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Very much a newbie here (as in just joined familysearch yesterday) but have spent quite a bit of time searching. Let me give you quick background and then my questions. My mother's side of the family is well documented but because my father's side were more recent immigrants I'm having a difficult go of it.
What I know (and/or believe):
- My great grandparents emigrated to the US separately and met here (and got married/had kids...)
- I found a 1907 Ellis Island immigration record for someone matching my great grandmother's name. The "uncle" who she lived with - his last name is similar to what my father thinks my family's prior surname was.
- The Ellis Island card shows the uncle's name and address. I found the "uncle" on the 1910 census. Also living in that house is a person with a name that would be pronounced the same as mine but spelled differently (this may be a clue - or maybe not)
- My great grandftather changed his name to the current surname (we are not 100% certain of the previous name but have ideas on what it could be)
- I'm not sure when my great-grandfather arrived in the US. AFAIK he is from the Azores and they tend to have entered either through Hawaii or Fall River, MA (via Ellis Island).
- My grandfather was born in 1916
- I cannot locate my grandfather/great grandparents or anyone with the current last name in any census prior to 1940
- In the 1940 census my great grandmother is listed as Widow
My questions:
- Can you search census records by address? I know my grandfather dropped out of grade school to work on the farm. That means that they should be at that address on the 1930 census (possibly 1920).
- How do you search for people with name changes (where you don't know the prior name)? Alternatively this may flush itself out if I can find the names associated with that address on the 1930 census
- In your experience, how accurate are the Ellis Island processing cards? I ask because if the card I reviewed is actually my great grandmother, some very interesting twists were in the leads I followed:
1) Her card said she does not speak English
2) Said she was moving with her uncle
3) The uncle has the same first name as my great grandfather
4) My father only knows that they changed their name. He says it was "Correia or something" and the uncle's last name is Cordeiro (both seem to be common names in the Portuguese community).
5) On the 1910 census, the household shows "mother in law" with a last name that is almost identical to my current last name (replace one "i" with a "u")
I know I have a lot more searching to do but I think if I can find them on the 1930 census it may help with tracking backwards...where would you dig next?
And apologies in advance if these questions are too basic!
Very much a newbie here (as in just joined familysearch yesterday) but have spent quite a bit of time searching. Let me give you quick background and then my questions. My mother's side of the family is well documented but because my father's side were more recent immigrants I'm having a difficult go of it.
What I know (and/or believe):
- My great grandparents emigrated to the US separately and met here (and got married/had kids...)
- I found a 1907 Ellis Island immigration record for someone matching my great grandmother's name. The "uncle" who she lived with - his last name is similar to what my father thinks my family's prior surname was.
- The Ellis Island card shows the uncle's name and address. I found the "uncle" on the 1910 census. Also living in that house is a person with a name that would be pronounced the same as mine but spelled differently (this may be a clue - or maybe not)
- My great grandftather changed his name to the current surname (we are not 100% certain of the previous name but have ideas on what it could be)
- I'm not sure when my great-grandfather arrived in the US. AFAIK he is from the Azores and they tend to have entered either through Hawaii or Fall River, MA (via Ellis Island).
- My grandfather was born in 1916
- I cannot locate my grandfather/great grandparents or anyone with the current last name in any census prior to 1940
- In the 1940 census my great grandmother is listed as Widow
My questions:
- Can you search census records by address? I know my grandfather dropped out of grade school to work on the farm. That means that they should be at that address on the 1930 census (possibly 1920).
It depends on what site you're using to search the census, and what census year. Ancestry.com almost always has a "keyword" field you can search for anything, but if the address wasn't indexed, then searching the address in the keyword field won't do much. It's generally best, if they lived in a big city, to use Steve Morse's enumeration district finder: https://stevemorse.org/. This will tell you which enumeration district(s) the address you're looking for can be found in, so you can manually go straight to the right district in the census. You'll still have to browse each page of the district until you find the right address, but knowing which ED to look in really narrows it down.
Quote:
- How do you search for people with name changes (where you don't know the prior name)? Alternatively this may flush itself out if I can find the names associated with that address on the 1930 census
Ancestry.com uses Soundex on their search engine, which can really help. Also, just try spelling it phonetically in as many ways as you can think of. Also consider what letters often get misread by those transcribing it for the website - lower case u's and n's frequently get mixed up, for example, and that's not something soundex will catch. Use wildcards - here's Ancestry's info on how they work:
"Wildcards are special symbols which are used in place of letters or numbers. They can be used to match distinct but similar words. An asterisk "*" replaces zero or more characters, and a question mark "?" replaces exactly one character. For example, a search for "fran*" will return matches on words like "Fran," "Franny," or "Frank." A search for "Johns?n" matches "Johnson" and "Johnsen," but not "Johnston."
