Go Beyond Digital!
There are so, so many records available online. Ancestry, Familysearch, Newspapers.com and more. I use these every single day. But, sometimes what you're looking for, the thing that will solve your research problem and bring everything to light, is not available online. Here's a recent case with just this scenario.
I was looking for the biological mother for an adoptee. She knew her first and last name -- last name "Smith." Knowing a name can be super helpful, but women often change their names at least once in a lifetime. She did not have a location for the mother and with a common last name, we needed more. I analyzed all of the relevant matches on Ancestry, building trees for those when necessary. I finally found the right Smith family, living in Missouri. The father died leaving a wife and four children. Her mother was listed! I traced the widow (grandmother to adoptee) and she died in Oregon. Oregon is not well-represented on newspapers.com (at least that part of Oregon). I ended up emailing a tiny library in a rural part of the state and they sent me a scan of the widow's obituary the next week! The cost was only $5 and was key in finding the mother. It provided more information for the mother's siblings. More descendants were contacted pointing us in the direction of an aunt. And, just like that, the adoptee was connected to her mother and several half-siblings.
Go beyond what is found digital and see if someone out there is willing to help you find those records when they don't exist online. Often, one record can be key in solving your research problem and that record may not exist in the digital world.
I was looking for the biological mother for an adoptee. She knew her first and last name -- last name "Smith." Knowing a name can be super helpful, but women often change their names at least once in a lifetime. She did not have a location for the mother and with a common last name, we needed more. I analyzed all of the relevant matches on Ancestry, building trees for those when necessary. I finally found the right Smith family, living in Missouri. The father died leaving a wife and four children. Her mother was listed! I traced the widow (grandmother to adoptee) and she died in Oregon. Oregon is not well-represented on newspapers.com (at least that part of Oregon). I ended up emailing a tiny library in a rural part of the state and they sent me a scan of the widow's obituary the next week! The cost was only $5 and was key in finding the mother. It provided more information for the mother's siblings. More descendants were contacted pointing us in the direction of an aunt. And, just like that, the adoptee was connected to her mother and several half-siblings.
Go beyond what is found digital and see if someone out there is willing to help you find those records when they don't exist online. Often, one record can be key in solving your research problem and that record may not exist in the digital world.
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