There are pros and cons to AI, but in general, I’m excited about its potential applications in genealogy. From MyHeritage’s use of facial recognition and matching technology to help us identify pictures to various newspaper sites using text search to identify our ancestors in articles, technology has helped us solve some mysteries in our family trees. When Amy Johnson Crow offered a webinar last week on an exciting new feature FamilySearch is testing, I signed up immediately. As anyone who has used FamilySearch knows, they have a wealth of information, but so much of it isn’t easily searchable. They rely on people to index records, but even then, not all of the information is indexed. Probate and land record indexes rarely list everyone named in a record, which means we can search all we want, but we can’t always find what we’re looking for...but technology is on the verge of changing that. FamilySearch recently unveiled their use of AI to search full-text records – including old, handwritten records. Only a few record sets are currently available through their Learning Lab, but one of them is big: their US Probate & Land Records. This is a game-changer! “Technology” is the theme for Week 12 of 2024’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge. I can’t wait to share what I learned by spending one night searching for family records on a single family.
My third great-grandmother, Jane Felker, is my brick wall ancestor. She and her husband, Greenlief Owen Shaw, were married in 1840 in Albion, Maine, and appeared on the 1860 census in Waterville, Maine. Try as I might, I have been unable to locate them on the 1850 census, even though one of their sons had the unusual name of “Resolvo.” Actual records for this family are sparse. I haven’t even been able to find birth records for any of them or death records for most of them. As far as I knew, Jane and Greenlief lived in Kennebec County, Maine the entirety of their marriage, but I was wrong. Thanks to the new full-text search feature currently in beta testing at FamilySearch, I discovered that the family lived in Penobscot County for a few years in a little town I’d never heard of.
Greenlief and his twin brother, George, inherited the bulk of their mother Cynthia (Witherell) Shaw’s estate when she passed away in Albion, Maine in 1844. On December 25, 1845, George and Greenlief Shaw, “yeomen of Albion in Kennebec County,” took out a $600 mortgage from Mary G. and Sophia Stackpole for property in Newburgh, Penobscot County. They sold a parcel of land in Newburgh to Nathan Merrill for $100 on August 10, 1846. Jane Shaw and Polenah Shaw were listed in this transaction as they had to give up their “dower rights” to the property as the wives of Greenlief and George. On September 13, 1847, George sold his share of the Newburgh property purchased in 1844 to Greenlief for $200, and in 1848 Greenlief paid off the remainder of the original $600 loan. Between 1848-1850, Greenlief and Jane Shaw appeared on several real estate transactions in Newburgh, the last of which was a warranty deed to William Folsom on January 26, 1850. Greenlief was listed on one final Penobscot County land record in 1852, when he released Nathaniel P. Whittier from a loan and sent him his Newburgh property deed. At that time, Greenlief was living in Waterville, Kennebec County. Not all of these land records were available on FamilySearch. I believe only 1847-1848 were available for Penobscot County, but indexes for other years were available, which made it possible to find them on the Penobscot County Registry of Deeds website.
“Why can’t I find this family on the 1850 census?" now has a likely answer. The Shaws sold their Newburgh property in 1850 and moved. They may have missed the census takers, moving from Newburgh before they arrived there, but after they had taken the census in their new town (presumably Waterville or Oakland).
Now did any of this information break down my brick wall? Unfortunately, no. Because Greenlief and George purchased property together in Newburgh, it is unlikely the family relocated there to be close to Jane’s family, which is who I wanted to find. A search for Felkers in the area yielded no results. I was also hoping to find vital records for Jane and Greenlief's children. Two daughters were born during the time they lived in Newburgh – Susan in 1846 and Ellen in 1848 – but much to my frustration, vital records weren’t kept in Newburgh until 1857. I searched all available cemetery records for Newburgh as well, thinking I might find some young Shaw children buried there between 1846-1850, but I had no luck. While I still don’t know where in Maine Jane was born or who her parents were, I’ve collected another piece of the puzzle. At this point, collecting any puzzle piece, even if it’s a bitty piece that doesn't connect to anything feels like an achievement. The records I need are out there somewhere, hiding. I feel optimistic that once this technology is applied to all of the records on FamilySearch, I’ll find the answers I’m looking for.
Sources:
Penobscot County, Maine, Penobscot Land Records vol. 161, p.268 (Shaw to Stackpole, 25 December 1845).
Penobscot County, Maine, Penobscot Land Records vol. 168, p.335-336 (Shaw et al to Merrill, 10 August 1846).
Penobscot County, Maine, Penobscot Land Records vol. 179, p.493-495 (George Shaw to Greenlief Shaw, 13 September 1847).
Penobscot County, Maine, Penobscot County Land Records vol 182 [1847-1848], p. 94-95, Greenlief Shaw to Stephen Hussey, 4 November 1847; imaged, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C37Q-JSVD-L :accessed 17 March 2024) >image group number 008572657 >image 54-55.
Penobscot County, Maine, Penobscot County Land Records vol 182 [1847-1848], p. 95-96, Stephen Hussey to Greenlief Shaw, 4 November 1847; imaged, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C37Q-JSVD-L :accessed 17 March 2024) >image group number 008572657 >image 54-55.
Penobscot County, Maine, Penobscot County Land Records vol 203, p. 295-296 (Greenlief Shaw to William Folsom, 26 January 1850).
Penobscot County, Maine, Penobscot County Land Records vol 224, p. 50 (Greenlief Shaw to Nathaniel P. Whittier, 21 May 1852).
Comments