Follow the Money! Records of the Record Makers

Researching the lives of our ancestors takes us through a wide variety of census, land, tax, court, probate and related records. But conducting reasonably exhaustive research—the kind best designed to produce the results we need—means we not only have to find the records; we need to find the record-makers. By following the money trail to the doctors, lawyers, preachers, teachers, bankers, merchants and others in their communities who made and kept records may well lead us to details they recorded that no-one else did.