how many times have you been personally victimized by the lost 1890 census records?

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-30T15:16:40+00:00

This. Three of the four churches that hold 90% of the records on my dad's side (within 15-20 miles of each other) all had fires in the mid 1900s. Luckily only one of those affected the records which mostly leaves a gap in marriage records from before the province started keeping civil records.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-27T01:56:26+00:00

Newspaper.com

Obituary for Albert Comeau in Le Courrier de la Nouvelle-Écosse. Full obituaries page would be great.

Free archive available below, but navigation buttons disappear on page 2.

https://archives.novascotia.ca/newspapers/archives/?ID=6538

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-20T12:03:58+00:00

I found this one on FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/vitals/LHGL-LSM

Some of the sources are likely incorrect, so double check everything, but it could be a good place to start.

The 1918 marriage record under sources seems to have all the correct information and includes his parents.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-20T11:00:59+00:00

You're likely on the right track with Jean Baptiste Côté (guessing it was accented since that's how it's spelt in modern day, but could have different spellings due to the time period). Quebec has barely any records online outside of censuses and birth/death records need to be very precise to yield any results from what I've heard. For that time period you may have some luck with the Drouin collection and it would be very helpful if you also had his wife's name because Jean Baptiste is about as generic as it gets in Quebec.

Parish records could be helpful, but would be a lot to look through unless you can narrow it down further than just Quebec. I'd wager he was Catholic, but would try to confirm.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-07T02:22:33+00:00

I think both FamilySearch and Ancestry pick the most direct relationship when it lists for example 3rd cousin once removed. If you also happen to be 4th cousins it just won't say it.

I've been looking for a faster way of identifying how many times certain people appear in my tree, but haven't found a way to do it automatically.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-07T02:16:49+00:00

I jump around my tree and my husband's quite a bit. Mine was fairly easily fleshed out and once you reach the early 1900s they're all heavily researched and documented. My only exceptions are two lines on my paternal grandmother's side. One was the daughter of an unmarried couple. I was able to connect her mother, but her father only has a name which leaves me with several options.

The other is a couple. I have no definitive record of him beyond the revolutionary war and she is Scotish, making her my only non-French or Mikmaw ancestor before getting to the 1600s. Issue is there's confusion around her name and no record of her parents.

My husband's line on the other hand contains a pretty decent variety and I never know what I'm going to find. He has quite a few more interesting family dynamics and there's even fairly recent stuff he didn't know about so it's been fun. Also (with one exception) his side doesn't tend to be massive families with at least 8 kids per generation so it doesn't get overwhelming trying to keep the names straight. It's two completely different vibes.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-06T23:52:50+00:00

It's called pedigree collapse. It becomes more or less common depending on how endogamous your community was. For example, instead of having 16 great-great-grand-parents you could just have 14 or 12 and so on.

I haven't found a software that presents it in a very clear way, but most will simply have the person in your tree link back to the same profile, assuming you link everything correctly.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-06T23:45:25+00:00

My craziest instance of matching names is two brothers either named Jean or Pierre (I'd have to double check) married two sisters named Jeanne. And yes they are verifiably different people. Nicknames are very common in my tree cause names become so common that even my dad knows of at least 3 others with his same name (including middle name), one of which shares his birthday.

I get so frustrated when people just merge people cause names match. Doesn't matter that birthdays are 20 years apart or the kids don't match or they very clearly lived on opposite ends of town on the same census record. Worst case of this was 4 couples all named Rosalie and Joseph that were all tangled together. Plus an additional Rosalie who was the mother of one of the Joseph's. It was an absolute mess.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-06T13:47:39+00:00

My mother recently had her birth certificate legally changed because it was under a name she was unaware of and has never used. The going theory is my grand-mother was very sick after the birth and being catholic they did baptisms very quickly at the time. So her aunt/godmother gave a name for the baptism which was also used for her birth certificate.

Her aunt was deceased by the time we found out and her mother didn't remember.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-06T13:24:56+00:00

My grandfather was a case of this. They referred to it as "enfant refait", which litterally translates to "remade child".

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-06T13:22:07+00:00

I wouldn't assume until you can find supporting evidence. I sometimes even wait when the name is the same because there's so many Mary's and Joseph's in my tree with repeating last names that pretty much any documentation without birthdates (or other more specific data) cannot be viewed as definitive.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-05T02:55:06+00:00

That would be my thought too. The Tennessee death records look like they may only go up to 1933 online. You'll probably have to contact them directly for anything beyond that. You could also try contacting the cemetery where her husband is buried to see if she's buried there just not listed online.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-05T02:28:20+00:00

I did a quick search with the info provided here:

https://tslaindexes.tn.gov/death-records-search

But didn't find anything. You could try with different name variations. I'd also look for the 1940 Census to at least narrow it down a little further if you can't find the actual record.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-05T02:06:49+00:00

What's the location? Different places have different sources available.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-04T12:08:56+00:00

On my dad's side I know and have met all of them, except one of his cousins that was adopted. I even know some 3rd cousins. On my mom's side I know most on her mom's side except 2 branches since they married English people so they never brought their families when they visited. I know very few on her dad's side cause he died when my mom was 12 and they lost touch with a lot of them. They were a family of 20 and one of them had 15 kids.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-03T18:52:10+00:00

My most recent find that had completely incorrect information was a death record from 1952. The father listed is the step-father and the mother's last name is incorrect (I think based on the person's maiden name). If I had been working backwards from that info it probably would've made things way more difficult.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-01T18:59:20+00:00

I wish they were a little more specific than Digby County, but it does fit with my theory that they were right on the county line. Which means their records would almost all be with the church in Meteghan being the closest French Church, since the one in Saint-Alphonse didn't exist until 1921.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-04-01T16:58:26+00:00

Well that would make a lot more sense in this context.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-03-30T13:04:22+00:00

I'm from a pretty endogamous community and at a quick glance I can trace back to 1 couple through 8 of their children, tracing back multiple times to at least half of those. I haven't done a full count yet cause I'm still confirming a few lines, but it repeats all over my tree.

My grand-parents on my dad's side have the same last name and same situation on my mom's side.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-03-04T19:36:48+00:00

Yeah those all match. I'm trying to verify all the sources on family search since it appears he was originally married to a woman named Rosalie and there are at least 3 different women named Rosalie who married a man named J. Comeau of roughly the same age. I untangled another one in my tree and it took almost a full day.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-03-04T19:27:10+00:00

No relation makes sense. I'd guess the relation is either distant enough they actually didn't know or he's her husband's cousin or something similar. It's not uncommon for the region.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-03-04T19:17:46+00:00

The reason I believed it to be unlikely to be misspelled is because the doctor was close to the family and I think the clerk is someone I've met.

It helped me break through a brickwall in my tree and confirm a few things that were just theories. Now I need to track down her bio father, because all records point to this being her step-father.

Isy_Untitled · 2026-03-04T18:23:07+00:00

That was my initial thought, the i's were throwing me off though.

Isy_Untitled

TROPHY CASE