New England Historic and Genealogical Register, Vol. 80 (1926), 73-80, 175-176.
White, Dorothy Higson. Descendants of Roger Williams, Book III, The Sayles Line Through his Daughter Mary Williams. East Greenwich, RI: Roger Williams Family Association, 1991.
In the next post in this series I will specifically look at an example from one of these publications and analyze the accuracy of the information.
If you missed the live version of the webinar, you can see it now in the Legacy Family Tree archives. It will be available until November 14, 2011 to view (for free) at your leisure.
Showing posts with label Nathan Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nathan Brown. Show all posts
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Nathan Brown: Do it Yourself or Hire a Professional?
This is one of a series of posts that follow up on my Legacy Family Tree webinar called "Brick Walls: Cracking the Case of Nathan Brown's Parents." Use the Nathan Brown tag/label to view all the posts in the series.
In a previous post "How Much time and Effort Did It Take?" I laid out exactly the effort I extended to find the parents of Nathan Brown. It took me somewhere between 40-80 hours.
When deciding to do brick wall research yourself or whether to hire a professional a number of factors come into play.
Can you afford the cost?
The first issue is money. Professional research is going to cost on average somewhere between $25 and $50 an hour depending on where you live and the experience level of the researcher. If we use the work I did as an example, and we settle on 60 hours, at those rates you would be paying $1500 to $3000 for that amount of research.
Some people might have that kind of money to spend on genealogical research but many don't. If you do choose this option, you will want to choose a professional genealogist very carefully. You will need to make sure that they have the specific skills required to solve your brick wall.
Giving away the journey
The other factor that comes to mind is, even if you do have the money, would you want to give the whole project away to another researcher? I'm sure many genealogists would like some help and still continue to participate in the research process.
An Alternative
There are a few alternatives that the regular genealogist can choose from. The first is to have a consultation with a professional genealogist. In this scenario, you provide the professional with all the information and documentation that you have accumulated on your brick wall. They will review the information and provide you with suggestions for where you should focus your efforts. This can be a very effective and reasonably priced solution to get you back on track and on route to solving your brick wall.
Before choosing this option be sure to choose a genealogist who is familiar with the location and time frame that you are researching. Another thing you can do to ensure the success of your consultation is to have all of your documentation well-organized. Be sure to let the genealogist know about your negative searches. Those are the books and databases and other resources that you've already searched but came up empty.
A Second Option
You may have noticed that my search process was broken up into specific activities in various geographic locations. Another ideal strategy to harness the help of professionals in a limited manner is to hire them for very specific tasks. This works particularly well if your brick wall touches on a number of different geographic areas.
For instance, if I were to have hired a professional I could have asked them to search for deeds at the Registry of Deeds in Worcester, MA for Nathan Browns who lived in Charlton, Massachusetts between 1795 - 1815. (I allowed for a couple extra years on either side.) I could designate 3 hours of research time and a limited scope of searching for deeds. In this case, the researcher would get back to me with any deeds that were found or a report indicating that there were no deeds for any Nathan Browns that met the criteria. In this kind of scenario you as the researcher would retain total control over strategy and analysis and the professional would be performing record lookups on site. This is particularly helpful for genealogists who do not live near enough to the brick wall locations to do the research in person themselves.
The down side to this is that the paid researcher doesn't know enough about your research to notice related or allied family names that they may come across in the course of the research. That could leave missed opportunities. However, it still covers the main targets of your research so is a reasonable option.
The key to solving a brick wall, whether you do it yourself, or make use of a professional, is to create a well thought-out research plan and then document what you find. That way no matter what happens you'll be able to review your own notes or a professional will be able to help you better when looking at your well-prepared documentation.
In a previous post "How Much time and Effort Did It Take?" I laid out exactly the effort I extended to find the parents of Nathan Brown. It took me somewhere between 40-80 hours.
When deciding to do brick wall research yourself or whether to hire a professional a number of factors come into play.
