Tag Archives: Genealogy Proof

Genealogy Proof Series – Creating Genealogy Proof Tables

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This is the fifth article in the Genealogy Proof Series.

For maximum advantage, I recommend reading these articles in publication order.

In earlier articles, we’ve detailed how to gather resources for specific locations, how and where to search for surnames and the process of extracting and recording information from those sources.

Now, it’s time to use that information and assemble it in a logical way to provide “proof” that the person by the name of “John Smith,” or whoever you’re seeking, is actually YOUR John Smith.

I use a technique that I call Genealogy Proof Tables. We will cover two types here. You’ll need the first one to complete the second one.

Genealogy Proof Tables

Genealogy proof tables have two purposes:

  • Individual Proof Tables – For an individual ancestor, to compile the various pieces of evidence to prove a connection to their parent or parents and their child or children.
  • Lineage Proof Table – Evidence for an entire lineage, proving connections between all of the individuals in the lineage, one by one in both directions. For a lineage proof table we prove a connection to the parent and also to the descendant that is your ancestor for each generation.

Please note that sometimes you actually wind up disproving a relationship, or realizing you need more information, but that’s equally as important. Nothing worse than wasting time by barking up the wrong tree.

A genealogy proof table is a working document that can be used to focus on each ancestor in every ancestral line. What’s included in a proof table varies by which records are available, the timeframe and circumstances.

You may want to prepare proof tables to help yourself focus and evaluate your data. Proof tables can be sent to someone who asks questions like:

  • How do you know that?
  • What is your proof?
  • What are your sources to identify John as the son of George?

People should be asking those questions, and researchers should be able to answer them. You need to answer them for yourself for your own ancestors, even if no one asks.

The answer to these questions may well be that you’re still working on “proof,” but you’ll at least want to have documented everything available to date. For me, doing these exercises helps me think about what’s still missing and looking for additional sources if I actually don’t have “proof.”

Generally, I create a proof table for a specific ancestor, which I then roll up into a comprehensive proof table for the line. This approach helps me identify which pieces of evidence are conclusive and which ones are not.

The purpose of a proof table is to compile and rank information about that ancestor’s connection to their parents, including negative evidence. It’s not meant to be “everything I know” about that ancestor, just the things that relate to proving that this ancestor is in FACT the child of his parent or parents.

What is Proof?

Isn’t this the question of the ages for genealogists? I wrote an article, Ancestors: What Constitutes Proof?, here. In that article, I’ve provided a list of what isn’t proof and some challenges you may face.

Aside from what I’ll term normal genealogy roadblocks to be overcome, there are other challenges as well.

For example, you can have a birth certificate, a death certificate, a will, and personal knowledge that a person lived with their parents – but that child could have been adopted, or the father might not have been the biological father.

In this case, paper proof, no matter how compelling, isn’t actual proof. It can prove the identity of the person, but alone, cannot prove a biological relationship connection.

Sometimes, DNA evidence outweighs everything else, but without DNA evidence, paper proof is the closest we can get. The BCG defines the Genealogical Proof Standard, here.

We need our evidence to be as conclusive as possible.

What does Conclusive Mean?

Conclusive evidence means that any other evidence cannot reliably contradict it, or it’s so strong that it overbears any other evidence. (Thank you Bar Prep Hero.)

In a nutshell, that’s your goal – and all evidence is not created equal.

Evidence is Weighted

Some evidence is better or more solid than other evidence.

Furthermore, sometimes one single piece of evidence isn’t conclusive, but multiple pieces of evidence, taken together, create a body of work and are considered a “preponderance of evidence.” Having said that, I often cringe when I hear that term because sometimes it means there really isn’t good evidence or not enough research has been done.

How good is good enough? You can only work with what’s available and what you have. Unfortunately, one cannot unburn the courthouse!

Sometimes, you’ll need to use DNA evidence. From my perspective, you ALWAYS need to utilize DNA evidence to confirm at least the closest generations.

By closest, I mean that second cousins or closer always match, and you can often reliably use autosomal DNA within, minimally, 5 or 6 generations, but circumstances vary.

Many times I have solid matches to descendants of ancestors 9 or 10 generations in the past, but as you can see in this graphic created by Dr. Paul Maier at FamilyTreeDNA, beginning at eight generations, you may not inherit any DNA from a particular ancestor. Of course, to match someone else, you both need to have inherited the same DNA segment(s) from that ancestor.

You can almost always use Y-DNA to establish relationships beyond what autosomal can confirm, but with both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, you need someone who is appropriately descended from the ancestor in question, as illustrated in this three-generation chart. Sometimes, you need two people descended from that ancestor, preferably through different children, because their Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA needs to match.

Every situation is different.

How Much Evidence is Enough?

It depends.

Enough for what?

  • Enough to prove that your parent is the child of their parents?
  • Enough to prove to yourself that you’re searching in the right ancestral line?
  • Enough to prove that this John Doe is the same John Doe that moved from Virginia to someplace else, or conversely, the John Doe in Missouri is the one who moved from Virginia?
  • Enough to quality for a lineage society?

Again, from my perspective, enough is not enough until you have looked at every piece of evidence that even MIGHT be relevant for that ancestor.

Essentially, all of this is a bit fluid, so let’s look at an example.

Individual Proof Table

Let’s begin with a proof table for one person.

I’m going to create a proof table to attempt to prove that my paternal grandfather, William George Estes, is the son of Lazarus Estes and Elizabeth Vannoy.

I’ll be using actual documents and information from my files.

If you want to read my 52 Ancestors articles about these people, you can find William George Estes, here, Lazarus Estes, here, and Elizabeth Vannoy, here. I’m not specifically trying to prove that my father, William Sterling Estes, is the son of William George Estes, but some documents cover both men – plus, there’s the possibility of same-name confusion, given that both of their first names are William. I swear, every generation in this family has both Johns and Williams.

To begin, there are a few mandatory categories on every chart. For example, I always use the census when it’s available. You should include these categories even if you don’t have evidence for them, because it reminds you if you’ve searched and the search came up with nothing.

Some categories would be expanded, such as Organizational Societies. For example, if there’s a separate History and Genealogy Society for that county, you would want to check both, as well as the local library and regional or state organizations.

You’ll notice that I’ve assigned a weight to each piece of evidence. Weighting is subjective. Aunt Margaret was the daughter of Wiliam George Estes, so she should know – but often, she didn’t provide any source, like a document or Bible, and she was a bit “eccentric.” In some circumstances, I might weigh what she provided as a 5, but in the first item, I only gave it a 4 because she provided other dates that I found to be erroneous. Memories do fail people.

Red items are direct, confirming evidence of the relationship and that the William George Estes, my grandfather, is the same William George Estes who is the son of Lazarus Estes. Names are spelled or misspelled the way they are in the original source.

William George Estes Information Source Weight (1-5) Comments
Birth March 30, 1873 Aunt Margaret 4 Birth certificates not available in 1873
Father Lazarus Estes
Mother Elizabeth Vannoy
Identity of Parents From letters and discussions 1980s, 1990s Aunt Margaret, Aunt Minnie, children and grandchildren of William G. Estes 5 They knew their grandparents
1880 Census Wm. G. Estis age 7, listed with parents Lazarus and Elisibeth Estis, and siblings, including sister Cornie Claiborne County, TN Dist 8, page 107 on Ancestry 5 Family lives between William G.’s future wife’s uncles
1890 Census destroyed
Marriage Ollie Bolton, Sept 26, 1892. Claiborne County Marriage Index, page 382 5 No parents given
1900 census William G. age 27, with wife, Ollie, and two children Claiborne County, TN Dist 8, page 113 5 Lives next door to Lazarus and Elizabeth Estes and next to his sister Cornie and her husband
1910 census Age 38, with Ollie and two children, Estle and Robert Claiborne County, Civil Dist 4 5 Lives beside sister Cornie and her husband, three houses from Lazarus
Home Location – 1913 Family photos taken in 1913 and labeled “Fowler” Provided by Margaret 5 Written on the back of the family pictures
Home Location Fowler, Indiana Sept 1915 Newspaper article 5 Sons Wm. and Joe ran away and were returned to parents in Fowler
William G. Estes’s divorce from Ollie Fowler, Indiana Aunt Margaret 3 Ollie caught him cheating with her cousin Joyce Hatfield, who was visiting them in Indiana
Divorce from Ollie Unknown, maybe 1916 or 1917 Inferred
Children William S. and Joe “run away” to their grandparents 1915/1916 Fowler, Indiana to Claiborne County, TN Aunt Margaret’s letter, Uncle George, 1915 newspaper articles stated that they tried to run away but got caught 5 Margaret said that when William G. and Ollie divorced,  neither wanted sons Wm. and Joe, 13 and 11, and the boys jumped trains to make their way back to their grandparents, Lazarus and Elizabeth
William George returned to Claiborne County 1916/1917 ish Uncle George Estes, family historian 5 Lazarus was furious when William G. returned after cheating on Ollie and abandoning the boys and threw William G. out of Estes Holler
Move to Harlan County, KY After being thrown out of Estes Holler when he and Ollie divorced Uncle George, Aunt Margaret, Estel’s daughter 5 Settled in Harlan County, KY, just over the border from Claiborne Co., TN
Divorce from Ollie Unknown, about 1916/1917ish Fowler, Ind newspaper August 30, 1917 2 Ollie listed without Wm G and as visiting where she used to live
Marriage Joyce Hatfield, unknown if or when/where married Census, daughter Virginia’s birth Nov. 1918. 3 Inferred, no document found
Child Irene’s Death* August 1, 1916 – Irene Estes, mother Joyce Fury Shawnee, Claiborne Co., TN Informant of the death of daughter, Irenia.

