On a fairly regular basis, I write to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh for obituaries. A great majority of my grandmother's family either lived there or passed through the area at some point, so I am fairly successful with getting copies.
As good as the staff at Carnegie is, I find that when I go there for a visit that I usually discover additional obituaries / death notices / funeral notices that contain new bits of information. When you have an area that has numerous daily newspapers, this is bound to happen, so I make it a point to see if I can track down some new articles on any of those relations where I may only have a short notice to start with.
Such an occasion happened on a recent visit. I had a short funeral notice for a gg-grandfather that I had gotten a number of years earlier and looked at the other dailies to see if I could find anything else. I did.
The new notice that I found confirmed the birth surname of his mother by indicating that an uncle had attended the funeral - which opened up a new line of research for me in that, other than the mother, I had no information on that line of the family. Although a first name for the uncle was not provided, I was able to find him because of his profession, which was noted in the article.
Now if I could just discover who their parents were.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
What are you saying
I am subscribed to a number of genealogy lists and contribute when I can. That being said, there are times when I want to contribute and help but just can't. Because I can not figure out what the writer is asking for.
Listen, my grammar usage is not the best, and I am not always certain that I am using the correct punctuation or even spelling the words correctly. But some messages I've been seeing lately are just unreadable.
No capitalization, run-on sentences, using commas and dashes instead of periods and writing everything in one huge paragraph make my eyes cross over. In the past, I used to try to sort it out, picking apart what should be sentences, but no more. The Back Button is my friend.
Please begin your sentences with a capital letter, or, if the shift key on your keyboard does not work, complete the sentence with a period. And really, it's okay if your message has three or four short paragraphs consisting of a few sentences each.
A number of forums offer a Preview of your message before it posts. It will give you a chance to see what your post looks like before it is sent.
I'll make a good faith effort to look something up and answer your question, but only if I can first figure out just what it is that you are asking.
Listen, my grammar usage is not the best, and I am not always certain that I am using the correct punctuation or even spelling the words correctly. But some messages I've been seeing lately are just unreadable.
No capitalization, run-on sentences, using commas and dashes instead of periods and writing everything in one huge paragraph make my eyes cross over. In the past, I used to try to sort it out, picking apart what should be sentences, but no more. The Back Button is my friend.
Please begin your sentences with a capital letter, or, if the shift key on your keyboard does not work, complete the sentence with a period. And really, it's okay if your message has three or four short paragraphs consisting of a few sentences each.
A number of forums offer a Preview of your message before it posts. It will give you a chance to see what your post looks like before it is sent.
I'll make a good faith effort to look something up and answer your question, but only if I can first figure out just what it is that you are asking.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Turn Around, Look at Me
Got back last week from another research trip. I probably won't get another chance to do any out-of-town searching until later next year, so I tried to make the most of this one.
There is one cemetery that I visit every chance I get because a number of the relations back in the line seem to be buried there. I have a numbered plot map of the entire cemetery (no names though), so once I know where they are buried, I can find the sites relatively easy. Or so I thought.
I got to the approximate location and found a few markers that confirmed that I was in the right area, but I just couldn't find any headstones for the two I knew should be buried in that plot. I did see one fairly large headstone that had a familiar name on it but it was on a stone with a family name I did not recognize. After about a half hour search, we gave up, and I went to the cemetery office to ask if I did indeed have the correct plot number. They confirmed it, and even made a copy of the burials from the plot book. (This is somewhat significant because I have always had to pay for that information when I write to them.) Anyway, I noticed that several of the burials have that unrecognized family name that I had seen previously. Turns out that a daughter of the couple I was seeking had married into that name - and she was buried there. So I went back out to the lot to take pictures and make a note of the headstone transcription.
I don't know what made me walk around the headstone, but there in full view were the names of the couple I was originally looking for. And I can't believe that I hadn't done that in the first place. I can only attribute it to not wanting to walk up the hill anymore than I had and thinking that I had already looked in the correct area for their names. The one familiar name I had initially noted was another daughter, but I just didn't put it together with the other daughter's married surname.
So that will be a lesson for me not to give up too soon.
There is one cemetery that I visit every chance I get because a number of the relations back in the line seem to be buried there. I have a numbered plot map of the entire cemetery (no names though), so once I know where they are buried, I can find the sites relatively easy. Or so I thought.