Can you afford the cost?
The first issue is money. Professional research is going to cost on average somewhere between $25 and $50 an hour depending on where you live and the experience level of the researcher. If we use the work I did as an example, and we settle on 60 hours, at those rates you would be paying $1500 to $3000 for that amount of research.
Some people might have that kind of money to spend on genealogical research but many don't. If you do choose this option, you will want to choose a professional genealogist very carefully. You will need to make sure that they have the specific skills required to solve your brick wall.
Giving away the journey
The other factor that comes to mind is, even if you do have the money, would you want to give the whole project away to another researcher? I'm sure many genealogists would like some help and still continue to participate in the research process.
An Alternative
There are a few alternatives that the regular genealogist can choose from. The first is to have a consultation with a professional genealogist. In this scenario, you provide the professional with all the information and documentation that you have accumulated on your brick wall. They will review the information and provide you with suggestions for where you should focus your efforts. This can be a very effective and reasonably priced solution to get you back on track and on route to solving your brick wall.
Before choosing this option be sure to choose a genealogist who is familiar with the location and time frame that you are researching. Another thing you can do to ensure the success of your consultation is to have all of your documentation well-organized. Be sure to let the genealogist know about your negative searches. Those are the books and databases and other resources that you've already searched but came up empty.
A Second Option
You may have noticed that my search process was broken up into specific activities in various geographic locations. Another ideal strategy to harness the help of professionals in a limited manner is to hire them for very specific tasks. This works particularly well if your brick wall touches on a number of different geographic areas.
For instance, if I were to have hired a professional I could have asked them to search for deeds at the Registry of Deeds in Worcester, MA for Nathan Browns who lived in Charlton, Massachusetts between 1795 - 1815. (I allowed for a couple extra years on either side.) I could designate 3 hours of research time and a limited scope of searching for deeds. In this case, the researcher would get back to me with any deeds that were found or a report indicating that there were no deeds for any Nathan Browns that met the criteria. In this kind of scenario you as the researcher would retain total control over strategy and analysis and the professional would be performing record lookups on site. This is particularly helpful for genealogists who do not live near enough to the brick wall locations to do the research in person themselves.
The down side to this is that the paid researcher doesn't know enough about your research to notice related or allied family names that they may come across in the course of the research. That could leave missed opportunities. However, it still covers the main targets of your research so is a reasonable option.
The key to solving a brick wall, whether you do it yourself, or make use of a professional, is to create a well thought-out research plan and then document what you find. That way no matter what happens you'll be able to review your own notes or a professional will be able to help you better when looking at your well-prepared documentation.
If you missed the live version of the webinar, you can see it now in the Legacy Family Tree archives. It will be available until November 14, 2011 to view (for free) at your leisure.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Nathan Brown: How Exactly Did I Find Nathan's Parents?
This is one of a series of posts that follow up on my Legacy Family Tree webinar called "Brick Walls: Cracking the Case of Nathan Brown's Parents." Use the Nathan Brown tag/label to view all the posts in the series.
During the webinar I did not go into great detail about exactly how I found Nathan Brown's parents. Some people wanted to know how I found them in Swansea, Massachusetts. The truth is I didn't search for them in Swansea, MA, they just happened to be in Swansea when I found them.
Once I focused in on the name Samuel Miller Brown as a major clue for finding the family, I redefined my search strategy to ask this question:
During the webinar I did not go into great detail about exactly how I found Nathan Brown's parents. Some people wanted to know how I found them in Swansea, Massachusetts. The truth is I didn't search for them in Swansea, MA, they just happened to be in Swansea when I found them.
Once I focused in on the name Samuel Miller Brown as a major clue for finding the family, I redefined my search strategy to ask this question:
"Can I find a family where the Brown husband married a Miller wife whose father was named Samuel Miller?"
In order to find a family such as this I harnessed the power of a database and Boolean logic. Genealogists are by nature an analytical bunch and many already apply this kind of thinking when doing Google searches and such.