*Please note that this has since been disproven. This William B. Estes who married Josie Fury is not our William G. Estes who married Joicie Hatfield.
Military/draft Registration – signed Sept. 12, 1918, gives birthdate as March 30, 1873 Tazewell, Claiborne County, TN 5 Wife is listed Joisce Estes.
1920 census Age 47, lives with Joise and daughter Virginia Claiborne Civil District 4 5 Future third wife, Crosha Brewer, and her child are living with them as lodgers
Divorce Joice Hatfield Unknown, approx 1921 or 1922 inferred Based on Crosha’s children’s ages
Son William S. Estes’s marriage to Martha Dodder Dec. 12, 1921 Calhoun County, MI 5 Parents are given as Ollie Estes and W. G. Estes
Wm G. Estes child with Croshia Brewer Josephine born March 19, 1923 Springdale, Arkansas 5 Birth certificate, death certificate, census
William George Estes Marriage Croshia Louise Brewer, Feb. 3, 1925, Wise County, VA VA Marriage Registers, page 171 5 Parents given as Lazarus & Elizabeth Estes
1930 census Cannot find the family
1940 census Age 67, living with Crochie and their 2 daughters Harlan Co., KY Lynch dist 5
1940s or 50s Photo with “his sister Cornie” and also one with “Worth Epperson” Claiborne County, TN 5 Photo is labeled and provided by Cornie’s family, who knew him
1950 census 76, lives with Crocie, daughter and boarder Harlan County, KY 5 My mother visited William G. and Crocie with my father in the 1950s.
Cornie Estes Epperson’s 1958 death certificate Born June 22, 1878 to Lazarus Estes and Betty Vannoy, age 79, died Feb. 18, 1958 Death Certificate 5 Correlates to census dates and other data indicating she is the daughter of Lazarus and sister of William G.
Cornie Epperson Obituary Gives Will Estes, of Lynch, KY as her brother. Newspaper clipping 4 Does not give her paents
William Sterling Estes obituary Aug. 28, 1963, Star Press in Muncie, Indiana, page 3 Residence Dunkirk, IN 4 Lists surviving father as W. G. Estes, Cumberland, KY
William George Estes’s death Nov 29, 1971, lived in Harlan Co., KY Kentucky Death Index 5 Parents not given
Obituary Parents not given, living children include Estil, Virginia, Margaret, and Minnie, their locations provided Nov. 30, 1971, Middlesboro Tribune 4 His nephew, Cornie Estes Epperson’s son, Kermit Epperson is a pallbearer
Social Security Claims Index for William G. Jan. 15, 1972 claim, birth 1873 Ancestry 5 SS # given, but no parents given
Social Security Claims Index for my father, William Sterling Estes No claim filed
Will No, rechecked film at FamilySearch 7-8-2024.
Legal No, checked court index in Harlan County
Land Tax No tax lists
Personal Tax No tax lists
Deeds Yes, 1915 deed from Lazarus to Cornie and Worth Epperson where they must pay his other heirs Claiborne County deed book, in person 5 Cornie Estes Epperson to pay William Estes $120
William George Estes signed receipt and release On July 22, 1957, Will signed on the edge of the above deed, releasing the claim on the deed and stating that the $120 had been paid. 5 Confirms his relationship to Lazarus Estes and Cornie Estes Epperson
Sibling Documents Have not looked extensively beyond Cornie
Newspapers Need to revisit when Claiborne County, TN newspapers are digitized
Organizational Searches such as Historical Societies Have not looked recently, need to recheck local libraries
DNA ThruLines to John Y. Estes, father of Lazarus Estes Ancestry 5 Proven via 35 cousin connections to Lazarus’s parents through 3 of John’s siblings
DNA Lazarus Estes ThruLines at Ancestry through Lazarus’s children Ancestry 5 20 matches, 9 through William George, 7 through Cornie, 5 through Charlie Thomas Estes
DNA at FamilyTreeDNA My autosomal matches to Buster Estes, Lazarus’s grandson FamilyTreeDNA 5 Including 556 matches in common and many triangulated segments to descendants of Wm. G., Lazarus, John Y. Estes and upstream ancestors
Other Relationship to wives and children Letters from Aunt Margaret 3 or 4 Clearly states relationship of William G. and Lazarus
Other Relationship to wives and children Letters from William G. to my father 3 or 4 Clearly states relationship of William G. with his siblings and family members

Some types of information are notably unreliable. For example, obituaries may omit people or confuse relationships. William George Estes’s obituary omits his daughter and incorrectly notes her husband, his son-in-law, as William’s child.

Death certificates often give parents incorrectly, especially the mother’s birth surname.

The names of parents in both obituaries and on death certificates are often third-hand information provided by people who are at least two generations removed and are under significant stress at that time. My mother’s obituary was republished two times due to errors made AFTER I provided correct information.

We have several pieces of information that strongly suggest that the William George Estes who was born to Lazarus Estes and Elizabeth Vannoy is the same William George Estes that married Ollie Bolton, but there’s more.

We know for sure that William Estes, who married Croshie/Crosha Brewer, is the same person because his parents are given in the county marriage record book. This is first-hand information and judged to be more reliable because we can reasonably expect that William George knew who his parents were, or at least who they were supposed to be.

If we discount entirely the fact that my aunts personally knew Lazarus as their grandfather, and look only at the paper evidence, we just need to tie William George in his later life to the same William George in his earlier life.

Here’s a photo passed from William George’s daughters to me. Cornie Epperson’s grandchildren had this same photo showing William George Estes with his sister, Cornie Epperson.

Here’s another with Will Estes and Cornie’s husband, Worth Epperson.

Cornie’s children told many stories about their Uncle Will, who rode the bus from Harlan County to Claiborne County, as he didn’t drive. The legendary favorite story was about the time that Will had a bullet in his shirt pocket. It accidentally got mixed into his pipe tobacco, which he put into his pipe and was smoking on the bus.

Yes, the bullet blew up. No one was hurt, and miraculously, the driver didn’t crash. Nevertheless, Will was banished from riding the bus forever thereafter.

That story alone connects the William George Estes living in Lynch, in Harlan County, as the same person, as do his children from all three wives. So do letters from my aunt to family members discussing several people involved, and letters from Will himself in the early 1960s detailing some pretty spicy antics.

However, we’re looking for more than oral history. What other documents do we have?

The Smoking Deed

This deed serves, in essence, as the will of Lazarus Estes and his wife, both of whom conveyed this deed.

Thankfully, it identifies both Cornie and William as their heirs, along with several other children, although it never actually states that the people mentioned are their children. The census confirms that these people, Cornie and William George, along with Martha (Estes) Norris, Charlie Estes, and Lum (James Columbus) Estes mentioned, are their children.

If you’re still wondering if William George Estes is their son, notice the release of lien, stamped on the upper left-hand side of the page decades later, in 1957, with his signature.

This signature matches Will’s other handwriting on letters that he sent in the 1960s, in my possession, and on my father’s delayed birth certificate signed in 1952.

This document provides their relationship, the type of evidence submitted, and both of their addresses and signatures. Evidence doesn’t get much better than this.

For additional signature confirmation, William G. signed his 1918 draft registration in Claiborne County. In Harlan County, KY, in 1957, he signed the delayed birth certificate for his son, Estle, who was born in Springdale, Arkansas, in November of 1894.

When Evidence Isn’t Conclusive

Unfortunately, this situation happens often, especially with generations further back in time where less information is available. Let’s look at an example.

Genealogists tried for years, decades actually, to identify the parents of John R. Estes.

His son was named John Y. Estes.

No one knew what the R. stood for, nor what the Y. stood for. Truthfully, we still don’t, at least not for sure.

Here’s what was said:

  • John R. Estes’s mother was Mary Younger, who was married to George Estes. This claim was made because John R.’s son was named John Y. Estes, the Y. standing for “Younger.” That was the hypothesis, but it was stated as fact.
  • The middle initial R in John R. Estes stands for Regan or Reagan because his grandson, John Reagan Estes, son of John Y. Estes, was “named for his grandfather.” This was told to me by his grandchildren who were living in the early 1990s, as information they were told.

I fully understand why one would think those are possibilities or why conclusions might be drawn. They are clearly possibilities, but without additional evidence, that’s all they are. Eventually, that possibility begins to be passed along as a fact. Then, people don’t want to question what was passed down from “people who should know.”

So, let me play devil’s advocate here.

The Y in John Y. could stand for any number of things. For example, the surname Yancey is also found in Halifax County, Virginia. Y could have come from anyplace. At that point in time, we were searching for the parents of John R. Estes, so Mary Younger seemed to make sense.

Having said that, we now know that John Y. Estes’s grandmother WAS Mary Younger, BUT, that does NOT mean that the Y. stands for Younger, nor does it serve as any kind of concrete evidence.

Might it stand for Younger? Yes, of course. But the Y itself serves only as a potential hint.

Can you use it for evidence? Nope, not without more information. I’ve searched high and low, so if you find “Younger” in a reliable record for this man, by all means, let me know. While confirmation would be wonderful, we really don’t NEED to know like we do with Reagan.

John Reagan Estes (1871-1960), the son of John Y. Estes, could well have been named for his grandfather, John R. Estes (1787-1885). John was his father’s first name as well as his grandfather’s. That does NOT mean that that Reagan was John R. Estes’s middle name. We have no idea where Reagan comes from. If I had a letter from John Reagan’s mother or sister, for example, saying John Reagan was named for his grandpa Estes, who was also named John Reagan, that would be evidence because we have a contemporaneous source and know the information wasn’t assumed or constructed later to “fit” the question about John R. Estes’s middle name.

I have dug for years for any Reagan connection to the Estes line, or to the wives’ lines in upstream generations in Virginia, hoping to prove that Reagan genealogical connection. I have never found it, although that clearly doesn’t mean it’s not there. For all we know, Reagan could have been the name of the preacher or the doctor who delivered someone. It may or may not have anything to do with John R. Estes, and even if it does, Reagan may not be an ancestral surname.

So, if you’re taking yourself down the path of ascribing too much weight to information that may or may not be evidence – don’t. What you can do that’s beneficial is more research. If you think the Y or the R might be a hint, DIG!!! You just might find that evidence. If you haven’t utilized the new FamilySearch full-text AI search, by all means, do. These are the perfect types of situations to research using this amazing tool.

Treat everything as a hint, but it’s not evidence until it’s confirmed.

While we’ve since proven that, indeed, John R. Estes is the son of Mary Younger using other types of evidence, the middle initial R. and the middle name Reagan two generations later still is and may remain a mystery.

In the Weeds

At this point, you might be thinking that we are SO FAR DOWN IN THE WEEDS, and you’d be right, but the answers to our specific question are found here.

Our original goal was to prove that William George Estes was the son of Lazarus Estes and Elizabeth Vannoy.

The items bolded in red in the Individual Proof Table for William George Estes, above, individually and certainly cumulatively “prove” that relationship, as far as a paper trail can go.

The other information, especially taken together, supports that and, more importantly, does not dispute or provide contradictory or conflicting evidence about any of the other evidence. In other words, we have concensus.

Lineage Proof Table

The table below is designed to document the proof that the individual listed under the name column is, in fact, the child of the father and mother below. Other information from the Individual Proof Table that we completed above is omitted because it’s not needed in a Lineage Proof Table.

The Proof rows between the child and their parents are the proof, or the best evidence we have, that connects the child conclusively to the parent or parents. Sometimes that proof can arrive indirectly, such as a sibling’s obituary that lists your ancestor as their sibling – allowing you to connect the sibling who died and your ancestor both to their parents through the census or other documents.

Proof listed will vary and could be personal knowledge (someone you knew within your lifetime), a Bible, a will, a deed, an obituary, a church baptismal document, a pension application, census records, and more.

The best proof, of course, is multiple contemporaneous pieces of evidence.

