Some stories that our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents tell are spot on. They fall in place nicely with the facts and records from our family trees. Yeah. Some stories do. More often, memory is not so accurate and the facts have faded with time. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t uncover the truth. Even the vaguest references can lead to facts that support your genealogy research. Here’s an example, using one of my family tree “brick walls”.
Digging for Clues in Inaccurate Family Stories
This story pertains to the Reinecke line in my husband Tim’s family tree. While we have recorded the direct line back to the 1790s, the details are weak. I’ve had a hard time filling in the information, particularly about his great-grandfather’s siblings. All I have are names and birth dates. What can I do?
- Anxiously wait for Archion.de to expand its records for the Braunschweig region of Germany so I can locate these people? Yes, but so far nothing has appeared for the town where they lived. Grrr. Frustrating!
- Take wild guesses and fill in information based on my gut? That breaks the laws of genealogy. And, inevitably, my gut will be wrong.
- Try to find another source.
For now, my only option was number 3. And, believe it or not, I managed to make some progress by uncovering clues in a story my mother-in-law, Helen told.
A Memory from a Trip to Germany
One day Tim and I were spending an afternoon at her house. Tim was off working on a yard project while Helen and I sat in the living room sipping Folgers coffee and chatting. That’s when she began recounting the trip to Germany that she and my father-in-law took in the 1990s to research her ancestors. As she chattered about their adventures, she mentioned that they met a woman named Elfriede.
Elfriede was the wife of one of Helen’s grandfather’s brothers. She also said that Elfirede was about my father-in-law’s age. I asked how this was possible, because her grandfather’s brothers (the ones I had in the tree, anyway) were all born in the 1840s or 50s. Helen claimed that Elfriede had said her husband was “a lot older” than she was. If this was the case, then Elfriede would have had to have been around 20 and her husband around 90 when they got married. Possible? Yes. Likely? No.
I suspected my mother-in-law didn’t quite have her story straight, but I wrote it down anyway. I tried researching the names that she had given me, but I had very little to go on. No maiden name for Elfriede. Only a vague reference to the name Wilhelm for her husband. No firm birth date. Of course, I didn’t find much. Very frustrating! The lead went on the genealogy “back burner”.
Another Memory from Germany
A few months later, Helen happened to remember that she had taken a picture of Elfriede’s marriage record. Oh, that would be super helpful, wouldn’t it? I asked to see the picture. After a couple of weeks of searching for it, she found it and sent it over.
Heavy sigh. It was blurry and unreadable. A relic from the days before digital cameras and smartphones. I could just make out Elfriede’s first name and the surname Reinecke by her husband, but nothing else. She apologized and said that she wasn’t very good at taking pictures of records. I told her not to worry and that I appreciated the effort. Still, it was very, very frustrating! Aaargh! A rollercoaster ride. I didn’t give up, though.
A Vague Clue That Led to a Record!
With the number of records added to online genealogy sites every day, I thought that maybe, just maybe, the record would be online. If it is, I might be able to recognize it by comparing it to the blurry image. I took a deep breath, entered the information in Ancestry, and clicked ‘Search’. Sure enough, there it was on Ancestry.com! I found out that Elfriede had been born in 1919, so she was about 6 years older than my father-in-law. I also learned her maiden name was Richter.
This find was a little lucky. The marriage record contained information that isn’t always included in German marriage records – her husband’s birth date and his father’s death date. Her husband, Adolf Wilhelm Edmund Reinecke, was born in 1915. So, he wasn’t a lot older than Elfriede and he couldn’t possibly have been one the brothers I mentioned. He was too young. This record also gave me his father’s name, Adolf Reinecke, and death date for him of 1917, when the younger Adolf was only 2 years old. Hmmm. The facts were starting to fall into place. Immediately my frustration eased!
I still haven’t quite solved this mystery. Based on the data, my hypothesis is that the elder Adolf Reinecke was actually one of Helen’s great-uncles – one I didn’t have recorded. He was probably the one who was a lot older than his wife. Elfriede was actually married to Helen’s grandfather’s nephew, not his brother. I’m still searching for more records to support this educated guess. Hopefully, I’ll find something soon. I’ll have to get Helen chatting about Germany again.
Even though the story my mother-in-law told was not accurate, it still gave me enough information to find something tangible. Long story short, if a story that you hear sounds really off, not possibly true, don’t throw it away. It might just contain an essential clue you’ll need to find out the truth.
Interested in more tips for finding clues in family stories? Read our article “A Clue! Finding Research Clues in Family Stories” here!
Photo Credit:
Header image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay
