Currently, I am researching and trying to prove that Rose Mott is my great-grandmother’s mother. This matters because my great-grandmother, Clara, was adopted by her paternal aunt. I don’t know yet if it was legal, but in addition to that, her brothers were put in an orphanage.
In a life story, she wrote about herself and what she knew about her paternal ancestry -but she made no mention of her mother. This makes me assume that she did not know who her biological mother was, or at least her name. Otherwise, I think she would have included her as she did with the other ancestral names.
With all that said, it’s challenging to find direct evidence so far to definitively prove their mother-daughter relationship, but I’ve actually made major progress this year, which I’ll share more about in future posts.
To get back in the swing of researching this question, I decided to revisit my process. So the first thing I did was review what I have or what I know. From there, I created a timeline or a set of research notes based on Connie Knox‘s own research approach. I originally wanted to do this six years ago when I first started on this research project. At that time, I actually created a master template for research notes (like Connie showed in her videos), but I never really started on it until now.
I made a timeline about everything I knew about Rose Mott, but I didn’t do the same for Clara, as I only created a timeline of records that are relevant to proving the relationship between her and Rose.
From there, I extracted the key details of the records and transcribed newspapers about her arrest. Here’s a bit below to give you a visual of what it actually looks like.
When looking and extracting the details into my research notes, I saw in the 1910 census that Rose was with her supposed new husband in PA, as well as listed this to be her 2nd marriage. That same census stated she had three children in total, but two were living. Which makes me wonder: Who was the informant, Rose or her husband? Who were the three children, and which two were still alive?
In that census, there was a child named Fred. Could that be Clara’s biological half-brother? It’s very possible. That would add even more complexity to the situation than we already have on hand (I will elaborate more in a future post.)
As I worked on Rose’s timeline, I found myself wanting to skip ahead and immediately start to write about my findings. I came to realize the better strategy would be to extract the details, put them into my research notes, write about what I found, what my thoughts are, and what record avenues to search for in my research report. Or, in simpler terms: write as I go. That was something I learned and remembered after watching Crista Cowan's YouTube videos nine years ago.
I started to do that later on instead of pushing through like I did in the beginning. By doing that, it was as if I relieved a back pressure inside myself.
I’ll share about my findings and more background information in a future post.
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