An unfinished family search can stay in the back of your mind for a long time. You remember the person, the question you were trying to answer, and the feeling that there ought to be one more record somewhere. Then another branch of the family catches your attention, or life gets busy, and the search waits.
Coming back can be a little strange. The names are familiar, but the reasons behind your notes may be harder to remember. You open a folder and find a census page, a marriage entry, and a few possible matches. Before long, you’re wondering which of those people you had ruled out and which one you meant to follow.
When I return to an unfinished family search, I want to give myself a chance to get reacquainted with it. I don’t need to solve everything that afternoon. I need to understand where I left off and find one useful place to begin again.
Finding the question I left behind
The first thing I look for is the question itself. “Find more about the Wilson family” leaves me with too many directions. “Where was Sarah Wilson living before her marriage?” gives me something I can work on.
Sometimes the question has changed since I put the research away. I may have been trying to find a birthplace, but a later record has already given me a likely town. Now I need to work out whether the family in that town belongs to the same person. Reading the old question beside what I know now can save a lot of repeated searching.
I also want to separate what a record says from what I thought it meant. A note that says “probably her brother” is worth keeping, but I need to know what led me there. Was there a shared address? Did someone name the relationship? Or had I simply found two people with the same surname?
There’s no need to be hard on an earlier guess. It may have been a reasonable place to start. I just want to recognize it as a guess so I can check it properly. I’ve written more about reviewing a changed conclusion in What Happens When New Evidence Changes What I Thought I Knew?
Reading what I already have
Before I search for something new, I like to open the records I saved. A short note or an index entry can leave out quite a bit of the original page. There may be another name, an address, or a handwritten addition that I didn’t copy.
A familiar record can also look different after I’ve learned more about the family. A witness’s surname that meant nothing before may now be the married name of a sister. A town I passed over may be a place where another relative lived. The page hasn’t changed, but I have more information to bring to it.
I read the headings, too. If I copied a place into my notes, I want to check whether the record called it a birthplace, a residence, or the place where an event happened. Those are easy details to mix up when you’re moving quickly.
Then I put a few events in date order. A marriage, a child’s birth, a census entry, and a directory listing may be enough to show me an unexplained gap. I don’t need a fancy chart. A short list on a page can help me see which years and places still need attention.
Checking what my old search actually covered
An old note that says “nothing found” can mean several things. I may have searched one spelling in one index. I may have looked through a set of images. Or I may have checked with an archive and learned that the records I wanted had not survived. Those are different results, and I want to keep the difference clear.
If I wrote down the collection, dates, search terms, and result, I can pick up much more easily. If I didn’t, I can begin doing that now. I don’t have to rebuild every search I ever made before taking the next step.
I also check the collection description. Did it include the county I needed? Did it cover the right years? Was I searching an index, or were there images available to browse as well? A person’s absence from a search result tells me less if the collection never covered the place where that person lived.
New records and indexes may have appeared while the search was waiting. That’s a good reason to check again, but it isn’t the only one. I may now know a different spelling, a relative’s name, or an address that gives me a better way to search the same collection.
Trying one different direction
For an unfinished family search, I’d rather choose one new direction than repeat a dozen searches without knowing what I hope to find. A sibling can be a good place to turn. So can a spouse, a marriage witness, or a person who shared an address with the family.
Imagine, for example, that you’re looking for a woman’s parents. You have her marriage record and later census entries, but none names them. Her obituary mentions a sister in another town. Following that sister might lead to a marriage or death record that gives you a family connection to investigate. This is an imagined example, but it shows how a familiar problem can open up when you follow someone else.
Another direction might be a record type I haven’t tried. If most of my notes came from censuses, I may want to learn what church, land, probate, or newspaper records exist for that community. I’d check what is available before assuming any particular record will contain the answer.
Sometimes I find that I already have plenty of records and need more time to read them together. Am I Researching My Family or Just Collecting Records? takes a closer look at that feeling.
Leaving myself a place to begin next time
Before I close the folder, I write a few sentences about what I did. I include what I found, what is still uncertain, and what I want to try next. If I followed a possible match and decided it was someone else, I keep the reason with my notes.
That last part can save me from getting excited about the same wrong person a second time. It also helps me explain the search if I ask a relative, librarian, or another researcher for help.
An afternoon spent returning to an unfinished family search may end without a new ancestor. Even so, I may have a clearer question, a better record image, or a name worth following. Those are useful things to leave with.
I like knowing that the next time I open the folder, I won’t have to wonder where I stopped. There will be a note waiting, and a place to begin.
Learn More
FamilySearch: Research Logs
A lesson on keeping notes about your family history searches.
National Archives: Census Records
Guidance for exploring federal census records and the information they contain.
