Genealogy research

[Susan1]

There are some places on Ancestry that let you post a correction and give a reason. I usually correct the spelling if the census has it one way and the transcription has it another. That way the correct spelling will come up in the search engine as well and people will find it. Sometimes the census person must have just written the name without worrying about the correct spelling. Not much you can do about an original document with spelling variations!

Just replying to use my Sadie picture I mentioned. On her throne (pink and blue area rug, sleeping bag folded over in thirds, giant striped beach towel, pink plaid material I bought, pastel plaid baby blanket). Christmas late 1990s. Her ornaments (dogs) are all hanging on the bottom branches. This comment is genealogy related because she was my puppy daughter.

 

[smurfy]

There are some places on Ancestry that let you post a correction and give a reason. I usually correct the spelling if the census has it one way and the transcription has it another. That way the correct spelling will come up in the search engine as well and people will find it. Sometimes the census person must have just written the name without worrying about the correct spelling. Not much you can do about an original document with spelling variations!

What we see as the US Census is not the original. Spelling was not what we know of now. People wrote what they heard. With different ethnicities/accents - one may have heard it differently. The census taker took the information down and then transcribed to what we see - so it is second hand - possible transcription errors on top of misunderstanding in initial notes. Then when what we see was transcribed again- typed to be searched - another chance for errors. One must look at the information critically.
I do like how ancestry lets you put in information to help others.

 

[dewey]

What we see as the US Census is not the original. Spelling was not what we know of now. People wrote what they heard. With different ethnicities/accents - one may have heard it differently. The census taker took the information down and then transcribed to what we see - so it is second hand - possible transcription errors on top of misunderstanding in initial notes. Then when what we see was transcribed again- typed to be searched - another chance for errors. One must look at the information critically.
I do like how ancestry lets you put in information to help others.

Case in point: my GGM's name was "Irma", but she appears in the 1900 census as "Anna". Her grandmother, the head of household, was English. So picture the census taker standing on the stoop of a Baltimore row house with the usual street din behind him and hearing a woman with an English accent saying something like "Ahma".

 

[Susan1]

Question for ancestry address directory users - what do the initials mean after the person's name? "h" I get - head of household. There are lots of those. I don't have all of the years at my disposal right now, but Michael Bauer's 1873 entry says h.s.w.c. S=something, Wife, Children? That would make sense. Josephine and the four kids. She died in December of that year. The next one that was attached to the email is 1876 and has wks. His occupation is teamster. Does that mean he worked and lived at the address listed? Later years I have say bds, which I know means he is a boarder at the address. Looking on the same page, I saw a person with b.k.c.

Since I don't have ancestry here, I didn't know if they have a key to the letters. I tried looking it up generally and found one blog page that doesn't really address what I'm asking.

I didn't mean to work on this yesterday, but I checked my email at 6:30 p.m. and didn't get off the computer till 8:30. Then I was replying to an email at 11:11 p.m. last night, after sitting and thinking about something while trying to watch t.v.!

And just for giggles..............my cousin's dad's mother's maiden name was Ivy Myrtle Sidenstricker. Imagine what a census taker would write for that one!

 

[smurfy]

Every directory is different. Usually at the beginning of the directory, or beginning of the section you are in or at the end there is a list of all the abbreviations used.

 

[Susan1]

Every directory is different. Usually at the beginning of the directory, or beginning of the section you are in or at the end there is a list of all the abbreviations used.

Thanks. I'll have to go back to the library to see what Cincinnatti is.

 

[Susan1]

Thanks. I'll have to go back to the library to see what Cincinnatti is.

Too many T's in Cincinnati? Oops. I've only typed it about 9, 372 times in the past couple weeks! Why didn't I get any red lines when I typed it here?

Anyway, h.s.w.c. - the initials have nothing to do with the household, just location. it's house south west corner. The address was Woodward and Broadway. I guess they didn't need house numbers back then?

Some things are occupations - b.k. is bookkeeper.

Met a lady on Find A Grave who is doing Brune research. I think we found where my great-grandmother and great-grandfather would have intersected in 1881!!! There are way too many Louis, Fred and Henry Brunes who married an Elizabeth back then. Major headache.

