Where did the children go?

Comments (15)

• I do a great deal of research in Indiana County, Pennsylvania. Ancestry.com has a wealth of scanned newspapers for Indiana, Pennsylvania that cover many years, starting in the 1800s and on into the mid 1900s. I have found that by searching for a surname, I often find a death notice or obituary for a person that names his or her siblings. It is also a way to find marriages before the county was required to record them. Visits to parents from out of town relatives often give clues to the residence of all parties. Small town newspapers loved gossip!
  Mary Lou Duncan

• The 1860 & 1870 census were filmed twice. Which census were you searching? Pages that were faded and hard to read with the first filming were not filmed for the second filming. Don’t know which filming you are looking at? The first filming, done in 1950, has both pages per frame; the second filming, done in 1967, has one page per frame.

• I have found US Genweb and Rootsweb to be very helpful. Chronicling America.com is free and allows searches by state and name. Amazing, previously unknown facts have shown up. It takes a while to look through but might just pay off.
  Genealogy libraries contain microfiche and films with records not yet available on the internet. Good luck.

• I had a similar issue with my paternal great grandfather: he appeared in the British 1861 Census as a 2 year old and then vanished until he appeared in Australia, getting married, in 1886. I couldn’t find him in the missing 25 years, anywhere! There were other factors involved but the short story is that, after several years of ‘shelving’ him, I decided to run a random search of the 1871 Census – his first name was Josiah and I thought it was rather unusual so that became my search parameter. Bingo! I found him in a boarding school in the next county. His surname and birthplace had been transcribed incorrectly from the school’s records: Mason had become Maton and his birthplace of Syston was just a jumble of letters and the result was unsearchable.

• A search tip for findagrave: If you use FaG you need to spell the name exactly as it is on the website. But you can also search it through familysearch and get a broader response. An example is the surname Healea. This is all you will get in FaG but going through familysearch will get Healea, Healy, Haley etc.

• The Pennsylvania death certificates don’t start until 1906, but they are unusually well indexed on Ancestry, by parents’ and spouse’s names as well as the deceased. If your targets lived long enough to die in Pennsylvania after 1905, you might get lucky.

• Loved your story, Marian. I’ve had so many similar situations. Sometimes I’ll go back to a problem YEARS later to find that newer postings have solved some of them. That’s no good if you need the information right away, though!
  Jeanne Johnson

• Since we’re talking about which surname was used, here’s a related story. I was searching for my grandmother’s record in the 1930 census. She had been married twice. I searched both surnames — Brand and Clarke — unsuccessfully, so then searched the census for the entire little town, page by page. I knew the family had lived in this town for decades before and after 1930.
  She may have given the census taker both surnames before giving everyone’s given names. At any rate, here is how the census taker listed them:
  Brand Clarke, Mary E. [the mother]
  Brand Clarke, George P. [the oldest child], etc.
  Then whoever indexed the census left out the space betweeen the surnames, resulting in:
  Brandclarke, Mary E., etc.
  I learned from this to not forget to use an asterisk as a “wild card” to find names that might have been spelled differently — even if the names are easy to spell, as these were.

• Roger,
  I like your theory! That could very well explain it!
  Marian

• Here are two possible scenarios —
  1. Since Lydia had small children, she felt felt rushed that day and gave the children’s names quickly, and the census taker was rushing to keep up. She gave William’s name as Bill, and then clarified that his name was William, but the census taker had already written “Bill.” The census taker had little choice but to write over the error, resulting in a combination of the two names.
  2. It was the census taker who was in a hurry. He wrote the children’s names as soon as she spoke them, with the same result.
  At any rate, the fact that all the children were listed under the second husband name, suggests that SOMEONE was in a hurry!

• I use Newspapers.com or Genealogybank.com to search for newspaper clippings on the family name. I’ve found some valuable information to has solved some of my brick walls.

• Thank you Nigel! I hadn’t considered that. I’ll give it a try.
  Marian

• Could the odd name Bullian be Killian, a quite common Irish name?

• I have noticed that many of my ancestors are missing from the 1870 Census but re-appear in the 1880 Census. Recently a professional genealogist stated in his lecture to our society that there were many problems with the 1870 Census and that after that census the Federal government had direct oversight of how the census was carried out. I suggest that you continue to search for these people in the 1880 census and other state censuses. Also, land deeds should give some idea as to where the family went.

• Excellent work! You were diligent and it paid off….to a point. I hope you learn the rest of Lydia’s story.