welcome to the ancestral findings podcast are your female ancestors a mystery it's
not uncommon while you may know the first name of a female ancestor finding their
maiden name and birth family can sometimes be a challenge here are some tips to get
you past this incredibly common genealogical issue and find your female ancestors at last
one of the more frustrating parts of genealogy research can be finding your female ancestors
this is true whether you are a beginner or a pro how many census records have you looked at
only to be confronted with a female ancestor who is married and no context as to what her maiden
name might have been have you ordered death or birth certificates and the mother's maiden name
was left off or even not listed at all don't be concerned you are not alone this is a common
problem in genealogy and there is a way around it first of all why is it so challenging to find
a female ancestor or find their family before marriage it's easy until very recent times like
the past 30 years or so the entities that created official government documents that might mention
your ancestors simply did not view married women as independent people once the woman got married
she was considered as essentially the same person as her husband any trace of her former identity
was wiped out this was so ingrained into society that a woman herself might believe it and not talk
to her children or grandchildren about her parents siblings and grandparents if those relatives did
not live nearby a woman's descendants might not know anything about her family before marriage
maiden names were viewed as discarded names so they were not included in many government
documents even wills might not give a clue as to a woman's birth family as a man would just name his
wife by her first name if a wife wrote a will she would refer to herself by her married name so how
do you find enough information about your female ancestors to learn who they really were as people
how do you find their original families so you can open up new ancestral lines in your family
tree to research it's easy just look outside of normal sources and throw in a little sleuthing
you might get lucky with a vital record and find a woman's maiden name however if you don't dig
more deeply there are tons of alternative record sources that may give you the information you need
a good one is military pension records if a man is applying for a military pension or if his widow is
applying based on his service the marriage has to be proven nine times out of ten the maiden
name of the wife will be mentioned in the pension record when proving the marriage church marriage
records often record the maiden name of the wife even if state vital records do not though they
sometimes do old newspaper records with marriage announcements are great sources for maiden names
as our obituaries sometimes you can even look at the middle names of a woman's children and
compare them to the surnames of neighbors in census records it was common to give a maiden
name as a middle name to a child you might find your female ancestors parents living nearby your
female ancestors are out there you just have to be crafty when looking for them think outside of
the box use alternative records and put your detective skills to use you can find them
thanks for joining me today I'll see you next time on the ancestral findings
podcast and for further info you can visit us at ancestral findings com