Proof can also be negative proof. For example, if there was a will but this person was missing, that should be noted. However, that alone is NOT negative proof, as sometimes a child who had already received their inheritance was not mentioned. It does need to be listed because, when combined with other evidence, it may become very important. So is the wording of the will. For example, does it say “all my children,” but omit the person you’re searching for?

Proofs also must take into consideration things like individuals with the same name. In other words, we need to prove that THAT particular John was the son of THAT particular George.

There are times when one must dig deeply as well as far and wide, using siblings and the FAN (friends and neighbors) methodology to reveal a nugget or put enough information together from multiple sources to prove a relationship collectively. For example, I have found proof two generations downstream in Virginia chancery suits that detail the descendants of someone who died and left a will two or three generations earlier.

If this Lineage Proof Table was for my own use, I would utilize a spreadsheet, and I would provide links and more detailed information. For ease of use in this article, I’ve constructed a chart here.

The entire purpose of this lineage document is to unquestionably connect the generations. If these proofs are strong and unquestionable, the only piece of evidence that could upend all of them, together, is an unknown DNA event where a parent or parents are not the individuals reflected in the non-genetic proofs.

Name Birth & Loc Death & Loc Father Mother DNA Confirmed
Me William Sterling Estes Separate lineage proof for mother’s line Father confirmed via paternal half-sister’s children and cousins’ autosomal DNA matches..
Proof My birth certificate, newspaper announcements
Proof Father’s obituary
Proof Social Security application after my father’s death
Proof Personal knowledge, photos, and memories
Proof DNA match at the expected level to my half-sister’s descendants and our upstream Estes relatives
William Sterling Estes Oct. 1, 1902 or 3, Tazewell, TN Aug. 27, 1963, Jay County, IN William George Estes 1873-1971 Ollie Bolton 1874-1955 Autosomal DNA matches to multiple Estes cousins & half-sister’s children
Proof Census and newspaper articles identifying my father as his parents’ child
Proof My father’s marriage license, personal knowledge, and his delayed birth certificate
Proof Death certificate and obituary
Proof Aunts’ knowledge and family letters
William George Estes March 30, 1873, Tazewell, TN Nov. 29, 1971, Harlan Co., KY Lazarus Estes 1845-1916/1918 Elizabeth Vannoy 1846-1918 Autosomal DNA triangulated to multiple descendants of both Lazarus Estes and Elizabeth Vannoy.
Proof Deed to Worth and Cornie Epperson where Lazarus lists William George Estes as one of his heirs – Claiborne Co., Deed Book M2, page 371.
Proof Various censuses showing parents and siblings, including sister Cornie Estes Epperson
Proof Marriage license to Crocie Brewer lists his parents
Proof Cousin George Estes knew these people and was at the funeral of Lazarus when he was a child, plus Aunt Margaret’s letters
Lazarus Estes May 1845, Claiborne Co., TN 1916-1918, Claiborne Co., TN John Y. Estes 1818-1895 Rutha Dodson 1820-1903 Y-DNA confirmed to haplogroup of Moses Estes, autosomal triangulated to descendants of Lazarus and Elizabeth and upstream ancestors through multiple matches.
Proof 1850 and 1860 census with his parents, 1870 census where he lives one house from parents with wife and children, 1880 census where his wife is still living a few houses from his parents, with their children, and John is found in Montague Co., TX
Proof October 1865 deed where John Y. Estes deeds all his possessions to his eldest son, Lazarus. Claiborne Co., Deed book B1, page 37
John Y. Estes December 29, 1818, Halifax Co., VA Sept. 19, 1895, Montague Co., TX John R. Estes 1785/88-1885 Nancy Ann Moore c 1785-1860/1870 Y-DNA confirmed through multiple sons. Autosomal triangulates to several descendants through multiple lines of other children.
Proof Personal written knowledge of Claiborne County attorney, P. G. Fulkerson, published in the local newspaper who listed parents, wife, siblings, and children of John Y. Estes and wife and children of John R. Estes
Proof John R. Estes signed as a witness for John Y. Estes in 1865 when he deeded goods to son Lazarus “for natural love and affection.” In 1850 census John R. Estes lives near sons Jechonias and John Y. Estes
Proof John Y. Estes’s and John R. Estes’s death conveyed in letters between family in Claiborne County, TN, Texas, and Oklahoma
John R. Estes 1785-1788, Halifax Co., VA May 1885, Claiborne Co., TN George Estes 1763-1869 Mary Younger  ~1775-1820/1830 Y-DNA confirmed through multiple lines. Autosomal confirmed triangulation of multiple lines of his children and his ancestors. Descendants’ DNA triangulates to that of Nancy Ann Moore’s ancestors.
Proof Halifax County 1812 personal property tax list where John R. Estes is listed as the son of George Estes and lives next to him.
Proof Halifax Co., VA chancery suit dealing with property of Moses Estes, father of George Estes, lists John R. and his wife’s name and location in Tennessee as Moses’s descendants.
Proof War of 1812 pension application
George Estes Feb. 3, 1763, Amelia Co., VA July 1859, Halifax Co., VA Moses Estes Jr. 1742-1813 Luremia Combs c1742-1820/1830 Y-DNA haplogroup descended from Moses Estes Sr. 1711-1787 and autosomal from his maternal and paternal lines, both.

I’ll stop here because you clearly understand the process. If I were applying for membership in a lineage society, I would simply continue this chart until I reached the individual in question. In this example, George Estes is a Revolutionary War soldier, so I could apply for DAR membership, assuming I meet their various criteria.

Another aid in documenting your ancestors is lineage organizations and their records, but keep in mind that their evidence, especially that submitted decades ago, may not be sufficient today.

DNA Confirmation

DNA can either confirm this relationship, even without a paper trail, or conversely, it can burn it all down.

The closer in time a DNA relationship is, the more likely you’ll be able to confirm it using autosomal DNA.

Sometimes, Y-DNA is a consideration, and it certainly would be in this circumstance, except that I’m not a male, and we don’t have a living Estes male descended directly from William George Estes (through all males) to test.

Mitochondrial DNA can’t be used in this circumstance either since William George Estes’s children have their mother’s mitochondrial DNA, not his.

For the purposes of today’s proof, I used the Family Finder autosomal DNA test.

Buster Estes, now deceased, grandson of Lazarus Estes through his son Charlie Tomas Estes, is my 1C1R, (first cousin once removed). He tested both his Y-DNA and took the autosomal  Family Finder test for me many years ago.

Additionally, Cornie Epperson’s grandchild and great-grandchild, my second cousin and 2C1R, agreed to autosomal DNA testing for me as well. Cornie’s grandchild agreed to test their mitochondrial DNA, which descends from Elizabeth Vannoy – for which I remain immensely grateful.

All of these cousins match me, as well as each other, appropriately, as would be expected for their respective relationships to me and to each other.

Since then, additional descendants of Lazarus Estes and Elizabeth Vannoy have tested and match others at the appropriate, expected level.

I also match other descendants of Elizabeth Vannoy’s parents, as do my cousins, so I can literally walk both Estes and Vannoy segments back in time.

In this case, NOT matching close Estes relatives would conclusively prove that I’m NOT related to the more distant Estes family.

However, if I didn’t match, it’s also possible that my father would not have matched those people either. I don’t have a full sibling through my father, but I do have a half-sibling whose descendants I match appropriately for the expected relationship. That proves that I’m my father’s biological child.

My half-sister died before DNA testing. NOT matching my sister’s descendants would confirm that we were not sisters, meaning we did not share the same father. One or the other of us would probably match Estes descendants, such as our second cousins. Fortunately, we match each other and Estes descendants.

Unfortunately, my half-brother Dave did not match me, nor any Estes family members, providing that we did not share a biological father – a heartbreaking discovery. He’s still my brother though, just not biologically, and I loved him dearly. (For the record, I found Dave’s father and his family after his death.)

I can prove that my father descends from his father because I also match the descendants of my father’s paternal half-siblings, as expected.

I also match (and triangulate with) the descendants of my grandfather’s sibling, Cornie Epperson, as expected, which proves my connection back to Lazarus and, therefore, my father and grandfather’s connection to Lazarus, too.

By the time we reach John R. Estes, son of George Estes, we can also use Y-DNA. While I personally can’t test for the Estes Y-DNA, a descendant of John R. Estes has taken the Big Y-700 test, needed for this level of detail, and they match the unique mutation (R-ZS3700) that occurred between Abraham Estes and his son Moses Estes Sr., then descended through Moses Jr. to George to John R., then on to our tester, confirming this paternal lineage.

Furthermore, I and other descendants of Lazarus Estes autosomally match Y-DNA descendants of John R. Estes as would be expected of 3rd or 4th cousins.

Therefore, by proxy, using both Y-DNA and Family Finder, we are all confirmed to descend from this entire Estes lineage, to and including Lazarus Estes and his son, William George Estes, through my father to me.

Whew!!!

Summary

Yes, it was a long, detailed path to get here using both traditional genealogical research and DNA results, but we did, and that’s really all that matters. I probably provided more examples than I really needed to, but I’m trying to answer as many “what about this” questions as I can, in advance. The Proof Table methodology isn’t cast in concrete and is easy to replicate and adapt based on your situation and the records at hand.

My final word of caution would be to make sure you don’t discount or omit negative evidence inadvertently. I made that mistake when I was less experienced because I didn’t realize the importance of negative evidence.

I’ve seen situations where a resource was not recorded because there “was nothing there,” when the fact that “nothing was there” is in itself important negative evidence that needs to be weighed and considered.

That’s one reason why preparing a list of all the resources in a particular area is so important. When you discover new resources or they become available, be sure to record and check those resources. For example, if a tax list for a particular county or district is uncovered, record that resource, even if the person you’re seeking isn’t listed there. The next question to ask is why they would not be listed, which may lead you to seek out or perhaps reevaluate other information.

Future Topics

I have three more articles planned in this series and expect to publish the next one in the winter.

  • DNA as Proof – or Not
  • Leveling up
  • Writing it Up

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Genealogy Proof Series: Surname Searching

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This is the third article in the Genealogy Proof series, in addition to the introduction.

In the article titled Gathering Location Resources, we focused on locations where you know your ancestor lived – but what if you’re looking for books or information about a particular family or surname?

Maybe you’d like to know if an article or book has been written about that family, either generally or maybe a branch more specifically. Many early books are no longer in print.

Maybe you can find information about your family in resources not typically checked by genealogists.

Of course, there are lots of resources, but I’m including several here that you can use and might otherwise miss. Feel free to add more in the comments.

Recording Your Findings

Don’t forget to record your search results and which resources you used on the spreadsheet we created in the Extracting and Recording Data article.