Here are some suggestions on how you can better use wildcards to complete your search:
Use more characters before the wildcard.
For example, use "Able*" instead of "Abl*"
Specify both a first and last name or a partial first and last name.
Try using the single-character wildcard "?" rather than the multiple-character wildcard "*".
For example, using "Hans?n" matches both "Hansen" and "Hanson" rather than using "Hans*"
Either the first or last character must be a non-wildcard character.
For example, "Han*" and "*son" are okay, but not "*anso*"
Names must contain at least three non-wildcard characters.
For example, "Ha*n" is okay, but not "Ha*""
I have also had luck simply searching without a surname at all. If you can narrow down enough other criteria to "exact" - like the location, the age range, and family members first names, and leave the surname fields blank, you can often find what you're looking for fairly easily.
Quote:
- In your experience, how accurate are the Ellis Island processing cards? I ask because if the card I reviewed is actually my great grandmother, some very interesting twists were in the leads I followed:
1) Her card said she does not speak English
2) Said she was moving with her uncle
3) The uncle has the same first name as my great grandfather
4) My father only knows that they changed their name. He says it was "Correia or something" and the uncle's last name is Cordeiro (both seem to be common names in the Portuguese community).
5) On the 1910 census, the household shows "mother in law" with a last name that is almost identical to my current last name (replace one "i" with a "u")
None of this is unusual.
Quote:
I know I have a lot more searching to do but I think if I can find them on the 1930 census it may help with tracking backwards...where would you dig next?
If the address is from the 1910 census, I would look for the 1920 census first - they are more likely to still be at the same address than they would be 20 years later.
If you want to, you can post the names and details and people here will help you search.
Have you actually made a tree on family search? If so put their town in 1920 as where you think they are it's under residence. Usually once you add it as a fact yourself it will show up as a hint. Be sure to watch the people in your tree, use their app to see people with hints. It will list all the new hints you have. Click other information, add information, residence.
Do as PA2UK suggests with searching name too. The way I do it is I go to the profile I want to search, click where it shows search records with family search on the top right. It will open the search box for that person. Edit the name and add whatever info you want. That's my biggest trick. Adding and subtracting info to search. Even add people that you think lived there.
Writing this reply, I cannot see the thread you posted so forgive me if I forget anything. I don't even know how recent your thread is. Didn't check that.
Be forewarned that your quest could take years! You have to be very inventive about what to use as keywords.
DNA testing will give you some countries to focus on. For the most part they will have their own digitized records and you look on their sites. You have to look beyond Ancestry, familysearch, American-based services.
Search graves on findagrave.com. Lots of information on that website. You will see when you search it.
Ships and passenger lists. Google Cyndi's List.
Check on Google what names are popular in the country you are searching in. You will likely find some similar family names there and you can use those spellings to search with.
You mentioned Portugal. It shares the Iberian peninsula with Spain. These people are olive skinned. But it is not in Eastern Europe. Check on Wikipedia what countries are in Eastern Europe and check each country's digitized records. My people are in Ukraine and digitizing records is only just burgeoning.
Immigration records instead of just looking at census. You could find the original spelling of your family name that way.
Use Google Translate or S3 translation add-ons. They are not the most accurate but you can usually make out the translations well enough.
Marriage records, birth records, & death records of their children can be sources of parents' real/original names.
Naturalization files can be full of info. Wives & children typically were listed on the husband's form.
Use all clues....search for the neighbors in the census years before & after the census where you found your people. Always look for each known child by name in a census search when you can not locate the parent.
Very much a newbie here (as in just joined familysearch yesterday) but have spent quite a bit of time searching. Let me give you quick background and then my questions. My mother's side of the family is well documented but because my father's side were more recent immigrants I'm having a difficult go of it.
What I know (and/or believe):
- My great grandparents emigrated to the US separately and met here (and got married/had kids...)
- I found a 1907 Ellis Island immigration record for someone matching my great grandmother's name. The "uncle" who she lived with - his last name is similar to what my father thinks my family's prior surname was.
- The Ellis Island card shows the uncle's name and address. I found the "uncle" on the 1910 census. Also living in that house is a person with a name that would be pronounced the same as mine but spelled differently (this may be a clue - or maybe not)
- My great grandftather changed his name to the current surname (we are not 100% certain of the previous name but have ideas on what it could be)
- I'm not sure when my great-grandfather arrived in the US. AFAIK he is from the Azores and they tend to have entered either through Hawaii or Fall River, MA (via Ellis Island).