I got to the approximate location and found a few markers that confirmed that I was in the right area, but I just couldn't find any headstones for the two I knew should be buried in that plot. I did see one fairly large headstone that had a familiar name on it but it was on a stone with a family name I did not recognize. After about a half hour search, we gave up, and I went to the cemetery office to ask if I did indeed have the correct plot number. They confirmed it, and even made a copy of the burials from the plot book. (This is somewhat significant because I have always had to pay for that information when I write to them.) Anyway, I noticed that several of the burials have that unrecognized family name that I had seen previously. Turns out that a daughter of the couple I was seeking had married into that name - and she was buried there. So I went back out to the lot to take pictures and make a note of the headstone transcription.
I don't know what made me walk around the headstone, but there in full view were the names of the couple I was originally looking for. And I can't believe that I hadn't done that in the first place. I can only attribute it to not wanting to walk up the hill anymore than I had and thinking that I had already looked in the correct area for their names. The one familiar name I had initially noted was another daughter, but I just didn't put it together with the other daughter's married surname.
So that will be a lesson for me not to give up too soon.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
They're Here
My grandmother's paternal line is from England. They came over from England when her father was just a boy. As far as I knew, no one else from that family ever made it to the US.
Some time ago, I ran across some notes I jotted down while talking to my aunt a number of years ago. She had said that some of the mother's relatives had also come to the US and gave me some first names. I had also written down 'Whitaker' beside those names and had thought that that was their last name. When I again found this note, I realized that she had been talking about a section of where they lived. I used the family name to find these people, and there they were - living in Whitaker.
So now the task is to find out more about them.
Along the way, I found that one more from that family made it across the Atlantic. They eventually settled near Richmond VA, an area that I have never researched. For a while, I looked up online resources, checked books in my local state genealogy library, and kept tabs on the Rootsweb message boards. I was finally able to find a funeral home reference for one of them, and I was off. It gave me her cemetery, which led to me asking around about this cemetery, which led to someone in the area actually looking up everyone who was buried in the same plot with her.
And you know, the really neat part about it all is that someone else is getting so much more out of this than me. When I first found that this family (George and Flora) had come to the US, I searched Rootsweb archives postings to see if anyone else was looking for the same family. I found one, halfway across the world - George is in my family line and Flora was in hers. Thing is, when her ancestor left England, he never returned and was never able to find any trace of the family in later years. He died not knowing that his father and siblings had left England shortly after he did.
And hopefully, sometime in the next few months, I'll be able to visit the cemetery and take pictures, and she'll finally have some closure on that missing section of her family.
Some time ago, I ran across some notes I jotted down while talking to my aunt a number of years ago. She had said that some of the mother's relatives had also come to the US and gave me some first names. I had also written down 'Whitaker' beside those names and had thought that that was their last name. When I again found this note, I realized that she had been talking about a section of where they lived. I used the family name to find these people, and there they were - living in Whitaker.
So now the task is to find out more about them.
Along the way, I found that one more from that family made it across the Atlantic. They eventually settled near Richmond VA, an area that I have never researched. For a while, I looked up online resources, checked books in my local state genealogy library, and kept tabs on the Rootsweb message boards. I was finally able to find a funeral home reference for one of them, and I was off. It gave me her cemetery, which led to me asking around about this cemetery, which led to someone in the area actually looking up everyone who was buried in the same plot with her.
And you know, the really neat part about it all is that someone else is getting so much more out of this than me. When I first found that this family (George and Flora) had come to the US, I searched Rootsweb archives postings to see if anyone else was looking for the same family. I found one, halfway across the world - George is in my family line and Flora was in hers. Thing is, when her ancestor left England, he never returned and was never able to find any trace of the family in later years. He died not knowing that his father and siblings had left England shortly after he did.
And hopefully, sometime in the next few months, I'll be able to visit the cemetery and take pictures, and she'll finally have some closure on that missing section of her family.
Friday, September 14, 2007
NC State Archive Move
Just putting this here so it shows up in more places:
The N C State Archives will be closed from September 24 through October 22. The closure is to move the materials back to the renovated second floor. Until the 24th, the temporary Archives location on the first floor will be open. The Archives has its own blog on BlogSpot, so if this is a place that you use on a regular basis or are planning trips, you might want to google and bookmark it.
This should not interfere with operations of the N C State Genealogy Library that is on the Mezzanine Level of the Archives Building.