If you find that the information in the book or resource is too long for the text field in your spreadsheet, record and index the item anyway. Then, transcribe or copy/paste the entire text version in one of two places, but don’t forget to note in your spreadsheet where you put it.

  • Your genealogy software under that person’s name
  • A Word document under that person’s name

When I write my 52 Ancestors articles, everything I know about that person is gathered into a Word document and then organized and arranged into a cohesive story. The pieces have been gathered over the years in various locations and I have to be able to find them to be able to use them.

Book List

I have also created a list of books that I own.

This list needs to be updated because I moved and I would like to more accurately detail the locations of books I still have. It’s nice to know what you already have and where to find it. Tell me I’m not the only person who has purchased the same book twice!

Ok, now for surname resources where you just might find your ancestor!

Cyndi’s List

Cyndi’s list has a HUGE number of resources generally, but it also includes a surname category.

Under each letter of the alphabet, available resources are listed.

Be sure to check out everything for your surnames of interest.

BookFinder

At Bookfinder.com, you can enter a name in the title field.

That query produced a significant list. Remember that this list changes often, based on availability.

I now have another book on the way!

Higginson Book Company

The Higginson Book Company has long been known for carrying heritage books – both by location and for genealogy.

You can search by surname or any keyword.

Higginson reprints copies of original books out of print in addition to maps and a few other things. Note that sometimes you can find the text version of copyright-free books free at other locations.

State Archives

Check the website of every state’s archive where your ancestors lived.

If in doubt about what might be available, call the State Archives and ask a librarian. You might not believe what’s there.

In Tennesee, for example, there’s an index of Supreme Court cases that can be searched for the entire state, or by county, or year.

Cases that appear in the Supreme Court Index will not be recorded in the county records, because the case was appealed from there to the Supreme Court. It’s worth noting that the Hancock County, Tennessee courthouse burned (twice), so the Supreme Court records in the archives reflect lawsuits that we don’t even know existed today.

In many cases, local courts no longer retain case packets, if they ever did. They often only have the names of plaintiffs and defendants in an index book – not even an outcome. However, the county clerks faithfully copied the case packets when the case was appealed and sent to the Supreme Court, where this valuable information resides today – including depositions and receipts.

I’m entering the surname of every ancestor that was found in Hancock County. Sometimes, I search for their in-laws and neighbors too, just in case my ancestor is mentioned.

Look – paydirt! In an estate dispute – you know there are relationships explained and maybe also the source of the dispute.

When utilizing archives, be sure to search the archives of parent-states and parent-counties, meaning states and counties your state/county was formed from. The same goes for descendant states/counties formed from your state/county.

But wait, there are more resources.

Librarians

In addition to resources shown at the Tennessee Archives website, you can also click to chat with a librarian.

Librarians are an encyclopedia of knowledge.

Thanks to a librarian, I recently discovered that the Michigan State Archives holds an obscure collection – prison newspapers published by the inmates over the years, reaching back into the 1800s and early 1900s. It’s not evident from the collection information, but a call to the archives and a lovely discussion with a research librarian revealed that those publications have recently been scanned and OCR indexed, which makes it possible to search by surname or topic.

I love librarians. They have saved my bacon so many times over the years, as have volunteers at local museums, and historical and genealogy societies.

Chronicling America

Chronicling American is provided by the Library of Congress. This link is for the newspaper collection which spans 1756-1963, but there are also other collections

In the photo collection, you can search generally or very specifically.

I had always wondered why my grandparents chose to move to a tiny out-of-the-way farming community outside very rural Fowler, Indiana. I found my answer in the Library of Congress. My grandfather’s cousin, who lived up the road in Tennessee, had moved to Indiana, was running a farm for an absentee owner and needed assistance.

The rest, as they say, is history.

FamilySearch

FamilySearch has an extremely robust and easy-to-use search functionality.

Select “Search,” then “Books.”

I entered the word “Estes” under the Books search and found this:

Notice that full text results are available, which means that either the book is out from under copyright, or they have obtained permission to image. It’s also worth noting that this is one of the books available for print-on-demand from Higginson Books.

Another option, the “Images” search, searches for information by historical location.

Searching “Genealogies” and “Family Trees” is obvious.

I find the “Catalog” search particularly productive.

You can filter your Catalog search in any number of ways, but, as luck would have it, the very first entry is where my Estes family lived.

Oh, look, it’s my lucky day…

If a desired book or article isn’t available for viewing, start a list and look to see if it’s available through your local Family History Center or check elsewhere.

FamilySearch New Full Text Search

I just love this new full text feature that automatically transcribes and indexes entire handwritten collections, such as the will or deed books in a particular county.

On the search page, scroll down until you see the FamilySearch Labs image and click on “View Experiments.”

Click on “Go to Experiment”

I detailed how to use FamilySearch full-text search in this article, but I want to remind you here that you can search by surname.

One of my huge brick walls is identifying the parents of James Lee Claxton (Clarkson/Clarkston) 1775-1815.

All of our Y-DNA matches are spelled Claxton and are found in North Carolina, but that group of Claxton researchers and my line are both stuck at about the same time in history. It’s very likely that the common ancestor of both groups came from Virginia, but where? And who?

I’m searching for Claxton with the hope that there is some mention of a Claxton we don’t already know about – or something connecting my ancestor to Lee County, VA in about 1795.

There are thousands of entries in this database, but I can filter to restrict my search to Virginia.

Remember that FamilySearch is adding to the collection of books and records that are digitized and indexed daily, so if you don’t find what you’re looking for today, check back often.

Google

A general Google search for “Estes genealogy” produced a list. I’m not showing their generative AI result here, because it’s half right and half wrong. It’s fine to use AI for hints, but verify absolutely everything. AI is not ready to be relied on and may never be.

Here is a list of Estes resources from Google.

Always beware of internet links. “Fly” over them first. If the link address even looks questionable, just don’t click.

That said, there are a HUGE number of legitimate resources here.

Google Books

Google books can help you locate books that may not be found elsewhere.

Some are available as an eBook at Google Books, but if not, you can use these as leads to search elsewhere, including AbeBooks and sometimes, Amazon. I usually use Bookfinder after finding a book I’m interested in through Google, because they include other sites such as AbeBooks, Amazon and many more. Bookfinder is an aggregator, not a reseller.

You can also request to “Find in a library,” which might be useful if your local library participates in interlibrary loans, although often heritage books are not eligible for loan.

Internet Archive

I love the Internet Archive, the same company that provides the Wayback Machine, which also allows you to search by surname. The two sites provide different results, so be sure to try both.

You’ll find all kinds of information at the Internet Archive.

Under eBooks and Texts, I often enter “<surname> genealogy” so that their metadata will use both terms to narrow the search. Metadata is data about data, and in this case, it means which keywords they used to index these entries.

Many records aren’t relevant, but some assuredly are.

You can also narrow the results by many features – including the Allen County Public Library which has one of the largest genealogy holdings in the US.

Keep in mind that I’ve selected only items with text, meaning that I can read or download for free. There are certainly other items available that aren’t free.

I sometimes struggle with their search feature, so I often just search at Google using the term “Estes books at internet archive.”

Allen County Public Library

At the Allen County Public Library website, you want to search in the research collection

Please note that you can filter your results in many ways.

One of the wonderful features is that they actively collect newsletters. Estes Trails has been published for decades.

These newsletters are in their physical holdings, but if you know they exist, you can track them down in other ways. In this case, the publisher’s name is included in the full display.

Many newsletters are no longer published, so, fortunately, there’s another way to obtain an article.

PERSI

PERSI, an index for periodicals, such as Estes Trails, above, is also hosted by the Allen County Public Library.

At PERSI, you can search by surname

I searched for Estes, and look what I received. I absolutely must read these Civil War letters.

This is a GOLDMINE. No, Aaron Estes isn’t my ancestor, but again, he’s related, and I just have to read these.

Scroll to the very bottom to order the items.

WikiTree

WikiTree is one of my favorite resources. You can enter your ancestor’s name, or a surname.

WikiTree is a collaborative tree where different individuals add information and sources to the profiles of ancestors. They have a small army of helpful volunteers that are willing to help too.

As with all shared resources, some information can be incorrect. Treat all trees as information to be verified and sources to be checked.

One of the great things about WikiTree is that individuals who descend from ancestors in a specific way can connect themselves and their Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA test information.

Descendants who have taken an autosomal test can list the testing company and information. While testing companies use the DNA of the tester to connect to other testers – it’s up to those two people to determine their common ancestor.

WikiTree works the other way and is ancestor-driven, meaning that you see who descends from the ancestor, and you can go to the testing company indicated to see if you’re an autosomal DNA match.

Furthermore, if you’re working on your genetic tree, you’ll want the Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA information for each of your ancestors. If other testers have entered the information, you can find it here. Please enter yours as well.

Be sure to check the sources for each ancestor. There may be information and resources not found elsewhere. Add sources if you can. Collaboration is a good thing, and a rising tide lifts all ships.

Newspapers

After you’ve wrung out the more traditional records, such as deeds and wills and census schedules, you’ll want to turn to newspapers. Not all local newspapers have been scanned, OCRed, and indexed yet, and some quality is better than others.

Licensing and processing old newspapers is ongoing, so just because the location where your ancestor lived doesn’t have an indexed newspaper available today doesn’t mean they won’t soon.

Newspaper articles put meat on the bones of our ancestors as they reveal their everyday lives. Who visited whom after church for Sunday dinner, who hit someone’s cow, who had company from out of town, who was having a family reunion, who moved and to where, who caught a big fish, who went on vacation, who was “visited by the stork,” and much more. Some make you say “awww,” and some are downright juicy and scandalous!

News about neighboring counties and even neighboring states can be found in locations where you may not have thought to look for your ancestor.

Virginia Chronicle

The Virginia Chronicle is a historic newspaper collection curated by the Library of Virginia that produces amazing results.

What? A murder? You know, I just HAVE to go down this rabbit hole and read these stories.

Ok, so, here’s the skinny for those who are curious.

Theodore Estes was dating Miss Loving, the daughter of a judge who shot and murdered Theodore. As it turns out, Theodore’s father was the sheriff, so this story is particularly rich and full of intrigue.

It seems that Miss Loving, the judge’s daughter, drank whiskey, and one thing allegedly led to another, which Theodore, his family, and friends denied. However, the young woman’s father didn’t believe them and sought revenge. Some reports said that she only drank “one swig” of whiskey, and nothing happened. Others said that the whiskey was drugged, and “something” did happen. A third group said she asked for the whiskey and drank a whole lot more than a swig. Theodore took her home (to her house) in his buggy, to her parents, but clearly intoxicated.

It gets even more complex because it appears the families were related. I had to draw a chart to get this straight.

Theodore’s brother had married the Judge’s wife’s sister. I’m telling you, this trial was a humdinger. Whoo boy! Eventually, the charges against the judge were changed to something less severe than murder. This high-profile case was covered by several regional newspapers like the latest soap opera.

