Gene Notes

Some random and some not-so-random thoughts on family history.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Which Way Did They Go? or Location, Location, Location

No, they did not go for Faygo.

I was searching for a family the other day by the name of Juenker. It's a sort of unusual name, so I didn't think I'd have any trouble finding them on the 1892 New York State census on Family Search Labs pilot site.

So I filled out the search form with the last name Juenker, feeling pretty confident that if it were misspelled, FS would search for Junker also. Then I filled in the location with Erie, New York, United States.

I got zip, zilch, nada hits. I tried searching using the wife's name - Rosa, which is a lot less common than the head of household's name - John. Removed the last name. This is a scary thing because you often get PAGES of results. Then I tweaked the place to include Buffalo. Still no family.

Finally, the little light bulb in my head went on and I removed the Buffalo, Erie, New York, United States location and just let it search in New York. Bingo!!! There was John Juenker, wife R., son Joseph, daughter, R, etc. Living in Brooklyn, New York. The census take was a little weird using initials for only some of the people, but everything else matched. I had no idea they had moved to Brooklyn.

You have to keep an open mind when doing census searches. Absolutely!

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