Tracking research of the Cook family.
At the last family meeting, there were two reports presented, from Price & Associates and Other Organization, giving the family the result of their efforts.
In short, William Cook and Ann Morgan are not the parents of William Cook (father of Henry Freeman Cook), and Lucy Chapman’s parents have been verified, but her father, Amos is not related to Ambrose.
David is director of acquisitions for the Family History Department. He is an avid personal researcher in his own right, and knows a great deal about Genealogy, Family History, the research community in both Utah and the world.
He recommended a researcher to us after explaining how a professional would likely handle our situation.
The meeting with him was very instructive as he explained how professionals would likely approach a situation like this. Starting with the “known” information, they would, for example, use the next census after his birthday (in this case 10 years old) for the community in which we think he was born and exhaust all the 10 year old males to determine if one of them is our William Cook. If that excludes him from that community, then research the next best community, which would likely be those communities from which most of these residents emigrated.
Part of the “trick” is to know the local history, migration patterns, family and friends who also might have migrated, and so forth.