STUMBLE "U"

Remember today is "Relatively Speaking - Cousins who blog" over at Reflections From The Fence - so AFTER you read my blog today be sure to stop on over & see what Carol has to say today!

SO, you've had all weekend to come up with what you think I use for the letter U. What did you come up with? Well, I use the letter U in STUMBLE for UNTURNED. As in leave no stone unturned.

Check every cemetery book, every deed book, every will book, that your library may have on that county. If its there and has your county on it you should be checking it as well as neighboring counties. Using every resource available is a very important part of researching.

I've had people in my classes say, I don't need to do this, I use Ancestry. Well that's good, BUT if that's all you use boy are you missing out. Newsflash, EVERYTHING IS NOT ON ANCESTRY!. They do have an impressive collection but so many counties are now putting their original records on line - just using Ancestry is so limiting to your search.

So many people stopped traveling to libraries because they really feel that everything is on line. No it's not. Many resources are not available on line. In order to leave no stone UNTURNED, you need to make use of libraries, the internet, historical societies etc. I promise you that once you think you've seen it all, a new resource will appear.

I had been going to the Montgomery County Archives & Record Center in Dayton for many years, researching my family there. I specifically was looking for the death record for Rebecca Tanreuther McCune, my GGG grandmother. I had been there at least ten years. I really thought that I had seen everything that possibly could have the death record of Rebecca. When I finally got my first laptop I went there with the laptop. Looking for a place to plug in, I asked the librarian about a good place to sit. She pointed to a table in the corner and told me to just move the book and use that table.

The book was smallish in size, I had not seen it before. It was a book on deaths at the county home. I opened it up, thumbed thru the index. An entry in the index indicated a person with that name was on page X. So with excitement building I quickly turned to page X. It was HER! After more than 10 years of going to the Archives to search for her there she was. I had found her death date at long last. Of course finding that entry gave me more questions that I could not answer, but I did finally know the death date for Rebecca!

Leaving no stone unturned means just when you think you've seen all the records another will probably make an entrance. So, recapping:

S- Source

T- Trace

U- Unturned

Stay tuned this week for the rest of the STUMBLE series.

Happy Researching!

Karen

Note: I searched high & low for a nice letter "U" to insert here but I just didn't find one in my clipart collection. Maybe I'll have better luck with the letter "M" for tomorrow.