An Estate Administration's Story - My Assignment

It's fortunate that our meeting was postponed, because I wouldn't have finished my assignment in time. Here it is: "Clues in the 1725 Estate File of Nathaniel Ball of Concord, Massachusetts." I learned a great deal from my study of this estate file! With the exception of the abbreviated genealogical summary, this was written without TMG's help - except the formulation of the footnotes; my sources had all been entered in TMG before I began work on the article. This is not one of Mark's beautiful narratives, but readers may still learn quite a bit from it.

Here are my answers to this month's questions:

• Did you choose a will recorded in the county will book? No.
• Did you choose one of the loose papers from an estate file? Yes.
• What source type template would you use to cite this record?
• It is something called "Local Record (digital image unindexed)." It's probably a cross between "TVTMG Town/County Files-Basic" and "TVTMG Town/County Registers-Basic (Online FS)."
• Is this an original record or a derivative record? Original records.
• Did you transcribe the information found in the record?
• Yes, but I didn't enter those transcriptions in TMG. I linked the Word file to the subject person as an exhibit.
• Did you choose to abstract the information?
• Some of it was abstracted and entered in TMG to appear in my "Notes Summary" report.
• Did you create a custom tag for this record?
• The information was put in my Estate-ADM tag, my Estate-SETT tag, and my Document tag.
• List all the people named in the estate. AARRGGHH!
• Can you identify them all? Yes.
• Did you add all of them to your TMG database? Why, or why not? Yes. They're all connected - as family, neighbor, or associate - to the subject.
• What law, or laws, governed the creation of your chosen record?
• Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 21 vols. (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1874), 1: 43-45, Chap. 14, “An act for the setling and distribution of the estates of intestates” [passed 1 November 1692]; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespubl_d01mass : accessed 1 October 2014).

Remember this year's goals.

• We want to develop the habit of analyzing each record we use, and not just enter each information bit without thinking about its meaning.
• We want to make conscious decisions on what data we want to enter into TMG, how we enter that data, and how we will use that data in our research.
• We want to develop the habit of writing research reports and real family histories, not just printing out pedigree charts and family group sheets.
• We want to make TMG fit our research needs and goals. We don't want to make our research practices fit TMG.

An Estate Administration's Story

As a class, estate administrations may be one of the best sources for linking members of a family. These records aren't just limited to wills, but include all the papers created when an estate is transferred from the deceased to his or her heirs. Pick an estate administration and work on this assignment.

• Did you choose a will recorded in the county will book?
• What source type template would you use to cite this record?
• Is this an original record or a derivative record?
• Did you choose one of the loose papers from an estate file?
• What source type template would you use to cite this record?
• Is this an original record or a derivative record?
• Did you transcribe the information found in the record?
• If so, how did you enter that transcription in TMG?
• Do you visualize a report in which this transcription would be printed?
• Did you choose to abstract the information?
• Provide a screen shot of the tag, or tags, in which the information appears.
• How do you expect this information to appear in a report?
• Did you create a custom tag for this record?
• If so, provide a screen shot of that tag.
• What are the custom sentences you created for this tag?
• List all the people named in the estate.
• Can you identify them all?
• Did you add all of them to your TMG database? Why, or why not?
• What law, or laws, governed the creation of your chosen record?
• If you don't understand how and why a record was created, your interpretation of that record may be incorrect. The answer to this question is more important than you might think.
• Finally, write a narrative deriving from this record.
• Remember, this narrative doesn't need to be long - just a paragraph or two is fine.

Remember this year's goals.

• We want to develop the habit of analyzing each record we use, and not just enter each information bit without thinking about its meaning.
• We want to make conscious decisions on what data we want to enter into TMG, how we enter that data, and how we will use that data in our research.
• We want to develop the habit of writing research reports and real family histories, not just printing out pedigree charts and family group sheets.
• We want to make TMG fit our research needs and goals. We don't want to make our research practices fit TMG.