On inaccurate ages I've seen women's ages inflated in earlier census records of their marriage to perhaps cover for them having married very young. Then later in life they are shown perhaps closer to their true age.
Very true! A lot of times on a woman's age, I look at her in a census with her parents and siblings. If you have kids born every couple of years, you can get pretty close on the correct age.
I couldn’t find a great aunt in the 1950 census. She went by the nickname Dollie, as her birth name was very unusual. So searched by just Dollie and the census year. Then I found her and her daughter. They had been indexed under the neighbors last name, even though the census record had the correct name recorded. That was in Family Search.
Something I have seen twice in my own tree is where a census taker has reversed first and last names, entering what should be "Gale, Preble" as "Preble, Gale". A side effect of this is that every family member gets a surname of Preble instead of a surname of Gale. My tree is only about 2500 individuals, and it's happened *at least* twice there, so I think this is an important thing to keep in mind.
So then is best practice to Add an Update to the Census record and or correct name when adding hint to person while still citing the source with incorrect information?
@@DeniseMSimpson At least on Ancestry, citing the source shows both the original and the correction, so I always make the correction and cite the original source.
I’ve been searching for my great great grandfather in 2 census years: 1870 and 1880. He was born in the 1830’s in France but he was here by then (his oldest 3 children, 1 of whom was my great grandmother, were born in Iowa). He does have a definitely foreign sounding surname. On a State census (the only one I can find from 1885 in Kansas), the name is spelled incorrectly as Buckle (versus Buchel, the correct spelling).
Besides the tips in this video... You can do is do a wildcard search - if you don't know what that is, you can Google it. You can also look at the FAN club and find them in 1870 and 1880. Search for his children instead as mentioned. Or go page by page if you know where they lived at the time.
oh my gosh YES. I have nearly cried tears of frustration over some ancestors that should be so easy and just are troublemakers with this! so timely, thank you, Aimee!
Lots of great information, much of which I've already realized just from my own researching efforts, but much of my work right now is prior to 1850, when the tally system was used in the census, so my ancestors are lurking under the radar. I have 2 major brick walls that have been giving my family fits for over 50 years. The one I'm trying to chip away at should lead me back to Scotland via Ireland, but when you lack sufficient information, it makes searching difficult. For instance, my ancestor was born in Scotland about 1763, migrated to Londonderry with his family before 1773, when a sister was born there, left Londonderry, Ireland (supposedly) with 6 brothers around 1795 (the sister also came over at some point). My ancestor and his sister show up in Virginia both married (no idea if they married in America or Ireland). Their families travel together to Ohio and remained in the same area for some time. I don't know where they married, the names of their other siblings, what port they arrived at, the names of their parents, etc. I'm simply stuck in mountains of Virginia.
Just retired 53 yrs so looking for another hobby/ interest in Southern California. Been scanning tons of old 1900 pictures of my family. So I Searched a couple channels and enjoy yours. I think I’ll start from the beginning of your videos and binge watch. You’re a really good speaker - story teller and interesting and informative. Thought I’d go through your videos before spending money on sites. Thanks for the videos :)
I have a family I can't find in the 1910 census. They were in the same city for decades. I found them in the 1907 and 1911 city directories (no directories were published in between those). I can't find them in the 1910 census. I even went page by page, line by line looking for them in that city and the neighbor city across the river. The search continues.
We’re they in the 1912 directory? Maybe they moved just before the 1910 census. City directories are usually one year behind. Another trick is to find their neighbors in 1910 from previous census records. Or maybe they were missed. It did happen.
Aimee, I've run across the I think they were skipped, family missing from 1920 and 1940 census. I know where they lived in 1940, but no listing for them. They did move around a lot.
I just ran the data and 85% of my ancestors that are missing from the census records are missing from the 1840 and 1860 censuses. There has to be a reason for this.
Great 👍🏼 tips from Mike and questions Amy. Thanks 🙏🏼 Question: what is the best site for searching Portuguese records? I have a brick wall with great grand parents in Portugal. Critical date and name information is recorded differently on US immigration, naturalization and census records although their addresses and relationships match. Any tips to solve?
I have seen census from ~1830/40 in Ohio that are almost a white sheet of paper, yet there was an index that was suspiciously close to alphabetical order. What's up with that? Can certain images be re-imaged and re-indexed by Ancestry?
That’s a great question! Actually, sometimes if you do look at a Census image on a different website, you will see a difference and sometimes it’s a big difference. So find the image on FamilySearch or myheritage or one of the others.
Clarification at 10.04 the UK census enumerators were told to round down the ages of those aged OVER 15 years. A 14 year old should read 14, but a 19 year old could read as 15 after the rounding down to a number ending in 5 or 0.
I was unaware as well. According to FamilySearch “Age (for adults 15 and up, the age was rounded down to the lower multiple of 5)” www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Census
To clarify further: this was only in the 1841 UK census, and not all enumerators followed the instruction, and some did it sporadically. And for really old people the ages were supposed to be rounded down to the nearest ten years.
Handwriting of the enumerator can mess up index completely. A Weaver in my family was indexed as Meanes bc of poor penmanship. Only using the FAN method and knowing age and first names was I able to find them. By manually searching extra pages in the area I expected to find them.
@@AncestryAimee The name was written so poorly that if I didn’t know what it was I would have a hard time figuring it out. But my grandmother at age three was in the household with her grandparents where she was expected.
I have the physical copy of the marriage certificate for my great grandparents and know that they wed the year a census was taken but, I cannot locate them in the same county, surrounding counties, or across the river where some of my relatives relocated about 20 years later. I tried searching near other family members, to no avail. I was able to find them enumerated in the next census. The last name is common and I’ve tried using it, with first initials and vice versa, first name, last name initials. Been at it for 7 years now with no luck. Is it possible that they were skipped altogether?
Such a great question! Yes! I would look for them in a directory if that is a possibility and search by address. Or find them in the later census and then find those neighbors the year they are missing. But it is possible they were missed.
@@AncestryAimee They were married January 1910, in rural Georgia. I’ve tried to do as you suggest, with zero success. I’ll keep searching though. Thanks for your advice.
