Inequalities in Family History Research- helping to making it better

It is not unknown that there are great inequalities among the genders in family history research. It is much more difficult to find information on women who often could not own property and were excluded from voting registers and many census records. Even in the recent past, a woman might be listed in a document only as “Mrs. Robert Smith”, but not under her own name. I am in reference to records in the United States, in other cultures women might not be listed on records at all, or might only be listed as “first daughter.”

However, even with that disparity between the genders, there is an even greater disparity between the races. Black Americans were excluded from many local, state, and national records for centuries in this country and the early founding. Even after emancipation, institutional racism and intimidation prevented many from being listed in voting registers, owning real property, and being listed in local and region histories.

Join Me In Helping to Make Records More Equitable

Sample birth register within the Caribbean- Civil Registration, 1859-1978

Currently, the Caribbean- Civil Registration, 1859-1978 has only 3% of the records indexed to make them searchable. This is a wonderful opportunity to help to make what few records we have available to be accessible to all. It is listed as an intermediate level of difficulty; however, in the records that I have completed I have not found it to be that level. So log onto your free Family Search account and get indexing.

Doppelgangers

It seems to come up far too often when I am doing family history research, two individuals are confused within genealogical records as the same person, doppelgangers in a sense.  A few years ago, I was working on the family of John Marsh and Catharine Leavell of Ohio and Indiana. They had several children, one son was named Henry C Marsh, who was born about 1844 in Indiana.  

On Ancestry.com I found a family tree with Henry C Marsh, son of John Marsh and Catharine Leavell.  Henry was from Indiana and listed as being in a Private in the Civil War. I looked at the Civil War Draft Registration Records, 1863-1865, and there is a Henry C Marsh, born about 1862 in Indiana.  Henry served in the 12th Indiana Infantry. He was from Clark County, Indiana, which is on the southeastern part of the state. He is also listed as a wagonmaker.

U.S. Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865, Indiana, 2nd, Vol 4.  Ancestry.com

The Marsh family I was looking at were farmers and lived in Cass County, Indiana.  Henry’s two brothers served the 20th & 99th Indiana Infantries in the Civil War, which had soldiers from Cass and surrounding counties.  

So something is not quite right that Henry, who is fairly young, takes up an occupation different from his father and brothers and joins a regiment in a county almost 200 miles away.

A quick check of the U.S. Census records shows two Henry Marshes in Indiana in 1860.   One in Cass County (farmer) and the other in Clark County (carpenter). Two men with the name name, born about the same time in the same state.  

1860 U.S. Census, Utica, Clark County, Indiana, p 37. Ancestry.com

1860 U.S. Census, Adams Township, Cass County, Indiana, p 215.  Ancestry.com

It can really tangle up your family tree if only take a quick glance at a record and assume it is referring to a person you are researching.  The distance between the two counties and the occupations listed should have raised a red flag even though the names matched and there were similar dates of birth.

Note: I do not use other’s posted family trees as evidence in family history research.  I use this example as a point of reference that people can be too quick to judge that a document refers to an individual.  The owner of the tree did want that military connection to his family, but it just wasn’t there.