We all know how frustrating it can be when desperately searching for a family name on a census, only to come up empty after searching. Unfortunately, names are frequently misspelled, sometimes by the census taker. When extraction work has been done, names are also misspelled from time to time. So, how do you find who you are looking for?
Over at Footnote, they have a wonderful tutorial on how to use a wildcard technique to help you find a name in a census on their site. If you go to Footnote, you will see a video on how to do this. This is a great help if you are using Footnote, and these techniques can also apply to other programs.
The important thing to remember is to not give up! If the name you are looking for isn’t coming up on a search, it is possible that the name has been misspelled. If you know the general area of where the family lived, you can start in that area, and do searches of the name using various spellings.
When using any site for your genealogy research, always check to see what tips that site has that will help you with your research. There is a lot of information available on most sites that can help you.
You can even google for genealogy or family history research tips, and find a lot of information. If you attended our most recent family history expo in St. George, you could have attended a class on how to use google to help you in your research!
Our next expo is our 2009 Logan Expo on May. 9th. We hope that you’ll plan on joining us there!
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Morgan, UT 84050
801-829-3295
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I found my Smythe family after several attempts (Soundex, etc.) Guess where I finally found them? By going line by line in the city where they lived and where I knew names of some neighbors. The census taker had misspelled it, starting with sym (not smy) You can see that even ‘Smith’ tries would not have found them!