Make some time to look at the known siblings and cousins of your direct ancestors. When your research takes you back to times and places where few or no records were created or have survived, you may find clues in the records of other family members. Track their movements through directories and census records and follow up with probates and other
records, some of which may include references to your direct ancestors.
24-7 Family History Circle
The Place for Ancestral Connections
I live in Ireland where so much of the records were destroyed in 1922. It has therefore being a necessity to research sideways as well as backwards to gleam the information needed. Sometimes in references to first and second cousins of the people you are researching, you can get that missing bit of information needed to connect or associate people you are researching. Wills, funerals, land deeds etc they all can have bits of information. Sideways is not only a good idea it is sometime a necessity in countries like Ireland
Aoife
In researching my great grandmother, I found an obituary for her sister, Maria Pluecker Gerth. Her sister and parents emigrated from Germany in 1866. The obituary gave the town/village of origin as Kohlgrund Germany in the Fulda area of Hessen. This area has not been filmed by LDS. In doing some further on line research I joined the Hessen list serv and they helped me contact the archives in that area of Germany. I contacted the archives and for a small fee was able to get the direct lines of my great grandmother’s mother and father which took me back to 1750 on the direct lines of both parents
HERBOLDT and PLUECKER and all their marriages, maiden names, villages where they lived, occupations, and a copy of theentire parish church records in German.
What a terrific find! What if I never found the obituary for Maria Pluecker who was born in Germany and immigrated with her parents. Maria was born in Germany in 1865 and my great grandmother and her middle sister and other siblings were born in the USA.
This find also lead me to the FHC in SLC where I was able to find the “permission to emigrate” papers for this family.
Nancy