In this episode of Research Like a Pro, Nicole and Diana discuss the challenges of using city directories in genealogical research. Nicole shares her experience with the Trinidad, Colorado, city directory, where she encountered indexing errors due to the directory’s unique formatting. The directory included the post office location after each person’s name, which the indexing process misinterpreted as a middle name. This led to difficulties in finding her research subject using the search function....
Have you ever found yourself frustrated while searching through Ancestry.com’s city directories? As genealogists, we often assume that printed materials like city directories, with their clean, typewritten text, would be easily and accurately indexed. However, I recently discovered that unique formatting in these historical documents can lead to some surprising indexing challenges. Here’s what I learned while searching through Las Animas County, Colorado, directories, and how you can avoid similar pitfalls in your research. Claude.ai...
Censuses and vital records are the backbones of genealogical research. Finding ancestors on every census and discovering their vital records can help a researcher begin to identify an ancestor and the familial relationships for that ancestor. Land and probate records are also valuable sources. But what happens when a search of these records doesn’t yield many results? Additional (and often less-used) records can then be examined with the goal of finding clues that will lead...
