Methodology Friday with Isaac Young

Isaac Young (1799-1872) died in California. Where did Shirley Langdon Wilcox, CG, FNGS, find the clue that led to identifying his father back in Virginia? By reading the 1898 California obituary of a woman who died more than 25 years after him; she had been married to his son Leander's partner in a sawmill. It also helped that Wilcox knew about private laws.

Wilcox's article appears in the current (September) issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. I won't spoil your pleasure in following her logic step by step, but doing so should be enough all by itself to quash the notion that genealogy means finding out "all about" your ancestor.

To find our ancestor's ancestor, we often have to study his or her friends, neighbors, and associates -- and sometimes associates of his associates! -- as if they were relatives . . . because some of them probably were. This goes double or triple for ancestors, like Isaac, whose origins lie in the "Dark Age" of US genealogy.



Harold Henderson, "Methodology Friday with Isaac Young," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 14 November 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday with Elder Henry Hait (NYGBR)

Methodology is not always rocket science. It can involve dealing with many difficulties, each one small in itself but cumulatively daunting. In the case of the Elder Henry Hait -- the ancestor of Michael Hait, CG, and the subject of his article, the first installment of which is in the January New York Genealogical and Biographical Record -- it involves being aware of at least five potential research pitfalls:

* spelling variations. The title of a classic book on the family tells it: "Hoyt, Haight, Hight," not to mention Hoit or even Hyatt.

* common names in the area, in this case "Henry Hait"!

* borderline matters. For much of his life, Elder Henry lived along the Connecticut-New York border and created records (or failed to do so) in both states.

* family discontinuities, limiting available records and creating considerable uncertainty as to how he fit into the extended Hait family.

* a religious denomination that created useful records, but not the ones genealogists typically reach for first (infant baptisms and marriages).

These add up to a distinct lack of records that provide direct evidence. And even when a record is found naming the father of a Henry Hait, we still have to make sure it's the same person as Elder Henry. This is a US "Dark Age" problem, as Henry lived from 1779 to 1864.

NYGBR co-editors Laura Murphy DeGrazia and Karen Mauer Green make an important point introducing the issue. "Background research" does more than just provide general historical context or color. In this case, historical records of the Primitive Baptists actually provided first-hand information that helped cement the identification of Henry.

Like knowing the law, knowing the relevant denominational history (and its publications!) is like standing on a mountaintop and mapping the ridges and valleys below. It sure beats chopping our way through the brush and wondering where we are or which way we're going.




Michael Hait, "The Ancestry of Elder Henry Hait, Primitive Baptist Preacher of Connecticut and New York," New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 145 (2014): 25-38.

Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday with Elder Henry Hait," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 24 March 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Good news for pre-1850 US "Dark Age" ancestors

My great-great-great grandfather Eliphas Thrall (1767-1834) did not serve in the American Revolution. But when I searched for his name in quotation marks in the "Revolutionary War Pensions" section of Fold3, I got two hits. His name and signature appear in the handwritten pension files of Daniel Baker and Jesse Thrall as a corroborating witness or neighbor in the place from which they applied for their pensions. Fold3 has the files indexed that deeply. (Exactly how thoroughly overall I don't know, but some of you may.)

For anyone suffering with Dark Age ancestors in the US, this kind of searching can be a godsend. It basically uses the pension files to garner information on people who are present in incidental or supporting roles -- and of course it connects them to friends, family, associates, and neighbors, all of whom may yield additional records. It will be more helpful if you can either (a) arrange to have research targets with unusual names or (b) manage to narrow down the search for a common-name geographically or otherwise.

I have a bunch of names to run through this mill in my "spare" time. I'm looking forward to having Civil War pension files and local probate files indexed on line in this fantastically productive way in the future.

BTW, this kind of all-purpose indexing is not a new idea. Some folks had it back before 1980 and created 23 volumes of books indexing these pension files in this way until 2006 (up into the "H" surnames, and using the abridged set of pension files, NARA M805), under the cumbersome title Revolutionary War period : Bible, family & marriage records gleaned from pension applications. 




Harold Henderson, "Good news for those pre-1850 US 'Dark Age' ancestors," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 28 December 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]