52 Ancestors Challenge Week 17: "Document" - NYC Vital Records Free Online

Recently, on March 15, 2022, New York City's Municipal Archives finally made their vital records accessible online for free. For years and years and years I was either traipsing to Chambers Street in Manhattan or a Family History Center (FHC) in Plainview, Long Island to view these records. In either place you could view the image for free but very often I would order the certificate online rather than making the visit. It would cost about $20 online but if I knew I wanted a physical copy and I had a certificate number from one of the many databases that indexed the NYC Vital records, it was not worth the cost of a train ticket and/or parking and the price of gas to make the trek. In-person though, you could view the record for free or purchase it at a reduced cost. At the Archives I think it was $11 in-person and the FHC charged the cost of a photocopy, if their machine was working.

I can't even estimate how much money I have given to the New York City Municipal Archives over time, easily hundreds of dollars. So many of my ancestors were born, married, and/or died in the City of New York. Now to get these images online for free in the convenience of my living room. Woo-freakin'-hoo!

I am actively trying to download as many of them as I can now before, God forbid, the City decides that charging for access was making them revenue they need. Thus far I have converted 3 marriage records for all 3 sets of my great grandparents who were married in the City of New York to jpegs and uploaded them as images to Ancestry. 

Now, you ought to be aware that images uploaded to Ancestry become accessible to all Ancestry users. That means if you have an image you don't want someone to copy into their own tree, don't put it up. 

I am struggling to find some of the records that the City indicates should have already been digitized. Even with a certificate number, though, they don't come up. Hmm. Anyway...

Very often the cost of purchasing a document is prohibitive to the researcher. For example, my students in my summer genealogy course through St. John's University's Division of Library & Information Science often only have the resources to finance access to Ancestry.com for the month duration of the course. They come to rely on the index of these NYC vital records. I always explain to them, though, that the index is really no substitute for the document itself. You might not even have the right record if you don't look to see the other information on the record. Betcha there is more than one John Smith who died in the City of NY in the year and month that your John Smith did. How do you know it's your John Smith if the index doesn't show you his parents names and/or the burial location? Huh? Things like that.

In short, genealogists want the document.

There are all sorts of juicy tidbits that may appear in the margins on the document. Marginalia does not get indexed. For example, my favorite New York City Death Record is for my third great grandmother Mary Carillion-Henry. I know, only a genealogist would have a favorite death record. Kind of creepy, April. It is my favorite death record because of this little note, though. It was the gateway to discovering Mary's parents, siblings, and more accurate spelling of their surname. Look at this:

That is the signature of Mary's son, August Henry, the informant at the time of her death. It states that he "Could not ascertain  Mother's maiden name." 

Gorgeous! Because that tells me not to trust any instance of August recording his mother's maiden name. He doesn't know!

And that doesn't show up in any index. You have to see the document to see that. 

So go look for them, especially now if you have family members who passed through NYC! Stop looking at me. Go look! https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/ 

52 Ancestors Challenge Week 16: "Negatives" - Off Topic - How to spot an NPE

The objective of this 52 Ancestor Challenge is just to get one writing about their family history research. Nothing says I have to stick to the suggested topic. This week's theme is "Negatives" and there is just nothing from my own family history research that springs to mind. When I hear "Negatives" I think of film negatives, which shows my age I guess but I don't have any negatives in my collection. Then I think of blood types. And the only members of my family for whom I know their blood type is me and my dad. I'm O+ and dad is A+ so no negatives there.

Instead I'd like to write about the ways I have been helping other researchers lately. That is through analyzing DNA test results.

First, for those of you who do not know what an NPE is, it stands for a Non-Paternity Event or Not Parent Expected experience. No matter what the letters stand for, NPE is common parlance for finding out you are adopted or your father is not your biological father. Now this could be something you discovered about yourself, it could be something you know going into your DNA testing, or it could be some mysterious DNA match you have that is facing this predicament.

