To avoid doing a lot of research on those not related to you it is necessary to start with the oldest relative you are SURE of: parent, grandparent, ggrandparent - whatever. Next search until you find the parents of the known relation. You keep going back one more generation each time you verify the parents of the last one. While you do your research it is important to save the information you find on everyone with the same surname in the same area with your family. This will save lots of time later and if you run into a brick wall will give you some clues on where to search. If your research starts after 1850 you will find the federal census reports (and state census where available) a BIG help and a very good place to start. Happy Hunting. Joyce -----Original Message----- From: Marilyn O'Leary <olear15@attglobal.net> To: CT-RIVER-VALLEY-L@rootsweb.com <CT-RIVER-VALLEY-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Thursday, September 07, 2000 8:36 PM Subject: [CRV] How do you know he's your John Dwight? >Warren and Cynthia, > >I guess this is a question of how to do accurate research. Since my >husband's line has Dwights (Nathaniel Dwight and Mehitable Partridge >line), the Dwight name in Watertown also caught my eye. However, since >I'd no known connection there, I let it pass. > >My question is - if you don't know that your ancestor lived there and >you only have a name and no additional info to connect to - how can you >assure that this is your John Dwight and not another one? Could you give >me some of your mental play which would have brought you to that >conclusion? Why could this not be another John Dwight? > >Sorry if this sounds amaturish, but this has puzzled me and I'm still >relatively new at this researching. > >Marilyn in MI > > >==== CT-RIVER-VALLEY Mailing List ==== >http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl ...type in Ct-River Valley or other mailing list >http://www.acpl.lib.in.us [large genealogy library in Indiana] > >http://www.quadrangle.org (genealogical lib for Conn River area) > >============================== >Personalized Mailing Lists: never miss a connection again. >http://pml.rootsweb.com/ >Brought to you by RootsWeb.com. >