House Photos
Some County Auditors have pictures of homes posted. The “real” purpose of the information is tax evaluation but the pictures are invaluable. Just type in the search engine something like Franklin Co. Ohio Auditor and look to see if they have a choice such as Property Search listed. You do get the most current picture of the house so you may even have a then and now view if you are fortunate enough to have an old picture. Also, if the house has been torn down, you now know what replaced it.
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Helen E. Read
Parental Place Holders
This tip was prompted by the “Missing Maiden Names” Tip. I have several files where the earliest persons I know of are brothers. I do not know their father’s given name, nor the mother’s given or maiden name. In order to prepare a Descendants Report or a Relative Chart, in Reunion, I will assign given names such as “John’s father” or “John’s mother,” and use a question mark for the mother’s maiden name.
Charts using this method show clearly the relationship between the descendants of the brothers.
Samuel Kraus
Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Try Middle Names or Other Family Members
I just wanted to add another suggestion in trying to find a relative’s name in the U.S. census records. I had a hard time finding my Mom, her brother, and her parents in the 1930 U.S. census. I knew exactly where they lived, when they were born and where, but I had no luck, until I remembered that Nana’s mom, Anna S. Wennblad, and Nana’s brother, Chester Wennblad, were also living with them. I then typed in my great-grandmother’s name and there they were under a variation of Grampa’s middle name.
His full name was Charles Ewart THOMAS, but everyone called him Ewart and the enumerator must have only heard the Ewart part and didn’t know how to spell it, so he wrote it as it sort of sounded “EWETT.” But to top it all off, the name was indexed as LAVETT because the enumerator’s writing wasn’t that easy to read. So, if you can’t find them under their real last name, try their middle name as their last name and of course any of the variations that you can think of.
Also, if you’re lucky enough to know who was living in the same household, try their names too. I’ve also found people by simply putting in their first name and any vital information that I knew.
Good luck in your searches.
Marie Simoneau
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Marie’s tips are invaluable for census searching! Two days ago I discovered through a very thorough tombstone that the woman in Tompkins County, NY for whom I’d been searching had been married to a “Van Riper.”
Unfortunately, she died in 1891. I wanted more information on whether they had children, and whether they were hers, or his by a second wife (in case there was any error in the kids’ ages).
I found him in 1880 (pre marriage) and also in 1930. While I knew they were still in the Newfield area during the other years, no amount of searching brought up the fellow’s record for the 1900 and 1910 censuses.
Finally, I tried only his first name for each specific census year with the town, county, and states selected. Bingo! His information had been transcribed as “vanriper” with no space. And the 1900 record had exactly the information I needed.
Please make it possible to print articles on the Ancestry site news…not all are reprintable. would like very much to be able to refer to them in classroom use but it takes forever to write by hand all those notes that are pertinent. Thank you
Patsy [Comment # 2 ]
If you go to the online version of the newsletter, after clicking on the “more” links, there are links to print the articles.
I spent years searching for my mother’s New York City family. I’d found birth certificates for all the children, death certificates for two. But I could never find them in the 1900 Census. William Armstrong is a common name, and evidently Cora (Grandma) was as well. I had their marriage application and certificate. I was stumped, until one year I searched Ancestry using Mother’s name, Ethel. There were 2 Ethel’s in New York State, and obviously the one where I knew they lived was my mother. Why hadn’t I found them? The enumerator (or someone) had written over both William and Cora! The names were completely unreadable, but there were Mother, her sister and two brothers, found at last.