 

[Jubak]

When you talk spelling errors on the census, I have Canadian ancestors who came down into Chittenden, VT in the 1800s. St. Esprit was changed to Sanspree then of all things "McGee" which seems to have stuck even though there is no Irish or Scottish in this part of the family. Also messed up was Maille, which turned into "Mayo". I actually have some good tracing back into Montreal through the Drouin site, but after they hit the US, all hell breaks loose. The census also has them as being not able to read or write, but since they spoke French, who could tell? They couldn't read or write English, but nothing as to whether they could French, although since most of the French-Canadians came down as farm laborers, probably no education. I've found it interesting that many of my ancestors go back to the founding of the US, including the Mayflower, but my Canadian side can be traced to 3 women who were "Filles du Roi" from France. I still want to know if Justin Trudeau & the Canadians will let me emigrate back! Hate the US political climate!

 

[Susan1]

Just found out from our library that you can now access Heritage Quest from home for free. And I have all my genealogy info right here to add to. It looks a lot like Ancestry. I don't know if it has everything they do (which is some more things than Family Search). I just logged into the library website, and it's under databases, then genealogy. I spent 2 hours this morning looking up addresses in the directories. Ancestry is supposed to have new church information that I will have to check out - if it's on Heritage Quest or at Ancestry at the library. I emailed three Catholic churches in Springfield, Ohio years ago looking for my dad's grandparents. I even found when they got married. I need to know about them before that. The church they went to after they moved to Dayton is long gone. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in". ha ha (Notice last post here was June of last year?)

 

[Susan1]

I have a very difficult math word problem that even the genealogy charts don't know how to handle. And I'm getting dizzy.

Rudolph and Daniel are brothers.
How are
Peyton - 2x great grandson of Daniel
and
Peyton - 3x great granddaughter of Rudolph
related.
(Geez Louise, huh? Twilight Zone material. Even goofier, boy Peyton is the grandson of Lynn. Girl Peyton lives in Lynn Center, IL)

I know there are probably 15 "removeds" in there. But they would both share the same drop of DNA.

ETA - Never mind, I think! I listed all the people down the line next to each other in Excel. ha ha Rudolph and Daniel's children are cousins, their children are second cousins, etc.
"Removed" is just a generation difference, so the Peytons are fourth cousins once removed. ???

 

[cygnus]

I have a very difficult math word problem that even the genealogy charts don't know how to handle. And I'm getting dizzy.

Rudolph and Daniel are brothers.
How are
Peyton - 2x great grandson of Daniel
and
Peyton - 3x great granddaughter of Rudolph
related.
(Geez Louise, huh? Twilight Zone material. Even goofier, boy Peyton is the grandson of Lynn. Girl Peyton lives in Lynn Center, IL)

I know there are probably 15 "removeds" in there. But they would both share the same drop of DNA.

ETA - Never mind, I think! I listed all the people down the line next to each other in Excel. ha ha Rudolph and Daniel's children are cousins, their children are second cousins, etc.
"Removed" is just a generation difference, so the Peytons are fourth cousins once removed. ???

Yes.

 

[Susan1]

Yes.

Yay!!!!! I was trying to do the "removeds" vertically first. And I even knew it was second, third cousins in the same generation. The light bulb ? didn't go off till I saw them typed next to each other in Excel.

 

[smurfy]

They are 3rd Cousins once removed.

2nd Great Grandchiildren - are 3C to each other.
so the child of one of the 2GG children (3rd gr granchild) is a 3 Cousin once removed.

 

[cygnus]

It's all in the terminology. Grandchildren are 1st cousins to each other- great grandchildren are second cousins. I assumed 2x that meant two more generations (ie fourth cousins), but maybe it meant one has only 2 greats and the other has 3? In which case you are correct.

 

[Susan1]

It's all in the terminology. Grandchildren are 1st cousins to each other- great grandchildren are second cousins. I assumed 2x that meant two more generations (ie fourth cousins), but maybe it meant one has only 2 greats and the other has 3? In which case you are correct.

It's easier with the names. Here's how I had it in columns in Excel. I can't do tabs in here so it's going to be all crooked. (ETA. after I posted, it didn't put in my bunch of spaces either so now it will just be squished together) ETA2 - I put the / in to make it more readable?) (I put the son and daughter words in for you guys) -

Rudolph / Daniel / brothers

son Warren / daughter Hilda / 1st cousins

son Bruce / daughter Lynn / 2nd cousins (same as I would be, Bruce was 10 years older than me)

son Andrew / daughter Catherine / 3rd cousins

daughter Taylor / son Peyton / 4th cousins

daughter Peyton (of Taylor) She is one generation "removed".

Conclusion: "the Peytons" are 4th cousins once removed.

