I’m going out on a limb here and say that you are still having trouble finding your ancestors on Ancestry.com. I know, you’ve searched and searched, and finally come to the conclusion that they must have been out of town when the census taker came to call. So I’m going to state for you ‘Carol’s Foolproof Method for Finding Your Ancestors.’
- Always start with Ancestry.com.
- Always search every census starting with 1940 and going backward.
- Always do a complete census study for each separate family you are researching.
- Always record (write down on a family group sheet) all the brothers and sisters, their birth years and where they were born.
- Do Not be deterred by spelling differences. If you are certain of their location, try searching by first name and birthdate and location.
- Now that you know the county and state where they lived (based on the census), you can look the family up in www.findagrave.com to see who is buried in that county with your family name.
- Look to the right-hand column on the page for suggestions of other records. Look for other censuses and city directories.
This work should take you a good month or more. Don’t skip back and forth between censuses or families. Start with 1940, then 1930, then 1920, then 1910, and so on.
Now you can bracket the birth and death dates for each person and their location at various times in their lives. You can estimate when they first married at around age 21. You can look for cemetery burials on www.findagrave. You can look for the marriages of their children. By using census records as the backbone of your search, you will be able to flesh out the rest of their story.
~ Carol Cooke Darrow, CG, teaches free beginning genealogy classes at the Central Denver Public Library on the second Saturday of the month from 10 am – noon with free practice available from noon – 2 pm.