- My grandfather was born in 1916
- I cannot locate my grandfather/great grandparents or anyone with the current last name in any census prior to 1940
- In the 1940 census my great grandmother is listed as Widow
My questions:
- Can you search census records by address? I know my grandfather dropped out of grade school to work on the farm. That means that they should be at that address on the 1930 census (possibly 1920).
- How do you search for people with name changes (where you don't know the prior name)? Alternatively this may flush itself out if I can find the names associated with that address on the 1930 census
- In your experience, how accurate are the Ellis Island processing cards? I ask because if the card I reviewed is actually my great grandmother, some very interesting twists were in the leads I followed:
1) Her card said she does not speak English
2) Said she was moving with her uncle
3) The uncle has the same first name as my great grandfather
4) My father only knows that they changed their name. He says it was "Correia or something" and the uncle's last name is Cordeiro (both seem to be common names in the Portuguese community).
5) On the 1910 census, the household shows "mother in law" with a last name that is almost identical to my current last name (replace one "i" with a "u")
I know I have a lot more searching to do but I think if I can find them on the 1930 census it may help with tracking backwards...where would you dig next?
And apologies in advance if these questions are too basic!
You've gotten some good answers, but I will add this:
How sure are you it was your great-grandfather (the immigrant so far as I can tell from your post) that changed the last name?
I ask because it is pretty standard to assume that first generation changed the name, or that it "was changed at Ellis Island," when that is not always the case. You could also have a situation where the name was "changed" for some interactions, but not others. Meaning, the modified surname could occur on some documents, while the original name was given to the census taker (or vice versa.) Also be aware that sometimes early immigrants used modified first and last names that were never "official" but just a name they went by in the community. These names may be unknown to younger members of the family, who used their elders given names.
Lastly, be VERY weary of spelling when searching. I thank my lucky stars that there are people who create indexes of census records, but sometimes there are SO far off with ethnic names, it actually hinders your ability to search. One hint is to see if you can find a Portuguese ethnic community where you think your family lived, and scan the original census record impressions with your own eyes to see if you can find them. I had to do this for many members of my wife's family. Good luck.
Thanks so much for the responses. Every day I find that I'm learning something new about the search process.
My next step before digging too much further is to align all the known data - for instance ages on census or immigration dates to see which ones line up, that may point to something further back in time.
With respect to the name change, I did confirm that today on the county register of deeds website showing when property was conveyed form my great grandfather to my grandfather. The historical deeds show the original name.
But...one oddity I found was that on the 1920 census, the name is the same as my current name, but my great grandfather purchased property under the "original" name. I've also found that in Portuguese (specifically the Azores) surnames weren't as "important".
Other observations are that some census takers had outstanding penmanship, others not so much. And when dealing with immigrants who cannot read or write, leave it up to the census taker to write the name as they think it is (which is why I've found the name spelled 3 different ways). Also the last hurdle is when one the person indexing the census data cannot read the writing - that makes some searches absolutely useless.
I've resorted to going through the census records ED by ED to find the records. Luckily with google maps, you can plug in the addresses and actually see the route the census taker took, so as it got closer to the known address, I would look at every entry.
Thanks so much for the responses. Every day I find that I'm learning something new about the search process.
My next step before digging too much further is to align all the known data - for instance ages on census or immigration dates to see which ones line up, that may point to something further back in time.
With respect to the name change, I did confirm that today on the county register of deeds website showing when property was conveyed form my great grandfather to my grandfather. The historical deeds show the original name.
But...one oddity I found was that on the 1920 census, the name is the same as my current name, but my great grandfather purchased property under the "original" name. I've also found that in Portuguese (specifically the Azores) surnames weren't as "important".
Spelling errors were common on census records because spelling was not a priority. Censuses are taken for demographic purposes, not identification so most enumerators didn’t bother to ask how it was spelled. Don’t assume a spelling on a census is an official spelling or name change. Also keep in mind that before birth certificates, social security, and drivers licenses, the concept of an official or legal name did not necessarily exist yet, so multiple spellings of the same name was just the norm, not really considered incorrect or correct. As you noted yourself, there is also the factor of illiterates, so spelling was left up to the enumerator, just keep in mind it wasn’t just people who were illiterate who had their names mangled on censuses.
Spelling errors were common on census records because spelling was not a priority. Censuses are taken for demographic purposes, not identification so most enumerators didn’t bother to ask how it was spelled. Don’t assume a spelling on a census is an official spelling or name change.
So true, my great-grandfather's last name was Szeliga (Polish), here is how they spelled it on 4 different census records:
1910 Census Sielega
1920 Census Selezka
1930 Census Solega
1940 Census Seagi
Yeah, they were close, at least they got the 'S' right!
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