Methodology Monday with three generations in three pages

Not all articles in top genealogy periodicals have to be long or involve a convoluted tangle of indirect evidence. If you're having a short-attention-span day, Arlene V. Jennings's recent inquiry into the mother of Jane (Fife) Smart (b. 1769) is quick and to the point in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly.

Sometimes good methodology is just about knowing where to look. In this case two parallel record sets give varying results: no name for Jane's mother in one, and two different surnames for her in the other. Probate files for her father and husbands provide the "glue" to piece together vital records, identifying Jane as a daughter of her mother's middle (second) marriage, and reaching back to Jane's mother's mother's surname in the early 1700s.



Arlene V. Jennings, "Jane Fife's Mother, Elizabeth (Sowersby) Stather Fife Hought," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 102 (June 2014): 93-95.


Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday with three generations in three pages," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 18 August 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Smart Genealogy in LaGrange County, Indiana

The Midwest has a cameo in the current National Genealogical Society Quarterly, in Arlene V. Jennings's masterful article on the Yorkshire origins of Hanna (Watson) Smart. Most of the research action takes place in England, as the author matches up the Indiana and Yorkshire families almost as quickly (and a good deal more cogently) as a certain TV show. Then things get interesting, because Hannah Watson had no baptismal record in the village of North Newbald, where she was married.

In one of those laconic sentences that represents countless hours of work, the author observes that "of eighty-six parishes within a twelve-mile radius of North Newbald, candidates for Hannah appear in four parishes." (There's even a citation to a local demographic study justifying the choice of that size radius.)

Using clues provided by siblings, Hannah's parents are identified, but her father is William Watson, a common name in the area. Eight of the article's twenty pages are devoted to sorting out William Watsons in the area, using land tax assessments, churchwardens' accounts, poor rates, manorial records, maps, probate records, and censuses. These records provide an amazing level of detail about where Hannah's parents lived (near a boundary, of course) and where her parents had lived before their marriage. The genealogical summary shows Hannah's children ending up not only in LaGrange County, Indiana, but in St. Joseph County Michigan; Steuben County, Indiana; and Osage and Marion counties, Kansas.



Arlene V. Jennings, CG, "The Yorkshire Origins of Hannah (Watson) Smart of LaGrange County, Indiana," National Genealogical Society Quarterly, vol. 100, no. 3 (September 2012):199-219


Harold Henderson, "Smart Genealogy in LaGrange County, Indiana," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 24 October 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]