While Weaving the Tapestry has still been active since the start of the pandemic, the state of life has made it difficult to sit down and blog. However, things have calmed down and the blog is being resurrected!
This week, our genealogy tips will focus on where to go next once you’ve found an ancestor in the census. Scroll down through earlier blog posts for how to get started and start using the census!
Let’s go back to John L. Siems, who we found in the 1930 and 1920 censuses. From the census records, I know:
- Where John lived
- The names of his siblings
- He was born around 1896 in Michigan
- His father was named John and his mother Margarete
I also know from the 1900 census that they were in Bridgeport, the same town for the 1920 and 1930 censuses too. So, my current entry for John is:
John L. Siems
b. abt. 1896 in Michigan, USA
Once I have his parents’ and siblings’ names, and from asking my relatives know his children and wives, I can fill in that information in my tree. There are three basic pieces of information we strive to find for a person, and these are:
- Birth
- Marriage
- Death
…or BMD.
Typically, it helps to start with the most recent information and work backwards. As you begin your tree, you likely already have this information from personal experience or talking to relatives. If not, it can be a bit difficult to find recent data due to privacy laws.
We’ll start with death, as this is the most recent event for the ancestor. The best source of information would be a death certificate. If you’re a qualifying relative and know where your ancestor died, you can request a death certificate directly from the city or county authority. If not, there are a number of databases that may contain the information. Try searching, “death records <city, state, or country>”.
I do not have John’s death certificate, but get his birth and death date and residence at time of death from the “Michigan, Death Index, 1971-1996” database on Ancestry. Another helpful index in the USA is the Social Security Death Index.
A couple other good sources of information are newspapers, which may have an obituary or death notice published, or headstones. A detailed obituary can give specific life details and traits of an ancestor that could not be found in a simple death certificate.
When you search, be careful for duplicate names. While John Siems may be less common than John Smith, if I didn’t already know John was living in Saginaw and died in 1979 I could have easily confused him with the Siems family that was living in Newaygo County, Michigan. Always find corroborating sources to confirm you’ve found the right headstone, death certificate, or obituary.
I can now update my entry on John Siems:
John L. Siems
b. 24 May 1895 in Michigan, USA
d. 7 Aug 1979 in Saginaw, Saginaw, Michigan, USA
Need help with your family history search? Contact us at info@weavingthetapestrygenealogy.com for a free estimate!
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