re: #266 freetoken

Yup. There’s that black hole of the time before about the War of 1812 back to Jamestown, where unless the woman was from a very well off family who wrote lots of land deals and wills and such, one just can’t trace the woman’s ancestors, because we don’t know the maiden name.

And also, in some of the colonies, the women didn’t even have legal rights to their own children.

And that’s a pretty big black hole. 200 years and change. What really sucks is the fire that destroyed a lot of the 1890 census records. Like I know for a fact that my great grandmother had at least three siblings whose names I don’t have a clue about. i did get teh cemetery records from the Pittsburgh archdiocese in the cemetery where her folks, young brother, and young sister were buried but it’s impossible to find out which ones were her siblings since her maiden name is super common in the Irish community. And some people it’s impossible to find a trace of. I can’t find any records of one great great grandparent before her marriage. I know her maiden name since it’s on her son’s death certificate and I feel confident about where she was born but all I know is the state and New York is huge.