As I read through these articles, I noticed that some Estes family members had arrived from Danville, VA, which is in close proximity to where my Estes family was from. So, while this is not my ancestor, it involves my ancestor’s descendants.

Ok, enough of this rabbit hole, but you get the drift. You may never get anything resembling chores done ever again!

The National Genealogical Society membership now provides access to NewspaperArchive as a benefit of membership. As far as I’m concerned, this alone makes the membership worthwhile.

NewspaperArchive offers a notification service for subscribers, or did when I subscribed separately, so you’ll receive an email when the name of a saved search is found in a newly indexed newspaper.

I keep discovering previously unknown things!

Ancestry owns Newspapers.com for accessing newspapers and Fold3 for military records. I discussed the nuances of using Newspapers.com at Ancestry in this article. You’ll need to search in the Historical Newspapers Collection at Ancestry and/or in Newspapers.com. Ancestry is reimaging the newspapers and using AI to create associations between people – for example family members mentioned in a wedding announcement. The results will not all be found in one place. The newspaper itself will be found at Newspapers.com but the associated family grouping will be found at Ancestry itself in their collections.

You can now reference the Birth Index, Marriage Index and Auctions of Enslaved People and Bounties on Freedom Seekers Index, here. The larger Newspapers and Publications category can be found here, and the Historical Newspapers Collection can be found here.

MyHeritage includes a large newspaper collection for their subscribers, much of which is unique and not found elsewhere.

This collection is where I found hundreds of items about my mother’s family in rural Northern Indiana. I found previously unknown photos of my grandfather, and that he attended the “Normal School” to become a teacher. He never taught, instead going to work for the railroad, moving away, and meeting the woman who would become my grandmother.

MyHeritage actually has newspapers in two places. This search is on the MyHeritage site itself, available with a subscription. MyHeritage has a second, independent site too – OldNews.

OldNews is big news!

At RootsTech 2024, MyHeritage announced a separate subscription site called OldNews, which essentially doubles the number of newspapers that they’ve digitized and made available. Take a look!

I found information about my mother, such as when she had her tonsils removed, when and where she danced in plays as a child, and the amount of my grandparents’ estate. Newspapers reported things back then that would be considered privacy violations today. Check OldNews to see what’s there for you.

Colonial Williamsburg has made the earliest Newspapers in the colonies available, here. Some are through a subscription site, and others aren’t. It was through these old newspapers years ago that I discovered the name of my ancestor’s indentured servant who ran away. Now, DNA seems to point to a potential relationship. There are no records other than that “runaway” notice to connect these people together, anyplace.

Check Cyndi’s list for more Newspaper services

MyHeritage Surnames

MyHeritage offers many ways to search, but you can start by entering the name of your ancestor or even just a surname.

I could have simply entered the surname, but I entered James Lee Claxton.

I can filter by any of the collections, at left.

I check them all, but I particularly like the Books and Publications, and the Newspapers category. You just never know what you’ll find, and many of the books are digitized and free.

You can also just enter a surname. I entered “Estes.”

I checked every one of these categories and, among other things, found some fascinating historic maps.

I love my MyHeritage subscription. If you don’t have one, you can try one free for 14 days.

Ancestry Message Boards

Ancestry discontinued the RootsWeb-hosted websites, WorldConnect Trees, and RootsWeb mailing lists last year, but the message boards are still functional.

After signing in to Ancestry, scroll down until you see Tools and Resources in the right margin.

Click on “Message boards.”

These boards reach back at least 20 years and many of the original posters are deceased now. I know that I often posted information as I found it while traveling.

There’s an advanced search function, too.

I was shocked to discover that you can still initiate a thread, but I’m not at all sure that other people on that board are notified today. I had no idea these boards even still existed.

Another feature that’s helpful at Ancestry is the Card Catalog, one of their Special Record Collections.

You can enter a surname in either the Title or Keyword box.

Of course, you’ll get different results, but both are certainly worth checking.

Genealogy.com

GenForum was the message board for Genealogy.com. Ancestry purchased it years ago, and while you can no longer post messages, you can still search for messages that were previously posted, here.

American Ancestors

American Ancestors holds a large database that includes periodicals such as the New England Historical and Genealogical Register and the Virginia Genealogist, which you can search by name, here.

Additionally, they have a number of immigration and naturalization records not available elsewhere.

HathiTrust

HathiTrust has indexed millions of documents, including many governmental records and publications.

Select any publication or narrow by categories. Then you can search within the text and also view the text on the relevant pages.

DNA Projects

FamilyTreeDNA offers surname projects, along with geographic, haplogroup, lineage, and regional DNA projects.

You can find surname projects in one of two ways.

The first way is to Google “Estes DNA Project.”

You’ll see two links, either of which will take you to the project.

I administer this project and welcome everyone who has an Estes ancestor, regardless of whether their surname is Estes or something else.

By clicking on “DNA Results,” you’ll see multiple options.

Clicking on the “Classic Chart” shows groupings of males who have taken the Y-DNA test, along with additional information, including their Earliest Known Ancestor (EKA) and, in the final column at right, their haplogroup.

If you take a DNA test and match other people, you can contact them to collaborate through matches on your personal page. Not everyone can test for every ancestor – and women can’t test for Y-DNA lineages (because they don’t have a Y chromosome,) so we depend on being able to check for our ancestors in Y-DNA projects.

If your ancestral line is shown, you can use the confirmed haplogroup (green) in the free Discover tool, here, to learn more about your ancestor’s heritage.

Here’s the “Haplogroup Story” tab for R-BY490 that represents a number of Estes lineages. There are 11 other tabs in the left sidebar just waiting for you to read about your ancestry.

Note that “Suggested Projects” is one tab. The suggestions are based on projects other men with this haplogroup have joined.

Y-DNA information through Discover, and soon, mitochondrial DNA information through MitoDiscover, is the ONLY place you can find this kind of information. Be sure to check out all of the tabs at left, including Ancient Connections.

If you click on the Group Time Tree, you’ll see a different view of the results of the project members who have taken the advanced Big Y-700 test.

By selecting the relevant groups, you can see the surname of the testers, their earliest known ancestor (if known and entered), at right, along with the haplogroup genetic tree at left.

The genetic tree shown at left confirms the genealogy of these testers, at least as far as the genetic tree is able to distinguish. I wrote about the Estes Group Time Tree, here, as an example,

If you are a male and have not taken the Big Y-700 test, please do. It unlocks your history in a way nothing else can.

A second way to find DNA projects that might be relevant to your surname is to navigate to the very bottom of the FamilyTreeDNA main page in the footer.

Click on “Group Projects.”

You can enter any surname and see the projects in which the project administrator listed Estes (or your surname of choice) as a surname that might be interested in their project.

If you’re a customer and signed on to your account at FamilyTreeDNA, you can find this same information at the top of your personal page under “Group Projects.” You can also join projects from there.

Social Media

I often overlook Facebook or other social media as a surname resource, but it is.

Today, many, if not most, genealogy and historical societies have pages, and so do many genealogists with an interest in a particular surname line.

Searching for “Estes” on Facebook shows several individual people, PLUS, two groups that might be very interesting.

Once you’re a member of a group, you can search within the group for a keyword.

This search gave me everything with either Moses or Estes, so I narrowed it by just using “Moses” or just searching for “Halifax” which is the county in Virginia where Moses Estes lived.

Facebook, especially groups with a genealogical focus, is a wonderful way to find men for Y-DNA testing.

I often ask if someone has already DNA tested, and if so, where.

If they have already tested at Ancestry, or 23andMe, but not at MyHeritage or FamilyTreeDNA, they can upload to both companies for free. Matching is free after uploading, and so are other basic tools. Advanced tools require an inexpensive unlock, which costs far less than retesting. The unlock at FamilyTreeDNA for advanced tools costs $19, and it’s $29 at MyHeritage.

Next Topic – The Proof Table

Our next topic in this series will be the Genealogy Proof Table.

What is a Proof Table, how do you construct one, and why?

We will assemble a Genealogy Proof Table for one of my lines as an example. You’ll need one for every ancestral lineage.

After that, we have four more articles in this series.

  • Genealogy Proof Standard
  • DNA
  • Leveling up
  • Writing it Up

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Genealogy Proof Series: Extracting and Recording Data So That You Can Find It

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This is the second article in the series, Genealogy Proof Series. The first article is:

The first article discussed finding location resources for where your ancestor may have lived. Of course, once you find those resources, you’ll want to start searching for your ancestor, your ancestral surname and recording the information.

So let me stress one thing now. You’re not searching for your ancestor specifically. You’re searching for everyone with that surname because they all have a role in his or her story.

Information

Genealogy research and proving someone is actually your ancestor is all about data. Pieces of data linked together provide information. Information identifies your ancestors and their family members.

How many of you know you once found something but can’t find it now and have no idea where you put it?

What? You too???

This article is about how to search those resources once you find them, who to record, and how so that you’ll be able to analyze the resulting information.

Elizabeth Shown Mills introduced the concept of the FAN Club in 1987, which she documents in her book Evidence Explained – Friends and Neighbors. People found with or near various groups of people will help sort out who is whom, especially in the case of same-named men.

In order to evaluate who is found with various families in a specific location, you need to methodically organize your data as you transcribe it.

Extracting and Recording Your Data

After you have compiled a list of what’s available for your specific counties, you need to extract and transcribe records into a spreadsheet. If you don’t like spreadsheets, you can do the same thing in a table. But it’s critical that you do it someplace.

You’ll also index the information as you go so you can reasonably retrieve it. This is why I utilize spreadsheets – they are made for filtering and sorting.

I’m also going to touch on using AI to help with transcriptions. If you just cringed, please don’t. This is easy, I promise.

Before I share the first screenshot of my spreadsheet, I want to set the stage a bit.

I started this particular spreadsheet 25-30 years ago. There were no guidelines for spreadsheets or for organizing genealogical data. So, I’m going to share the mistakes I made and, with the benefit of hindsight, what I wish I had done differently.

Here are the first four entries (rows) in my Halifax County, VA spreadsheet where I was extracting and recording entries for multiple primary surnames.

  • Estes
  • Younger
  • Combs
  • Rice
  • Moore

In some cases, I had rumors about how these people connected. In other cases, something written decades before with no sources. And in yet other cases, I was the first researcher to plow that ground so I had no idea of who I was looking for. I needed to verify that my ancestor was actually from there before I could figure out who their parents were.

Of course, this means that over the years, I discovered that I needed to research additional surnames that I didn’t initially look for.

Following the Path

My first foray into Halifax County was via an obtuse reference from Claiborne County, Tennessee to my ancestor, John R. Estes, being from Fairfax County, Virginia, not Halifax County.

