Follow Friday: Finding Woman's Maiden Name

Finding the maiden name of your women ancestors can be challenging at times.  You look in the usual places such as a death certificate, obituary, or marriage index.  Maybe even the tombstone will list the maiden name.  
But sometimes that maiden name is just hard to find!  Especially the further back you go in time.

William Dollaride wrote a wonderful article about finding the maiden name for your women ancestors on the GenealogyBlog.  In the article, he has a pretty thorough list of places you might find reference to her maiden name. He broke it down into categories:  Birth Records, Marriage Records, Divorce Records, Death Records, Census Records, Cemeteries, Major Databases, Vital Records & Indexes, Bible Records, Probate Records, Church Records, Medical Records, and a long list under Miscellaneous.  Some examples include:

• Finding a brother-in-law or mother-in-law on a census
• Delayed birth records or Corrected birth records
• Announcement of marriage in newspaper
• Church marriage records
• Deed records
• Pension records

Check out his article here to see the complete list.  It's a keeper to have on hand while you are researching or preparing your next research plan!

Copyright © 2012 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Follow Friday - "Climbing the Spiral Staircase: Learning Genealogy"

I read a wonderful blog post written by Harold Henderson, who is a professional genealogist from Indiana.  He is a wonderful writer who has the ability to take a complicated subject and break it down into easy to understand bites.  He did this superbly with his post on Archives.com website called, "Climbing the Spiral Staircase: Learning Genealogy."

As we gain experience we learn that what we thought was true before may not actually be true afterall.  He said,

"the learning process is like climbing a spiral staircase. It is not that we learn wrong things and have to unlearn them, but our previous knowledge is refined. As we make the next turn up the staircase, we can look down and see our former vantage point and its partial truth within a larger perspective."

I love this image of the spiral staircase and how we learn.  By climbing around, we are able to still see where we've been but also where we're going.

He goes on to describe 4 practical tips to help you search and analyze what you find:

1. Seek independent backup for every clue.
2. Don't be a selective skeptic.
3. Don't be an evidence snob.
4. Don't stop learning.

Check out his article to read his great examples for each of the previous tips!



Copyright © 2012 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Happy Blogiversary - Aug 9

Two years ago, our first blog post was made by our Publicity Chair, Teri.  When she became too busy in everyday life, I have taken over most of the blog posts.  I try to promote our upcoming programs, and write about the presentations, interesting things our members have done, and interesting research resources I find on the Internet.  Since our first post in 2010, our society has gained quite a few new members.

Happy Blogiversary to the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society!

Copyright © 2012 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Peddler's Faire - August 2012

We had a booth again at the Peddler's Faire in Martinez, California.  Several members volunteered to man the table and we were visited by many people who told us tales of their families.

Former President & current President manning the CCCGS table at the Peddler's Faire in Aug 2012

It was a cool day and the crowds were not as large as in the past.  This time we had the use of a nice canopy to keep the sun shaded but though it didn't shade our booth, it did define our booth space.  We also had a nice new foam board sign which was a hit.  Many stopped by and commented on it.

We had 47 people sign up for a complimentary issues of the newsletter.  Let's hope that some will visit us at  our meetings this fall.

Copyright © 2012 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.