Finding the Neighbors

I've been wondering why I had not been able to find the 1940 census record for my great-grandparents. Their names were Richard (Dirk) and Hattie Loots and they lived in Chicago in 1930 (I found the 1930 census) and in 1943 when my great-grandfather Dirk died. I could never find a 1940 census though, and it's meaningful to me because my grandma (Joan) was born in 1932 and it would have been the one census on which she appeared. I tried every spelling I could think of, but nada.

Finally, it occurred to me to look for their neighbors. In 1930 there were 2 families named Nalikowsky who lived on their street, so I decided to search for Nalikowsky on the 1940 census in Chicago, and sure enough - there they were. When I went the census image, I was thrilled to see that my great-grandparents still lived 2 houses over with my little 7-year-old grandma. :-) Thanks to the blurry image, the name 'Loots' ended up 'Leota' - NOT one of the alternate spellings I tried.

I suppose there are 2 tips here: the first is to look for known or suspected neighbors when you can't find an ancestor, and the second is to expand your universe of alternate spellings. I was limiting my self to 'sounds like' alternatives, not substituting letters that may look similar but not sound similar, like the cursive 's' and 'a' that confounded my search here.

 

Happy hunting.

Don't trust the census-taker... Or the transcriber... Or other people who touched the census

As amazing as it is to have access to all of the census records online and the great transcriptions and search tools out there, you can't always trust what you see. I was dealing with an entry this morning that was all kinds or wrong. Over the span of 115 years 3 different entities have messed up this record...

This image is from the 1900 census entry for my 2x great grandfather John Louis Schoonover. The first person to blow it was the enumerator. He correctly put down John as the head of the household and listed him as a widow. Then he put down his son Bert as "Pert" - really? Whose name is "Pert"? Even 100 years ago that was not a name. That's strike 1. Strike 2 is listing Bert's wife, Mary L (Turner) as "Wife" making it look like she was John's wife and Bert's mother. Then continuing on this flawed line of thinking, Bert and Mary's son Ansel is listed as "Son." Strike 3. Census enumerator out.

Second person messing up this record was whoever at the census department (probably mid-1900s?) who decided to write some kind of coding into the same space where John's name is written. I don't know what these numbers mean, but there's a lot of other blank space on this page to put it. Thanks to them, "John" is practically unintelligible. Sloppy sloppy.

And finally, Ancestry's transcription robots have read this written-over record as "Jason" Schoonover. Not helpful. Especially in these lazy days of genealogy where people blindly copy hints into their trees as gospel. I wonder how many Jason Schoonovers born in Virginia in 1827 are lurking about in Ancestry member trees thanks to the census clerk who scribbled on this important document.

So be careful! Check your facts. And don't trust anyone on the Internet... Or the census bureau.

The Entire US Census - Free on the Internet!

Did you know you can browse the entire US census for free on archive.org?

https://archive.org/details/us_census

You will find there a listing of every US census since the first one in 1790 (well, every surviving one anyway). They are scans from the Allen County Public Library's microfilm, organized by year, state, and microfilm roll. If you have a quality source citation or know the state and county, it's pretty easy to find the page you're looking for and then just save off a jpg of the page. Or if you really want you can grab a PDF of the whole thing. No subscription required.

This is also an easy way to browse the pages before and after the page where your ancestors appear to dig for more clues about their lives and the communities where they lived.

While you're on archive.org (one of my favorite websites) you should also check out their Genealogy collection. There are hundreds of great resources you can check out without having to leave home!