More lessons from the amateur genealogical researcher.
Don't miss the basic things. Or first things first. That's the lessons this week. Those are lessons for me.
Having now visited genealogical mecca in Salt Lake City and having found ancestors to fill my family tree from overseas, I can pat myself on the back. But, hold on. I was just caused to realize that the lure and intrigue of that harder tasks was distracting me from things that should have been lower hanging fruit closer to my generation.
My family tree was missing proof for marriages among my great great grandparents and later. Sadly, a quarter of the marriages in those generations were without proof. In fact, two sets of great grandparents lacked some marriage proof.
Sidebar: Pennsylvania is at the heart of many of these lack of proof issues. The public records to cash conversion that goes on there is getting more than a little annoying in this digital, free access world that most every other state offers.
Of course, I've had pretty reliable information passed to me from others so I wasn't doubting the marriages, but I have had good coaching (Thanks, David!) telling me to have proof in hand.
So, I'm fixing that, or at least trying to fix it.
The piece above was on my kids' Mom's side. The date I had was actually off by one.
I found that my great grandparents from my Mom's side weren't married where everyone said they were, or at least the marriage license was from a different county. I also found the date for one Minnesota marriage that I was lacking and proof to verify another passed-down date in another.
I still have six more to find, including an elusive one for my great grandparents on my Dad's side. The marriage date in Royal Platt's obituary and the location in a distant cousin's published family tree don't turn up in the printed or digital indices. I've checked surrounding counties in two states. No dice. Yet.
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