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How to Make Genealogy Sense of Online Census Records – 1850-1940
Do you find yourself returning to census records you have already researched just to get that piece of information you missed the first time? Are you really getting all the possible information about your ancestors in your online census research? I haven’t. I’ll even tell you I have had to return to a census record multiple times to get detailed information about my ancestor I missed the first time! So, let’s not keep doing that! Let’s focus our research and really learn how to research of online census records in detail the first time. Research Online Census Records Smarter! The taking of the US federal census every ten years is…
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Back to Genealogy Basics – The 1800’s Census, Part 2
Genealogists often divide the 1800 census records into 1850 and beyond and pre-1850 census records. Beginning with the 1850 census record, all members of the household were named. Census records from 1790-1850 only named the head of the household. Other family members were simply noted with a mark in an age category. So, what’s a genealogist to do? How do you find your ancestor hidden among the tic marks. Let’s take a look first at the head of households. Peruse an pre-1850 census list and you will find most of the names listed are men. You will, though, come across the names of women. This indicates the female is a…
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Back to Genealogy Basics!
March is our month to focus on Back to Genealogy Basics! Recently I have been getting more questions about how to get started in genealogy. Questions about where to start. Questions about the meaning/interpretation of records. Questions on locating available records. This month seems like the perfect time to delve into these questions. This isn’t just for beginners! In my early years of genealogy, I moved quickly through the records, adding names to my family tree generation by generation. But as we all know, you hit a brick wall eventually. Overlooked clues in the beginning of a search can be the key to avoiding some of these brick walls.…
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Finding Children Between the Census Years
Your family tree is full of couples with their children listed underneath. They make up a nice complete family group. Right? Are you SURE you have found the whole family group? Let’s clarify that family group a bit more. Your ancestor’s family group is made up of the husband and wife and their known children. [Note: For this post, I am assuming the usual course of events related to marriage and the birth of children.] Unfortunately the infant and child mortality was high in the years of our ancestors. Visit any older cemetery and you find many infants and children did not survive past childhood. Children themselves in the 1800’s and…