In this final beginning census tips post, we will cover what can be done to get around what appears to be missing ancestors.
From the previous post, I know that my first Siems ancestors in the USA, John C., was born in about 1828. I also know that, because his son John E. was born about 1868 in Michigan, they were likely living in the state since at least that time.
The 1900 census does not give me much more than I already knew, so it is time to skip back to 1880. Why not 1890? Unfortunately, all but a few fragments of the 1890 US Federal Census have been destroyed by a fire. While there are some sources that can be used in place of this census, it really is frustrating and unfortunate. But, on to 1880 it is.
As before, I enter in John C. Siems’ name, approximate birth year, birth place of Michigan, and residence in Bridgeport, Michigan. This was the result.
Uh oh. Only two of these results is for a Michigan resident, and they certainly are not my John C. What now?
Narrowing results only to Saginaw County was no help. They didn’t live near their neighbors from 1900 either.
Was I assuming incorrectly that they were still settled in Saginaw County? Instead of expanding out, I took the assumption their name was spelled incorrectly and searched for John born in 1828 in Germany in Saginaw County, entering no last name. Look who came up on the first line.
If you are running into issues with searching through indexes like this, the “drop a hard to spell name” method has helped me numerous times, and not just for the census. Not only was their name spelled Seams rather than Siems by the census taker, it was transcribed incorrectly to Seann, which meant the search engine was not able to make a connection between my search the way it may have been able to with Seams using the soundex.
Knowing the Seams spelling got me back to 1870 with ease (where, though I didn’t realize it at the time due to issues with numbering households on the original document, Mary’s father was living with the family). However, nothing was easy about tracking them in 1860. I originally did this work over 10 years ago, and in my early researcher naiveté, I went through the entire county of Saginaw line by line until I found them. But I simply could have done the “drop the last name” method, right?
Um…no. It’s not working. Not with Mary, either.
What I ended up doing was casting a wide net by searching for John, born in 1828 +/- 5 years, and limited results to Saginaw County, Michigan. Then, I browsed through the many, many search results for someone whose last name remotely looked like Seams, born somewhere that remotely looked like Mecklenburg.
I clicked on a number of possibilities before finding him on page 7 of my results. Enter John Swins, born about 1831 in Mecklenburg, living in the city of Saginaw with his wife Mary and an older gentleman named John Azet (who I found years later to be Mary’s father, John Christian Eggert).
I can’t blame all this on the transcriber, though.
With nothing to be found in 1850, here my census journey ended. I now had a lot of information to go on, including but not limited to:
- John C. Siems and his wife Mary immigrated to Saginaw from Mecklenburg and settled in nearby Bridgeport. John C. and Mary were married about 1858, probably either in Mecklenburg or Saginaw.
- Their child John E. Siems married a Margarete around 1891 and raised his family of 7 children in Bridgeport.
- John C. and Mary both likely died in Bridgeport in the 1910s.
- John E. and Margarete both likely died in Bridgeport in the 1920s.
From here, I can search out birth records of the children, marriage and death records of the parents, and evidence of the ocean passage of John C. and Mary. Over the years, I was able to track down both John C. and Mary’s hometown in Mecklenburg and start tracing their ancestry through the German church records. I am back to Johann Friederich Ziems, born about 1740, my 6th great grandfather. It all started from this census search.
If you’re just beginning to research your family tree in the United States, collect the information you have and start with a census search in 1940. Go back each year until you just can’t find them anymore, then compile all the information you found in those census documents. It is a great springboard for investigating further.
Weaving the Tapestry 