Cornett Family Genealogy Books

As I am scouring the internet for factual data, I just decided to Google my grandmother's name, Lucia Cornett. (Happy Mother's Day grams!)  I came across her online obituary and I can't believe almost two years has passed since she became one of God's perfect angels. I am saddened by her loss but at the same time I know I will one day meet her again. For those of you who know me personally, you know that I was a small child when my parents divorced and I moved away from the Cornett side of my family. This is where I want to apologize for not staying in close contact with my family. Yes, I was only 6 years old but still feel like maybe I could have at least wrote letters to my grandma or something? Who knows what could have been if I had. But on the bright side of the situation, I have made contact with my Cornett family on Facebook! We stay in touch, communicate, share photos and our life events as they are happening or will happen in the near future. For this, I am thankful.


Sorry for rambling, so back to the internet search! Searching Google I found another name that was familiar due to past research I have done in the past. Archelus Cornutt. It's discouraging as surnames have changed in their spellings over the centuries. Apparently there is a book out there somewhere called, Descendants of Archelus Cornutt: The Son of James Cornutt, 1743-1956 written by Hannah Alice Cornett Magee. I then "Googled" the books title and author and came across the Amazon web page- I must say I had no luck in finding the book because it is no longer in print. But doing more research on this matter, I found out that the book may be located at the Laurel County Historical Society in Kentucky. So now I am on the search for this book and hopefully I will have some luck tracking it down. I wonder if any of my Cornett relatives have a copy? It would be nice if I could even find an e-book for my Kindle regarding this particular book. By the way, I found out about this book by reading the Cornett Family Forums on Ancestry.com. I will share the link below if anyone is interested in this particular family lineage.


Links:
Laurel County, Kentucky Historical Society


Ancestry Cornett Surname Forum


Image Source: Cornett Family Crest

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In My Ancestral Garden...

Today hasn't been a very successful day in locating research on Alexander Sutherland. I have been searching all day long on the different web sites after "Googling" his name and birth date. I keep finding the same information over and over; it's weird though, because being a member on Ancestry.com, I have come across several other members trees that have his parents listed as two separate couples- different names and all that. Very confusing as I haven't found anything concrete yet. The research I have so far states that Samuel J. Sutherland and Jane Barbour Sutherland are his parents, then I come across several members' trees on Ancestry's web site which states the opposite- the parents names were listed as John Sutherland (1726-1781) and Jean McCleland (1720-1789)- in those days it just seems strange that Jean is 6 years older than her husband, John Sutherland. In this day and age it doesn't sound so odd, but back then, I'm not so sure. It was usually older men and younger women, some women in fact were just mere girls of 12 or 13 years of age when they married. Does this not seem strange to you? Or is it just me over analyzing again? Probably the latter :)



glitter-graphics.com

If I'm doing my math correctly, Alexander Sutherland was born in 1743 and his wife, Margaret Bryan was born 1771~ that would make Alexander about 28 years older than she. I have paperwork that my Cornett family gave to me that has all the names and dates and whatever else needed to be compiled together with photos, obituaries, etc. This paperwork lists Jane Barbour and Samuel J. Sutherland as the biological parents of Alexander. I just need something more concrete such as a birth certificate or some kind of other document that would have his parents names on it. 


If anyone reads this and has information to share regarding this Sutherland line, please share!!

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Genealogy Search- Have You Hit the Proverbial Brick Wall?

Throughout the years of searching for your genealogical roots, I'm sure many of you have come to a brick wall in your searches. I know I have a time or two! How are you conducting your searches? The obvious answer would most likely be Google. I "Google" everything from computer problems to issues I may have with my car! You name it and Google has it; or do they? In recent news articles, genealogists have depended upon Google Archives to base some of their online researches and in the process, gathering information from archived newspapers and the like. Google Archives will no longer be there for us when we need it. Another brick wall indeed!
Google Newspaper Archive Shutdown

Image Source

Brick Wall Breaker Chic

So you've hit a brick wall; what does that do to your research? Is there another way around this wall? Of course there is. There has to be another route to take! Which way will you go to get around this wall?
Here are a few things we can do as genealogists:


Lack Of Internet Structure- mainly people like yourself conduct online researches from the skills acquired by using their local libraries, archives, and structured websites like Ancestry. Your typical search for topics over a broad network of web sites won't get you very far. So just think about it for a second, the Internet has no basic structure in which to base a really good, thorough search on whatever topic that you may need information for. Genealogy records are historic archives, which are probably hiding among the dust particles of the Internet, waiting for you to dust them off. If no one finds them, they will be there forever collecting even more dust bunnies.
Bring your searches within reach!


Put On Your Search Engine "Thinking Cap"- A search engine doesn't have a brain like we do. It just searches for what we tell it to. You could search for <chair> or the name <Robert> for example, we know <Robert> is the name of a person but the search engine doesn't; it's just searching for that particular tag and then delivers the web pages to you based upon what you typed in the search bar. So you will need to think more on the lines like a search engine does. 

The results weren't exactly specific to what I was originally seeking. Think outside the search engine "box", if you will. Hopefully your future searches will be fruitful and give you the exact results you were looking for. Proximity searches look over the text of billions of web pages for the tags I mentioned earlier. How do you think this affects my research when I am seeking an ancestor? I'll tell you, its not very good. It would be easier to search for an ancestor with a unique name versus "Ann Jones". The results you receive will be much better. So it's much easier to start off searching for the least common names in your family tree, then work from that family of names that were included, such as siblings, or parents. 

What is the best genealogy search engine to use? Here are a few links to try just to see which one yields the best results for you.

I Found It

Ancestor Hunt

Search For Ancestors

Census Diggins

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Google Archives- A Great Resource

While researching my family, I was looking for old newspaper articles that may have had the Cornett surname  included. I found Google Archives; you can search a time period specifically related to your particular search criteria. Very interesting! 


Google News Archive


Once you have entered your search criteria, a list of web pages comes up for you to explore. How great is that? I have included a sample based on my own search for Cornett, you can see the link for it below. I hope Google doesn't get rid of this archive service. There are more people than I know of that are in search of their family roots. Many are searching the Cornett surname, as I have seen on many forums across the web. This is a great tool that will give you a peek into history as it was back in the day. For my search, I included the search from the year 1800-1900 and this is just one of the pages that came up.


Sample Archive


Will Google abandon their newspaper archive? I have seen some websites that say they will. It's a good idea to take advantage of this service just in case they do abandon it. There aren't many web pages that I know of that offers a free service like this. Mostly, from what I have seen are paid subscriptions. I don't feel that I should have to pay for a subscription, that I wouldn't use much except in my genealogy research. Do you think we should have to pay for something like this? Would a paid subscription really be worth the money? What if you don't find what you are looking for? It would be money wasted.  What are your thoughts on paid subscriptions such as these? 

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