The N C State Archives will be closed from September 24 through October 22. The closure is to move the materials back to the renovated second floor. Until the 24th, the temporary Archives location on the first floor will be open. The Archives has its own blog on BlogSpot, so if this is a place that you use on a regular basis or are planning trips, you might want to google and bookmark it.
This should not interfere with operations of the N C State Genealogy Library that is on the Mezzanine Level of the Archives Building.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Copies, Copies, Copies
Back from a reasonably successful trip to Georgia. Found some items, didn't find others. Braved visits to cemeteries in the nearly 100 degree heat. Read newspapers on microfilm for two and half days. Made nearly 100 copies.
Now, I just have to enter all the little notes into records. The fun begins.
But I don't have time to rest. I have another research trip coming up in a month, and I have notes to get together so that I can find the items that I need without waiting until the last minute.
Now, I just have to enter all the little notes into records. The fun begins.
But I don't have time to rest. I have another research trip coming up in a month, and I have notes to get together so that I can find the items that I need without waiting until the last minute.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
More Getting Personals
Well, I now have a death date for Edward (referencing my previous entry). The notice that I found did not state where he was buried, just that a former resident had died. So I still had my work cut out for me.
I still did not have any burial information on Edward, his two wives, or any of his three children. By his first wife, he had two daughters. Mary died as an infant, and Julia was still listed on the 1930 census. He had a son by his second wife, and I had not yet been able to find a death date for him either.
I had Julia's death date. Rather than relying on the search feature on the digital newspaper database, I went to read each day's scans starting with the day she died. I found her obituary - not certain why a search didn't pick it up. Although it did not state where she was buried, it did verify her mother's birth surname, the name of an aunt (one of the sisters I was searching for in my previous entry) and listed her half-brother, Samuel, as a survivor. I knew that he was still alive in the 1940s because he was included in the WWII 'old man's' draft in 1942, but it was nice to know that the two were in touch with each other.
I was able to finally locate an obituary for Samuel - AND it listed where he was buried. Which, when I thought about it, made a lot of sense. It is in an area where he and his father Edward were living just prior to Edward's death, and I am really hoping that this is where I might find Edward's and his wives' burials. It is now on my list of cemeteries to visit on my next trip.
I still did not have any burial information on Edward, his two wives, or any of his three children. By his first wife, he had two daughters. Mary died as an infant, and Julia was still listed on the 1930 census. He had a son by his second wife, and I had not yet been able to find a death date for him either.
I had Julia's death date. Rather than relying on the search feature on the digital newspaper database, I went to read each day's scans starting with the day she died. I found her obituary - not certain why a search didn't pick it up. Although it did not state where she was buried, it did verify her mother's birth surname, the name of an aunt (one of the sisters I was searching for in my previous entry) and listed her half-brother, Samuel, as a survivor. I knew that he was still alive in the 1940s because he was included in the WWII 'old man's' draft in 1942, but it was nice to know that the two were in touch with each other.
I was able to finally locate an obituary for Samuel - AND it listed where he was buried. Which, when I thought about it, made a lot of sense. It is in an area where he and his father Edward were living just prior to Edward's death, and I am really hoping that this is where I might find Edward's and his wives' burials. It is now on my list of cemeteries to visit on my next trip.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Using the Personals
In a number of newspapers in the late 1800s and early 1900s, there would be a section of "Society News" which would tell of the visitings of various residents and their relatives, parties held, families moving away, etc. In large city newspapers, these would probably deal more with those in the upper social class, but there might also be sections for those smaller towns and communities in the reading area dealing with 'the regular folk'.
Most of the time, this is where you can find birth announcements, wedding news, and death information. And if you have access to a local paper where a good section of your people reside, it can become a goldmine and wonderful research tool. I recently used the society and personal news columns of a town newspaper to find a family surname.
Edward had married twice - once to Nannie, who died in the 1880s, and again to Mollie in 1891. By Nannie, he had two children, one of whom (Julia) survived into adulthood and the other (Mary) died as an infant. The death notice for Mary said that her mother was R Nannie, but I did not have Nannie's surname.
In my researching, I had not yet found Edward's death date or burial site, nor did I have the same information for Nannie. I noticed recently that the digital newspaper resource that I subscribe to added the newspaper where the family initially lived, so off I went.
