Courtesy Wikimedia Commons In this season of celebration, I would like to celebrate piggy-back riding. We all do it, whether we know it or not! Every time we use a genealogy website with "hints," those hints are based on the work that other researchers have done, connecting images and records to families and individuals. Search algorithms are written by programmers who may know nothing about quality genealogical research, but do know how to code search parameters that will yield good results for us.  The image of riding piggy-back, or giving others a ride, perhaps came so strongly to mind this week, because out of the blue, I got an email from a researcher, Antoinette, who found one of the profiles I worked on years ago, in the family of my son-in-law Jason. His 2nd-great-grandmother, Martha Caroline Carter, was born in February 1856 in Wayne County, Missouri, and died after 1910 probably in Colorado.  The email revealed that Antoinette is descended from Martha'...

Was Sampson Caudill (1784 – 1863) the father of Hugh Caudle(1812--1859)? Genealogists and family historians have long speculated about the identity of the father of Hugh Caudle (1812 – 1859).   Clayton Cox, the genealogist and long-time authority on the Caudill family, never provided an answer. [1] An article in Cordell Clippings , the newsletter of the Cordell Family Association (now inactive) No.10, January 1994, may be the source of the many assertions that Hugh was the son of Sampson Caudle. [2] The Caudills (Caudles, Caddells, Coddles, Cordels, Codills, and many other spellings) are a large and well-documented family.   The first documentation of a Caudle in America is a Virginia Land Grant to Stephen “Cawdle” from King George of England in 1731. [3] By the time of the Revolutionary War, the family had migrated to North Carolina. [4] The family had begun migrating to eastern Kentucky by 1789. [5] TRACKING THE MIGRATION OF TWO FAMILIES In 1820, Sa...

The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy. By Val D. Greenwood. Published by Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc.; 3600 Clipper Mill Road; Suite 229; Baltimore, MD 21211;  http://www.genealogical.com/ ; 2017. ISBN 978-0-8063-2066-3. Paperback, $59.95. “Read Greenwood from cover to cover—several times or until you feel you have well learned its content” - Elizabeth Shown Mills Elizabeth Shown Mills' advice is for genealogists making the transition from genealogy as a hobby  to genealogy as a profession.  However, I believe it is good advice for all genealogists – beginning as well as seasoned professionals.   The Researcher’s Guide is both a textbook and a reference manual. The topics range from planning research to detailed explanations of various records; how to find them and how to use them.  It was first published in 1973, and Greenwood has updated and kept it current over the ensuing forty years.  At first glance, its 738 pag...