To Prove or Disprove

Image created using DALL-E and ChatGPT

There are days when I just can't start working on a record I know is going to take a long time to finish. For whatever reason, I just don't have the focus in the given moment or there's a time constraint. But at the same time, I still want to do something....anything...to further my research. I make working on my tree a part of almost every day, even if it's only reviewing a few hints.

So, on days like today, I occasionally make my focus disproving hints. Rather than clicking endlessly thru screens and not doing anything at all, I'll set my focus on weeding out hints I don't believe are valuable (typically copies of user uploaded documents I already have in my hints) or ignoring those I determine don't pertain to the person in my tree. This sounds pretty easy right? Well, sometimes it's not. Matching up images to hints is fairly straightforward. If the image is the same as the image in a hint - ignore the uploaded one and use the hint. But looking at multiple census records where the name appears right, but the various years show different parents, different relationships or even a significant change in location, can take more time. In these cases, I click thru to the hint and start evaluating the other potential hints Ancestry helpfully shows in the sidebar. I try to find if the details on those other hints line up with my tree, or don't line up at all. I start looking for how the puzzle pieces fit (or in some cases, don't fit).

While I might not want to spend an hour mining details from a census record I know is correct, I might easily spend an hour clicking back and forth thru various hints, looking for the clue it's not the right person. I find I encounter this a far more often as I push back further in the direct lines. As records become more scarce, and names are common and repetitive in the location I'm searching, narrowing down the right records can be a head scratcher.

As an example, let's take Henry Jackson (1768-1854), the 5th great grandfather of my ex-husband. I know he was born in Maryland and died in Kentucky. Most of my knowledge of him comes from letters written by family years ago and research done by other family members. Thankfully, memories were preserved and shared, and copies of original documents not currently available as hints were uploaded. He appears to have been a caring individual. Records show in 1825, he was responsible for the son of a "poor free man of color" until the boy reached the age of 21. In 1833, another poor woman (relationship unknown) was placed under his care by the court. Records also show he emancipated two woman of color in 1838. These documents are all from the same location he lived and died in Kentucky and provide some idea of his character. There's even a copy of his will uploaded for me to pour over (with his daughter's married name, so I know I'm on the right track)....though it may also be available via the FamilySearch Full Text Search now, to save my poor eyes from deciphering the handwriting. 

So, I know a reasonable amount about his later life. Then I switch over to the record hints I can see. There certainly are several early census records, but they don't list all the household members by name, and some of the counties are different than where he lived later. I don't yet know his parents or siblings, so I'm currently at a disadvantage. There's also a FindAGrave record, right name, different county (but the same different county as some of the census records) with a different spouse (sadly, no birth or death date). It's quite likely he did have another earlier spouse, as when his will was written he had many married children and an also an young daughter he was leaving in the care of one of his grown daughters. But is the FindAGrave record right? Just because the location matches a questionable census record doesn't make it so. And there's nothing yet to prove the name of another spouse. I'm still poking around with Henry's records. I'm not confident enough yet to attach or ignore them, but the investigation is gratifying.

In some ways, disproving a record is just as satisfying for me as finding a valid record, especially when it comes to the farther back generations. None of us wants to spend countless hours documenting the incorrect person. I try to make notes why I finally decided to disprove a record. Doing so saves me time if similar records or information pop up again. Just today, I had notes where an ancestor is associated in many trees with a particular husband. But in my research, I was satisfied this was not the same person as is in my tree. Not only did I make a note to remind myself of this, I had the foresight to include a link to the census record I ultimately used to make the determination. In this case, it was an 1880 census showing her as married to a man with the surname McBriant (the name in many trees), but she was actually married a man with the surname LeRoy a couple years before and was having children with him in 1880 (and I have DNA matches from, and a paper trail to, this union). So the 1880 record disproves McBriant as a spouse entirely. I was able to eliminate several other hints today based on my notes disproving McBriant.

So...on days when recording details may not be an option (whatever the reason), progress can still be made by disproving records. Weeding out the unrelated to allow the rest of the records shine through is still a research win in my book!