The whole Rudolph side (and there are a bunch more) is in and around Moline, IL. I never heard my mom mention any of them or Moline. Daniel was her father. He was one of the 11 brothers and sisters I traced. I wasn't going to figure out relationships for everybody with the removeds and stuff. I just thought it was so amazing to see the daughter Peyton in Bruce's obit, when my cousin Lynn has a son Peyton. AND Taylor and daughter Peyton live in Lynn Center, IL. AND Lynn's brother has a daughter named Taylor. Freaky.

 

[cygnus]

Ok, so we were right the first time. 4th cousins once removed. Isn't genealogy fun? My Dad's side is Slovak, and the records aren't easy to deal with (I use the microfilmed ones in Salt Lake City).My mother's Finnish side is easier, as the records are in a searchable online database, and I have cousins over there who are also interested in genealogy. It's been great meeting the branches of the family who lost touch for 50 years in one case and 60 in the other.

 

[Susan1]

Ok, so we were right the first time. 4th cousins once removed. Isn't genealogy fun? My Dad's side is Slovak, and the records aren't easy to deal with (I use the microfilmed ones in Salt Lake City).My mother's Finnish side is easier, as the records are in a searchable online database, and I have cousins over there who are also interested in genealogy. It's been great meeting the branches of the family who lost touch for 50 years in one case and 60 in the other.

I've been working on this stuff since 2012 by myself. No relatives are interested, and I don't have any brothers, sisters or children, so no one to leave all this work to. There were some completed genealogies out there that go back to the 1600 and 1700's for a couple branches, but they had the most recent information for my relative wrong, so who knows. Others I can't get past when they came to this country because the names are so common. The Cincinnati Historical Society has been a fantastic help for one branch. I even made a discovery that they confirmed. The house my mother and grandmother were both born in changed street names some time in between them, but it was the same house! And it's still there. The ancestral homestead! I got a picture off of a real estate website. I've written to the old German Catholic churches in Cincinnati for old records, but I have never gotten a response. A church in Alabama sent me copies of every old literally written record with the one surname from the 1800s. (A whole bunch of them moved from northern Ohio to Alabama to work on the railroad. 3 of the 11 were born there. And somehow my grandpa ended up in Cincinnati from WWI and met my grandma and they moved to Miamisburg or I wouldn't be here. I can't help it. I love this stuff.) The Alabama church forms were in Latin. I had to figure out the translations.

Back when I was in 8th grade, I had to do a family tree and my mom copied a bunch of family tree sheets from somewhere - not the internet. She just wrote names, which she would have had to have gotten from her mother. On Daniel's parents' sheet, she only wrote 8 of the 11 names. And Rudolph is not one of them. Or Veronica or Philomena (really! after the Saint - good Catholic family). I wish I would have been able to do this in the 90's while people were still alive to ask. 1940 is the last census on genealogy sites. The 1950 census comes out in 2022. The only way to find current distant relatives is through obituaries that match other obituaries. Ghoulish, but it works. I have put messages on some people's FB pages, but they probably think I am spam. "I am your relative...". And they probably don't care about their family genealogy. No responses.

I hit a brick wall until something pops up out of nowhere and off I go to the past again.

 

[Susan1]

They are 3rd Cousins once removed.

2nd Great Grandchiildren - are 3C to each other.
so the child of one of the 2GG children (3rd gr granchild) is a 3 Cousin once removed.

That's what messed me up at first, going great and great down one side. It made sense when I put the same generations of cousins next to each other.

 

[KatieC]

As someone vaguely interested in family history, and who also worked on many Census, I can defend wonky dates of birth and spellings. In the 80's and 90's, and early 2000's, if you didn't mail back your Census questionnaire, you had somebody knock at your door to ask you in person. If Dad answered the door, trust me, he wasn't all that reliable at giving little Tommy's date of birth. (Sexist, I know). He wasn't always sure of his wife's date of birth. And if the family had moved away and we couldn't find them, we frequently took the info from neighbours. Little Suzy next door went to little Bobby's birthday party last week and he turned 6. And, if we could get all the info from the neighbours except the proper name, then data was deemed good, but the name will never match. Lots of Daffy Ducks counted on a census. In Canada data isn't released for about a 100 years so respondents should be dead before their info gets out.

