Oh I'm not saying it cant be done, I have surely had to rely on other sources for familes that werent from around here, or who didnt have obits. But for like my husband's family, where the youngest of 9 had 11 children, and the youngest of that 11 had 8 kids, and so on... yeah his surname is huge in this area. It helped tremendously. Although, that information isnt as reliable as church records and birth records. But it's a start. And since his family pretty much stayed in this area, it was easy to access, even if it cost me tons of quarters!Originally Posted by Epona
Another interesting one - my brother is a genealogist and I don't think he's ever used an obit (given that many people here don't have one) yet has traced our family ancestry in pretty much its entirety back to the 16th century and one branch back to our arrival in England in the 9th century (from Saxony) using historical records, we have the electoral register available for viewing in libraries, full census information including names and addresses is released after something like 100 years, and the central records office where you can look up birth, marriage, and death certificates for modern records, and predating those we have parish records.
It takes a bit of effort but it is not so difficult here to find your ancestors and modern relatives if your family has been in the country for a few generations, I wonder if that is why we don't place such importance on the obituary?
I have my husbands family traced back to the early 1700's, of course anything past the early 1900's there werent obits to rely on.
Of course at different parts of my research I always wished I lived somewhere else when I was doing it.