Chronology helps us see facts about our ancestor’s lives otherwise obscured. With it, we can envision family dynamics and ask the right questions launching new lines of research. [1] A residency tracker is the tool for this job. All we need are the documents to fill it out.
DOCUMENTS
Found online and at home, documents guide our family history research. Census, newspaper articles, christening and death information all give us dates.
Census information shows children growing up and grandparents moving in telling us who was living there and when. Christening listings will name the pastor if not the church, newspapers articles may show affiliations, city directories provide addresses and professions and death notices often give us a location; where the death occurred or the funeral will take place. With this information, and a few items we may have at home, we can begin to tell the story of our ancestors’ lives.
Johann Michael Nicklas and Louisa M. Nicklas nee Zenk (pictured) were born in Germany and came to Baltimore, MD in 1866 as a married couple. Johann got work as a tailor in downtown Baltimore and joined the Knights of Pythias. Together they had four children; Anna who married and became a homemaker, William who would be a shoemaker, John Michael a clerk and Andrew a tailor. Johann preceded his wife in death. Louisa lived with her sons William and Michael until she married the local butcher, Charles Broseker, and outlived him too reverting to her first married name, Nicklas. At the end of her life she resided with her son Andrew’s family just north of downtown Baltimore.
Both sides of the family in the same tracker?
Comparisons among family members are easier to see if you keep separate residency trackers for each side of the family...unless both sides knew each other all their lives. You may not be aware of connections when you start your research. If you see that they lived in the same neighborhood or went to the same church, consider running one residency tracker for both sides of the family.
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