And trust me, this happens more than you think. It has happened all throughout history. Hanky-panky has existed as long as mankind. Let's not paint it all with the same brush, though. Sure, spouses cheat, teenagers have unprotected sex, but women also get assaulted, or chose to be single mothers and opt for artificial insemination, and people give up children for adoption for all sorts of reasons. Back in the day it was all much more secretive than it is now. Hell, now it is very common for the birth mother to select the adoptive family herself. Some parents communicate with the birth mother (and perhaps the bio father as well) through letters and pictures throughout the child's life. 

Again, my post is not meant to be negative at all. I am just bestowing my advice to you if you are thinking about taking a DNA test. If you can't handle the truth, don't take a DNA test. Everyone ought to be prepared to be shocked when you look closely at your gene pool. That's all I'm saying.

Here are the first few things you should do when analyzing your AncestryDNA results:

1. Don't take a DNA test until you have built yourself a substantial well-documented family tree. There are a few reasons I recommend this but the most obvious being you need to know some of the surnames that are going to pop up among your DNA matches. Try to know your great grandmothers' maiden names going into this and who her sisters might have married. Because in my experience very few of my DNA matches share my surname. And it helps to know if you have very large families in your family history. Was grandma one of 5 or 15? The bigger the family the more likely the more matches you'll have on that line.

2. Connect your DNA to your family tree. This will also help to trigger any alarm bells that might need to be heard. AncestryDNA has a feature called ThruLines. This feature is no more reliable than using someone else's tree as a source. And, as you probably know, there are a lot of bad family trees out there. By "bad" I mean wrong. Just wrong. Someone has my grandfather's WWII Draft Registration attached to their great uncle. Dude is just wrong. 

Typically you can suspect a bad tree when no sources are attached to any people in the tree. That's a sure giveaway that the person has not done the research. Don't copy anyone's tree. Look at the sources they use before adding anyone to your tree. So don't "trust" ThruLines. It is, after all, based on the family trees of your DNA matches. However, if you link your DNA to your tree and then look at ThruLines and see you have absolutely no DNA matches who have the same people in their family trees, well, then you, my friend, may be looking at an NPE.

3. Look at the pie chart (a.k.a. ethnicity estimates): I wish people would stop caring about this feature so much. You know these estimate are just that - estimates. And surprise, surprise, they are going to change over time. Oh yeah. Every time the company updates it's algorithms you get more Irish or Jewish or maybe like me, your Central European disappears. Nice, huh? Stop caring about this so much. I only mention it in case the estimates are overwhelmingly not what you expected. Maybe you are like me, kind of a WASPy American mutt. I've got a little bit of everything going on in my tree. I expected Irish, English, French, German, Czech. But I don't have any known Italian ancestors for example. If my pie chart had come back 50% Italian, that should set off alarm bells. I had a client who took her DNA test expecting to be 100% Italian. She came back 50% Jewish. What does that tell you? Maybe her father isn't her biological father? BINGO!

If no alarm bells have gone off for you yet, try this...

4. Apply the Leeds Method: The Leeds Method is a technique developed by genealogist Dana Leeds in which you examine your shared matches with those in your second cousin range (400 cMs - 90 cMs) which will result in about 4 DNA groups; each group will align with one of your 4 grandparents. Now this doesn't always work out for people for a variety of reasons but for most people it is a wonderful tool. Let's assume you get 4 groups.

Now, cMs or centimorgans are how DNA is measured. The amount of DNA you have in common with someone forecasts the relationship you might have with that person. For example, 1600 cMs is likely a half-sibling or an aunt/uncle. A half sibling or an aunt/uncle will have 2 grandparents in common with you. So the Leeds Method will color code these people into 2 groups and they will align with either your paternal grandparents or you maternal grandparents. Now you will likely know these people. If you don't, you ought to. Do you hear that ringing noise? You should be able to identify your aunts, uncles, and half-siblings without research. They should have shown up at some family function at some point in time.