I never did find any information on Edward, but I eventually found a notation on Julia's death. I am hoping that an obituary for Julia in the larger city where she resided in adulthood will reveal where she is buried and hopefully will point me towards where her parents are buried.
Last weekend, I again entered Julia's name into the search and came across a hit in the personals that I had not noticed before - a reference to Julia and another woman (Ella) in town for their cousin's (Anna) funeral. I knew that Julia only had one current surviving cousin from her father's side of the family, so these had to be from her mother's side. Using these other womens' names as searching points, I finally was able to identify four sisters - R Nannie (Julia's mother), Mary (Ella's mother), Sarah (Anna's mother), and Julia. None of the information I had found, however, offered their birth surname.
Using the sister Julia, I then began searching the census for that town. I knew the approximate birth years of R Nannie and Sarah and used the census to find Mary's, as she had a very unique married surname. I pulled up every Julia in 1860 in that town to find a family that also included sisters R Nannie, Sarah, and Mary with the ages I had. It took about an hour to finally narrow down the family and surname. R Nannie was known/listed as Ruth Anna when growing up.
So now I have Edward's wife's full name - all thanks to a town newspaper's society and personals columns.
Most of the time, this is where you can find birth announcements, wedding news, and death information. And if you have access to a local paper where a good section of your people reside, it can become a goldmine and wonderful research tool. I recently used the society and personal news columns of a town newspaper to find a family surname.
Edward had married twice - once to Nannie, who died in the 1880s, and again to Mollie in 1891. By Nannie, he had two children, one of whom (Julia) survived into adulthood and the other (Mary) died as an infant. The death notice for Mary said that her mother was R Nannie, but I did not have Nannie's surname.
In my researching, I had not yet found Edward's death date or burial site, nor did I have the same information for Nannie. I noticed recently that the digital newspaper resource that I subscribe to added the newspaper where the family initially lived, so off I went.
I never did find any information on Edward, but I eventually found a notation on Julia's death. I am hoping that an obituary for Julia in the larger city where she resided in adulthood will reveal where she is buried and hopefully will point me towards where her parents are buried.
Last weekend, I again entered Julia's name into the search and came across a hit in the personals that I had not noticed before - a reference to Julia and another woman (Ella) in town for their cousin's (Anna) funeral. I knew that Julia only had one current surviving cousin from her father's side of the family, so these had to be from her mother's side. Using these other womens' names as searching points, I finally was able to identify four sisters - R Nannie (Julia's mother), Mary (Ella's mother), Sarah (Anna's mother), and Julia. None of the information I had found, however, offered their birth surname.
Using the sister Julia, I then began searching the census for that town. I knew the approximate birth years of R Nannie and Sarah and used the census to find Mary's, as she had a very unique married surname. I pulled up every Julia in 1860 in that town to find a family that also included sisters R Nannie, Sarah, and Mary with the ages I had. It took about an hour to finally narrow down the family and surname. R Nannie was known/listed as Ruth Anna when growing up.
So now I have Edward's wife's full name - all thanks to a town newspaper's society and personals columns.
Monday, July 16, 2007
closings
This year, I've had to rearrange somewhat where and when to do some research. No big deal for me, but it could have been a bit of a disaster if I hadn't looked a few things up.
Point 1 - my state archives and genealogy library were closed for almost two months this year due to renovations. I did not know this. Luckily, I hadn't tried to visit them, but I had just found their blogs and learned that they were closed. Since the archives are still undergoing renovations, I check in every now and then to see how it's going. Good thing I checked this past Friday, as I was going to go the library section on Saturday and found out that the entire building was to be closed due to continuing renovation work.
Point 2 - I am heading for Georgia in late August and pulled up the local library that I always visit. Found out that a portion of the library - including the genealogy section - is to be unavailable for the next several weeks due to renovations. It looks like they will be finished before my trip, but it is something to keep an eye on in case the work overruns into my trip timetable and then I can make plans to visit another library.
Just about every public county library has a website. Use google to find them and hopefully you won't run into a closed library.
Point 1 - my state archives and genealogy library were closed for almost two months this year due to renovations. I did not know this. Luckily, I hadn't tried to visit them, but I had just found their blogs and learned that they were closed. Since the archives are still undergoing renovations, I check in every now and then to see how it's going. Good thing I checked this past Friday, as I was going to go the library section on Saturday and found out that the entire building was to be closed due to continuing renovation work.
