Week 10 2026 - Changed My Thinking - documents of Porter and Conner

Just when you think you have followed all the protocols for researching your family, research experts think of another one. And it's probably what you have done all along, just with a different name for the procedure.

When I started researching there was no internet. Only the US mail and strategic vacation planning. Soon there were books, remote one-name study magazines and using a lot of visual aids. One such magazine was the Genealogical Helper. And help it did! That's how I found the Dillingham Group and the Mayo Irish group and many more. 

With the advent of the internet suddenly researching took me on new heights. The joy of being able to actually see a document (birth, marriage, death, wills) with just a click. No waiting for weeks for something to come in the mail. And then realize that it wasn't your relative after all.  And I do have a few of those documents tucked away that I haven't been able to find a family member to pass it on to. So, you had to continue to search and hopefully the next one was the correct person.

I did a lot of diagrams by hand trying to see who belonged to whom, who were children of, or parents of... Who maybe fit, who maybe didn't. Today the name for that is to use the FAN method. Branching out looking at Family, Associates and Neighbors.

This diagram shows that John Conner's daughter Delilah married Andrew Graham. Andrew's brother George had a daughter Diantha who married his wife's (Delilah) cousin Jacob Conner. See why diagrams are necessary?

As I would send out letters to organizations, to County Clerks or to cemetery sexton's I would write down the address and date it was sent. I kept a blank page of paper in each notebook to help me keep track of it all and today they call that a Research Log.

I made my own blank forms, such as Family Group Sheet, Pedigree Chart, Descendent Chart. Then along came the Family Tree Maker software program that took my information I typed in and developed those charts automatically for me. No more hours sitting at a manual typewriter and using carbon paper and having ink smears all over my fingers.


When Census records began to be available on Microfilm through the LDS Libraries across the country you always read (or attempted to read) a few pages before and after where you found your family and wrote down many of the neighbors or others with the same last name. Often families would be split between two pages, so you could potentially miss someone if you just went with what you found on the first page.


Note:  two Conner families on back-to-back pages in the same Census

Today the experts tell you that it is what you should be doing with any records. Even when looking at Wills.

As all of these research aids have evolved, not only have they helped to change my way of thinking, but they have truly made it easier to research and find extended family.  But I still do hand-written diagrams for many of my families as I am researching them.

Barbie





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 43 - Urban - Lorraine Sheridan

Image
In 1942, a 19-year-old woman left her small rural hometown of less than 400 people and boarded a train bound for Detroit, one of the busiest urban centers in America. The city was alive around the clock, its streets glowing with factory lights and the constant hum of war production. Her name was Lorraine Sheridan, and she was the youngest of six children of John and Pauline (Prince) Sheridan. And my mom.  A recent graduate of Fulton schools in Perrinton, Michigan she decided to head to the big city. She found work at the Lyon Manufacturing Company located at 151 South Waterman St along the waterfront. It had turned from making farm equipment to producing 40 mm cartridge cases. It was her first time in a big city — and her first time working the midnight shift. Inside the vast plant, the air smelled of oil and hot metal, and the noise of machines filled every corner. Mom worked six days a week in a relief position and would take over for other workers that were going on breaks. She ...
Read more

Week 42 - Fire - Conner/Graham

Image
Isaac Graham was around 19 years old when he immigrated from Canada into Marion township, Michigan to join his older brother John in 1862. The two brothers had purchased land using funds that their father had supplied. Land was becoming too expensive in Canada, so he had sent them to Michigan to settle. Isaac's twin brother Charles had come with them, but after a bad winter and getting sickly from working in the woods, he decided to go back to Canada. Isaac purchased 80 acres in what became the town of Deckerville in Sanilac County, located in the thumb of Michigan. He cleared some acres, planted an orchard and built a small wood frame home. In 1871 Isaac returned home to Taylor's Corner in Victoria county, Ontario, Canada and there he married Charlotte Harmon on July 17th.  During the year of 1871, there was a severe drought that ran from the Dakotas, across Minnesota and into Wisconsin and also included the state of Michigan. Following lightning strikes in the Dakotas, fires ...
Read more

Week 32 - Wide Open Spaces - Prince / Bliss

Image
Uriah Bliss was the son of Jacob and Bethiah (Brown) Bliss, Jr. He was number seven in birth order of 11 children and one of seven that lived to adulthood. He was born 4 May 1803 in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. When he was a young boy his parents and his siblings traveled from Massachusetts to Huron County, Ohio. The trip would have been by wagon and taken 4-6 weeks over rugged terrain only to arrive in an area full of dense forests that would have to be cleared, and a log home built. The Bliss family settled in the Firelands of Ohio. The Firelands make up over 500,000 acres of land in northernmost Ohio and was land given by the government to those who had been burned out by the British during the Revolutionary War. March 10, 1836, Uriah married Sarah Inscho in Greenfield, Huron County, Ohio. After the birth of their children: Pardon, Miles, Asa, Uriah, Jr, Caroline, Lucinda, Charles and Sarah the family pulled up roots and headed to Jefferson County, Kansas around 1854. They left behind t...
Read more