Additionally, this method will help you group together distant cousins who only connect to one of your grandparents. So where as cMs help one to determine the potential relationship, the Leeds groups helps you to place those relationships on the correct branch of your tree.

Again, it doesn't work for everyone but it is one of the first techniques I use to help sort out someone's matches.

Now, I have a DNA match at 183 cMs which puts him in a range likely to be a half 2nd cousin, or a 2nd cousin once removed (my mom's 2nd cousin), or a half 1st cousin twice removed (my grandma Gardner's 1/2 cousin - meaning they share 1 grandparent), or a 1st cousin 3-times removed (one of my great grandparents' 1st cousins on my grandma Gardner's line). It is hard to say for sure because the man has no tree up, no profile describing his age or where he lives, and he has not replied to any of my Ancestry messages. Ordinarily I'd go looking for him on social media but he has a really common name, Daniel Clark. Don't be afraid to reach out to a match. These people took a DNA test. Some part of them wanted to find connections to other people. Connect!

I'd love to know how I'm related to Danny, so if you know him, please send him my way. I suspect he might not know who his bio father is. I don't either but I can certainly help him narrow it down.

That's my advice for if you spot an NPE in your life by any of the above described steps - COMMUNICATE! People are so afraid these days to call someone up or contact someone they match. There are so many scammers out there, sure, people are going to be suspicious but you're never going to know more if you don't ask. "Well, I don't want to upset anyone" And what if the information you share is what they have been looking for their whole life? What if what you have to share brings them joy or closure? Just reach out and ask.

Not everything has to be so negative. (See what I did there?)

52 Ancestors Challenge Week 15: "How Do You Spell That?" - My Third Great Uncle, Private Benjamin F. Losee

All genealogy researchers have encountered errors in spelling. I don't like to call them errors really. I prefer to call them alternative spellings, but let's face it, April, sometimes it's just wrong. Anyway, it can be very hard sometimes to convince novice researchers that spelling is not a big deal. Just because a name is spelled differently than what you are expecting to see does not mean that record ... or headstone ... does not belong to your specific person. That's right, a headstone.

Early on in my foray into genealogy I encountered Benjamin Franklin Losee's name recorded on a Civil War Memorial plaque at Freeport Memorial Library in Freeport, New York which is on Long Island. For many years I worked to learn my connection to Ben and details about his life and death in the American Civil War. I knew I had to be related to him. My Losee family lived in Freeport for many generations, as did my Smiths but Losee is not Smith. It is not nearly as common a surname.

Ultimately, I came to learn that Ben was my 3rd great grandfather's brother. During his lifetime he lived on the Losee Family property which is now Stevens St. in Freeport, right near the border of Roosevelt on the east side of Main St. 

I only have an approximate date of birth for Ben. However, I know for sure he was a private in the 139th New York Infantry, Co. A. From his military pension file I know he died of disease in Point of Rocks, Virginia but even the U.S. War Department did not have an accurate date of death for him. I also struggled for years to find where he had been buried.

His remains were interred in City Point National Cemetery, Hopewell, VA. According to some papers, he died in the Fall of 1864. Other documents state he died October 1, 1864. However, his new headstone says December 5, 1865. Oh yes, a new headstone.

Part of the reason it took me forever to determine Ben's burial location was because he was buried under a headstone with the surname "LOSA" even though his military files, which contain handwritten letters signed by Ben himself, clearly say LOSEE. 

It also took me forever to get the headstone replaced.  It was quite an ordeal. A letter to my congresswoman got it corrected though. However, I had to supply the government with proof of the correct spelling by submitting to them copies of Ben's signed letters straight form the government's own files. Oy! But here it is though - - the original stone as it appeared in about 2000 and the new one that I believe was erected in 2004.

