My Trails into the Past

FamilySearch has added an AI summary option at their every-word search of deeds and probate records. I heard about it from Mark Thompson and Steve Little’s podcast, “Episode 8.” I decided to try it out. My search of Lancaster deeds in Lewis County, Missouri, brought up a deed of John S. Lancaster as grantor transferring land to Ellis W. Lancaster as grantee. [1] FamilySearch has a full-text transcription, which is not perfect and often has errors due to handwritten words that may be hard to decipher. Their transcription is here: This Indenture made this 16th day of December 1842 by tween John S.  Lancaster  & Mary his wife of Shelby County Kentucky of the one part F Ellis W  Lancaster  of Lewis County Missouri of the other part Witnesseth that the said decd John...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  again -  Time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:    1)  How many "Wills" for your grandparents' or great-grandparents' surnames are on the FamilySearch Full Text Search feature (see  https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text )?   2)  List the surnames and how many entries there are when you do an exact name search.  What does this tell you?  Have you found Wills for all of your ancestors with these names? 3)   Share a link to your blog post, or your Facebook Status post, or on this post. NOTE:  FamilySearch has been adding more data to the Wills collections.  Here’s mine: I followed Randy’s example as shown here: *  On the Full-Text Search page ( https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text ), I put my "Seaver" surname in quotes (to make it exact). * ...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's  Saturday Night  Again -  Time For Some More  Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings Genea-Musings for tonight is to:  1)  One of the goals of every genealogy researcher is to solve difficult name and relationship problems - and traditionally we do a "genealogy happy dance" when we succeed. 2)  When was the last time you did a "genealogy happy dance" after solving one of your difficult problems? Here's mine: This is very difficult. I haven’t had a great “happy dance” in a long while. I have not found new ancestors on any of my lines. FamilySearch’s new Full-Text Search in Labs has not helped me with some of my brick walls, i.e., the parents of Samuel Johnston or Benjamin W. Jones. It has helped me locate records, though. Is being excited as good as a “happy dance?” Benjamin W. Jones I thought I would give Labs another try. I hadn’t searched on his name yet, so let...