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Each year, the authors of the Research Like a Pro books, blog, and
podcast challenge family history researchers to complete a 14-day
project using the Research Like a Pro (RLP) method. The 2024 Challenge
began on Monday, 22 January, and I'm taking part once more.
To read the first part of this series, click here.
Here's a report on my days 3-9 progress.
Jan. 24—Analyze Sources - Timeline
Creating a timeline of life events for your research subject is the next step in the process. This allows you to capture what you know about them, and where there are gaps in your knowledge. In this case, I am actually looking at an entire family. That meant altering the Airtable base that I use for documenting timelines and capturing research notes, citations, next steps, etc.
Credit to Nicole Dyer who created the Airtable bases for genealogical research both with and without DNA. These bases are an amazing tool to use while researching. I took her Research Like a Pro base, and added a column with multiple choice options, so that I could add the various family members of my Catherine Ryan research subject as they appear in the records I was reviewing.
For example, in the 1860 U.S. Census, this Catherine appears alongside other family members. Rather than repeat the entry for each person, I selected all those in that one record:
Creating a timeline is one of my favorite project tasks. It forces me to truly understand what I have already discovered about a research subject, and remind myself about what information and evidence each record includes. Because you can't know where you're going, if you don't know where you've been!
Here's a screenshot of part of my Airtable base for this project:
Jan. 25—Analyze Sources - Source & Information
Today's task was analyzing each record in your timeline in terms of the type of source, the kind of information included, and what sort of evidence it provides in relation to a fact.
Sources can be either Original, Derivative or Authored—Records that I have so far are a mix of original and derivative sources. The original documents are the U.S. censuses where my target family appears. The derivative sources are mostly transcriptions of church records that I had done by a researcher in the past as the images were behind a paywall.
In another example, I also had the birth registration for my subject’s twin brothers, in
looking at several pages before and after their records, I saw that all
births were registered on the same day once a year, possibly from lists
produced by doctors, midwives, etc. They were all written in the same
hand apparently by the same person, all at once. Since these registrations
were copies of some original sources, they are derivative.
Information in the source can be Primary, Secondary, or Undetermined—Unfortunately, informants on census records prior to 1940 are unknown. Information could have been given by the head of household, or by a neighbor or friend, we just don't know. While my church record transcriptions were derivative sources, the information in them regarding the event was primary; the researcher was looking at the images of the church registers, highly likely to have been created at the time of the event, probably by the Catholic priest who performed the ceremonies.
Evidence can be Direct, Indirect, or Negative—The vast majority of the records include direct evidence of the event; they answer the question, "When was X born?" or "When did Y die?" In the category of indirect evidence, as an example, I used the 1860 census to estimate the marriage date for the parents of
my research subject. In this census the couple’s eldest child was about
10, so I estimated the marriage year was possibly 1
year prior, about 1849. Of course, I could be wrong, but it is a starting place to work from.
Jan. 26—Locality Research - Background Information
Today's task was to learn about the locale where our ancestor lived. It might be a city, county, state, or country.
In my case, I have at least four localities where my target family lived: England; Scranton, Luzerne, Pennsylvania; Taunton, Bristol, Massachusetts; and Oxford, Warren, New Jersey. Since I already have a well-developed Luzerne/Lackawanna locality guide, I decided to quickly get some basic facts together for Bristol, Massachusetts and Warren, New Jersey.
My hunch is that this family moved often for the father's occupation. He, and later his sons, "worked in roll mills" which indicated the iron industry. Iron mills were located in Taunton, Scranton, and in Warren. As part of my locality research, I found a map titled, "Oxford Furnace Iron Ore Veins," which shows clearly the location of the rolling mill there in 1867.
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Rolling mill located in Oxford, Warren, New Jersey.
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Jan. 27—Locality Research - Identify Sources to Search
Next up is identifying sources to search which might answer the research question. My target family moved from England, to Massachusetts, to Pennsylvania,
then to New Jersey. City directories might help pinpoint the exact time
they moved from these places, as the censuses capture the relocations,
but not specifically when within those 10 years.
They might also reveal when the father William Ryan of the family died,
as he may disappear from listings between 1857 when his last daughter
was born, and 1868, when his wife Honora remarries.
Jan. 28—Research Planning - Hypothesis
Today's challenge is to form a hypothesis that I will try to prove, or disprove, as the case may be. Here's my thinking: The
family that I identified in prior research has a timeline which lines
up with my ancestor's and has a Catherine of an age to be the right
woman. I've also established that the mother of this family was widowed
and remarried a man named James "Dalia"/Daley. In
1870 the family included both Ryan and Daley surname individuals, a
large blended family including a Catherine, and all her known full and
half siblings from the prior censuses. My ancestor's timeline would pick
up between the 1870 and 1880 census, as she married Michael Gilbride in
1875.
If
she was part of the target family, she may appear in other records with
this family after 1870. Additional records could also reveal other
relationships, like a marriage to another man, which would eliminate her
from consideration as my ancestor. Various records might also reveal
other FAN club members who, once investigated, could also be my
ancestor’s family members.
My
hypothesis therefore is: Catherine Ryan born 10 June 1856, Scranton,
Luzerne, Pennsylvania, to William and Honora Ryan is the same Catherine
Ryan who married Michael Gilbride in February, 1875 in Scranton,
Luzerne, Pennsylvania.
Jan. 29—Research Planning - Prioritize Sources
I need to focus on identifying my target family after 1870, to see if
their daughter Catherine is still with them after 1875 when my ancestor
married. If she is still with the family it will eliminate her from
contention as my ancestor. If not, then the family is still one of
interest. Here are some record collections I intend to search:
1. U.S. Censuses, 1880, 1900
2.
Taunton, Massachusetts city directories, 1850 (approx date of
immigration from England) - 1854 (move to Scranton). This will help firm
up the family's timeline.
3.
Scranton, Pennsylvania city directories for James Daley and any Ryan,
first available through 1881, again to firm up family's presence in
area.
4. Scranton Roman
Catholic Church records (need to hire a researcher, I'm not local), for
marriages of any other Catherine Ryan between 1870-1881.
Jan. 30—Source Citations
Ah, the bane of most researchers existence: citations. I have actually grown pretty comfortable writing citations, all credit due to my experiences following the Research Like a Pro method.
Today's task was to create two citations from our project timeline. Here's one:
1860 United States Federal Census, Luzerne, Pennsylvania, population
schedule, city of Scranton, p. 119, line 7, dwelling 915, family 921,
household of Honoria Rian; image,
Ancestry (
https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7667/images/4292153_00464
: 22 January 2024); citing National Archives and Records
Administration, Record Group Number 29, Series M653, roll 1135,
Washington, D.C.
The project I chose is pretty complicated, as this family has many members, and there are several locations involved. Each family member has various life events still to be documented before I can get a real sense of this family and whether my ancestor fit into it. It's a challenge I hope I can complete!
Soldiering on until next time...
© Nancy Gilbride Casey, 2024. All rights reserved.
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