52 Ancestors Challenge Week 14: "Check It Out" - My Annotated Bibliography of Publish Local and Family Histories

As a librarian, this week's theme of "Check It Out", of course, makes me think of library books. There are several wonderful published family histories that I have discovered about various lines of my family tree. And, like a librarian, here is my annotated bibliography for you. These come straight from my personal library. You'll have to forgive me my formatting. Blogger doesn't allow me to create hanging indents:

Berger, Antony R. The Good and Beautiful Bay: A History of Bonne Bay to Confederation and a Little Beyond. St. John's, NL: Flanker Press Limited, 2014.

This book is about the history of the Bonne Bay region of western Newfoundland, in the heart of Gros Morne National Park. It encompasses the communities of Woody Point and Norris Point where my great-great grandmother, Sarah Samms-Earle-Bromley (October 13, 1857 - March 20, 1899), was born and where she lived until she married my great-great grandfather, Abraham Earle (1849 - 1890) of Twillingate, Newfoundland. Sarah and her parents are mentioned in the text by name but my favorite detail is on page 95-96. "Across the tickle [that is what Newfoundlanders say for a narrow salt water channel] from Norris Point is Gadds Harbour...When families moved, their houses commonly went, with them, as did the Sammses' in Gadds Harbour..." To the right of that statement is the photo below of my family's home bobbing across the water and a caption above which read "The Samms house, the last in Gadds Harbour, was floated across The Tickle to Norris Point (Woody Point Collection)." Remarkable, right?

Evans, Calvin. Master Shipbuilders Of Newfoundland And Labrador, Volume 1: Cape Spear to Boyd's Cove. St. John's, NL: Breakwater Books Ltd., 2013.

If you have family from the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, you likely have a shipbuilder somewhere in your family tree. This author explores every coast, bay, and harbor around the "Rock" chronicling each craftsman's productivity. I only own Volume 1. Chapter 5 covers The Straight Shore and "Fogo, Twillingate, and Morton's Harbour" where my Earles came from. Page 204 mentions John Earle of Farmer's Arm. I am not sure how I am related to John but that is where my great grandfather was born. I am certain I am related. I think the John they speak of could be my great grandfather Abram Thomas Earle's first cousin, John Earle (August 11, 1863 - May 8, 1913). It names 4 ships he built between 1900 and 1908: The first, name not recorded but was built for John B. Lock of Twillingate, then there was the Invincible, Snowbird, and the John Earle.

Flynn, Michael F. Historic Bay Roberts: Not Your Typical Small Town. St. John's, NL: Flanker Press, 2011.

The first paragraph on page 2 of this books begins, "John Earle, Sr. was born on November 1, 1678, in Poole, Dorset, England but moved to Newfoundland..." Now I'm not sure that is my ancestor but my great-great-great grandfather Elias Earle was born in about 1808 somewhere in Newfoundland and died in Twillingate, Newfoundland on February 28, 1875. Twillingate is less than 250 miles from Bay Roberts, Newfoundland. So do I think there is a connection between my Elias and that John - - yeah, probably, which is why this book is in my collection.

History of Bedford New Hampshire from 1737: Being statistics compiled on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town, May 15, 1900. Concord, NH: The Rumford Printing Company, 1903.

The first time I encountered this book was online through Google Books but I have since purchased a reprint of it. Since then it has also been digitized and made available through Ancestry.com. My Moore family ancestors were early settlers of Bedford, NH as well as Londonderry (now Derry), NH. Lineages and stories about the family are scattered through out this 1100+ page book. My favorite part, though is the list of illustrations that directs the reader to page 480 and an image of Col. Daniel Moore's house and Moore's Tavern. A tavern you say. That explains some things. The images do not reproduce well so in short, these structure existed during the American Revolution. Daniel Moore, sometimes with the silent "e" and sometimes without, was my 5th great grandfather and a colonel in the American Revolution, present at the surrender of General Burgoyne.

Lore, Gordon and Hector Earle. The Earles of Newfoundland and Labrador.  St. John's, NL: DRC Publishing, 2015.

