4 Tips for Better Genealogy
- At November 30, 2013
- By Phares O'Daffer
- In All Posts, Genealogy
1
Whether you are just starting, or are an accomplished genealogist, I would like your reaction to these four tips for better genealogy.
Applying these tips, even more than I did, would probably have helped me in my quest to find out about the Odaffer family. Each tip is illustrated by where I used it and how it helped.
Tip 1 — Leave No Stone Unturned
I’m amazed that my 16-year-old son Eric agreed to go on a genealogy trip with me, and how well he resisted the inborn need a 16 year old has to rebel against adult imposed endeavors — except maybe at the very end of our trip.
Looking for signs of my great grandfather, David Odaffer, we ended up in an old cemetery near Circleville, Ohio. Our well had run dry — no Odoerfer or Odaffer graves to be found. It was time to go home.
It was then that I spied a pile of old stones, out in a back corner of the cemetery.
“Come on,” implored Eric. “You’re not going to find anything back there. Let’s get out of here.” I finally got Eric to help look through the pile of stones. On the bottom of the pile — literally the last stone — we found a dirty, barely legible piece of a broken gravestone.
We brushed it off, and with great excitement read “Ida May, daughter of D. and A. Odaffer, Died April 2, 1861. Aged 1 yr, 9 mo, 2 days.” We had located David in Ohio!
I gave Eric a short speech on the value of thoroughness and persistence in genealogy, as well as in life — a lesson I’m sure he really only learned by himself when he got older.
Tip 2 — Call or Write Often
Over the years, whenever I was in a different city, I checked the phone book, sometimes finding an Odaffer, and gave them a call.
I had to work hard not to get hung up on, but it usually worked out. And I often found out something new about the branches of the Odaffer family.
And I have written many letters to county clerks, church officials — you name it. Sometimes it paid off too.
On a trip, I had stopped at the Church of the Latter Day Saints Genealogy Library in Salt Lake City, and was about ready to leave when someone on the staff told me that he would help me prepare a letter in German.
With his help, I wrote letters to three Lutheran churches in the area near Nuremberg, Germany, where I suspected some of Johann Wolfgang’s relatives might have lived.
Amazingly, I soon received a letter from Georg Odoerfer, a member of one of the churches, who became a contact in Germany and a good friend.
Georg gave me a lot of help, often translating from books written on Old (High) German, to gather information about the Odoerfer family.
There is no doubt that making the right calls and writing the right letters can really be helpful in finding out about your family.
Tip 3 — Don’t Believe all You Hear
I talked to an older relative in our family about my great grandfather David Odaffer. She was old enough to have known David, and was a really valuable source as I delved into his life. Or so I thought.
She told me, “David came from a wealthy family in Ohio, and migrated to Illinois with $1000 sewn into his shirt. His wife Amanda wanted him to buy a farm near Monticello, Illinois, but he fooled all of his money away on drink.”
Upon checking this out, I found that there is plenty of evidence that the “wealthy family” label wasn’t accurate, and an abstract in the County Court House in Monticello showed that David bought 69 acres of land — soon after he got here — from John Dove for $1,360.
So you have to verify — check and recheck — the verbal information you receive. Sometimes people make the stories be the way they wanted them to be, not always reflecting the truth. The relative didn’t like David, and that may have colored her story.
Tip 4 — Record, Then Record a Little More
Everybody needs an Al Field. I had been working on the Odaffer family for several years before I met Al, who, being a relative, was also researching the family.
I had collected a lot of information about the family, probably more than anyone else.
And I knew that what I reported was true, since I had gotten it from very good records and sources.
But Al shocked me by demanding documentation, and in some cases, I didn’t have it. Oh, I’d had it once, and thought I had written it down carefully. But, lo and behold, my records just weren’t complete enough. I would record some basic information, but not enough and in not enough detail.
Al simply opened my eyes to the fact that you have to have a very good recording system, and you have to religiously record, and then record some more.
I got better at recording what I found, but some of the original gaps are still there, and I regret that I didn’t meet Al earlier. Thanks, Al.
So there are the four tips. Use them if they merit, and look for more hints to come!