Thank goodness for this reference, even if it was inaccurate. A local lawyer. P. G. Fulkerson (1840-1929) practiced in Claiborne County. He recorded his remembrances about roughly 300 early families and more than 4,000 people. Beginning in 1979, they were published in a series of “Early Settler” columns in the local newspaper and later indexed. I have many of the newspaper clippings themselves.

What did Mr. Fulkerson say about John R. Estes?

I’m going to scan the article and let AI transcribe it. It’s super easy!

Scan and Transcribe

I scanned this page on my flatbed scanner. Today, I could also take a photo with my phone or a screenshot on a computer.

After scanning the page, I cropped the rightmost column but left the rest to preserve the date.

As an experiment, I scanned the page a second time using my scanner’s OCR (Optical Character Recognition) function, but the results were rather poor. The formatting was off, and lots of words couldn’t be read, as you can see below.

Fixing this would have required as much work as transcribing John Estes’s portion in the first place.

ChatGPT 4o

I took the original article scan and submitted it to ChatGPT

Here’s the entire interaction. I pasted the image and requested a transcription. About 15 seconds later, ChatGPT complied.

The output was text, just like you see above, so I could just copy and paste. Chat GPT was intelligent enough to format correctly and logically fill in the gaps that the scanner OCR hadn’t been able to read.

You can see that this is MUCH better. More importantly, it’s accurately transcribed and easy to confirm. No additional work is needed. I simply deleted the additional text that I didn’t need.

AI is just that easy. You can also use ChatGPT to create a spreadsheet showing the relationships and interactions of the people in the text.

Here’s my request to ChatGPT with the text I want it to process.

There’s a LOT you can do with AI very easily, but for now, let’s move on and work with our extracted information.

Keep AI in mind, though, because you might eventually want to submit everything about a surname to ChatGPT and ask for some type of summary. Always validate the results.

Original Information

Is the original information in the Fulkerson article fully accurate? No, but it gave me something to start with – which was one heck of a lot better than the nothing I had before.

Actually, there’s a LOT of information here:

  • John’s name, including his middle initial. (The middle initial turned out to be important because there were multiple John Esteses in Halifax County, VA.)
  • John’s original location of Fairfax County (Inaccurate, but it was in Virginia. Remember, Fulkerson’s handwritten notes have twice been transcribed. Once typed and then once for publication.)
  • John’s wife’s name – Nancy Moore. (Accurate, except she was called Nancy, Ann, and Nancy Ann Moore in various locations and records.)
  • They married before arriving in Claiborne County. (accurate)
  • When they arrived – prior to 1800. (Inaccurate – it was closer to 1820. He fought in the War of 1812 out of Halifax County.)
  • Location in Claiborne County – Little Sycamore Creek. (accurate)
  • Children’s names (All children are accounted for except the two who died as children before Fulkerson was born.)
  • Children’s spouses’ names. (Two were misspelled, Cloud is Clouse, Rudledge is Rutledge. George married Ollie Pittman, not a Willis. Lucy’s husband was Coleman Rush.)
  • John’s son’s middle initial – John Y. Estes. (That turned out to be important because John R. Estes’s mother’s birth surname was Younger.)
  • Where the children moved to. (Some locations were simply wrong. Others might have been stops on the way to a different location. My ancestor, John Y. Estes, wound up in Texas and never lived in Kentucky, so this error sent me on a wild goose chase.)
  • John’s age of 105 when he died. (He did live to be quite old, about 98 – and his advanced age was certainly part of his legacy.)

Where do I go from here? I didn’t know it at first, but Fairfax County was wrong. I searched but couldn’t find anything there, so I widened my net.

The First Breakthrough

I did a LOT of searching before I eventually found a reference to a marriage record for John R. Estes and Ann Moore in Halifax, not Fairfax County, Virginia. I was suspicious because Nancy is not Ann, but those names are often used synonymously for each other. After I found that record, I still needed to prove it was my John Estes and Nancy Moore.

Today, finding a marriage record is generally much easier because many records are available online by surname, through genealogy sites, such as FamilySearch and others, and by location. Online records were not available at that time.

Back then, I was relegated to library visits, courthouses, and microfilm or microfiche that the LDS church would order into their local Family History Center for me.

Once I located a reference to that marriage record in Halifax County, VA, I knew that I needed to visit the courthouse there. I wanted a copy of the original, plus I needed more information which would only be found in that courthouse. Thank goodness it hadn’t burned.

It might seem like that marriage record was an answer, but really, it was just the starting point for a very long line of questions.

Halifax County, VA Courthouse

Once in Halifax County, I spent two weeks, opening to closing, in the dusty damp basement of this courthouse where I was in Seventh Heaven. Occasionally one of the staff would come to check on me to be sure I was still alive!

There weren’t cell phones or digital cameras, so I took notes on pad after pad after pad of legal paper. I had to get everything that even MIGHT be useful while I was there, because the drive was about 700 miles through treacherous mountains, one way.

It was treacherous on those backroads, but it was also stunningly beautiful, and I never fell out of love with my ancestral connection to this place.

I would transcribe and analyze those handwritten notes later, after I got home. I wasn’t going to waste valuable research time in Halifax County going over the information I had retrieved.

Needless to say, I had to devise a methodology to organize that information. I also made discoveries, some of which necessitated additional trips. However, it was information from those initial forays that provided hints and research fodder.

Important Information

On that first trip, I didn’t realize that additional people were important in documents. I didn’t know which of the many people with the surname of Estes and even more with the surname of Moore were my family – if any.

I didn’t know what was important and what was not, so I began recording everything.

For example, let’s look at the fourth item in my spreadsheet.

  • The item number is my serially assigned number, not to be confused with a spreadsheet row assigned by Excel, which is shown at far left.
  • The source is the book or resource where I found the information. You’ll notice immediately that I did NOT record the page number, and I should have. My bad – but I know now.
  • The year and date, of course.
  • The last and first name of the person in the text, in separate columns to facilitate sorting.
  • Their role in the document – defendant, plaintiff, lawyer, etc.
  • Places, which include roads, waterways, proximity to landmarks, etc. In later spreadsheets, I added a separate column for watercourses.
  • Today, I would also add a column for a link to where I found the info online.
  • I transcribed the full text of the entry and added a separate row, as you can see to the left, for each person in the entry. You can only see 5 here, but all 7 people found in the text have the exact same entry in the spreadsheet, except for their role and their name, of course.

I wish I had a single entry for which surnames I’ve actually searched a document for, the date and how, meaning in person or a book, or what. Let’s say I actively transcribed all of the Estes and Moore items from the index. I happened to find several Combs individuals in those records, but I didn’t search specifically for Combs. I wish I had made note of that because otherwise, I’m missing actual Combs entries.

If you’re thinking to yourself that this process is extremely labor intensive, perhaps obsessive and you won’t need a lot of it eventually – you might well be right. However, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T NEED UNTIL LATER. So you also don’t know what you’re missing and I guarantee you, the ONE THING you will need will be in what you don’t have.

Because I did a poor job of documenting what I covered during my first visit, including books where I didn’t find anything, I had to review them again – and sometimes, I found things I had missed or ignored the first time, thinking they weren’t relevant.

If you don’t enter everything, you won’t be able to:

  • Sort to see how many times you find a particular person associated with your family members.
  • Sort for everyone in a particular location, like Birches Creek.
  • Sort for people on Roanoke Road.
  • Sort for someone who witnessed a deed to see what other transactions and interactions they had with people in your spreadsheet, which is really a form of database.

If you don’t enter everything, you’ll be missing a lot of important information.

Secondary Spreadsheets

Sometimes, I create secondary spreadsheets. I find these useful for records such as census, personal tax, and land tax records.

Using those records, I was able to track groups of people, with their locations, correlated with deeds, across time from 1750 through 1817.

The bond for the marriage between John Estes and Ann Moore was provided by John R. Estes and William Moore who would have been a close relative of the bride. The name of William Moore provided me with a “direction” in which to look, which is exactly why I transcribed every document type I could find in that courthouse. On the tax lists, I found two distinct groups of Moore men. William Moore was grouped with a different group of men than the Dan River group of Joseph, John, and Alexander Moore.

Using documents across multiple years, it was easy to group these people together. I quickly discovered that John, Alexander, and Joseph Moore lived on the Dan River, near South Boston, while the William Moore and James Moore group lived on the west side of the county on the second fork of Birches Creek, about 15 miles away from the Dan River group.

Eventually, years later, Y-DNA would confirm that these two groups were not paternally related.

Clearly, this land and tax information won’t fit on the columns of the original Halifax Spreadsheet, so this information is stored on a separate tab titled “Land Tax Summary,” shown above.

I have yet another tab titled “Census.” I do enter placeholders for the appropriate person and year into the original spreadsheet pointing me to the Land/Tax and Census tabs.

As I continued with my research, I was extremely grateful that I had recorded everything, because, as luck would have it, the signatures, marks of those who couldn’t sign, neighbors, and locations were critical to finding my way back to Prince Edward, then Amelia County where this Moore family had come from before settling in Halifax County.

Eventually, it would be revealed that Edward Henderson, a witness to the deed above, was the uncle of Nancy Ann Moore. Nancy’s son, John Y. Estes, would marry a Dodson female. Yes, the Dodsons who migrated to Claiborne and Hawkins County lived down the road from the Birches Creek Moore family in Halifax County. Charles Spradling lived with James Moore at one point and is somehow related, but we still don’t know exactly how.

Can you see how valuable these records that include people we don’t know turn out to be?

When I finished transcribing these records, there were 173 entries for the surname Henderson. Many of these records documented relationships with other people, proximity to land, and inheritance. These, along with other transactions, connected many dots.

If you’re thinking I’ve strayed far from John R. Estes, I really haven’t. These families were all allied in some way. John’s father and grandfather were involved with Nancy Ann Moore’s family. I suspect they attended the same church. William Moore was a minister, and John’s mother’s Younger family and his grandmother’s Combs family lived nearby and probably attended the church that William Moore pastored.

Follow the Path

My Estes ancestral path led to the Combs and Younger families and from Halifax County to King and Queen County and Amelia County, Virginia. The Moores led to the Rice family and to Prince Edward, Amelia, and New Kent Counties.

I did not create a new spreadsheet for those counties. I simply continued to add to the same spreadsheet because often, the same allied families are found in those earlier locations, too.

That FAN network is VERY powerful. Almost no one went to the next frontier alone. You needed other people for survival – and you married who you saw.

In Summary

Most of us aren’t fortunate enough to find the dots already connected. Even if someone else has connected them, especially in today’s copy/paste tree-grafting world, you’ll want to check their sources and records, check the transcriptions, and do your own proof work. We will talk about the Genealogical Proof Standard in this series.