So to make this happen all I needed was a database that would allow me to search on an individual's name, a spouse's name and a father's name. FamilySearch.com, Ancestry.com and the World Connnect database will all let you do this kind of searching.
FamilySearch is a little fussy in that when you only have a last name you can't enter any other information but the country. Without the name of parents ahead of time you would have to enter Nathan Brown and Brown for the father and Miller for the mother. If no connection has previously been made between the child and the parents (as is the case with most brick walls) then your result will turn up empty. But try it anyway because you may have good luck.
Ancestry.com always allows for this sort of search when you use the advanced search option.
And World Connect is likely the easiest of all to use when trying this sort of search.
Now, the easy part is doing the search. The hard part is searching through the results. With common English names like Brown and Miller, the search will result in many, many hits. So it's best to restrict the search a bit more. Since I believed that these families either were born or died in Connecticut, Rhode Island or Massachusetts, I can then restrict the search to those states (fill in only one of the criteria such as birth place not both birth and death place). By performing three separate searches, each with a different state, I can get much more specific, higher quality results.
When I did the search narrowing my criteria, I came right to Jeremiah and Rebecca Miller and her father Samuel Miller.
The effectiveness of this technique will depend on how unique the names are that you are using and how much information you have about your brick wall. The more information you have the easier it will be.
If you missed the live version of the webinar, you can see it now in the Legacy Family Tree archives. It will be available until November 14, 2011 to view (for free) at your leisure.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Nathan Brown: How Much Time and Effort Did It Take?
This is one of a series of posts that follow up on my Legacy Family Tree webinar called "Brick Walls: Cracking the Case of Nathan Brown's Parents."
One of the questions viewers would like to have answered is how much time and effort did it take to do this level of research?
The quick answer is 40-80 hours. Why such a broad range? Well, for most of the journey I didn't keep track. As with many research projects, I started not thinking that this was going to turn into a big project. I really had no idea if I was going to get anywhere with this. After all, Nathan Brown had been a brick wall for Geoff Rasmussen for many years.
Here's a general breakdown of what I did:
How would you have handled the same research? Would you have done something differently?
If you missed the live version of the webinar, you can see it now in the Legacy Family Tree archives. It will be available until November 14, 2011 to view (for free) at your leisure.
One of the questions viewers would like to have answered is how much time and effort did it take to do this level of research?
The quick answer is 40-80 hours. Why such a broad range? Well, for most of the journey I didn't keep track. As with many research projects, I started not thinking that this was going to turn into a big project. I really had no idea if I was going to get anywhere with this. After all, Nathan Brown had been a brick wall for Geoff Rasmussen for many years.
Here's a general breakdown of what I did:
- Review of Geoff's documentation - 1 hour and probably another hour analyzing it over and over in my head.
- Trip to Connecticut State Library - This was a dual purpose trip, both to prepare for my Connecticut webinar and check information on the Brown family. Driving time 3 hours round trip (about 110 miles) and 4 hours of research time.
- Online research on Charlton, MA, exploring possible families for Nathan Brown - about 3 hours
- Trip to the Worcester County Registry of Deeds - 2 hours drive time round trip, 2 hours research tracing deeds of all Nathan Browns in Charlton, MA.
- Initial Research after discovering Jeremiah and Rebecca Brown as parents for Nathan - 3 hours
- Trip to the Bristol County Registry of Deeds and Probate Court - Driving time 1.5 hours round trip (that's a short journey for Boston area residents!) plus 3 hours research. There I checked out all the deeds and probate records that related to the Brown family in Swansea, MA.
- Background research to analyze what records are available for Swansea, MA and Warren, RI - 2-3 hours.
- Trip to the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) - to meet Geoff and Thomas MacEntee in person and to research from published genealogies. 2 hours on the train plus 1 hour research (all the rest of the time was spent gabbing!)
