10-12 years ago I went on a genealogy kick and did some research into my family. I got a bunch of birth/death certificates, military records and so forth and it was fun, but then I got married and had kids and put it away for a while.
I recently signed up at Ancestry.com and picked it up again, and I’m amazed at how much more info has become available on line in the last ten years – especially census records. For several of my relatives, I can put in their name and get directed to an actual image of a census page with their name on it. Amazing.
Am I right to assume, though, that not all the census records are indexed like that? For example, I’m looking for a specific person that I know lived in Ft. Smith AR in 1920, but a search on Ancestry.com does not bring up a record for him. Do I need to go back to the old fashioned method of going through the census for his town page by page? And is there a better way to do it, because I’m finding the Ancestry website very slow to navigate through.
Census records are indexed up to 1930 (remember 1890 mostly burned) BUT they can be off. If the page of the census is difficult to read, it can be mis-indexed. I found that to be the case with the people who lived in my house in 1930. I found them by looking up their neighbors using the phone directories.
By the way, your local library may subscribe to Ancestry, meaning you can get it for free. Most people are unaware of that.
ETA - Also, a ton of stuff is misspelled in the Census - try less information.
descamisado – I know, that’s what prompted me to go back. I guess their marketing team knew what they were doing.
I also discovered that the 1891 and 1901 Canadian censuses are online and fully inexed at the Canadian National Archives. Ancestry.com wanted me to pay for a premium subscription for that information!
The Google Books feature comes to mind right away. They have a searchable database that is quite extensive. If you type in a name in quotation marks, you’ll likely get some usefel hits. I’d recommend buying Google Your Family Tree, by Daniel Lynch.
For census records, it sometimes does come down to a page by page search. Try just the last name and see what comes up. Older census records often had only the first one or two initials plus the surname. Also, in some census cycles, children were not listed by name: occupants other than the head of household were only counted in categories such as “females aged 1-10 years”, etc. State or county census records are sometimes more helpful, but often are vague beyond all frustration.