The title kind of says it all. This book does not make much mention of my particular line of Earles. Earle is an old, rather common surname in Newfoundland. On page 174, though, the author lists my great-great grandfather, Abraham Earle ( About 1849 - 1890) who died aboard a ship called the Rise and Go. On page 180 my great grandfather, Abram Thomas Earle (January 13, 1891 - November 18, 1973) is listed, stating he was the son of Abraham and Sarah Samms-Earle of Twillingate. The details of both entries are not entirely accurate but does not diminish the richness of details included within the resource.

Moore, George Washington. Genealogy of the Moore family of Londonderry, New Hampshire and Peterborough, New Hampshire, 1648-1924.  Peterborough, N.H. : Transcript Print. Co., 1925.

Again, I first encountered this book was online through Google Books but I have since purchased a reprint of it. It has also been digitized and made available through Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. And this really, really follows my particular line of the Moores for multiple generations. It is more of a giant pedigree chart than a story though. I kind of like the books that have more story to them.

The book starts with John Moore (1648 - February 12, 1692) who was a member of the McDonald Clan of Glencoe, Scotland and who was killed there in a massacre by the Clan Campbell, a rather famous conflict. I am not 100% sure if I am descended from this man or his brother, Samuel. The dates of birth and death seem to vary from resource to resource. I know these are my people though. My research through documentation leads clearly from me to Col. Daniel Moore (February 11, 1730 - April 13, 1811), colonel in the American Revolution, from Londonderry, now Derry, NH

Moore, J. Clifford. The Life and Times of a High School Principal in Rural Quebec. Canada: The Townships Sun, 1996.

This book reflects on my mother's Canadian line, the Moore family, which I have written about quite a bit in my blog. It particularly highlights my 4th great grandparents, William Moore (about 1763 - July 1817) and Eleanor Moore-Moore (about 1767 - October 19, 1836) who were the second pair of settlers to arrive in what is now St. Felix de Kingsey, Quebec, Canada in about 1801 from their birthplace of New Hampshire. On page 56 there is an image of about 25 school children taken in 1912, one of which I believe is my great grandmother's brother, Daniel Sharp, labeled as Dan Sharpe. On pages 105-107, there is a listing of those buried in the Moore Family Cemetery. On that very last page is the entry for my great-great grandfather, Daniel Sharp (March 14, 1822 - October 12, 1898), and his mother, Anne Moore-Sharp (about 1782 - January 14, 1868). I have been to this family cemetery. Although it has fallen into disrepair, it is located right along the St. Francis River, an incredibly beautiful spot to spend eternity if you ask me.

Peyton, Amy Louise. River Lords: Father and Son. St. John's, NL: Flanker Press, 2005.

This book was gifted to me by the homeowner of the AirBnB I stayed in on Farmers Arm, Twillingate in 2018; Kinda-Cousin Charlie. Charlie now owns the land that once belonged to William and John Earle, my great grandfather's uncles. I am not descended from the Peytons of Twillingate, Newfoundland but my great grandfather, Abram Earle's brother-in-law was Edgar Paint Peyton (February 14, 1877 - October 20, 1964). Edgar was the man who surveyed Charlie's land when it belonged to my Earles.

Edgar was number 7 of 10 children of Thomas Peyton (December 28, 1827 - September 5, 1912). Thomas's personal journals are featured prominently in the book and include reflections on stories told to him by his father, John Peyton the younger. (Baptized January 21, 1793 - July 25, 1879), about his grandfather, John Peyton the elder (1747 - About 1827 or 1829), including descriptions of the variety of economic activities pursued by John Sr. in the predominantly dried-cod economy of  Notre Dame Bay. It is a blend of regional and family history based primarily on private Peyton family papers in the author possession which had not been previously available to academics. 

Although the author does try to dispel the shameful narratives previously written about the atrocities committed by the Peytons, especially John Sr., against the native peoples, the Beothuks, Amy Louise Peyton's direct connection to the main characters paints a unique image of Atlantic pioneers.

Potter, Ralph Kimball. Early Southards of New York and New Jersey. [Place of publication not identified]: [publisher not identified], 1974.

