In the course of our research, who among us hasn’t said, "I know this family must be in this census, or that deed book, or the probate record, but I can’t find them?" Or, worse, who among us has made the mistake of concluding that a family was not in a set of records simply because they aren’t listed in the index?
Finding aids are just that, finding aids. But they are only one method (albeit one of the easiest) to locate records on your family. Often it takes a great deal of effort to get what is needed from one of these aids. In this article, we will explore some of the pitfalls of finding aids and the tricks to working around their shortcomings.
Errors of Omission
A lot of people and families simply are not listed in an index. They were overlooked or perhaps purposely left out. There are a variety of possible causes or reasons for the omission, but what can be done to compensate for them?
Be sure that you thoroughly read the author’s description of how the index was made, and how he or she handled illegible or missing records. If you don’t find your family in the index, check the original records. This can be time-consuming, but it is possible to narrow down the search through some intelligent sleuthing. For example, if you know your family was in a certain census tract the previous or later census, chances are they were in the tract in the interim, so start there. If there is no other census record, check land records or the city directory to locate the physical location of the family and then start with the area indicated.
Another trick is to find a collateral family or neighbor. Locate the neighbor in the census of interest and perhaps your family will be there too.
Spelling Variations
Perhaps your family is listed in the index, but not under the spelling you believe is the correct spelling. Public servants and family members have a long history of misspelling names for all kinds of reasons: impatience, illiteracy, unfamiliarity, lapses in memory, etc.
Vowels seem to be particularly at risk of misinterpretation. I often try a variation of all vowels. But some consonants seem to be problematic as well. Examples include K and C, T and D, V and F. If the name is European, refer to the native language and see where mistakes in pronunciation may be common. Be sure to find names that rhyme with your name and search for those variations as well.
Name Variations
Some obvious examples of name variations are nicknames and middle names that might be used for your ancestor instead of the one you are accustomed to using. The best advice is to list all the possible variations in a name, including phonetic variations. Be sure to document which spelling variations you check, otherwise, as you develop new variations you won’t be sure which records you have to recheck.
If the family was a recent arrival to America, try checking the original language as well as the English version of the name. Two brothers in my Germanna line appear in the records under two seemingly different names. One was a Zimmerman and the other was a Carpenter, the English translation of Zimmerman. Other examples are Gerber and Tanner, Weiss and White, etc.
Also, check the index under the first name of the ancestor, particularly if it might be a surname. Be sure to check if the name was shortened or abbreviated in some way. If there are names similar to yours in an area, be sure to check those names as well. For example, if your O’Donnell family moves into an area of O’Daniels, be sure to check the O’Daniels with your ancestor’s given name. For Celtic names particularly, be sure to check the names both with and without the prefix.
Unique Filing Systems
Clerks should be considered ingenious in the variety of ways they developed their systems of filing records.
When searching indexes for deeds, check both grantor and grantee indexes. Also be sure to scan the entire records of the original court books that you are interested in to get a feel for the ways the clerk handled documents. For example, in searching for probate records, I have found my family listed not under their surname, but under the H pages as "Heirs of the Sommerrock family." I have found many other settlements in deed books under S for "Settlement of the Hoppe family," and even W for "Will of Richard Jones."
If land was sold at auction, look for it under the title of the public official who may have handled or been involved in the transaction. For example, check the surname of the sheriff at the time, the name of the county, and even the name "Sheriff" as in Sheriff Bentley deeds to the Jones family. Likewise, be sure to check under the title of other public official such as the C pages for Commissioner.
African American Records
It may be that many African American families were not included in some of the major indexes for census and other official records. So there may be many errors of omission for black family records.
Some clerks unfailingly indicted the race of a person in each transaction, whether it involved the sale of a piece of property or a marriage. Other clerks did not. Some clerks maintained black records in separate volumes for a time, and then changed their practices. Some counties placed black transactions at the end of the book or in a separate section of the book.
If a record cannot be found, scan the entire document to ensure that black records were not tucked away in a separate section. Simply because no notation is made about black records, does not mean that no records exist, only that they were not labeled or that there were no identifiable separate lists.
Sales of slaves recorded in the deed books can be listed in a multitude of ways: B for black, N for negro, S for slave. The records may also list the African American by his or her given name, by the most recent owner’s name, or by a former owner’s name.
Human Error
Sometimes there are simply mistakes in the way an index was alphabetized or organized. Be particularly wary of typed indexes of older records. If your family does not show up in the new version, check the old index, and then check the index in the original books or the books themselves.
Be sure to check records all the way to the back of the index. Make sure that the index, if it was handwritten and created in an ongoing manner, did not spill over to another page or pages at the beginning or end of the index or any other page for that matter.
Faulty Assumptions
Never make assumptions about what you know or think you know about a family. You are doing research to find out about them. Check all the records and don’t assume a family is or is not in a set of records.
I have found my family in the most unlikely places. For example, I looked for Lutheran records for my family for years and never found them. Then one day as I was indexing the records of a church that I had no idea was linked to my family, I found my Aunt Fanny, an Irish Catholic, in a city and at a church I had no idea she ever passed through, much less lived and worshiped in. That information was the key I needed to tie together a whole group of Irish families who immigrated to the United States.
It is especially important not to make assumptions about minority families or women. I found a consent record for the marriage of a black couple in one of the earliest of Kentucky’s records–in 1793. Similarly, I have found records of women who, although it was illegal for them to do so, bought and sold property, entered into contracts, and handled estates.
Electronic Databases
As with any index and finding aid, be sure to understand how an electronic index was composed. Be sure to read thoroughly any documentation the author of the index provides so you know how names were recorded, how illegible names were recorded, what controls were taken to minimize errors, etc. Also, find out if the records in the database are in the order they were found in the original records, or if they were rearranged in some way as a result of indexing.
Search Strategies
After you understand how the index was composed, be sure you understand how to conduct the search to get what you need. Be sure to understand and use wildcards in your searches. Become familiar with the types of search logic that are used and exactly what fields are searched in your database. If fields other than surnames can be used, this can be a very powerful search tool. Be sure to take advantage of it. Try a few practice searches for a name you know is in the index to test how results will appear.
Duplicate Indexes
Just because a record is modern does not mean it is more likely to be accurate or more complete. For example, marriage and other records do not unfailingly make their way to the statewide repositories. While a marriage may be legal and recorded in a county, it may not have made it to the state index. If you don’t find what you need in the statewide records, go back to the county or parish or church to see if you can find what you are after.
Finally, don’t assume that when you find the family that the data is correct. Be thorough in your search of the index by collecting and recording all the data you find, and then by stepping back and analyzing it for its accuracy and completeness.
For the Future
Next time you search records that are not indexed, perhaps as a citizen of the genealogical community, consider taking the time to record the data so it can be shared with fellow searchers.
Roseann Reinemuth Hogan, Ph.D., has been researching her family history since 1978. Her special interests include oral histories and social history.
Return to the Ancestry Magazine November/December 2001 Table of Contents.
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