You will find the answers to your brick walls hiding in the groups of family, friends, and neighbors. Recording everything not only provides you with valuable information, now and in the future, it also keeps you from replowing the same field. You won’t have to wonder if you’ve already looked at a particular resource or if you extracted a specific surname.

Now that you know how to extract, transcribe, and record relevant records, you can begin to sift through those location records from our last article.

Our next article will be about surname searching.

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Genealogy Proof Series: Gathering Location Resources

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This is the first article in the Genealogy Proof Series.

Most genealogists, even if they don’t realize they are genealogists yet, begin by creating a small tree of their known ancestors. Most people know who their grandparents are, and by asking a few questions, can probably complete another generation or two.

If your parents were born in 1950, your grandparents would have been born about 1920, and your great-grandparents may have been born around 1890. You probably have concrete facts about your parents. Their birthdates, birth location, marriage location, and so forth. They probably have the same information about their parents. However, with each generation reaching back in time, the information becomes less precise and less reliable. Memories fail people, and the information they were provided may not have been accurate in the first place.

For example, my mother told me what she knew about her maternal grandfather, which wasn’t much. He died when my grandmother was 20, several years before my mother was born.

As the information becomes thinner, the need for additional information and confirmation of facts becomes crucial. Furthermore, when utilizing new resources, you may discover information not previously known about close generations. One of the best resources for that is old newspapers.

Our ancestors are more than birth and death dates. I like to piece their life together, complete with historical events, both national and local, and how they influenced and affected their lives.

This first article explains how I gather and utilize location resources for each ancestor.

Before we start, let’s talk for a minute about where we are going and how this series will be organized.

The Genealogy Proof Series Roadmap

It’s difficult to put the steps in a specific order because often, I get very distracted and go right down a rabbit hole.

In other words, I’ll be working on gathering resources for a specific county, but then I find a listing for what I think is my ancestor, and before you know it, I’m off on the chase. I really, really try NOT to do that because it’s actually very distracting to the process as a whole.

It’s also difficult for me to select an order to write these articles. For example, do I write about Leveling Up, determining what you need for each ancestor, first or last?

I’ve chosen to write about that topic last because I want to step through how to gather and use the resources before we get distracted by what you need to do with individuals in your tree. It’s way too easy to go after that bright, shiny object:)

Gathering and Organizing Location Resources: This article is about how to find location resources for the area where your ancestor(s) lived. I suggest starting at the beginning, meaning your closest ancestors. You know where your parents and grandparents lived, so start there.

If you think there’s nothing there that matters because you know everything about your family – I guarantee you surprises are waiting. They may surprise you, touch your heart, or even shock you, and they are just waiting to be discovered. But before you can logically extract everything to do with your family and surname, you need a comprehensive list of what is available for your county and region.

You’ll also need to keep a record of what you looked for in that county, and when, because you may very well need to go back and access those records again in the future.

Recording Your Data: After you have a list of what’s available for your specific counties, in the next article, we’re going to talk about extracting information and recording it in a spreadsheet. If you don’t like spreadsheets, you can do the same thing in a table. But it’s critical that you record it someplace.

You’ll also index and transcribe it as you go so you can reasonably retrieve it. This is why I utilize spreadsheets – they are made for filtering and sorting.

Surname Searching: You’ve found location resources, but where do you find surname resources? For example, what about books written about the Estes surname, or internet resources? Some will be in books or webpages about the location, but certainly not everything.

How do you find additional resources?

Proof Table: Now that you HAVE data about all the people in a region or regions where your ancestors lived, how do you prove that the Moses Estes or George Estes in Halifax County, Virginia is YOUR Moses or George Estes? What about men with the same name? What if there is no definitive proof in ONE document?

We will discuss the Genealogy Proof Standard and create a proof table for every single generation because you need proof for every single generation.

Including DNA.

(If you’re beginning to think you might dislike me by the time this series is finished – I fully understand. If it helps any, some days I’m tired and mad at myself.)

DNA: How and when can you use DNA as part of your proof argument? What about the different types of DNA? When are they useful? Are they conclusive? How do they bolster or refute other evidence?

Can you resolve conflicts between DNA and a paper trail, and if so, how?

Leveling Up: Leveling up is a methodology of determining where you are in the process of evaluating EVERY PIECE OF EVIDENCE available about each ancestor.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

For those of us who have been working on genealogy for a long time, it’s easy not to think about using new resources when they become available. For example, the 1940 and 1950 census, new full-text AI from FamilySearch, and new newspaper resources like OldNews.

What do you need to do yet for each ancestor to bring them to current?

Writing It Up: Now that you HAVE this information assembled, what will you do with it? I fervently hope you’re going to write or record it for posterity. I’ve chosen the 52 Ancestors series that I’ve been writing weekly for several years, but there are other ways, too. Genealogy is about resurrecting and honoring the lives of our ancestors. The more factual information you can saturate the airwaves and internet with, the less “bad information” can take hold. Genealogy is a team sport.

Gathering and Organizing Location Resources

This article is focused on gathering and organizing resources for where your ancestor lived, NOT on retrieving the records in those resources for your ancestor and their surname. The next article will cover retrieving and recording the data using a consistent methodology.

If you’ve followed my blog for some time, you’ll know that I’m a spreadsheet person, but I also use MSWord documents to organize and utilize resources from time to time, especially if the text is long. I have one Word document for every ancestor.

I’m going to use a chart as an example, understanding that you will create your own resource-tracking tool that you’re most comfortable with.

The first consideration is that you probably have at least three ancestors in any specific location. By that, I mean at least two parents and one child. You may have significantly more ancestors and family members from that location.

Conversely, those same ancestors may have moved from location to location – even state to state or cross-country, so you may have multiple locations for the same ancestor(s).

In my family, I have clusters of ancestors in the same county. For example, my early Estes line, along with their wives’ lines including Combs, Younger and Moore, resided in Halifax County, Virginia for about 4 generations or more than 50 years. The first generation, Moses Estes (1711-1787) who moved to Halifax County by 1771 came from someplace else, and the last generation, John R. Estes (1787-1885), moved to Claiborne County, TN about 1820, not long after his marriage.

I searched Halifax County records for at least four surnames and multiple generations.

This means I needed to compile the various resources for Halifax County across a significant amount of time.

Resources for Resources

There are multiple places to find available resources for a specific county and state.

We will use these to complete our own research list by county. In the next article, we’ll be checking each one of these resources for surnames.

FamilySearch Wiki

The first thing I do when beginning to compile resources is check the FamilySearch wiki.

Googling “Halifax County, Virginia FamilySearch wiki” brings up a lovely compilation of resources.

You’ll find general information by category, followed by very specific information and multiple resources for each category.

Click on any image to enlarge

Also note that the county website link is given, along with the county formation history further down the page. Don’t neglect to check each county’s individual resources and parent county, if relevant.

If you’ve checked the wiki, or any resource list before, check back often because things change.

I enter each of the resources into a spreadsheet for that county. This is NOT the same thing as making a list of information discovered for an individual ancestor or surname. We’ll get to that later.

Don’t limit yourself to just the years that you know your ancestor was living in that county because records pertaining to that family may exist before your ancestor arrived and long after they left. Other family members may have preceded them, while lawsuits, deeds, and other records may refer to them decades after they left or died.

Here’s the beginning of a list for Halifax County,

Resource State County Link Year Range Surnames Findings
Virginia Bible Records Virginia Halifax http://usgwarchives.net/va/halifax.htm Estes, Younger, Combs, Moore One was donated by the Tune family.
Halifax Biographies Virginia Halifax http://usgwarchives.net/va/halifax.htm Estes, Younger, Combs, Moore
1782 tax list Virginia Halifax http://usgwarchives.net/va/halifax.htm, http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/halifax/census/1782/1782tax.txt 1782 Estes, Younger, Combs, Moore 5 Estes, 1 Combs, 2 Younger 6 Moore
Slave Draft for Defense of Richmond Virginia Halifax http://usgwarchives.net/va/halifax.htm

http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/halifax/court/1862slavedraft.txt

 1862 Estes, Younger, Combs, Moore 2 Younger, 2 Moore

I enter the county and state in two fields, so it’s sortable. If I’m checking multiple counties using the same resource, I enter the resource twice, one for each county and the surnames in that county that I searched for.

For example, this link for Virginia Bible records takes you to a link for Halifax County Bible records on the USGenWeb site. I listed the surnames I checked for. I also noted the Tune donation because I know from prior research that the Tune home is on the old Marcus Younger land and the families intermarried. When you search any county for another surname, be sure to add it to the list so you don’t have to wonder later if you checked for that surname.

For county histories and biographies, check to see if they are available digitally. In the next article, you’ll want to search for and record all instances of your surname, even if it’s NOT your ancestor, because of the FAN club, Friends and Neighbors (thank you ,Elizabeth Shown Mills). Those people may or will help you identify which ancestors are yours. Not to mention fleshing out their lives.

Tax lists are often used to replace or supplement the census. You should be able to determine if the lists are recorded in procession order or alphabetical order. Clearly, procession order is much more relevant because it shows who lives nearby or are neighbors. This may help you identify specific individuals, especially when there are multiple people with the same name. In the case of John Estes in Halifax County, Virginia, the tax list placed “my” John by his father, George, which was a huge clue. Eventually, on a tax list that was stuffed in the back of a deed book in the Clerk’s Office, I found another tax list with the note, “S. G.” by my John’s name, and another note on the “other” John that lived in the north end of the county. “S.G.” meant son of George, as that designation had been used and spelled out for other people elsewhere in the same tax list. I’ve never been so grateful to the taxman in my life!

The Slave Draft for the Defense of Richmond is a fascinating document transcribed by a volunteer from the court minute book.

From Minute Book 20 page 169 Halifax County, Va

At a Court Held for Halifax County on Monday the 4th day of April 1862. Present Beverly Sydnor, Howell Chastain, John M. Craddock, William Moorewell, James Kent, Henry C. Logan, James Richardson, E. A. Coleman, Archer A. Farmer

The court in consideration of the Draft from the Governor of the Commonwealth for laborers on the Public Defense near Richmond do order and direct that the Sheriff of this County do proceed for ___ to require the following named persons to deliver to him the said Sheriff at News Ferry Depot, Boston Depot, Clover Depot and as may be convenient to the parties on ___ the day of ___ at such see hours as he may designate the Slaves between the ages of eighteen and fifty five years directed to be furnished by each person in the said following list and proceed with them to the City of Richmond and deliver them to the Agent of the Confederate Government and take receipt for the Slaves furnished by each person.

Then, by district, the name of the owner, and the number of enslaved persons sent.

This information may provide insight into who enslaved others at that time, which may provide insight into families that were slaveholders historically. Additionally, it may provide important hints and clues for African American researchers who seek their family and may have adopted the surname of their former enslaver after the war.