10 Geneology Taglines and Tales
- At November 09, 2013
- By Phares O'Daffer
- In All Posts, Genealogy
- 1
Yes, there is humor to be found in genealogy. The 10 tantalizing taglines below can be found in various places, with no indication of who first said them. So I apologize for not being able to give credit to the originators, but thank them for glimpsing humor in genealogy and passing it on.
Enjoy the taglines, and the little tale, or observation about genealogy that comes with each one.
Tagline 1: Genealogy research — what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.
I have alluded to the possibility that I am a “stumbleologist” rather than a “genealogist.” Often, I have just searched and searched and finally stumbled onto something good. Like just happening to talk to an old guy in a library in Clear Spring, MD, who told my son Eric and I that John Odoerfer worked on the nearby John Mason Farms (Montpelier Estate, right), opening up a wealth of information about our ancestor.
Tagline 2: To a genealogist, everything is relative.
What a treasure trove of information you can get from talking to a relative. When I first started looking for my family tree, it was the photos, letters, and newspaper clippings in my Aunt Grace’s attic, along with her memories, that got me started. I did get a little suspicious, however, when Aunt Grace (left) told me that my great grandfather David had blond hair and blue eyes, given that all the other Odaffers I knew were black hair and brown eyed wonders.
Tagline 3: So many relatives, so little time.
The Odaffer family tree in this website contains over 1,200 relatives. And I am sure that just scratches the surface — thousands more in Germany, way back. And there are probably many more, uncharted in the United States. It is a work in progress – like a significant mountain, you just climb it because it is there.
Tagline 4: Genealogy — chasing your own tale.
Sure, a genealogist really wonders how he or she got here. There is a story out there, and all the details of the story will never be found. Now it is a short tale, but gradually getting longer. It is a bushy tale, with lots of strands. Ah, the satisfaction of grooming that tale!
Tagline 5: Cemetery — a marble orchard not to be taken for granite.
Genealogists spend a lot of time in cemeteries, and even looking for cemeteries. After searching a while, I went out on a blustery, cold winter day to find an old, forgotten country cemetery near Monticello, IL (right), that had a lot of my relatives buried in it. Too cold to be doing it at all, I photographed the stones, and recorded the names.
Two years later, I returned to re-look at that cemetery. It was totally gone! Luckily, people who cared found the stones, vandalized, down by and in a nearby creek, and restored the cemetery as best they could.
Tagline 6: That’s strange; half my ancestors are women.
We sometimes, unfortunately, forget that it takes two, a man and a woman, to produce a descendant. So it is not strange at all that half of my ancestors are women. But largely because of strange traditions and biases, as well as simply the ease of doing it because the male name doesn’t usually get changed, it is conventional to pay more attention to the male ancestors than to the women. But I am also working on my mother’s side of the family.
Tagline 7: Every family tree has some sap in it.
When my great grandfather David left his wife of many years to marry a much younger woman, I though a bit of a sap had been found. However, as often is the case, there were two sides to the story, which muddied his candidacy for being a sap. However, there are always plenty of saps to go around in a family tree.
Tagline 8: Genealogists never lose their jobs; they just go to another branch.
I was pretty self satisfied with my classification of the Odaffers: the Illinois Branch, the Indiana Branch, the Minnesota Branch, and the Kansas Branch. I had determined that the original Odaffers in Ohio had all migrated westward to form these Branches. It wasn’t until a friend, Stan Clemens, sent me a newspaper article about Whitey Odaffer in Lima, Ohio, that I discovered a currently existing Ohio Branch, and went to work on it.
Tagline 9: My ancestors are hiding in a witness protection program.
I have tried to find out what happened to Maria Magdalena, Johann Wolfgang’s wife from Germany. No matter how hard I try, I can’t find a record of her death, nor the place where she was buried. I have contacted the church she probably attended, and they can find nothing. If I didn’t have her birth record from the church, I would wonder if she ever existed. Witness protection program, indeed!
Tagline 10: Genealogists live in the past lane.
No doubt about it. I have spent a lot of time since 1955 thinking about the past. From a search for ancestors living in Germany in 1560 to a search to solve some cold cases still open today, it has been an exciting journey — and always in the “past lane.”