Not every book I have is about my Canadian ancestors but apparently most are, this one is not. Three years ago the College I work for was celebrating the centennial of its first graduating class. The valedictorian of the class of 1919 was Bradford Southard of Freeport, New York. When I tracked down his daughter to invite her to campus I mentioned to her that we were probably related. My family settled Freeport and Southard is an old Long Island family name. After discussing her family history, I came across this book in the library collection of Wantagh Public Library. It helped me to piece together not only Bradford's family line but my own as well. Thomas Southard (1615-1688) is my 9th great grandfather. 

Publish histories can be just as flawed as anyone's Ancestry family tree. Authors should provide the sources from which they have taken their names, dates, and details but often they do not. A published family history though, can be rich with information about the area and culture from which your family came. In short, such sources should not be ignored; scrutinized but not ignored.

Genealogical Excitement Afoot

The last few days have genealogically very significant. Aside from the release of the 1950 U.S. Federal Census and New York City Municipal Archives making their vital records freely accessible online, several of my recent DNA clients had milestones.

Yeah, in my free time (Haha - like I have any free time), I have been picking up DNA projects hear and there for the last few years. I've been really quite successful with my work on unpuzzling DNA matches to find biological parents. There is something very gratifying about helping others to learn the truth.

• On Wednesday, March 30, a man I was helping to figure out who was his maternal grandfather was, received confirmation in the form of a DNA match to a half-aunt.

 

• Yesterday, April 2, the client I had to tell he was adopted, spoke with his bio mother for the first time in a video call.

 

• Today, April 3, I attended a local event with the woman for whom I found her bio father for last year. There I met her husband, daughter, maternal grandparents, as well as her bio father, his wife, their son, and her bio paternal grandmother.

Another incredible thing that I learned about yesterday came in the form of an email from a former graduate student. In my course my students are required to create a well-researched tree on Ancestry.com. They don't have to make it public but we use it to communicate about their research. 

This student had her tree public and last week her family received a knock on the door from the FBI. Yup, apparently they had a 2017 cold case. The unidentified remains lead back to a family my student had in her tree. Her mother hadn't tested, so it wasn't that they found them through a DNA match. No. The DNA matches they did have must not have been close enough or did not supply substantial family trees. Thus the found my student's tree and are now testing to confirm if this deceased individual is connected to her family line.

Kind of fabulous right?

DNA testing opens a whole can of worms, maybe not for you. maybe you're biological parents are legitimately the people you were raised by but I bet you anything someone in your list of DNA matches is searching for their biological family either because of adoption or misattributed paternity. 

And if your DNA or family tree can bring peace to a distant family member in the form of notification that their loved one is no longer a John Doe, why wouldn't you want to be part of that?

Exciting stuff, my friends, exciting stuff.

If feels good to give people the truth.

Newly Available Records: 1950 Census & NYC Vital Records

Some exciting things have happened in the last 2 weeks. One of course has been the much awaited release of the 1950 U.S. Federal Census. The other came as a great surprise to me, the release of the New York City's historical vital records online.

Yes, that is right. On March 15, 2022, the City of New York released their historic vital records online, for free, searchable from home for download and print - for FREE. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/

The index to these records have been available online for a very long time. Compiled by the Italian Genealogy Group and German Genealogy Group, the index is available on their respective websites, in Ancestry.com, and through FamilySearch.org. 

In the past I would rely on the FamilySearch.org index more often than not. For several reasons really. One, it was a more robust index record. It showed much more than just the name of the individual, county, and date of event. The FamilySearch index record showed the name of the individual, the county, the date of event AND often the name of the persons' parents, addresses, etc. depending on the type of record. Secondly, though, if you went to a Family History Center you could view the images of the records for free there, just like you can at home now. There I could view and print the records I wanted without traipsing into Manhattan. One could go to the New York City Municipal Archives at 30 Chambers St. in Manhattan and look at the vital records there. When I started doing that the records were on microfilm. Then they migrated them to digital images. I would scroll through microfilm there for hours though making wonderful discoveries. And I could look for free and transcribe the record by hand for free. In-person though I could also purchase a copy for a reduced price from ordering a record. I believe ordering online most recently had cost me $18.50. In-person it cost me $11, I think. Sometimes it was worth the trip but when you calculate in the cost of taking the train or driving in and parking, sometimes I'd just order the record but it was far too expensive to just guess and order something that was not for your person.

