Review, Search, and Find Something Else!

I wrote this before I read cousin Karen's Genealogy Frame of Mind blog. Sometimes it blows my mind.

While searching for a different Percival earlier in the week, I thought to go back to the pilot Family Search site and browse the 1865 New York State census. Now, this is like going back to microfilm and doing a line by line  search. But since the 1865 is not yet searchable, I knew I needed to look at the city of Portville, where a lot of Percivals lived.  These are very distant relatives and relate most closely to the Percivals who lived in Palo, Ionia county, Michigan.

You know, I always felt the problem with the census is the person who transcribed it. Not to mention the person who indexed it. Part of that was finally finding Jabez Chapman Percival on the 1850 census in New York. I had repeatedly overlooked the census record for Jacob Percival. Apparently the transcriber had written James, and then wrote Jacob over it. Both, incidentally are incorrect. Oh, and his name was Perciful, yet his wife on the next page was written as Ann Percivill and then the following people: Sophia, age 30; Sarah, age 28, (I was trying to link her to Jabez - bingo); Wm, age 21 (occupation: Boatman); and Sharlotte, age 16. The only name new to me on this long lost census is William, age 21. And occupation Boatman? He was in a landlocked county!

Back to the 1865 New York State census. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the 1865 state census. One of the things that I appreciate the most is this column heading: In what county in this state, or in what other state or foreign country born. Not that this transcription is much better, but They are listed as:

1. J. C. Percival, male white, age 78, born Conn. Parent of 9 children. Then the next heading is No of times married 1, now married,

2. Emma Percival, female white, 72, wife, born Conn. nothing under children, married 1 time, now married.

3. Sofa Percival, female, white, 47, daughter born Rancelor (that would be Rensselaer County, New York - I have trouble spelling that also!) Single, no occupation.

4. Gorden Percival, male, white, 38, son, Rensselaer, single, joiner. Employed in Portville.

5. Wm. Percival, male white, 36, son, Rensselaer, single, Capt on Vessel. No place of employment (remember, landlocked Cattaraugus county).

Two things that concern me is the wife's name. Her name was Ann, not Emma. Also, after looking at other pages, the number of children is under the head of household's name and not the wife's. So that works.

The bonus, parent of 9 children and I have all of them:

1. Jabez Chapman Percival, Jr, born 1816 - moved to Palo, Michigan. Married Polly Brooks. Died 1906.
2. Sophia Percival, born 1818, never married. Unknown when she died.
3. Sarah Ann Percival, born 1820, married Dr. Thomas S. Jackson, died in 1899 in Florida.
4. Edward Burnham Percival, born 1822, married Caroline Wright and remained in Portville. Died in 1907.
5. Mary E. Percival, born 1826, married William Magill and died in 1914 in Florida.
6. Joshua "Gordon" Percival, born 1827, remained in New York state, single. Died in 1922 in Olean, NY.
7. William R. Percival, born 1829, boatman, Captain, Pilot, last found in NYC in 1880.
8. Julia Percival, born 1831, married Elisha Stannard, died in 1919 in Albany, New York.
 9. Charlotte Percival, born 1833, married Hiram B Smith and died in 1910 in Olean, New York.

Eventually I hope I will find those elusive death records for William and Sophia, but the intense satisfaction of knowing I found all the children - I'm savoring that!

Addendum: When searching the New York death records on the Pilot Family Search site, I found the death in Manhattan of George Percival, who died in 1849. He was the son of Benjamin Percival and Phebe Swift. His birth year was given as 1811, which I did not have. Published records of Nantucket, Massachusetts actually gave his death date and that he died in New York, otherwise, I probably would not have matched him up.

Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes

Relatively Speaking - Using the Resources Available - Again and Again

I hope y'all (yes, the product of almost 3 years in Tennessee) read cousin Carol's Reflections From the Fence last Friday, because she did what we frequently refer to as "Review, Review, Review."

I'm sure we've all come up against that odd record we haven't been able to find and not for want of searching, either. In Carol's blog, she tells us of the result of her constant search for Lorena Eley's marriage to her first husband. Now, having known Carol for many, many years, I know how hard she has searched. However, due to the availability of indices online through the Family Search Record Search site she was finally able to locate that elusive record.

I know there are a lot of new sites and records coming online every day, but if you have been looking for that elusive record for many years, keep checking for them. No one site will have everything you need, which is sort of unfortunate, because we have so many places to look, but it can be so worth it when you do locate that missing marriage, birth or death record.

Now if they could just reconstruct the church records from AuSable and Oscoda, Michigan that were destroyed in the 1911 fire.

Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes

The Beauty of Review

As I previously blogged, I am reviewing some information given to me thirteen years ago by another Percival researcher. I briefly looked at this information when I received it, and then promptly re-entered the job market. For the next ten years, I still worked on my family history, but this particular document sat as I worked on other family lines and even did research for other people. At the end of those ten years, which were spent as a library clerk in Michigan, DH and I set to work to prepare our house for sale, as our retirement goal was to get the hell heck out of Michigan. During those ten years, I accumulated a mass of information, such as census, excerpts from books, photographs, and those family histories shared with me by others. Unfortunately, any paper that was not already filed was relegated to a box.

By the time our house was placed on the market I had several boxes stacked in the closet in my office. Their next location was the garage of the rented condo here in Tennessee. Finally, they made it to our newly constructed house.

It soon became apparent that my 6 x 10 office was in need of more storage. I added a four drawer legal size cabinet to my existing 4 drawer letter size and a two drawer furniture style lateral cabinet. Once we made our move from condo to house, I began sorting through all the census records I had accumulated. One of my goals was to link an image of every census record I owned to the family which it belonged. That was a long and tedious process, and actually began my review of what I had and what was missing for each family.

Then, having set up my filing system, I got to work.  It's been over a year and a half since I started the census project, which is now complete. Having moved on to other research, I was ready to review again, hence the current review project.

The real beauty of this review, now 13 years later, is that so much more is available online  than it was when I first found the internet. While nothing beats researching on site in a courthouse or a cemetery, having access to census, vital records, cemetery records and county histories online is such a true bonus. It makes the subscriptions to Ancestry and Genealogy Bank so worthwhile.