This post contain affiliate links.  Read my full disclosure policy here. Let’s jump outside of the genealogy box again and explore non-population schedules. You know the ones?  Those census schedukes taken beside the “regular census” in 1850-1880 collecting a variety of additional information. In the 1880 census, my GGG grandmother Panthea Overby Elliott is listed as “insane”. The Elliott family includes her husband Elias Elliott, 7 children, and a housekeeper. The youngest child was just 1 year old. Panthea…..insane?! Hmm….. could I learn more about her and what this “insane” designation meant for her? Yes. Yes, I can! For this part of my research, I needed to explore the Non-Population…

This post contain affiliate links.  Read my full disclosure policy here. Jesse Haley of Halifax County, VA seemed to disappear from the records for a while in the mid-1800’s. Hmm….did he leave the area? Or was he just hidden in the records? Haley seems like a straight forward name to research with it most common misspelling being “Hailey”. Still, I struggled to find Jesse in the records. Has this happened to you? You might be not be finding your ancestor in search results for a variety of reasons. Why You Might Be Missing Your Ancestors in  Your Searches A surname may be “misspelled”. The surname was fluid. Take my Howard…