Julie Miller wrote an excellent article on locating your female ancestors for the October 17, 2009 edition of the Broomfield Enterprise. Following is a teaser.
Identifying females is one of the hardest challenges genealogists face.
It might be that only the first name and married surname are known. Or perhaps a daughter disappears from census records and it is not known whom she married. The biggest obstacle when researching women is that their name changed when they married. This is compounded by fewer records. Before the 20th century, women did not have the same rights as men and, therefore, they generated considerably fewer records. Although few research problems are as difficult as finding the identity of females in our family history, there are records and strategies that can be used to overcome the challenges.
Often the answer to identifying a woman can be found in the records of her husband, son or brother. Men owned the land, they ran the businesses and their lives were recorded in more detail than women`s. Look for clues about women in the records of the men in their lives.
Records relating to a child`s birth, marriage and death will often give the mother`s maiden name. Even a child`s name can be a clue about a mother`s maiden name. Children are often named after grandparents, uncles and aunts. A clue to a maiden name might be in a child`s unusual first or middle name when the name is typically a surname.
