"Surprise" is the topic for the sixth week of this challenge. I was a little late for this challenge but was happy to get back into the swing of things.
One of the bigger surprises for me when I was a novice genealogist was the lack of records from the early 19th century in much of North America. I had imagined that the large religious drive that prompted much of the early settlement would translate into well-kept records.
In addition to the religious undertone of early American life, I would have assumed that time would also help establishe decent records. With the colonization of the American continent beginning in the 17th century, I would have assumed better records would be available for residents nearly two centuries later. While there are intermittent church and town records during this time, they are hardly consistent and vary widely on what and who was recorded.
I feel that I can often find better records from the same time in Europe, and better records begin appearing again around 1870 to 1880 in the United States. This has created kind of a donut hole in records where I can find information about a grandparent and grandchild, but little information on the middle generation parent. I feel like this is the culprit for many of my brick walls.
A smaller surprise that I have encountered is the amount of high inter-marrying in early American towns and villages. I’ve experienced two or three families marrying at various points in time. Most of the time I am sure they knew of the closeness of the families, but other times, I’m not so sure. While this doesn’t have a huge impact on my research, it does create some very complicated – and difficult to trace – family lines, often with naming conventions that even further confuse.
- Patricia
