Tracing your ancestor to a specific location only to discover that there are many individuals of the same name in that area can prove to be quite the genealogical challenge. Then you discover that they are all members of the same church during the same time frame. How can you find out which, if any of them are your relative? This is quite a common occurrence in genealogical research, especially before the twentieth century, yet there are certain steps you can take to eliminate those who aren’t your relative, and confirm who is. These are tried and tested methods used by many experienced researchers, and are based on actual experiences. The first is based on my own personal experience, and I found my ancestor not by my superior research skills, but by having a bit of an insight as to his personality.

Get to Know Your Ancestors – The first thing you’ll want to make sure of before looking for a subject’s parents or location is to confirm that they are indeed your ancestor. If you have uncovered more than one person of the same name in a phase of your research, go back to the previous stage where you can

positively identify him or her, or move to a more recent time period where you can be certain of their identity. What happened in my case was that; I had discovered a person I thought was my ancestor in a small town in England. There were three people of the same name, one I could eliminate easily enough because of the age difference – it was over 30 years. The other two however were very similar; the same age, and lived in the same township. There was a clue that I overlooked however, as they were members of two different religions.

Had I paid attention to how I knew my family felt about a certain religion, I would have known automatically which ancestor was mine, and consequently saved a lot of time and effort. The point I’m making is this; too often we spend our time studying names not people. We hoard genealogical data like the treasure it is, but to make sense of that data we must always remember that those facts and figures represent people, and people have personalities, likes and dislikes. Sometimes discernment and insight is vital to successful genealogical research, and we should work hard to develop those skills; studying and really getting to know our ancestors.

Get to Know Their Neighbours and Associates – An effective way to distinguish between people of the same name is to pay attention to the people associated with them. You will notice different neighbours listed in the census reports, different people witnessing their wills and pensions applications. Pay attention to the wives they chose and the ministers who married them, the names of their children and spouses. Once you are familiar with such things it will be easier to determine which person is your ancestor.

Know the Ages of Those Involved – One of the best resources for searches after 1850 is the census, before that time one must use life events, taxation records and such. But once you can determine an individual’s age, that will help you to understand which life events relate to which person. Because it is necessary to find which record belongs to which person, analyzing age-related behaviours, or how certain age-related laws might have affected someone, can help to distinguish between individuals of the same name.

Broaden Your Circle of Research – A friend of mine who is a genealogical researcher recommends moving outside the records created by individuals of the same name in order to obtain even more surnames to work with. This involve getting to know the records of their neighbours and associates, as well as siblings, spouses and other relatives, but again this effort will help you to correlate records with the correct individuals. He told me of a case in which two men were named John B. Kelley. Not only were the names the same, but the ages were very close, and the birth place was the same. He used census listings to first determine that one of the JB Kelleys was living with another family. In the next listing he is married and maintaining his own household. He needed more information, and discovered that there was no record of a marriage or death, no probate or land records, thus he needed to enlarge his circle of research.

He did this by consulting local histories, and found that neither of the census reports was taken on the official census day. The local history also revealed that one John B. Kelley had a daughter named Mary Hamilton, who had not appeared on the census report. He knew this was the John B. Kelley he searched for, because he knew the names of his children. Mary had not appeared in the census report because she had died before the enumerator arrived almost two months after the official census date, and so she was not reported as a member of the household.

These are just a few of the ways that you can distinguish between people of the same name. It is very important not to manipulate your data to fit a possible hypothesis. This can merely lead to you “barking up the wrong family tree”, excuse the pun, but any contradictions or inconsistencies should rather raise a red flag, warning you that probably more than one person generated those records.