Research Strategies

So far, all of the research I've done has been by computer, except for family documents shared with me by relatives.  I recognize and appreciate the fact that much of the information I've discovered on Ancestry is there only because someone did a lot of the original legwork in the pre-computer days. 


Here are the resources that have helped me the most in my research:


Findagrave - this website is just amazing.  People from all over the world visit cemeteries and contribute photographs of tombstones, transcribing the information on them.  Some entries are created by family members or descendants, with detailed biographical information.  Others are created by people who have no relationship with the people in the graves, but who wish to add to the body of knowledge.  If a relative of that person wishes to add information, the creator of that entry can transfer it to the relative. A network is created where people can request a photo of a grave in a certain locale, and someone in that locale will provide it.  I cannot express how valuable this website has been to me. 


Google Maps - whenever I have clues to a location, I look it up on a map and explore the area.  Exploring the streets, viewing buildings, and looking at the relationships between places, I have gained insight into my ancestors' lives that at times has broken through a wall in my research.  This strategy has made my research immensely more real and tangible, and has greatly affected my understanding of the way of life of my forebears.  I can go to street view and visit the actual places where my ancestors built their lives.  I can take a snapshot of a building and include it in my documentation.  If I find a plat of a town from colonial times, I can compare it to the current landscape and pinpoint the location of property owned.  Street names have provided clues to my family's stories.  The number of instances where this resource has helped me are countless. 


Ancestry - this goes without saying.  This database grows continually as members add documents and information.  I have learned which sources to ignore - Ancestry trees, Family data, Millenium files - all of these are rife with errors due to amateurs' enthusiasm and lack of discipline!  Their information is valuable only to pick up possible names to verify.  With experience, I have learned which researchers are the most careful and accurate.  I have actually contacted a few of these folks to find out more information.  On Ancestry, there are indexes listing the names but not the actual information included in a variety of resources.  There are also sources such as DAR applications, Census documents, and Veteran's pension applications which contain reliable information.   


Google books - many original transcripts of old books can be found here.  A Google search using a person's name will turn up many of these sources.  I can scroll through a major portion of a book to learn about my ancestors' part in history. 


Postcards and letters - family memorabilia or online - these provide major clues to family relationships, important places, and life events.  There are photos of buildings from as long ago as the mid-1800's.


Journals, stories, personal accounts - these can be original documents or online resources.  Carefully chosen search terms yield a surprising number of sources, such as newspapers and local histories, that might mention your ancestor's name.  Searching multiple ways with different combinations of search terms will affect the results.  These are fairly reliable, especially if they are firsthand accounts, though not necessarily.  I discovered that my great grandmother was a storyteller, and her stories were often passed down by word of mouth and often distorted. 


I have taken the step of expanding my search to International databases.  The next step will be to join subscription websites such as newspapers.com.  Right now I am working on verifying the information I have already added to my tree before adding anything new.

Georgia Ella Powell and Census Issues (resolved)

My great grandmother Georgia Ella Powell (Nannie) married John Adam Zaun (Poppoo) in 1903.  She had five children: Pauline, Bill, Ernie (my grandfather), Jimmy, and Agnes.

Georgia Ella Powell > Ernest Earl Zaun > John B. Zaun > Teresa Zaun Austin

I have vivid memories of my great grandparents and great aunts and uncles in Richmond. My father was deeply attached to his relatives in Richmond and we would make at least one or two trips a year to visit family.  I knew my second and third cousins as well as most people know their first cousins!  But there were no children our age around when we visited Nannie.  While the adults sat and talked in the stuffy little house on Penick Road, my sister and I would wander around outside looking at the fish pond and all the cement animals in the yard (chickens, squirrels, frogs, etc.), or  we would run up and down the white board fence with the playful palimino pony across the road.  In the house, there were a few old toys - an ancient iron canon that was my father's childhood toy, a grotesque grinning rubber frog, and a beautiful cloth doll that became a black mammy when her skirt was flipped upside down.  Not much for children to do there, so we had to work hard to entertain ourselves.  I don't remember eating or drinking anything while we were there either - I can't imagine children of today enduring such a visit!

Visit with Nannie at Aggie's house, December 1964

[Click Here] to read a previous post and view photos of the house on Penick Road.

I am so thankful that even as a child, I had the presence of mind to talk with Nannie about her family, and to get information for our family tree.  I remember her lying in bed with tears streaming down her face because she could not recall a brother's birthday, or the name of a sibling who died shortly after birth.  I wrote all of her information on a cardboard family tree which I still have.

In researching the Zaun family on Ancestry, it is easy to confirm the name and dates of people because I knew them personally. However, a curious detail has come from my research.  In the 1930 census, it says that Georgia was born in Iowa.  IOWA?  I can find no documentation of her parents ever living in Iowa. Furthermore, the 1930 census is inconsistent, showing Iowa as the birthplace of Georgia on her record and on Pauline's, but shows her birthplace as Virginia in the records of her other children, Ernie, Bill, Jimmy, and Agnes.

1930 Census:  John A. Zaun, Georgia E., Pauline, John A. Jr., Agnes, Jefferson M. Powell; boarder, Johnson Campbell.
Above, see: Earnest Zaun (my grandfather), Jacqueline, and John B., age  3 mos.

The 1920 census consistently names Iowa as her birthplace in all the individual records for her and her children:

1920 Census:  Adam J. Zaun (he was called Adam), Georgia E., Pauline W., William J., Ernest E., John A. Jr., Georgia A. (Agnes) 

Could two different census takers 10 years apart be wrong?  The 1930 census information could be dismissed because of inconsistencies, but the 1920 census is clear.  If the information is incorrect, why would both documents contain the same error?  But unless I find another kind of proof, I have to conclude both census documents are incorrect.  The 1940 census gives Virginia as her birthplace:

1940 Census:  John A. Zaun, Georgia, John A. Jr.

Evidence proves that her parents, Jefferson Monroe and Marie Louise Powell, lived in Richmond in 1880 and again in 1893, but I can find no record for Georgia's birth year, 1885.  It seems highly unlikely that Jefferson and Marie would go briefly to Iowa and have a child, then return to have their other children in Virginia... DRUM ROLL.... but they did!

UPDATE! July 11, 2015:  In Marie Louise Powell's obituary, which I just obtained from a cousin on Ancestry, it says that the Powells lived for a brief time in the Valley of Virginia and in the "Middle West!"
So an Iowa birthplace for Georgia Ella Powell now makes sense.