I unfortunately don't have records as old as Randy Seaver's, but I do have some old ones that qualify for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge.
Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission: Impossible! music, please!):
1. What is "your oldest confirmed record?" What is one of the oldest documents you've personally found for any ancestor?
2. Share your oldest confirmed record: what it is, where it came from, and what it revealed.
3. Share your oldest confirmed record in your own blog post or in a comment on this blog post, or write a Substack post, Facebook Note, or a post in some other social media system. Please leave a comment with a link on this post so others can find it.
Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for this topic.
My family history database and documents are still missing in action due to a computer crash, but I believe the oldest confirmed record I have for an ancestor is the 1830 U.S. census for my 3x-great-grandfather Joel Armstrong in Mount Holly, Northampton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey. It came from the U.S. National Archives. In addition to letting me know where Joel and his family were living, it told me that three males and five females were in the household; no free or enslaved blacks were in the household; and there were no deaf, dumb, or blind individuals or foreigners not naturalized.
 |
| Joel Armstrong (sixth from top) Mount Holly, Northampton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey 1830 U.S. Census population schedule |
Census records prior to 1830 do not survive for New Jersey, and I have not yet had the opportunity to search for Joel Armstrong in tax lists. I have index information about his marriage but do not have the actual marriage record. So this is the oldest confirmed record I have found for the biological part of my father's side of the family, and Joel is currently my end-of-line ancestor. I have several earlier records for the Sellers side, which is our adoptive line.
The oldest confirmed record I have found for my mother's side of the family, in comparison, is from 1888. I wrote about it for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post in 2024.
Yes, I need to recover my missing files, and I need to get back to researching my family.
New Jersey is a tough go with lack of vital records and all those early lost censuses. My husband has Larrisons there in the late 1600s and early 1700s. With so many with the same given names, cousins living near each other, with the few surviving records, it is tough to determine who goes in which family. For your Joel, if there are tax records, you need to check into them. Also check with the local libraries and historical society to see what they have on the family.
ReplyDeleteBoy, do I know about same given names and cousins living near each other! All those Quaker families are hard to work with. Tax records are at the top of my list. I just need to schedule the time and prioritize the research. :)
DeleteThose of us with no New England ancestry have a tougher time finding older records.
ReplyDeleteAnd you have it even rougher with your Southern research! One of my New Jersey families started out in New England but then went to Jersey, just to torture me. :)
Delete