Your Quick Tips

Checklist Cover
Adding to the quick tip about going through folders to see what you have and don’t have (http://www.ancestry.com/s23560/t7810/rd.ashx), in addition to a card catalog, how about keeping a list of sorts on the front of the folder and marking down each document you are enclosing. No need to shuffle papers each and every time you need to look for something to see if you have it or not.
 
Diane
Levittown NY

Find Elusive Ancestors Through Neighbors
My tip involves a little heretofore overlooked (at least by me) gem in connection with census searches.
 
When you are looking for someone and you know the approximate area (town, city, community) and someone who lived very near them, do a search on that other person. Click on the “(year) United States Federal Census Record.” Look down at the info provided before you click on the census image itself. You will see either “Neighbors: View Results” or “Family and Neighbors: View Results.”
I knew one of my grandmother’s first cousins lived less than 1/4 mile down the road from her but could not find them in the census records. By clicking on “Neighbors: View Results,” there he and his wife were – with their last name definitely misspelled!
 
As the phrase I coined says: “The rainbow is where you find it, not necessarily at the end of the rainbow.” I found him, but not where I expected to.

Pat Almquist

Christmas in July Tip
Several years ago, I sent to each cousin a family group sheet with my Christmas cards, asking them to complete the information that I did not have, especially on their children. I believe I received all of them back.

Maria

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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2 thoughts on “Your Quick Tips

  1. I loved both the tip about using neighbors in the census search and sending family group sheets with Christmas cards.

    I will try the neighbor idea tonight, since I was just at that point where I couldn’t find a family no matter what I did in the 1920 census.

    I think I will make Christmas in August and send family sheets now with a promise of sending a family tree at Christmas if they fill them out. I also think that I’ll enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope, since in the electronic age, nobody seems to be able to find a stamp. ON the other hand, nobody seems willing simply to email me with information. We’ll see.

  2. I’ve tried everything I can think of to come up with the “Neighbors: View Results” aspect that Almquist spoke of. None of my searches showed this on any screen. Is there a trick to this?

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