12 Strategies for Finding Female Ancestors' Maiden Names
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- čas přidán 2. 07. 2024
- Finding female ancestors poses unique challenges that can throw roadblocks in your way. And the reason for that is simple. The women in our family tree assume the surname of their husbands when they marry. In genealogy, we're researching backward through time, and that means we encounter a woman’s married surname first. However, it's critical that we eventually locate the records that mention the woman's maiden name so that we can find her parents and continue to climb her family tree. Professional genealogist Shelley Bishop has come to the rescue in her new family tree magazine article. It's called Ladies in Waiting. In that article, she covers 12 resources for discovering maiden names.
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⌚ Jump to Video Sections:
0:00 Introduction
01:26 12 Marriage Records
02:19 Family Records
03:15 Church Records
04:37 Children's Vital Records
06:44 Death Records
08:29 Cemetery Sources
10:03 Census Records
12:23 Newspapers
14:03 Published Sources
15:30 Court Records
17:20 Deeds
19:00 Military Pension Records
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#Genealogy #FamilyHistory - Jak na to + styl
In Irish Catholic Paish records Baptism records list the childs name, father name and mother using maiden name. Also listed are sponsors who may or may not be related.
My best tip is to look at census records to see what families were nearby to generate candidate names and then do records searches with those maiden names to try to confirm. In the past, people traveled and moved around much less and it was very common to marry somebody from the farm next door. When census takers went door to door to collect the information you can just look at a few pages in either direction to find a bunch of nearby families.
Great information! Most I've used, but always great to be reminded for a kickstart on a line on which you are stuck. I can't count how many times I've found "grandma" in a census record!
In a case in my own family research, a mother's maiden name on a 3rd great-grandfather's death record was completely wrong (Lewis instead of Hilton). We should remember with death records that the information isn't necessarily as reliable because it's not the actual person giving it -- the "informant" may not know, and/or is probably not thinking super clearly in the first place because of grief.
I imagine for those who were named for someone two generations back that the oral histories were cherished.
I just got a copy of the complete military record for the bio great-grandmother's last husband (Civil War). 184 images chock full of info that answered a LOT of questions!
I discovered that my mother used 2 maiden names. The first name she used was her mother's original surname and finally, she used her father's last name. This led me to find out that the man everyone thought was my grandmother's father wasn't her father. My Great grandmother was married twice. My grandmother took the last name of her step-father. It appears that people just changed their names at random with no official records.
Thanks for the information.
Wow, thanks for sharing!
This one target family I've been trying to track, at least 2 of the 6 girls were called one name at home with their parents, and then went by their other name as adults, and then used the childhood name as middle name in legal documents. Where as, the childhood name was the first name in the early Censuses. 🤷🏻♀️.
Another thing to consider is the husband and wife may have the same last name at birth. This has happened in my family tree. A famous example of this is Eleanor Roosevelt, who married her 5th cousin one removed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
In Dutch archives since Napoleon, women always keep their maiden name.
I've been trying to track my great grandmother's great aunt b/c I have a beautiful photo of her and she intriges me. I am missing the middle of her life. Like 40yrs. I have her at home and then she married late. I don't know if she married prior to that, and that is part of why I can't find her... or what. Neither she nor her parents show up in some censuses where they should... I can't trace her sisters that appear to have made it to adulthood, either. Out of 7 siblings, I have her, her older brother (3rd child) and my direct ancestress the baby sister. It's all very frustrating. Lol. They have to be there somewhere! And this particular target ancestor didn't hage any children that I know of.
Census info can sometimes be deceiving...
One census record had a 'mother-in-law' staying with a family, so I thought her surname was the wife's maiden name... but got stuck there as I couldn't find such a marriage. After lots of searching I found several possible maiden names from marriage records and once I could look at the birth index I found her children's records all had a certain maiden name - one that matched the most likely of the marriage records, not the so-called 'mother-in-law's surname. The big question is who is this 'mother-in-law'? I think she might have adopted the girl, or perhaps the person filling in the census put mother-in-law down because someone who didn't know the family gave them the information?! I think she was just a lodger or visitor. Possibly the adopted mother of the wife? No idea. I tried searching for her in earlier censuses but found no relation to the family. I thought maybe she was an aunt or the wife's mother after a 2nd or further marriage.
But she had the wrong first name, if the real mother is who I think she was!
On the other hand I have frequently found members of a wife's family living with her and her husband and children, so it usually is a good clue - just not that time!
I've been stuck on my 4th ggrandmother, d. before 1812, for the past 30 years. My father was able to interview the ggranddaughter in the 1960s. She had no idea.
No marriage record in the county they lived, surrounding counties, or the neighboring state, too early for death certificates for the children, and no clues in deeds, wills, court records, or property records. No letters, no diaries (they couldn't read or write). The only clues are unusual first names for a couple of the sons that could indicate the surname of a grandparent and therefore a former neighbor. I went back several decades looking for property owners in tax records with the possible surnames. Nada. These people were Baptists, who only kept records when people did something wrong: no birth, marriage, or death records. I have a copy of the church records from 1782 that give nothing as a hint. No known place of burial.