Reading names on a census record can be challenging, but what is even more frustrating is when you know the family should appear and you cannot find them. If you know the street address for the family at the time of a census taking, check the enumeration district (ED) descriptions to find out what streets are included; even better is if you have a house number.
I recently helped someone find their family in the 1930 census (complete mess of surname on the census) by using information from a will listing the address of the family. We were able to determine three EDs where the street was listed and by scrolling through each page looking for the street name and house number, we were able to find the family. Using a current map and attempting to follow the census taker’s footsteps we were also able to determine when we were scrolling too far in any direction from where the house was located.
We were pleased when we found the family and then were able to go back to the online indexes and provide them the correct spelling of the surname for future researchers.
Voting has been around since Ancient Greece with the show of hands. Now there are voter lists and using these lists can help bridge the gap between census and help with those more recent years where census records have not been released.
Some voter registration lists have been digitized and indexed which makes it easier to search versus having to search by voting precincts. The content in voter registration lists varies from year to year and location by location. Some lists contain age, address, occupation, political affiliation, date and place of naturalization.
To find out if a voter registration list is available for a geographical area, check in the 2 Volume set of Census Substitutes & State Census Records by William Dollarhide.
A census record is a snapshot of information captured by an individual (census taker) who may not even have spoken to the individual being recorded. Wow, there are a lot of things going against even finding the correct information on an individual.
Finding an individual in a census record works better if you know what was captured in the census record. For example, are only head of households listed, if so, then looking for the name of a child would not work.
Reading a census record can also be challenging if the titles of the columns are not listed on each page. Take the time to learn what each column means. You may actually find a clue to a brickwall.
To obtain copies of blank census form for U.S., Canada, and the U.K., go to Rootsweb.com and read more about blank forms in The Official Guide to Rootsweb.com by Myra Vanderpool Gormley and Tana Pedersen Lord.
When I began researching in U.S. federal census records, I was confused about the naturalization column. I knew AL was Alien and NA was Naturalized, but what was PA and what documents could I follow on the naturalization process to find out more about a family?
John J. Newman has written the American Naturalization Processes and Procedures 1790 – 1985, which clearly explains the various factors of naturalization. Changes in naturalization laws over time has made it important to investigate what the requirement was at the time in question. John also discusses naturalization based on military service and land purchase.
The simple timelines and examples of the forms used over the years make for an excellent reference guide to both beginners and seasoned genealogists. One less thing to memorize.
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