 

[Susan1]

As someone vaguely interested in family history, and who also worked on many Census, I can defend wonky dates of birth and spellings. In the 80's and 90's, and early 2000's, if you didn't mail back your Census questionnaire, you had somebody knock at your door to ask you in person. If Dad answered the door, trust me, he wasn't all that reliable at giving little Tommy's date of birth. (Sexist, I know). He wasn't always sure of his wife's date of birth. And if the family had moved away and we couldn't find them, we frequently took the info from neighbours. Little Suzy next door went to little Bobby's birthday party last week and he turned 6. And, if we could get all the info from the neighbours except the proper name, then data was deemed good, but the name will never match. Lots of Daffy Ducks counted on a census. In Canada data isn't released for about a 100 years so respondents should be dead before their info gets out.

It's an adventure. According to the order of the 11 kids on the censuses, my grandfather was born in November 1893, then later his draft registrations says 1894 and his death certificate and tombstone say 1895. It has to be 1893 because his next brother was born in 1895. And all of that one's birth year information going forward is consistently 1895. My aunt won't believe me.

Some of the problem is the transcribers though. (@KatieC - I didn't mean you; this just popped into my head.) I don't even remember where I saw it, but I copied a note for my mom's aunt's son (don't get me started with Excel again! I know, it's one of the easy ones, he was my mom's cousin; I just think having to say all the relationships is fun), Matthew Wendling, that was typed Matt Uwendling. Geez Louise. But I found him anyway.

The 1950 census will be released in 2022. The 1940 census didn't come out till after I started this in 2012.

 

[Deleted member 221]

I've been using lockdown time to do some genealogy research. I last put serious effort into this back in 2015. Since then, a lot of the older Italian records have been digitized - though not indexed, and I've been able to go back a lot farther than previously. Geographical boundaries being redrawn in the 1800s is hampering some of my search - meaning I have to look in 10 places instead of one for some records.

Many of the Irish records are online, but my ancestors have such common names that it's almost impossible to know who's who. E.g., Mary and John Feeney. Even when I have the parents' names, the town, and the year of birth, there are multiple options - three Marys born to parents named Anne and John within a couple of months of each other in the same small town.

 

[Susan1]

Many of the Irish records are online, but my ancestors have such common names that it's almost impossible to know who's who. E.g., Mary and John Feeney. Even when I have the parents' names, the town, and the year of birth, there are multiple options - three Marys born to parents named Anne and John within a couple of months of each other in the same small town.

No kidding. Try finding the right Thomas Murphy born somewhere in Ireland in 1860. I know his exact birthday, where and when he got married, and died. I've been to his grave. I just can't go back to "the old country".

And every Brune and Bauer that came to Cincinnati in the late 1800s is or has a son named Louis, Henry, John, Joseph, Fred or William. Pages of 'em!

This is funny - "Joseph married Bernardine Hopping June 2, 1867 at St Anthony Catholic Church, Budd Street, Cincinnati.
After her death in 1881 he remarried with Bernardina (Dina) Tepe in 1881 at St Bonaventure Church, Cincinnati."

 

[A.H.Black]

I've been working on this stuff since 2012 by myself. No relatives are interested, and I don't have any brothers, sisters or children, so no one to leave all this work to.

I hope your work is available online somewhere. One of these days one of those 8th cousins, 17 times removed is going to be very grateful to you. Herculean task - great work.

My problem is too much of a good thing. Tons of work done but other relative and myriads of duplicates. I spend a lot of time trying to correct errors and merge listings. Even my own sister was listed twice. When I merged the listings today, the page asked how I knew it was right. I put "she's my sister. There is only one of her".

 

[Susan1]

I hope your work is available online somewhere. One of these days one of those 8th cousins, 17 times removed is going to be very grateful to you. Herculean task - great work.

My problem is too much of a good thing. Tons of work done but other relative and myriads of duplicates. I spend a lot of time trying to correct errors and merge listings. Even my own sister was listed twice. When I merged the listings today, the page asked how I knew it was right. I put "she's my sister. There is only one of her".

Yeah, I have "working" pages where I just copy everything I find. And then match things up. When I am sure the dates and relationships are right, I put it on a "finished" (for now) page.

You can't trust what people put out there though. Not that anybody will be researching it in the future, but my dad's county of residence on his death record is wrong. Just the index of it on Family Search. The address and city are right. The county is 2-3 counties away from here. There is only one Miamisburg in the whole world. And it is not in Champaign county. Even if someone picked the wrong thing on a county pull down menu, Champaign and Montgomery are not even close. It's not like they had to read it from someone's handwriting. Impossible to make that mistake. So I think that could happen to something I am researching in some other state. Not pick the person because the county doesn't match up with the other information I have. I have written to Family Search 2-3 times over the years. Still wrong.