Now, vital records include birth certificates, marriage records, and death certificates. These records vary in date range based on the type of record.

Birth Certificates: 1855-1909

Marriage Certificates: 1866-1937

Death Certificates: 1866-1948

But don't let those start dates deceive you. Record keeping in NY did not really take hold until the 1880s. Those earlier dates reflect records that exist but it wasn't required by law to register birth, marriages, or deaths in New York State until June of 1880 for deaths and sometime in 1881 for for births and marriages. 

Vital records are typically managed by the state. Except in the instance of New York City. They are the only entity in the entire country that manages their own vital records, Sure city and town clerks might also have a register of vital events that occurred in their town but the documentation is handled by the state (except for NYC). 

One has to know where the event took place to know where to order the appropriate certificate from. Just because your relative lived their whole life in NY doesn't mean they couldn't have died on a road trip to New Jersey or while away on vacation in Florida.

So this has been very exciting to browse and download records from the City of New York for my dead people. Most of the documents I had already but not in digital format so I have been finding them online, downloading the records, and then converting them to jpegs and attaching them to my family tree on Ancestry. 

Now the 1950 census release was not a surprise. We have been waiting for that for 72 years. In the U.S. we take a census of the population every 10 years, on the years ending in "0". However, those records are not released to the public for 72 years. The aggregate data is published early on, telling us how many people live in the country breaking it down by locations, age, sex, and race. The actually census records themselves, listing residents by name, does not come out until 72 years after the record was made. That is really a measure of identity projection for the citizenry. 72 is life expectance, although that age is really increasing in our time, but still they figure in 72 year most of the people recorded in a specific census will likely be deceased and if not, they certainly will not be living with the same family set.

I was so jazzed to look for my father in the 1950 census. He was born in 1949 so he should be in there living with his parents who were married in 1948. Well - - I can't find them. 

I have found their block. I have read through every page of their enumeration district and multiple surrounding districts but there is no entry that I can find for their house; not even a note that says "no one was home." Funny as that sounds, "no one was home" is a common entry on the pages of the 1950 census.

In fact, I am offering a reward for anyone who can find my father, his parents, or his paternal grandparents in the 1950 census because I give up. I know, I know, it's only day 2 of having access to the records but I have had so much success finding others that I can't with dad no more.

The first step is to know where your people lived. Easier said then done, I know, but some of our living septuagenarians (those 70 and older, well, 72 in this case) are in these records.

If you have a potential location you can look up the Enumeration District (ED) on a map and see the ED number. My grandparents lived in Merrick, New York, which is in Nassau County. Looking at a map clearly showed their block in ED 30-338.

ED 30-338 is a 46 page document. Once in the correct ED, you can through in a surname and it might take you to the correct page of the census. That is what happened for me and finding my Drew cousins who lived across the street from my grandparents.

But no Earles show up. Either they were somewhere else that we don't know about - but I've looked in other EDs and areas of Nassau - or the census taker skipped that side of their street. As through all of time, mistakes were made, people.

Those images above were taken from https://1950census.archives.gov/ 

Go there. Give it a shot. See if you can find your people.

I have found both of my maternal grandparents (not yet married to one another), Grandpa Earle's brother, 3 out of 5 of my Grandma Earle's siblings, one of Grandma Earle's sister-in-laws, Grandma Earle's mother and grandmother, and a researching friend's family.

Today I plan to find my Grandma Earle's sister Ann, her brother Charlie, Grandma Gardner's sister Ann, and maybe Grandpa Gardner's sister Lois.