Search With and Without the Space
I had been looking for a McKee in the census and I found him when I entered Mc Kee (as in Mc[SPACE]Kee). I had tried many variations of the name, McGee, McKay, but it wasn’t until I added the space that I found them.
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Patricia Boen
WorldCat Helps with Missing Source Information…
In addition to Irma Holtkamp’s good suggestions for using WorldCat, I have used it to get the publication information that I failed to write down when I was researching.
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Cherie Brumfield
…And Interlibrary Loan
That was a nice article about this wonderful library look-up option. However, no mention was made of the possibility of interlibrary loan within and among various states. This will have the needed book sent to your close library. It is much cheaper than driving to the library that has the book you want. Some books have more than one owner so most likely the closest library may be the cheapest. Your individual local library can give you the specific details you need.
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Thanks,
Jane Vaughan
Tampa, Florida
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In the 27 August 2007 edition, Patricia Boen explained that in searching for “McKee”, she had entered a space between “Mc” and “Kee” and found the missing ancestor. I have had similar experiences with my searches for my “McClendon” ancestors. I have also occassionaly found a person by entering only “Mc” for the surname. Not only does this pull up any person in the index with a space after the “Mc” but it also pulls up entries such as just “Mc” or “Mc?.” Also, by mistake I entered “McClendon” as the first name rather than the surname and I found two entries. In one case the indexer had switched the first name and the surname by accident. In the other, it appeared that the census taker had switched the two names accidently. After checking the entries, I concluded that they were errors and reported the corrections to Ancestry.com.
In the 27 August 2007 edition, Patricia Boen explained that in searching for “McKee”, she had entered a space between “Mc” and “Kee” and found the missing ancestor. I have found doing the opposite to be helpful. In searching for Van Ord ancestors I’m much more apt to find them if I leave the space out and enter “VanOrd”.