This is a continuation of my previous post about my ancestor, Hannah Lathrop Keith. She lived for a short time and did not show up by name in census records or vital records. I had a few family sources about her, but I wanted to see what else I could find online.
American Genealogical and Biographical Index
I searched for Hannah Lathrop Keith on Ancestry.com, and was unable to find any original sources that were definitely about her. So I looked for her father, Joseph Lathrop Keith, instead. I found a record about him from the American Genealogical and Biographical Index:
Whenever you find a source that references another source, do all you can to access the referenced source! The more sources you can find, the more complete your research will be, and the more you will know about your ancestor.
Boston Evening Transcript
This AGBI entry for Joseph Lothrop Keith referenced another source: the Boston Transcript, which I was able to access. Some issues of the Boston Transcript or Boston Evening Transcript can be found for free at the Google News Archives, but the issue I needed was not available there.
Several issues of the Boston Transcript in the possession of the New England Historic Genealogical Society were in deteriorating condition and were digitized with the help of FamilySearch volunteers in 2017. I found the record I needed at AmericanAncestors.org using my paid subscription.
I later discovered the record I needed can also be accessed for free through FamilySearch.org here (click on the camera icon next to the item you want to access the images).
This is the entry I found regarding Joseph Lothrop Keith:
Hannah Lathrop Keith is not mentioned by name here, but another source is referenced: Temple’s History of Palmer, Mass. There may be more information there about Hannah and her family.
History of Palmer, Massachusetts
I was able to locate History of the town of Palmer, Massachusetts by J. H. Temple for free online at The Internet Archive here. It contains a short genealogy of the Keith family, including Hannah with her husband and parents.
I looked at the beginning of the book for the title page to see when it was published. It was published in 1889, when Hannah’s brother, sister, and children would have been alive. The information very likely came from direct interviews with family members.
Medina County Land Records
Having looked at all the sources referenced in the above mentioned sources, I wanted to see if I could find any records that were created during the time she was alive (1815-1844). I was not able to find Hannah in official birth, marriage or death records, so I decided to see what I could find in land records.
The land records for Medina County, Ohio, where Hannah and her husband lived, are available for free on FamilySearch. They are not digitally indexed, so a page-by-page search was necessary to find the record I wanted. I first checked the deed index for her husband’s name, then went to the volume and page number it referred to. I found two deeds that list both her and her husband by name.
Deeds are a great place to find the names of female ancestors. Their names don’t always appear in deeds, but they often do. In some locations, it was required that a woman be interviewed separately from her husband to make sure she agreed to to the sale terms. This kind of thing happened in Ohio during this time period, so Hannah appears on the deed:
Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist, has written an interesting article about this practice.
By looking in a few places online, I was able to flesh out the life of Hannah Lathrop Keith a little bit more, and find more verification of the information passed down through my family.
More and more genealogical records are being digitized every day. However, not everything is available online. Next time, I will discuss more records about Hannah that required contacting archives to retrieve.
Here are more articles on finding and using sources:
- The Record Exists! Part I: The Internet and Repositories
- The Record Exists! Part II: Families, Collectors, and Everything Else
- 3 Ways to Preserve Old Family Artifacts
- 5 Things You Should Not Do with Old Family Artifacts
- 5 Tips for Using Online Family Tree Sites
- Why You Should Share Your Family History Online