SECOND TIME AROUND

TIP #6

Have any of you ever re-read a book? You mysteriously see a sentence or paragraph that even though you KNOW you have read this book before, you don't recall seeing this particular piece.I myself do this quite frequently. I find that in many instances, Genealogy is better the second time around, or what I like to refer to as "served as a Leftover". This week I have been using for updating my files, placing all the odds and ends on my floppys onto the file or somewhere else. Also I have been sorting and organizing my filing system. Just last night I was looking through a file on my husband's line. I am stuck on one man and you all know the story. The man is an alien or an island. No parents, no marriage locale, no previous history. He is my true jigsaw puzzle, all info has been piecemeal, and I am being generous with that descriptive. But still, he is one of my most addictive searches. I looked at the file last night for what seemed like forever, and of course it just stared back. Then, I saw it. What someone had sent me well over a year ago and I had looked at a dozen times and put away, never being able to either accept or discard anything. The census record listed his mother in law in the household in 1850 and she was only 5 years older then the son inlaw. Which is not that unusual, except it made her 8 years old when she had her daughter!! Another piece someone had sent me complete with documentation,this man was in the military. I was so excited to get this break.Until I noticed that the man was 71 at the start of the Civil War and 73 at the time of induction, I know they made allowances at the end but I still don't think they were taking them that old. I had never noticed these items before and just kept putting them back away. Sometimes you just don't notice this stuff at face value, it takes many times of viewing to find errors or bonuses. The same is true for items I pull from mailing lists that seem to be of a connection, and appear a really great find. Countless times as I get ready to put these onto floppys or zips or CD's I look at it and wonder, "why on earth did I keep this"? Finding I either already had it or connects not even remotely. We all have mounds of piles of papers and data we are saving. Could our gold mine be in one of those? Could we find that piece of info we have been searching for hidden within pages we have stored away? I always do. Last night, I found a birthplace of someone on a marriage application that I thought I had pretty well covered for info. I knew the birthplace was on there, but it was in a different county then I had previously beat to death searching for her parents. So when you get discouraged, go back through your papers, you might just find out you had the info all the time.