- Trip to the Morse Institute Library in Natick, MA - 1 hour driving round trip, in order to analyze the Swansea, MA Vital Records. That was a rainy day and I got soaked! [And yes I could have done this step online (at NEHGS), which I did, but it would have taken too long flipping from one digital image to the next when I needed to review the whole birth record section. It was much easier to read the book and also have access to the introductory information from the transcriber which is not online.]
- Trip to Charlton, MA with my colleague Carleen Farrell to explore cemeteries to find gravestones for any Brown family members - 2 hours driving plus 3 hours exploring. Admittedly this was loads of fun. We bumped into the gravestone of Grizzly Adams along the way!
- Hitting my head against the wall trying to figure out what to do next - 2 hours
- Trip to Warren, RI - 2 hours driving round trip, 4+ hours research at the Warren Town Hall (Probate, Deeds, Vital Records), the North Burial ground to find the graves of Jeremiah, Rebecca and Samuel Miller Brown, and the George Hail Public Library where I did background research on the town of Warren.
- Further banging my head against the wall - 2 hours.
- Followup trip to the Connecticut State Library where I doubled checked all resources and tried to locate new sources to help in the search. On this trip I also researched the families of Nathan Brown's wife, Molly Clark and Samuel Miller Brown's wife, Abigail Smith. Driving time 3 hours round trip (about 110 miles) and 4 hours of research time.
- Second trip to the Bristol County Registry of Deeds and Probate in Taunton, MA - 1.5 hours round trip, 2.5 hours research. This was to double check records and check some new names now that I had a better understanding of the family.
- Analysis time - 10+ hours. This is the fuzzy gray area that I can't really track. I can't really describe the countless hours I spent going over and re-working things in my head, re-checking all my printed documents, digital photographs and scans. Based on reworking my analysis this is where I figured out what to do next.
How would you have handled the same research? Would you have done something differently?
If you missed the live version of the webinar, you can see it now in the Legacy Family Tree archives. It will be available until November 14, 2011 to view (for free) at your leisure.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
The Nathan Brown Case Continued
Yesterday I presented a webinar called "Brick Walls: Cracking the Case of Nathan Brown's Parents" for Legacy Family Tree. The webinar was well attended and received positive response but I think there were still some lingering questions.
Over the next week, I plan to write some followup blog posts to go a little deeper into the process that I used to solve the case.
Some of the topics will include:
I will also be posting gravestone photos over on my other blog - The Symbolic Past - so be sure to check for those.
Thanks to everyone who attended the webinar yesterday. If you missed it, you can still see it online (for free) in the archives at Legacy Family Tree until November 14, 2011. (You'll have to scroll down to the "Listen to our archived webinars" header.)
Looking forward to hearing what other questions you may have!
Over the next week, I plan to write some followup blog posts to go a little deeper into the process that I used to solve the case.
Some of the topics will include:
- Using Secondary Sources - How Much Can You Trust Them?
- How Exactly Did I Find Nathan's Parents in Swansea, MA?
- How Much Time and Effort Does It Take to Do This Level of Research?
- Use a Professional or Do It Yourself?
- What Records Did I Use in My Search?
I will also be posting gravestone photos over on my other blog - The Symbolic Past - so be sure to check for those.
Thanks to everyone who attended the webinar yesterday. If you missed it, you can still see it online (for free) in the archives at Legacy Family Tree until November 14, 2011. (You'll have to scroll down to the "Listen to our archived webinars" header.)
Looking forward to hearing what other questions you may have!
Monday, October 31, 2011
Brick Walls: Cracking the Case of Nathan Brown's Parents
During the summer, Geoff Rasmussen, the host of the Legacy Family Tree Webinars asked me to give a talk on Researching in Connecticut. He suggested that I use the family of Nathan Brown as an example for the talk. Geoff frequently uses Nathan Brown as an example when giving webinars on the Legacy Family Tree software. It turns out that Brown is also one of Geoff's ancestors.
