The first thing we encountered was the importance of calling an archive (courthouse, library, etc.) to verify open hours even when the hours are posted on its website because it happened that our first day we arrived, the Archive was closed for a state holiday. Mississippi officially recognizes the last day of April as Confederate Memorial Day with all state offices closed. Such irony that we came on that date when we are researching our African American Ancestors.
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| AAGHSC Mississippi Study Group |
The second point in making a research trip is to have a plan -- which I did. I had a list of Ancestors that were family members and possible family members that I had cross-referenced from my family tree and the Mississippi Death Index. The record collection covers deaths in Mississippi from 1912 -- 1943. Using both Ancestry-dot-com and FamilySearch, I applied the less is more approach to searching, I only put in a surname and county. This way names were generated that I didn't have on my tree (possible family). In the list I prepared, I also included names from the Index of those in neighboring counties.
