Read The Family Tree Problem Solver: Tried-And-True Tactics for Tracing Elusive Ancestors for Free Online

creating, or is mentioned, in the records? Are they likely to be ‘official’ participants or associates of the individual under study?” I had tracked the associates. What about the official — the commanding officer in Hiram's regiment? Where did he come from? I made a search — a bibliographic search.
    The Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kentucky listed all the officers that were in Hiram's regiment in the War of 1812. Perhaps I could find them on the 1810 Kentucky census. One out of the six appeared in Bourbon County; the other five were enumerated in Harrison County.
    And there I found the parents, William and Ellen Phillips. Every record one could hope for was there: the father's will naming all of his children, the land distribution, the powers of attorney from Missouri — things we genealogists dream we'll find. One of the questions that had frustrated earlier researchers was why the father, William Phillips, was not on the 1810 Kentucky census. From the land records, we learn that he apparently was moving that year. The other blind spot for earlier researchers was that supposed “genealogical” records showed that the family was in Bourbon and Scott counties, when the parents actually resided nearby, and did not appear in the records the descendants searched (see Figure 1-6 ).
    The answer to identifying John Y., Hiram, and Warner Phillips was broadening the search to include a set of individuals not related to the family, but associated with the family and community at a crucial time. It was by following the steps and asking the questions detailed above that solutions were found to difficult problems. Now that we have a basic structure for problem solving, let's turn to some of the specific puzzles we genealogists encounter in our research.

    Figure 1-6 Kentucky counties, 1803.
    1 Franklin County, Missouri, Deed Book B:404.
    2 Franklin County, Missouri, Deed Book D:448.
    3 Franklin County, Missouri, Deed Book D:448, 449.
    4 United States Land Sales in Missouri, Vol. 5:372. Family History Library film 984767.
    5 Crawford County, Missouri, Marriage Book 1:30.
    6
Greene County, Missouri, Tax Assessors' List 1833–1834–1835–1843
(Springfield, Mo.: Ozarks Genealogical Society, 1988), p.2.
    7 Maxine Dunaway,
183() Tax Assessment Book for Polk County, Missouri
(Springfield, Mo.) Maxine Dunaway, ca. 1984, p.3. Bureau of Land Management, Springfield Land Office, Tract Book 14:198.
    8 Crawford County, Missouri, 1830 census, p.180, household of Ledwell D. Blanon.
    9 Hopkins County, Kentucky, Marriage Licenses 1821–1826, unpaginated; also Marriage Books 2:10.
    10 Polk County, Missouri, Probate Book A:5.
    11
Minutes of the Board of Land Commissioners, Fannin County, Texas
, p.50, copied at the General Land Office by Gifford White. Typescript at the Family History Library, Salt Lake City.
    12 Boone County, Missouri, Will Book B:840.
    13 Boone County, Missouri, probate file 771.
    14 Hiram Phillips, War of 1812 Bounty Land Warrant 27904-80-55. National Archives Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
    15 Virginia Easley DeMarce entry on the AncestryWorld Tree Project: Boone County, Missouri.
    16 Ibid.
    17 Will of Jane Hudleston, Boone County, Missouri, Will Book B:798-9. The will was proved 9 February 1849.
    18 Floyd Strader,
Tombstone Inscription of Boone County, Missouri
, 1981.
    19 James M. Wood, “Settlement of Columbia, Mo.,”
Missouri Historical Review
3 (April 1900):187.

two

Finding Births, Marriages, and Deaths Before Civil Registration
    T he civil registration of births, deaths, and marriages did not begin on a statewide level in the United States until relatively modern times. Most began in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Even when they did officially begin, the laws and practices were determined at the state rather than federal level. Thus, there is tremendous variation from state-to-state when they began, the consistency with which they were kept, and the enforcement of