Saturday, August 6, 2011

If You "Know" the County on a Census

If you are 99% certain of the county where someone lived in a census, consider searches without the first name. Unless the name is very common, I've taken to leaving the first name out--especially after it took me forever to find Harvey Butler written in 1850 as Hervey.

2 comments:

  1. Good tip! My pet peeve when searching is that even when I state the county, some databases put in too many hits from other counties or even other states!

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  2. If you know the county and the last name does not work, then try the first name. I have a family in the 1900 Census that the last name is lasted as H--. Apperantly the family was not home and the person who gave the information knew the name started with H, but could not come up with Huyck.

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