Well, I had to tell Geoff that I couldn't include his ancestors in my Connecticut webinar. I did find his family but they weren't from Connecticut. Not originally anyway. Geoff was pretty excited that I had found his ancestors. We both agreed that talking about the process of how I found them would make for a good webinar. The only down side for Geoff was that I couldn't reveal anything about his ancestors to him until the day of the webinar.
It has been really fun tormenting Geoff for the last month or so. But in fairness, I've been tormenting myself as well. I have been trying to dot all the i's and cross all the t's. That has kept me researching and confirming for the last few months.
But the time has come to release Geoff's ancestors to him and to present the webinar. This will happen on Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 2pm Eastern Time (that's 11:00am in California and something like 7:00pm in the UK). The webinar is free to any interested person with an internet connection. The only thing you'll have to do in advance is to register.
The advantage to watching it live is that you have the chance to win free prizes such a copy of the webinar CD. But if you miss it, don't worry, you'll be able to watch for free on the Legacy Family Tree site for awhile.
"If this is about Geoff's family why should I bother watching it?"
Great question! Yes, this is about Geoff's ancestor but it is really about the process of solving brick walls and then proving or confirming what you have found. It's real practical advice for any genealogist or family historian who has a brick wall to solve.
In the first half of the webinar I will be discussing several techniques that can be used to bring down brick walls.
The second half of the talk will be devoted to document analysis and showing you how to prove you've really solved your brick wall.
The really fun, and yet incredibly challenging aspect of this brick wall, is that it is being solved completely by indirect evidence.
Given that I have no smoking gun, it's fair to ask "Did Marian really solve this brick wall?" You'll have to tune in to find out and then let me know afterwards.
Am I scared? A little bit! This has been a really difficult research challenge. But it has pushed my abilities as a researcher and really gotten me to think.
So tune in on Wednesday and see if you think I've solved the mystery. Or tune in to give me some support!
At the very end will be a big announcement where I reveal a fascinating ancestor that Geoff is descended from!
Well, I had to tell Geoff that I couldn't include his ancestors in my Connecticut webinar. I did find his family but they weren't from Connecticut. Not originally anyway. Geoff was pretty excited that I had found his ancestors. We both agreed that talking about the process of how I found them would make for a good webinar. The only down side for Geoff was that I couldn't reveal anything about his ancestors to him until the day of the webinar.
It has been really fun tormenting Geoff for the last month or so. But in fairness, I've been tormenting myself as well. I have been trying to dot all the i's and cross all the t's. That has kept me researching and confirming for the last few months.
But the time has come to release Geoff's ancestors to him and to present the webinar. This will happen on Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 2pm Eastern Time (that's 11:00am in California and something like 7:00pm in the UK). The webinar is free to any interested person with an internet connection. The only thing you'll have to do in advance is to register.
The advantage to watching it live is that you have the chance to win free prizes such a copy of the webinar CD. But if you miss it, don't worry, you'll be able to watch for free on the Legacy Family Tree site for awhile.
"If this is about Geoff's family why should I bother watching it?"
Great question! Yes, this is about Geoff's ancestor but it is really about the process of solving brick walls and then proving or confirming what you have found. It's real practical advice for any genealogist or family historian who has a brick wall to solve.
In the first half of the webinar I will be discussing several techniques that can be used to bring down brick walls.
The second half of the talk will be devoted to document analysis and showing you how to prove you've really solved your brick wall.
The really fun, and yet incredibly challenging aspect of this brick wall, is that it is being solved completely by indirect evidence.
Given that I have no smoking gun, it's fair to ask "Did Marian really solve this brick wall?" You'll have to tune in to find out and then let me know afterwards.
Am I scared? A little bit! This has been a really difficult research challenge. But it has pushed my abilities as a researcher and really gotten me to think.
So tune in on Wednesday and see if you think I've solved the mystery. Or tune in to give me some support!
At the very end will be a big announcement where I reveal a fascinating ancestor that Geoff is descended from!
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