People attach people to their online thing without thinking, and that messes up the line for everybody else who is looking. I'm like, no that is not my third cousin once removed or whatever's daughter because I have the correct family tree right here. I did let whoever was putting information in Find A Grave know they had the wrong father attached. And he made a note of it "per great granddaughter" on the page. That's me! But how many people will follow the family of John instead of Michael just because they had the same wife's name in another record somewhere?

It's all mind boggling!

 

[A.H.Black]

You can't trust what people put out there though. Not that anybody will be researching it in the future, but my dad's county of residence on his death record is wrong. Just the index of it on Family Search. The address and city are right. The county is 2-3 counties away from here. There is only one Miamisburg in the whole world. And it is not in Champaign county. Even if someone picked the wrong thing on a county pull down menu, Champaign and Montgomery are not even close. It's not like they had to read it from someone's handwriting. Impossible to make that mistake. So I think that could happen to something I am researching in some other state. Not pick the person because the county doesn't match up with the other information I have. I have written to Family Search 2-3 times over the years. Still wrong.

Can you fix that on your own? There is an edit link on Family Search and you can put in the reason why what you changed is correct.

I agree with you - it is mind boggling.

 

[Susan1]

Can you fix that on your own? There is an edit link on Family Search and you can put in the reason why what you changed is correct.

I agree with you - it is mind boggling.

That is one thing that is not editable! It's not really a searchable item. Somebody screwed up. I got an email back from Family Search to send them his Person ID number and what record it is!! I will do that tomorrow. Yeehaw. Not that anybody else would ever notice. I'm the end of my line. If my cousin's son ever got interested in this stuff, he would be researching his parents - married and maiden names, not this side. My dad only had one sister, so different married name. I have this side done as far as I can.

 

[A.H.Black]

That is one thing that is not editable! It's not really a searchable item. Somebody screwed up. I got an email back from Family Search to send them his Person ID number and what record it is!! I will do that tomorrow. Yeehaw. Not that anybody else would ever notice. I'm the end of my line. If my cousin's son ever got interested in this stuff, he would be researching his parents - married and maiden names, not this side. My dad only had one sister, so different married name. I have this side done as far as I can.

I'm also told you can call them. Best of luck.

 

[Susan1]

I'm also told you can call them. Best of luck.

It's easier to do it in writing (typing).

 

[Susan1]

Response -
"Thanks for your reply and information, including the URL link to the Ohio Death Index for your father. We verified the county error on the indexed death record for your father. The error is further confirmed by the zip code given on the record (45342-2762), which corresponds to the Miamisburg, Montgomery County, OH location.

(Duh. I guess I should have told them that I am sitting in that address right now so they wouldn't have had to go to so much trouble to verify it? I've lived here twice now.

The record indexing process is primarily done by volunteers, but is checked by an experienced reviewer, to help reduce the number of errors. But given the literally billions of indexed records on FamilySearch, errors do occur. So, we appreciate it when patrons report the errors. When errors are reported, we are instructed to provide the following dialogue:

We appreciate you taking the time to let us know of the errors you found in our historical records collections. We value patron support and feedback to help discover the errors that have occurred during our publishing process. We are working on ways to minimize future errors to provide the most accurate historical information possible. We have documented the errors and reported them to our records team. We currently have a backlog of corrections regarding our historical records. As a result, it could take longer than a year to correct the errors. Since this has been reported, we will close your case. We hope for your continued success as you search and find your ancestors.

Note that due to a large backlog of cases, it may be some time before our records team will be able to address the county error that you have reported."

 

[Susan1]

Holy C.....hristmas - I was looking for something on the library's newspaper site the other day and found out that Ancestry has been free from home this whole month. They have almost exactly the same stuff Family Search and the directories do, it's just organized different (not better). So I accidentally ran across my dad's uncle's grandsomething's - it says private so I don't know if it is a male or a female - family tree. They have their grandfather right, but not the right parents for him. I do have them. I know where they are. I have been to their graves. And they attached the wrong "leaves" for other people. The right daughters but that they both died in Dayton, Maine in the wrong years. No!!!! It's Dayton, Ohio. Match things up people. I can't tell them they are wrong because I don't belong to Ancestry. And I don't have any idea what their name is. I hate this stuff.