Point 2 - I am heading for Georgia in late August and pulled up the local library that I always visit. Found out that a portion of the library - including the genealogy section - is to be unavailable for the next several weeks due to renovations. It looks like they will be finished before my trip, but it is something to keep an eye on in case the work overruns into my trip timetable and then I can make plans to visit another library.
Just about every public county library has a website. Use google to find them and hopefully you won't run into a closed library.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
on visiting cemeteries
Well, didn't expect to be that long between posting.
A few weeks ago, we took a vacation and ended up visiting three cemeteries to locate some grave sites. This wasn't a research trip - we just wanted to get out of town for a few days. We'd planned this trip for earlier in the year but decided to postpone it due to a pet illness.
Visiting cemeteries can be exciting, especially when it gives you new leads and answers some big unknowns. Deciding what cemetery to visit to find your answers can be confusing when you don't know if any of your people there and, if you do, are faced with 30 acres of plots to walk to find them.
Contacting cemetery offices for information can run the gamit from not being able to actually find an office to having to make an appointment to ask your questions. I've not had any really bad experiences with those in cemetery offices but I have heard of others who have traveled a number of miles only to find that no one can or will help them.
Plan ahead, even if you might never ever get to visit that cemetery. Some cemeteries are online and have posted their procedures (and pricing) for providing information. I read county message boards to see if anyone else has ever been to or dealt with a particular cemetery and follow their suggestions. Posting a request for someone to help you find a burial may generate some answers.
The three that I recently visited I dealt with in differing ways. One cemetery held an aunt, uncle, and cousin, whose burials I was not present at. In fact, I wasn't even told about them until after the fact. I found through the county message board that there wasn't an office as such and that calling the nearby church would be the best way to verify a burial. So I tracked down the church office phone number and called. The church receptionist was very nice and helpful, but she did not have the information and gave me the phone number of the person who had the burial records. I called that person, who turned out to be a very nice woman watching her grandchildren, but who went through her records to verify that the three were indeed buried there (I knew that two were but didn't know if they were all in the same plot) and she even offered to go there a few days ahead of my trip and place a marker at the site so that I could find them. Since we canceled the initial trip, I never did call her back to let her know we were coming, but the cemetery was not as large as it appeared on the maps and the plot was found within fifteen minutes.
The second cemetery was a very large and old one and still quite active. I had been there before so I knew that I had to have my info in line. The last time, I wrote to the cemetery office and gave them the two names that I was looking for along with their death dates and asked for a map location of their plot. They responded in a timely fashion and found the plot on my next trip. I also wrote to the cemetery office for this visit, giving the name of the person I was looking for, her death and burial date, and requested a map location of her site. I also enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope for their response. Which, even after four months, I never received. So I knew their office hours and stopped by with my request, which was very quickly answered and I was on my way.
The third cemetery I went to was a last-minute decision. I have a very understanding spouse who asks when we are on the road if there are any places that I need to visit. While we were trying to decide what to do on our way home, I suggested that there was one more cemetery I would like to stop by. I already had the lady's death and burial date but since she wasn't in any of my direct lines, I never really gave a thought to looking for her. It was in another one of the older and historic cemeteries where we were vacationing, so I thought I should go ahead and look for her while I was in the city. We drove out there, I got the location and a listing of everyone in the plot and directions, and I was on my way.
It was a relatively painless trip as far as finding these burials go, but the point here is that I knew where they were buried and I had death and/or burial dates. I've never gone cold into a cemetery office - they are usually understaffed and are probably more concerned with burials currently going on. Some offices require a payment even if you already know that they are buried there - but they won't verify or provide a map or plot burials without one.
A few weeks ago, we took a vacation and ended up visiting three cemeteries to locate some grave sites. This wasn't a research trip - we just wanted to get out of town for a few days. We'd planned this trip for earlier in the year but decided to postpone it due to a pet illness.
Visiting cemeteries can be exciting, especially when it gives you new leads and answers some big unknowns. Deciding what cemetery to visit to find your answers can be confusing when you don't know if any of your people there and, if you do, are faced with 30 acres of plots to walk to find them.
Contacting cemetery offices for information can run the gamit from not being able to actually find an office to having to make an appointment to ask your questions. I've not had any really bad experiences with those in cemetery offices but I have heard of others who have traveled a number of miles only to find that no one can or will help them.
