I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when I look back at recently completed “deep dive” projects, but I have to admit that I always am.
This project started out as a task to write a lengthy and detailed ancestor life sketch about George Rogers Tarbox, my 3X great grandfather.
I quickly realized that it had been quite a long time since I had delved into George’s life and, more suprisingly, I had never written about his parents and many siblings.
To all those who say they “finished” research on a particular ancestor, family or even their entire family tree, I have to disagree because as active researchers know the work is NEVER finished.
For my William Tarbox family, I was exceedingly fortunate that the early New Gloucester town clerks carefully kept birth records from the town’s earliest settlement.
Marriage records were spotty in 1700s and early 1800s Maine, as were death records.
However, in the decades that have passed since I first looked at the family, more records have become available online. Others have researched individual members of the family, adding still more details to their lives.
Resources like city directories, church histories and town/county histories have provided even more fodder for the rabbit hole.
From this deep dive, I was able to fill out the details of all the lives of George’s siblings and his many nieces and nephews. I discovered how many of his siblings have no descendants today, too, which was a real surprise.
As for George’s life, I knew he lived in Lowell, Massachusetts for a short time and married his second wife in Nashua, New Hampshire, but I could never figure out how a Maine and Massachusetts guy met a New Hampshire lady and married there.
Thanks to those city directories and their fun details, I learned about George’s early business interests in textile manufacturing and, from that, learned that those business interests are what led him from Maine to Lowell to Nashua and then to Newburyport, Massachusetts and, finally, to a new business interest – quarrying granite – in Calais, Maine.
I highly recommend taking deep dives into the lives of somewhat neglected ancestors. You might be surprised at all the new information to be found!
Your statement about never being done is so true! Between discovery of new records, improved access and just reviewing previous work, one is never done.
It’s always interesting to look back on ancestors we researched long ago and give them some TLC with new records. I have researched ancestors who lived in Lowell and worked in the cotton mills there. Such a fascinating place…My brother lives near there and we visited an historic mill a few years ago.
My deep dive into the Beake family has led me to so many revelations… I’m still working through how to summarize my work on the three Elizabeth Beakes. Like you, I sought out every possible source – interestingly enough, all contain errors/conflicting evidence which I had to resolve.
I’m sure there’s still even more to discover, so would never claim to be “done”.