Last time, I talked about how I was going to start comparing “others” who are mentioned in my ancestors’ records. Specifically, the names that are mentioned in deed records. Those names appear in the part of the deed that I tend to glance over without really reading because the handwriting is difficult to read and what could I possible gain from knowing that there was a black oak tree on the corner of Joe Smith’s property?
So I decided to make a form for my Genealogy Planner. It isn’t anything complicated, anyone could make it. I just created a table in Word and then added my ivy design on the top, but I thought I’d put it here on anyway for anyone who might want it. To add more rows, put your cursor on any cell in the bottom row and then click on “insert above” in the “Layout” tab.
As I’ve been working on putting my chart together, I did decide that it would be good to inlcude “others” from all types of records on the same form. So I’ll be including neighbors in census records and witnesses on marriage documents or guardianship records. Perhaps I could also include people listed who made purchases at estate sales, but that could be quite a list, so I’m not sure. At the very least, I could use my chart to see if those people are more likely to be neighbors instead of family. It’s a work in progress! And I have noticed that although I’ve been focusing so strongly on getting correct citations into my database and group sheets, I have not been NEARLY as diligent on labeling the actual pages in my files! I’ve been looking at deed records where I made sure to include the page number in the copy, but no where did I write down which deed book the record came from. When will I learn??