Plan ahead, even if you might never ever get to visit that cemetery. Some cemeteries are online and have posted their procedures (and pricing) for providing information. I read county message boards to see if anyone else has ever been to or dealt with a particular cemetery and follow their suggestions. Posting a request for someone to help you find a burial may generate some answers.
The three that I recently visited I dealt with in differing ways. One cemetery held an aunt, uncle, and cousin, whose burials I was not present at. In fact, I wasn't even told about them until after the fact. I found through the county message board that there wasn't an office as such and that calling the nearby church would be the best way to verify a burial. So I tracked down the church office phone number and called. The church receptionist was very nice and helpful, but she did not have the information and gave me the phone number of the person who had the burial records. I called that person, who turned out to be a very nice woman watching her grandchildren, but who went through her records to verify that the three were indeed buried there (I knew that two were but didn't know if they were all in the same plot) and she even offered to go there a few days ahead of my trip and place a marker at the site so that I could find them. Since we canceled the initial trip, I never did call her back to let her know we were coming, but the cemetery was not as large as it appeared on the maps and the plot was found within fifteen minutes.
The second cemetery was a very large and old one and still quite active. I had been there before so I knew that I had to have my info in line. The last time, I wrote to the cemetery office and gave them the two names that I was looking for along with their death dates and asked for a map location of their plot. They responded in a timely fashion and found the plot on my next trip. I also wrote to the cemetery office for this visit, giving the name of the person I was looking for, her death and burial date, and requested a map location of her site. I also enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope for their response. Which, even after four months, I never received. So I knew their office hours and stopped by with my request, which was very quickly answered and I was on my way.
The third cemetery I went to was a last-minute decision. I have a very understanding spouse who asks when we are on the road if there are any places that I need to visit. While we were trying to decide what to do on our way home, I suggested that there was one more cemetery I would like to stop by. I already had the lady's death and burial date but since she wasn't in any of my direct lines, I never really gave a thought to looking for her. It was in another one of the older and historic cemeteries where we were vacationing, so I thought I should go ahead and look for her while I was in the city. We drove out there, I got the location and a listing of everyone in the plot and directions, and I was on my way.
It was a relatively painless trip as far as finding these burials go, but the point here is that I knew where they were buried and I had death and/or burial dates. I've never gone cold into a cemetery office - they are usually understaffed and are probably more concerned with burials currently going on. Some offices require a payment even if you already know that they are buried there - but they won't verify or provide a map or plot burials without one.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Back on the Trail
I hadn't really stopped researching - just stopped posting here, and honestly, I don't know why I stopped. I'm back, with even more wacky things I've come across and made contact with - and lost contact with - people who have been of great help.
I've got two research trips coming up by the end of the year and am gathering info like mad to be sure that I make the best use of the short time that I will have in the libraries.
I make lists of what I want to find - a list of obituaries to find, a list of cemetery plots to find and visit, a list of marriages verify, a list of estates / wills, etc. Cause I don't know about you but once I get into the library, the pressure is on. I'm thinking that there is no way that I can find all the information that I need to find in just two days, and if I didn't have it all written down with dates or time frames, I'd freeze and not be able to go in any direction.
Start with a list, even if you are not planning a trip - write down what you want to find in a notebook and then update it as time passes. You find things - cross them off. And if new info raises more questions, add to the list. That way, you're not scrambling at the last minute to decide what to look up or forget to follow-up on something that's been bugging you for years.
Just don't lose that notebook.
I've got two research trips coming up by the end of the year and am gathering info like mad to be sure that I make the best use of the short time that I will have in the libraries.
I make lists of what I want to find - a list of obituaries to find, a list of cemetery plots to find and visit, a list of marriages verify, a list of estates / wills, etc. Cause I don't know about you but once I get into the library, the pressure is on. I'm thinking that there is no way that I can find all the information that I need to find in just two days, and if I didn't have it all written down with dates or time frames, I'd freeze and not be able to go in any direction.
Start with a list, even if you are not planning a trip - write down what you want to find in a notebook and then update it as time passes. You find things - cross them off. And if new info raises more questions, add to the list. That way, you're not scrambling at the last minute to decide what to look up or forget to follow-up on something that's been bugging you for years.
Just don't lose that notebook.
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