Your Quick Tips

Monumental Clue
After reading so many of your Quick Tips, I have decided to submit one that I had used so many years ago in researching my Cruzen families in Greene County, Ohio.

I was at a loss to locate the whereabouts of the siblings of my great-grandfather. While I was visiting the county seat of Xenia, I picked up the local telephone book and scanned the ads for the monument companies in that area. One particular company stated that they had been in business since 1867 and so I paid them a visit. It was here that I found a tombstone ordered for a brother and delivered to Lima, Ohio. Additional information was gleaned from this knowledge and I continue to use this idea.
Shirley A. Cruzen Stevens,
Dexter, Michigan

Census Tip
I was interested in Quick Tips with reference to the census. I have been searching for my great-grandfather’s family in the 1901 census using all the usual methods but with no success. As they lived in Bournemouth, Hampshire (a large town even in those days) I felt sure they could not have been missed out. I had ‘lost’ a great-grandfather, a great-grandmother, and seven children.
 
Using the search at Ancestry.com, I typed in the first name of my grandma, Rosanna, and her date of birth, county, etc. but omitted her surname. None of the resulting entries remotely matched ‘my’ Rosanna, so I decided to try ‘Thursa,’ the unusual name of my great-aunt using the same criteria. Eureka!
 
One entry matched exactly–apart from the surname. I wanted TUFFIN; this was GRIFFIN. After nearly two years I have found the whole family. (Rosanna was actually listed as Rose, which explains the difficulty in finding her!)

Others might like to try this method if they have ‘lost’ relatives with an unusual Christian name yet know all the other details about them.

Good luck everyone with your research,
Sue

AWJ Editor’s Note: You can submit correct names using the Ancestry.com “Comments and Corrections” feature. Just go to the search results and select the correct entry. On that page, in the right hand box titled “Page Tools,” click on “Comments and Corrections.” One of the options on the page allows for user provided corrections or additions for a record, such as:
 • Transcription Errors
 • Birth or Maiden Names
 • Nicknames
 • Name Variations
 • Incorrect Originals”
For more information on this tool, see the
article on Comments and Corrections.
 

Cemetery Lot Markers Have Another Use
I just read the Quick Tip suggestion regarding cemetery lot corner markers. One thing that should be noted is that in some cases the corner markers may not be used for the original purpose but rather as a grave marker. I know this sounds strange, but I know one family lot where a man bought four corner markers each with a different initial. The markers were played in the center of the grave in the center of the area where a normal grave marker would be placed. Each initial stood for the first name of the person buried there. The use of the markers was based on a family incident. Upon learning about these markers and finding them, I did show them to the current president of the cemetery board so that a notation could be made in their records.
Debbi Geer

If you have a suggestion you would like to share with other researchers, send it to: mailto:[email protected] . Thanks to all of this week’s contributors!

Quick Tips may be reprinted, with credit to the submitter, in other Ancestry publications, so if you do not want your tip included in a publication other than the “Ancestry Weekly Journal,” please state so clearly in your message.

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