Cluster Research - Beyond the Obvious
Long before I knew there was an official term for it, I found it necessary and interesting to identify and document clusters of people that shared a common thread or threads. Once complete, this type of research “a ha” moment gets to me to this day. Genealogical research in the United States before 1850 often involves researching extended family members or collateral families, which can often be the difference in obtaining evidence to answer a research question. Censuses are an obvious resource for cluster research. Close or extended family members often lived close to one another, which is why it is important to research beyond your subject. Review the preceding and subsequent pages of a census to locate family members that might have lived close to your research subject.
To this day, one of my favorite research findings was discovering multiple ancestors buried in a rural cemetery in Pike County, Alabama – Catalpa Cemetery. From my paternal great-grandparents to ancestors that lived pre-Civil War. While not evident to me then, cemetery research is much like researching clusters of people in censuses, as immediate family members were often buried close to one another in a cemetery. Given that cemeteries were associated with a church, collateral family members and neighbors who attended the same place of worship were probably buried in the same cemetery.
Groups of people that migrated together were often family members, whether immediate or collateral. A portion of a recent personal lineage society research project depended on proving that three groups who migrated across Virginia together from the mid to the late 1700s were immediate and collateral family members. Because the subject families purchased and sold land across the state as they migrated, deeds were instrumental in providing evidence linking the research subjects. Not only do deeds provide dates of sale that a researcher can compare to land purchases made by others that migrated with a subject family, deeds often provide neighbors’ names in the land description, providing evidence that family members settled close to one another. An additional essential element of a deed are the witnesses. Uninterested family – those not a party to a deed – often witnessed a family member’s deed.
Another example of cluster research is researching individuals that purchased from a deceased person’s estate. The Bill of Sale from an estate is one document I always look for when viewing a research subject’s probate records. A portion of a recent research project depended on providing evidence gleaned from an ancestor’s estate Bill of Sale dated 1829. My research subject was a daughter of the deceased. As we are all too familiar, researching any subject during this time in the United States can be complicated, even more so if the research subject is female. Research into the individuals who purchased from my ancestor’s estate proved fruitful in many ways.
Documents created for court cases can also be highly beneficial when researching an elusive ancestor. Aside from the obvious – researching the named parties – review who may have provided an affidavit on a party’s behalf. The person who has provided an affidavit on a research subject’s behalf can likely be closely linked to the subject. Also essential, read every word of an affidavit, which came into play for a research project I conducted a few years ago. While my female ancestor was not a named party in a particular Virginia Chancery Court case, nor did she provide an affidavit, an affidavit dated 1802 provides evidence that she had separated from her husband and had married a second time. Even though the deponent did not identify my ancestor by name, cluster research provided evidence to link her to named individuals in the suit.
How are you implementing cluster research as part of your research projects?
Featured image by Mel Poole @melpoole.