Also, please note that these records may not be entirely accurate. For example, there’s a list of ministers who performed marriages, and my Rev. William Moore is not listed, but I actually have the list of his marriages, returns made in his own handwriting obtained in the courthouse in Halifax County.

If you remember, I found my way to GenWeb through the FamilySearch Wiki. When I finish listing the GenWeb resources, I need to return to the FamilySearch wiki to list any further resources.

You may find lists of out-of-print books for land and property records and other record types. I sometimes find out-of-print books for sale at www.bookfinder.com.

If you own the book, note that it’s in your own library.

To locate books, check the WorldCat entry, but also check both the FamilySearch Catalog by county, the Fort Wayne Public Library and other book resources as well.

Surnames

While the goal of this exercise is to document and record location resources, if you stumble across surname resources, certainly don’t ignore them and think you’ll find them later – you might not.

I suggest starting either a second spreadsheet, or new tab on this spreadsheet for each surname.

I maintain a separate spreadsheet for each location and one for each surname or group of surnames on the same migration path. For example, my Combs, Estes, Moore, and Younger families are migrating from the Virginia Colony into the new frontiers, so I track them together from Amelia and Prince Edward Counties, where they are first found through Halifax County.

Ok, back to searching for our county resources.

FamilySearch Catalog

To search the FamilySearch Catalog by county, sign in and then click on Search, Catalog, and Place.

I was given the choice of British Colonial America or the United States. I’ll check both to be sure I have all available resources.

Selecting “Land and Property,” one of the items displayed is the Antrim Parish Vestry book. By clicking on that entry, you can see that it’s available in the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City. Maybe it’s available elsewhere too. I’ll check in a bit.

I build research lists from these resources routinely.

The entry for deed books shows that some are available online only at either the FamilySearch Library or a Family History Center (camera with key), which may be located near you. Other images are available online with no location requirement, indicated by the camera without a key, just by clicking.

These may or may not be indexed, and an index may be available elsewhere or by using the new FamilySearch Labs AI full text transcription tool. AI is not available for all records yet.

FamilySearch Labs

Next, try FamilySearch labs for additional assistance. I wrote about this new AI full text transcription tool, here.

You’ll see two features which may help you.

Using the “Find Help with AI Search” feature, type in what you’re searching for. I find the Full Text Search” to be much more helpful.

Click on “Go to Experiment.”

Typing “Halifax County, VA” into the search box returns resources from unexpected places. For example, county histories from elsewhere that reference Halifax County, or a Divorce degree, or a deed book from another county.

These are unexpected gold mines that you’d never find otherwise.

Note that this search is literally an exact match, so Halifax County, VA, is NOT the same as Halifax County, Virginia.

However, adding a surname to the location narrows the results substantially.

While normal deed and other books are indexed by the grantor and grantee, the FamilySearch full text search reveals EVERY instance of that name, including when referenced in another document. This feature is an absolute game-changer!

I can hardly wait to revisit my earlier work to see what’s new, but that’s part of the Level Up process.

It’s important to note that FamilySearch is adding new types of records to the AI collection almost daily, so check back often. Not everything uses the full-text transcription feature today, and while it’s quite accurate, it’s not 100%, so read carefully for yourself.

FamilySearch Book Search

You can also search for books by location or surname.

Allen County Public Library

The Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana is one of the largest genealogy libraries in the US. You can search their site for locations, keywords, or surnames, here.

While these resources are generally not available online at this library, they alert you that they exist, and you may be able to find them elsewhere.

The one HUGE exception is the one-of-a-kind PERSI index.

PERSI

The PERSI, or Periodical Source Index is maintained by the Allen County Public Library as well, here.

You can search by location.

Click on a category that displays the results.

At the bottom of each page, you can open a form to request a copy of the article.

Ancestry.com Card Catalog

At Ancestry.com, you can search their Card Catalog by title or location.

Be sure to try different spellings and abbreviations, like VA for Virginia, or remove the word county, etc.

The results display a list of records for Halifax County in their collection.

You can click on the link to this book to search by surname or keyword.

These local histories are wonderful tools for fleshing out your ancestor’s stories because they tell us what was happening in their community during different time periods that would have affected and influenced their lives.

For example, in one of these histories, I discovered that one of the Revolutionary War generals and his troops marched right down the road in front of my ancestor’s home. It’s no wonder that he “contributed” brandy, food, and fodder for their horses.

Newspaper Sites

At Newspapers.com, you can see which papers were available and when.

You can also add a surname or first and last name.

Unless there’s a story about someone’s ancestors, there’s no point in looking for people who lived there in the 1700s and early 1800s. These are the publication dates, so an earlier ancestor could have been included in a 25 or 50-year history column in the local paper.

This same technique works with other genealogy Newspaper sites, too, including MyHeritage with a subscription and separately, their new OldNews site which contains newspapers not included in the MyHeritage subscription.

Also check out the Library of Congress digitized newspaper collection, here.

Newspaper Archive is available with an NGS membership, here.

Fulton County (not limited to Fulton County) and GenealogyBank are two additional newspaper resources.

MyHeritage

At MyHeritage, you can search by location or Newspapers as well.

MyHeritage has one book about Halifax County.

By clicking on the book, you can add additional search criteria.

Estes is mentioned 16 times in this book.

Library of Congress

Don’t forget about the Library of Congress, which has its own Historical Newspapers section, here.

You can also search by county or surname in the search box at the top. The images are all copyright-free.

State Archives

Don’t forget about your state archives.

Most have wonderful search capabilities and specific collections.

For example, the Library of Virginia has been indexing individual county chancery records dating back to the county’s formation. Chancery suits are where you find all the juicy stuff because people are asking for remediation and explaining why.

The index is here, and you can search by a combination of county and surname.

There are 59 records in Halifax County fitting this description, mentioning Estes in any capacity, reaching back as far as 1795.

Don’t neglect later cases because many times later cases tend to be lawsuits filed about much earlier estates and property divisions. They also tend to provide relationships in their narrative.

You’ll also notice that often, the plaintiff and defendant aren’t Estes, but they are clearly mentioned somewhere in that case, perhaps in a deposition.

Clicking on “View Details” displays the entire case file.

The resources at each state library are different and vast, so take a look and check back for new offerings and features.

Google is Your Friend

Google can turn up amazing resources, but it can also lead to some unsafe sites, so be careful and don’t just click without thinking.

Google “Halifax County Virginia genealogy society.” You’ll receive eight results that may have databases, members, or donated materials, but these resources may not be complete. For example, I wrote and donated a Moore genealogy to the local museum, which doubled as a genealogy society, and that “book” isn’t listed anywhere in any resource list.

You’ll often find multiple groups focused on the county of interest. These groups will likely have dedicated and interested volunteers and other researchers.

RootsWeb

Ancestry shut down the RootsWeb mailing lists, but they are still out there even though you can no longer add information.

If you Google “Halifax County, Virginia Rootsweb,” you’ll be shown several pages and entries, some of which may or may not be useful to you.

One link provides a list of the 1860 slaveholders compared to the 1870 African Americans on the census. This could be extremely useful!

Google Books

Another underutilized tool is Google books, found here.

Some of these resources you’ll not find elsewhere.

Also, check out the other Google features, such as Images, Maps, and more, which may lead you to other resources.

I love old maps where sometimes you’ll find old stream names, landmarks, or even settlers’ homes with their name.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is an initiative found at the Internet Archive to digitize out-of-copyright books for public consumption.

You can read more here.

Genealogical.com and American Ancestors

Don’t forget about book publishers that specialize in genealogy books like Genealogical.com and American Ancestors. Both are searchable, offer both hardcopy and e-books, and American Ancestors sells used books too.

Facebook

Last but not least, Facebook has many groups, including county-focused genealogy groups.

Sign in to Facebook and then use the Facebook search for the county you want.

Some groups maintain a list of resources.

Be sure to check both “Files” and “Features,” then use the Facebook search function to search for your surname(s) or other relevant locations or keywords in the Discussions.

In Summary

As you step through this process, it’s easiest if you include links to the various sites so that you can extract names in the next step. Links make it easy to return in the future and quickly review to see if anything has been added.

Even if you don’t find anything relevant at the site, be sure to NOTE THAT. That way, you never have to wonder and replow that same infertile ground. For example, if you determine that none of your four surnames are in a book written in 1937, they will never be in that book. If you don’t record that you looked, you’ll be left to wonder a few years from now and you’ll find yourself looking again.

However, a new book about that county might be written in the future, so it’s important to continue to look for new resources.

It’s also important to know that you searched for Estes, Moore, Younger, and Combs in Halifax County because you might, someday in the future, need to search for a new surname, like Hart. This way, you know what you did and did not search for in the past.

Why might you need to search for a new surname? Brick walls fall. Sometimes, the FAN Club turns out to be an important key to unlocking relationships that may extend back in time to earlier locations. People did not live or move in a vacuum.

I’ve made every one of these mistakes and nothing makes me unhappier than having to look something up, AGAIN, because I failed to record what I did.

The same advice holds for hard-copy books in research libraries. If nothing else, I take a picture of the front or inside cover and the index so I know what to record and that nothing was found. I wish I had done that from the beginning. Live and learn.

The biggest lie I’ve ever told myself is, “Of course I’ll remember that!”

Your Turn

It’s your turn now. Happy hunting!

Our next articles in this series will discuss how to record data from these resources so that it is both useful and findable again.

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Genealogy Proof Series: Gathering Resources, Leveling Up, Using the Genealogical Proof Standard and DNA

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I am beginning a series about Genealogy Proof – in other words, how do you prove that your ancestor is actually your ancestor?

  • What tools are available?
  • How can you best utilize them?
  • What is leveling up? How do you do it, and why would you want to?
  • What is the genealogy proof standard, GPS, and how can you easily use it?
  • How does DNA play into this equation? How does DNA work with the other tools? Can DNA alone prove an ancestral connection? Can it disprove one, even in the face of other information?

I use these methodologies and tools when writing my 52 Ancestors articles that I typically publish on Sundays.

If you’re wondering how I compile the information for those ancestors, including multiple ancestors from the same region, I’ll address that.

If you’re wondering how I keep everything straight, or at least try to, I’ll share my processes and tools. I’ve made just about every mistake possible, AND I’ll tell you how NOT to retread that path.

If you’re wondering how to utilize the various forms of DNA to either confirm an ancestor, a hypothesis, or maybe disprove an ancestor, I’ll discuss that.

Lastly, we’ll talk about what to do if you made a mistake and got something wrong, or if previously unknown information surfaces that conflicts with earlier information. How do you correct and fix it? Trust me—I’ve been there and done that, too.

As I complete each article, I’ll update this article and post links here.

Articles in the Series